Why do so many smart people miss obvious warning signals that are right in front of their nose? Denial is a powerful motivator. Think of the parent who refuses to acknowledge that their child needs professional help or the spouse who ignores mounting evidence of a cheating partner or the individual with intermittent chest pain who postpones a visit to a doctor. Willful blindness goes hand in hand with wishful thinking. The problem with living in a bubble is that bubbles burst. As Ayn Rand observed, “You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”  

One might assume that denial is a problem faced by individuals, not groups. When people get together, the thinking goes, they get smarter. As the old saying goes, “none of us is as smart as all of us.” But plenty of evidence shows that this is not the case.  There is no safety in numbers when it comes to collective delusions. When great minds think alike, greatness evaporates.

Groupthink turns out to be a denial amplifier. First defined by Yale psychologist Irving Janis, groupthink explains how a group of intelligent people can fall prey to a shared form of willful blindness and overconfidence. From the Vietnam War to the Challenger disaster to the 2008 financial crisis, groupthink has led to poor and sometimes catastrophic decisions. Defined as “a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics,” groupthink promotes and reinforces reality avoidance.

According to Janis, it’s the reason we remain “color-blind in a sea of red flags.”

Janis identified 8 symptoms of groupthink

1. Self-Censorship

2. Stereotyping

3. Unanimity

4. An illusion of invulnerability

5. Rationalization

6. Self-appointed “mindguards”

7. Direct pressure on dissenters to conform

8. Belief in inherent morality

Groupthink may explain why so many were shocked by the president’s debate performance two weeks ago. Red flags were there for quite some time but warning signals were systematically cast aside or met with denial, evidence was avoided or selectively interpreted, and dissenters were shunned. It seems that the Biden family is also engaged in its own well-intentioned groupthink, insisting that everything is just fine when it clearly isn’t.  An inner circle that is supportive is as valuable as having an inner circle that is honest and clear-eyed.

To avoid reality avoidance, experts say every inner circle should have a designated dissenter-in-chief. Someone needs to be the skunk at the picnic to poke holes in the narrative, to offer constructive criticism, to voice unpopular ideas, and to float alternative options. As Adam Grant recently wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times, “service is not only about stepping up to lead. It’s also about having the courage to step aside.”  It’s invaluable to have an inner circle who believes in your light.  It’s also invaluable to have an inner circle who helps you see the light.

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” Henry Ford

Imagine a stressful everyday situation—being late to a meeting, giving an important presentation, or taking an exam.  Your perception of your ability to cope shapes how you will actually cope. If you believe you are up to the task, you are more likely to rise to the occasion.

The benefits of an “I Can” attitude

Perceiving a stressful situation as a challenge to rise to rather than a threat that will subsume you decreases anxiety, boosts attention, and increases performance. An “I Can” attitude, as psychologists call it, makes it easier to navigate difficulty. It also makes people more likely to embrace opportunities and pursue new goals. If you think it’s possible to achieve something, you’re more likely to go for it and more likely to persist, even when you encounter road bumps along the way. When you don’t believe in yourself, you are more likely to choke, flail, or avoid the stressor altogether. Self-doubt becomes self-fulfilling.

The three sentences “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can,” from the beloved children’s book, The Little Engine That Could, capture the essence of what is known as self-efficacy theory. Self-efficacy is a belief in your capacity to take action, to complete tasks, and to reach goals. It’s more than thinking you can, it also entails acting on those beliefs and taking concrete steps to transform those hopes into reality.

Given the benefits of an “I Can” attitude, it’s worth exploring how this kind of mindset can be cultivated. A pilot study recently found that students who spent just 35 to 40 minutes in an online course did just that. The “I Can” intervention emphasized 5 key features:

1. That the brain has a capacity to change and grow—i.e. how the brain’s structure and malleability make an optimal foundation for learning and development.
2. The importance of effort and long-term commitment in increasing skills, knowledge, and becoming an expert.
3. Having a “not yet” mentality, and recognizing that additional training is essential to further refine skills and master future challenges.
4. The importance of passion—defined as a strong interest in an area, theme, or skill. They highlighted how passion is an important motivational force providing necessary focus to achieve long-term goals. With this in mind, students were encouraged to spend time on things they enjoy to develop their passion.
5. The intervention concluded by prompting participants to reflect on their learning experience by creating a scenario where they offered advice to fellow students struggling with a difficult subject.

Participants in the study reported greater persistence and belief in their ability to achieve their goals. “When people develop stronger belief in themselves or ‘self-efficacy,’ it is almost as if a switch is flipped,” explained lead researcher Hermundur Sigmundsson.

The power of positive expectations

Believing in your ability to succeed matters. So does having others believe in you. A classic study highlights how we tend to live up to what’s expected of us and how a “You Can” attitude can be transformative. As part of the experiment, at the beginning of the school year, students took a test that was said to identify “growth spurters”–students who were most likely to thrive academically. Teachers were given the names of these little geniuses and guess what … as predicted, they flourished. But here’s the catch—the growth spurters were not singled out because of superior performance on a test, they were actually chosen at random.

So why did these students excel? No, fairy dust was not sprinkled into their lunch boxes. The key difference was that having high expectations of these students shifted how the teachers behaved towards them. Teachers were warmer and more patient with the growth spurters. They also took more time to teach them the material, listen to their questions, and gave them better feedback. As the researchers observed, the only difference between them and their peers was in the mind of the teachers and this made all the difference. A “You Can” attitude from the teachers promoted an “I Can” attitude in the students. 

Along these lines, students in a recent study were asked to submit an essay on their personal hero. The papers were returned to them with feedback from their teacher and one of two possible notes clipped to the top.

In the standard condition, the note said: “I’m giving you these comments so that you’ll have feedback on your paper.”

In the experiment condition, the note said: “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”

Students who received the latter version chose to revise their papers far more often than those who received the standard one. They also went on to receive better grades. The impact was especially powerful among minority students—64% of Black students revised their essays, compared to only 27% of Black students in the standard condition. Knowing that their teachers believed in them motivated them to work harder. Positive expectations of others unlocks potential. On the flipside, negative expectations undermine potential. If a teacher expects Johnny to be a “problem child,” it is likely that his behavior will match expectations. Similarly, if a coach or manager is on the lookout for missteps, they will surely find them.

When expectations become reality

This psychological phenomenon of how our beliefs about a person become reality is known as the Pygmalion Effect. The Pygmalion Effect is not just limited to schools. Expectations about individuals become self-fulfilling in offices, on sports fields, in families and in romance. Employees do better when a manager has high expectations. People get better at a sport when the coach believes in their potential. Children thrive when parents recognize their strengths. Relationships do better when partners look for growth and possibility in each other.

The term Pygmalion Effect is a reference to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the myth, Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he has created that comes to life. George Bernard Shaw appropriated this theme for the play Pygmalion about a professor, Henry Higgins, who transforms a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a lady. As Eliza observes,

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she’s treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you because you always treat me as a lady and always will.

The play highlights the power of positive expectations. How we treat others can either diminish or elevate them.

When I was an intern in Neurology the head physician at the time, Dr. M, thought the world of me. “Dr. Boardman, what do you think?” he asked whenever there was a question about a diagnosis. “Good work, Dr. Boardman,” he said whenever I reported lab results or presented a new patient. I thrived under his leadership and did my utmost to live up to his high expectations. It motivated me to work harder and to do my best.

Everything changed when Dr. F replaced Dr. M as the attending physician. You see, Dr. F did not think so highly of me. It would be safe to say he thought very little of me and his low expectations became my reality. I started making dumb mistakes. My mind went blank whenever he asked me a question. My confidence evaporated along with my motivation. I started showing up late to rounds and unprepared. The star intern I had become with Dr. M was unrecognizable. Looking back, I recognize this was the Pygmalion Effect in action. The attending doctor’s beliefs about me became self-fulfilling.

If we want people to thrive, it’s essential to communicate our belief in their capacity to do so. Given the benefits of a “You Can” attitude, I worry about the current messaging about mental health that assumes fragility instead of strength. Rather than a “You Can” message, these well intended strategies are sending a “You Can’t” message. Rather than confidence, they communicate doubt in a person’s ability to navigate a challenge or handle discomfort. For instance, people are reflexively referred to therapy for stress of any kind, schools are eliminating tests to reduce anxiety, and trigger warnings are used to help people emotionally prepare for or avoid encountering distressing material. While the goal is to protect mental health, it’s possible that these interventions are undermining it. At the core of these interventions is an underlying assumption that people are ill-equipped to deal with adversity. An extensive meta-analysis including over 24 studies and seven thousand people published in Clinical Psychological Science found that trigger warnings do not prevent distress. If anything, the research suggests that trigger warnings actually heighten anticipatory anxiety. A related study found that trigger warnings counterproductively reinforce survivors’ view of trauma as central to their identity—a belief that has been associated with worse symptoms. Viewing strength as central to identity might be a more therapeutic approach.

Bottom Line

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become what they are capable of being,” observed Goethe. The more we doubt people’s resilience, the more we risk undermining it. If we want to cultivate mental health, tools that promote an “I Can” and a “You Can” attitude are a better place to start.

We all have so much going on in our lives, so let me distill the research on wellbeing for you. Think of these quick bits as a personal apothecary that you can read, refer back to, and even send to a friend or loved one who might need a dose of practical, actionable strategies that are life-enhancing and resilience-building.

Here are this month’s positive prescriptions:

If you don’t want to be underwhelmed by pleasure, don’t overwhelm yourself with distractions.

According to new research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, distraction dilutes enjoyment, leading to overindulgence later on. Participants in the study entitled Underwhelming pleasures: Toward a self-regulatory account of hedonic compensation and overconsumption were asked how much they expected to enjoy their lunch before eating it. They were then asked to eat their lunch under one of three conditions: no distraction, moderate distraction (watching a video) and high distraction (playing Tetris). Afterwards, they reported on their actual enjoyment, satisfaction, and desire to eat more. They also reported on their snacking later in the day. Participants who ate while distracted enjoyed their lunch less and felt less satisfied, which was associated with greater snacking later on. The researchers termed this behavior “hedonic compensation” which they theorize applies to other activities beyond eating. For example, people who are distracted while watching a movie or playing a game may be more likely to engage in additional consumption (e.g., checking social media) to compensate for a diminished enjoyment of the original activity.

As the old saying goes, there are shortcuts to happiness and dancing is one of them.

Moods dictate how we move. When we’re happy, we tend to walk with a spring in our step and when we’re unhappy, our movements are more restricted. But does the reverse work too? Does how we move impact our mood? A study published in The British Journal of Psychology found that practicing a happy dance boosted participants’ mood and motivation. If you’ve hit a wall at work, it just might be time to get up and dance. Need inspiration? Follow Justin Neto on Instagram. Of course everyone in his class is smiling.

If you want to improve your mood, go outside and listen to birds. Yes, you read that correctly.

We often hear about skyrocketing stress levels in college students. A new study finds that birdwatching is a particularly effective tool to help them keep calm and carry on. Students who got into birding reported improved wellbeing and lower distress than those who did not. Five 30-minute bird-watching sessions was all it took. Related research has found that hearing birdsong can have a sustained positive impact on one’s mood. On those days when you just don’t feel like exercising, the simple act of going outside can give you a lift. Just be sure to leave your headphones at home. The podcast can wait.

Respecting our children’s autonomy improves the chances of them actually listening to us.

If you have a teenager and get a lot of eyerolls, this new study from UC Riverside might be of interest. When parents offer unsolicited advice (I know, I know … sometimes we just can’t help ourselves!) and it’s delivered in a way that promotes independence and respects their autonomy, our kids are more likely to take it to heart. So instead of saying “I don’t think you should play video games because you should study,” try “What’s your plan for this afternoon? You mentioned yesterday that you wanted to get a head start studying for your math test.” See the difference? If we want our children to take our advice, avoid finger wagging or “shoulding.”

A free throw in basketball is an intensely stressful situation. All eyes are on the player. Will they or won’t they sink the shot? Merely watching is anxiety-provoking for me. It’s hard to imagine what’s going through the head of the player in such a pressure-cooker moment.

In an article in Wired entitled Free Throws Should Be Easy. Why Do Basketball Players Miss? Robbie Gonzalez explores the mechanics and magic of making the shot. On paper, the free throw could not be more straightforward. It’s a direct, unguarded shot at a hoop 18 inches across, 10 feet off the ground, and 15 feet away. Like a carefully controlled experiment, the conditions are exactly the same every single time.

For 20 years, Larry Silverberg, a professor at North Carolina State University, has studied the physics of the free throw using computers to simulate trajectories of millions of shots to dissect the mechanics of the perfect throw. According to his findings, a successful free throw boils down to four parameters: the speed at which you release the ball, how straight you shoot it, the angle at which it leaves your hand, and the amount of backspin that you place on it.

Of course, practice is key but not any old practice. As anyone who has ever choked on a test knows, there is often a gap between preparation and actual performance. To avoid paralysis by analysis in a free throw situation, practicing under conditions that simulate high pressure scenarios can help. Cranking up the music, using an audio of a crowd booing, having the rest of the team run around the court 10 times if the free thrower misses, and competing against the clock can help build mental stamina.

Technique and practice are important. So are your teammates. A brand new study published in Psychology of Sport and Exercise suggests a less obvious tactic to improve the performance of a free thrower: a friendly tap on the back. Before you raise an eyebrow, plenty of research shows that non-verbal gestures of support are powerful stress-reducers so it makes sense that a small gesture conveying to the free thrower that “you got this” can boost confidence. Researchers from the University of Landau and Purdue University analyzed videos of basketball games and found that the chances of scoring rose when teammates showed their support through touch, such as a hand on the shoulder. Put simply, in one of the most stressful athletics tasks imaginable, physical touch enhanced performance.

There is a lesson here for those of us who don’t often find ourselves in the middle of a heated basketball game. Gestures of support matter in everyday life and they need not always be spoken. Showing that you care does not always require an in depth discussion. A pat on the back, a warm hug, and holding hands are powerful communicators of affection. People who experience higher “felt love” – brief experiences of love and connection in everyday life – also have significantly higher levels of psychological well-being, which includes feelings of purpose and optimism compared to those who had lower felt love scores.

Chances are they might also be better at sinking a free throw.

According to the old adage, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all. (As an aside, growing up, my parents had a needlepoint pillow that occupied prime real estate on the living room sofa that read, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come and sit right here by me” but that’s a story for another day.) The notion of keeping nasty comments to oneself seems almost antiquated given the venom constantly unleashed online and in real life. When it comes to outrage, “better out than in” is the prevailing mindset.

Expressing outrage has become a national pastime. A poll found that 84% of people think people are angrier today compared with a generation ago, and 42% said they themselves were angrier than they used to be.

In a recent Substack, I wrote about Abraham Lincoln’s famous strategy for managing anger. Whenever his feathers were ruffled, he would write a “hot letter” to the person who had upset him but never send it. A study published in Scientific Reports in Nature just last week by researchers at Nagoya University confirms that Honest Abe was onto something.

Write it Down, Toss it Away 

Participants in the study were asked to write brief opinions about a social issue, such as whether smoking in public should be banned. They were then told that their writing would be evaluated by a doctoral student. In reality, there were no doctoral students. Regardless of what participants wrote, they received low scores on all measures including intelligence, interest, friendliness, logic, and rationality. To add insult to injury, included in the feedback were obnoxious comments such as “I cannot believe an educated person would think like this. I hope this person learns something while at the university.”

After receiving the low scores and harsh comments, participants were asked to write their feelings down on a piece of paper. As expected, all participants were incensed. Half the group was told to keep their written response on their desk while the other half was asked to crumple the paper into a ball and toss it into the trash. Both groups were then asked to rate their anger. Those who threw out the piece of paper reported no longer feeling angry whereas those who held onto it also held onto their anger.  A second similar experiment found that shredding the note with the angry thoughts also neutralized it.

The findings suggest that the simple act of physically discarding one’s negative sentiments is a powerful anger management tool.

“We expected that our method would suppress anger to some extent,” lead researcher Nobuyuki Kawai said. “However, we were amazed that anger was eliminated almost entirely.” 

Thankfully, for the sake of history, Abraham Lincoln did not fully dispose of his hot letters. Burying them in a file in a desk drawer was his way of discarding his fury and moving on. While his method may not have been quite as effective as crumpling the letters into a ball and tossing them into the garbage or shredding them, Lincoln chose to keep his fury to himself.

Choose Calm

As this research shows, we are not at the mercy of our emotions. “Big feelings” as people like to call intense bursts of emotion these days, need not dictate every action unless, of course, you are a toddler. While imperfect, we have choices. We have agency. We have tools. As Dr. Aliza Pressman, my friend and best selling author of The Five Principles of Parenting, likes to say, “All feelings are welcome, all behaviors are not!” 

While there is no doubt that social contagion can amplify feelings such as anger, a Stanford study found that people’s motivations are a driving force behind how much they allow others to influence them. According to their research, when people want to stay calm, they remain relatively unfazed by angry people but when they want to feel angry, then they soak up other people’s anger.

“The degree to which people said they were motivated to feel or not feel certain emotions predicted how much they would be influenced when they were exposed to emotions from other group members,” said Amit Goldenberg, the lead author on the study. Put simply, our emotions aren’t passive or automatic. We have a say in how we feel and subsequently behave. As Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” We are participants in, not witnesses to, our emotional lives.  

Breathe, Don’t Vent 

Conventional wisdom holds that blowing off steam is one of the best ways to reduce anger. This is a myth. Venting, punching a bag, or screaming into a pillow dials up physiological arousal which amplifies anger. Similarly, going for a run, cycling and boxing are good exercises but also dial up physical sensations associated with rage. A review of 154 studies found that activities that dial down physiological arousal such as deep breathing, yoga and meditation are far better antidotes for anger.

Anger is natural. How we respond to it is what matters. The parable of the Two Wolves comes to mind:

The grandmother tells her granddaughter, “Inside of all of us is a battle between two wolves. One is the dark wolf. It is anger, jealousy, regret, greed, arrogance, and resentment.

The other wolf is good. It is love, peace, hope, kindness, serenity, compassion, faith and empathy.

The granddaughter thinks about this for a minute and then asks her grandmother, “Which wolf wins?”

And the grandmother replies, “The one you feed.”

What I love about this story is how it captures the importance of our actions, agency, and attention. Every single day we have opportunities to feed the good wolf or indulge the bad one. It’s up to us which one we choose to nourish.

Whenever Abraham Lincoln felt the need to give someone a piece of his mind, he would fire off a harsh letter. Putting pen to paper was his way of unloading his fury. A classic example is the scathing note he penned to General George C. Meade, who he blamed for failing to capture Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg.

Lincoln was “distressed immeasurably” by Meade’s failure but Meade never learned of Lincoln’s immeasurable distress. Instead, Lincoln put the note in a drawer with the label “Never sent. Never signed.” He made a habit of writing “hot letters” but never sending them. It was a way for him to deal with his rage but without the carnage that accompanies spewing unprocessed vitriol. As Maria Konnikova wrote, these unsent angry letters served “as a type of emotional catharsis, a way to let it all out without the repercussions of true engagement.”

The Art of the Active Pause

Learning about Lincoln’s habit is a stark reminder of the value of reflecting on rather than reacting to our emotions. Contrary to cultural pressure to express ourselves, sitting on what is bothering us can act as an emotional windshield wiper, clearing the screen and providing a sharper perspective. In the heat of the moment, it is hard to know the difference between what is urgent versus what is important. As one patient said to me, “Everything Everywhere All at Once could be the title of my life.” Finding ways to press pause and override the itch to react is good for us and good for our relationships.

The impulse to lash out can feel like an imperative–especially with popular TikTok therapists reminding us to always “feel your feelings” and to say what we feel. Plus, with a “send” button at our fingertips, there is little friction between putting our feelings in writing and sending our thoughts out into the world. With an actual letter, finding an envelope and address, plus getting a stamp all take time and time can be a godsend.

It never fails to surprise me how much emotions shift over the course of a week, an hour, or even a night. As the old saying goes, “Everything looks better in the morning.” A patient with a standing appointment on Tuesdays afternoons often tells me how something distressing happens soon after our session–an argument with her partner on Tuesday evening or an issue with a coworker on Wednesday morning–and she has an impulse to tell me about it. But by the time our appointment rolls around a week later, the incident no longer occupies center stage. Whatever felt so earthshaking at the time feels like a minor tremor seven days on.

One of the marketing tools of therapy apps is how quickly the therapist responds. Some even offer unlimited 24/7 messaging. Other than in an emergency situation, I am not convinced that having a therapist at one’s fingertips is productive. It deprives the individual of the opportunity to sit on their emotions or even work through the situation on their own. Counter to the questionable advice that masquerades as therapy on social media, waiting it out and not reacting to or listening to one’s feelings is often a better strategy. Not every heated emotional situation is a 5-alarm fire requiring attention or expression or professional intervention. Maybe emotions are getting a little too much airtime in our daily lives. As psychologist Adam Grant pointed out recently on X, feelings are nothing but “emotional signals in the brain.”  It is possible that spending less time thinking about how we’re feeling might help us feel better.

There is evidence that the most effective way to deal with our emotions is to take a step back from them. If composing an email but not pressing the send button proves too tempting, consider some other science-backed strategies that might help you gain some perspective such as pretending to be a fly on the wall, or considering what you would tell a friend in the exact same situation, or imagining how you will feel about whatever is going on six months from now. Like writing a letter but never sending it, these self-distancing techniques invite us to step outside of our immediate experience and whirlwind of swirling emotions.

Speaking of swirling emotions, a favorite strategy of therapists who work a lot with teens is to ask them to vigorously shake up a snow globe and then watch the glitter settle. The analogy is clear–their brain is like a churned up glitter jar–all cloudy and hard to see through–but with time, the glitter will fall to the ground and everything will be clearer.

Maybe Lincoln would have enjoyed a glitter jar too.