Harvard’s Behaviour Expert: The Psychology Of Why People Don't Like You!

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 152 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why do your conversations keep going wrong? Harvard behavioural scientist Professor Alison Wood Brooks reveals the SECRETS to better communication, real connection, negotiation skills and difficult conversations! Professor Alison Wood Brooks is a behavioural scientist with 2 decades of experience in conversational science. She teaches a Harvard course on negotiation and communication, and is the bestselling author of ‘Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves’. She explains: ◼️The ONE word that transforms anxiety into peak performance ◼️The TALK framework for mastering any conversation ◼️Why being "too polite" is secretly destroying your relationships ◼️Why 99% of apologies fail, and the exact formula that works ◼️The question technique that creates connection with anyone (00:00) Intro (02:34) People Need This to Communicate Well (04:38) Giving Wrong Impressions (06:23) Being a Better Speaker and Group Conversations (11:31) Experimenting With Communication Skills With My Identical Twin (12:40) The Science on How to Reframe Anxiety (18:47) If You're Nervous, You're More Likely to Make a Bad Decision (20:16) Asking for a Salary Raise (24:39) The Conversational Compass (32:45) How People Should Really Apologize and When It's Too Much (37:31) The Validation Trick in Any Dispute (42:00) Don't Do This When You Disagree (46:19) Stop Doing This During Disagreements (48:07) How to Be Liked (50:02) The T-A-L-K Framework (51:47) Easy Ways to Have More Casual Conversations (55:13) If You Want to Be Liked, Don't Do This (59:23) The Importance of Asking in Conversations and Dates (01:03:27) Never Do This on a Date (01:07:26) The Meeting Mistake You Shouldn't Make (01:09:27) Poor Communication Skills May Be Blocking Your Career Growth (01:12:02) Ads (01:12:53) The Importance of Kindness in Any Conversation (01:17:20) When to Incorporate Levity (01:23:55) The Science Behind Introverts and Extroverts — Is It Real? (01:27:17) Your Contribution Score in a Conversation (01:41:59) Ads (01:43:56) The Male Crisis: Ask These Questions to Make Friends (01:52:57) 10 Questions to Be Liked (01:56:42) How to Persuade People and Be a Better Salesperson (01:58:47) People Confuse Agreement With Listening (02:09:21) This Is the Only Conversation That Feels Real (02:14:58) What Happens When Replacing Myself With AI (02:19:23) Show Your Real Self at Work: Yes or No? (02:25:14) How to Teach Your Kids to Speak Follow Alison: Instagram - https://bit.ly/3YoQOc4 Website - https://bit.ly/4aH172A TalkStudios - https://bit.ly/3MzbXxF You can purchase Alison’s book, ‘Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves’, here: https://amzn.to/48Nl8Sv The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Wispr - https://wisprflow.ai/DOAC Shopify - https://shopify.com/bartlett SimpliSafe - https://simplisafe.com/DOAC to save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system. Ketone - https://ketone.com/STEVEN for 30% off your subscription order

Transcript

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0:00.0	People really care about what's making them disliked, and they really want to know how to be liked. Okay, so first, this is an exercise that I do in my class at Harvard called 10 questions to fall and like. So if I ask some of those questions, they're going to like me. It's a great starting point, but let's talk about this, because there are going to be little clues about how to be better liked, and it's the most teachable, practical, scientifically rigorous framework in the world for communication. Do you want to hear about it, Stephen? Of course I want to hear about it. I want to be the most persuasive, influential, likable talker in the world. So I shall follow your lead. Oh my gosh. It's a lot of power. I love it. I love it so much. Harvard professor Alison Woodbrooks is a behavioral scientist.
0:39.7	Who has spent two decades studying conversational science.
0:42.8	And she's revealing the communication mistakes we all make.
0:45.5	The art of negotiation and how to get anyone to like you.
0:49.2	We all get to adulthood and we feel like conversation should be easy.
0:52.3	But as a scientist, when you look under the hood,
0:55.0	you realize this is why we have so many awkward moments,
0:57.0	why we say things that we shouldn't,
0:59.0	why we are boring, why we get angry and hostile.
1:02.0	And there's very clear strategies to help us with all of that.
1:05.0	Like, one of my biggest findings was how we reframe social anxiety as excitement,
1:09.0	which makes you focus on opportunities rather than threats. And that paper ended up being featured in Inside Out, the movie. And then there's small talk. I hate small talk. I'm going to help you reframe that because it's really important. But the mistake that people make is that they say they're way too long and they need to move up this topic pyramid. What about in a digital age, do we need to start communicating differently? Yeah.
1:27.8	There's clear things that we should do to make our text-based communication better,
1:31.8	and we'll go through all of them.
1:33.4	And you said you've done an interesting study recently about male friendship.
1:36.8	Yes, and it's quite troubling.
1:39.5	So how can I make more friends as a man?
1:41.3	Yeah, let's talk about that.
1:47.6	Just give me 30 seconds of your time.
1:52.8	Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely
1:56.8	never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream
2:01.7	where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join
	...

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