Welcome back to The Human Condition. As this Substack initiative is advancing, it’s becoming clear to me that I need some way to provide some meaningful additional content for paid subscribers. Moving forward, all content for this blog will be fully free and accessible except for the content from the emerging series of posts that will comprise The Human Condition Interviews. Parts of these interviews will be behind a paywall for some period of time, to provide an extra for paid subscribers. These interviews will include interviews with a broad suite of world-class critical thinkers on topics related to the broader human condition. I’m happy to report here that Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman is our leadoff in this new series of interviews.
Glenn Geher’s Interview on the Human Condition with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman
Scott Barry Kaufman (used with permission)
GG: So Scott—we have been good friends going on almost two decades now. I still remember first meeting you at the Danbury Mall and bringing my daughter, who was in kindergarten at at the time—we were discussing a book project which eventually turned into our co-authored Mating Intelligence Unleashed. That first meeting was in 2006! It’s been really great to watch you grow in your career and in your deep and important understanding of the human condition.
From where you stand, with expertise across the gamut of the behavioral sciences, what would you say are three critical features of humans everywhere?
SBK: Well, I really do take a needs-based approach to self-actualization and human potential. So that question is, in a lot of ways, up my alley. But it’s difficult choosing just three!
If I had to choose my faves, they would include the need for high-quality connections. And I think that there’s an important distinction between the need for high-quality connections and the need for belonging. Being able to have a strong and meaningful connection with another human being (it doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship), where you feel like your whole self is being seen, and there’s unconditional positive regard, as Carl Rogers said, is a truly deep and fundamental human need that cannot be reduced to the need for belonging. You may feel a belonging to some kind of group, like a religious or political group, but the second that you change that aspect of yourself, let’s see if they still care about you! So that’s one (this is going to be a long interview)!
The second one that I think is really important to talk about is a need for a healthy self-esteem. And by that, I’m referring to a basic sense of self-worth that we often take for granted as we go about the world. Because if you chronically lack a sense of worthiness, that will color everything. And if you feel a lack of competence, that will also color your life. And I think that these experiences are very pervasive and very catastrophic when this basic need for self-esteem is not met.
And thirdly, I’m going to go with a need for exploration. The need for exploration cannot be reduced to either of the other two. Some evolutionary psychologists might take issue with this but I think that I can make a strong case that it cannot be reduced to the other two that I just mentioned. Need for exploration drives us to seek out challenging and novel environments and to make sense of novel and challenging things. This is more tied to our higher-order consciousness and our ability to find meaning in things.
So those are my three!
GG: Wow, Scott, those were fantastic answers and they will provide people with lots of novel and provocative answers to so many important questions. So thank you for that.
One of the things that I love about your work is that you don’t mind studying anything about the human experience. Your research runs the gamut from work to help understand special-needs kids to understanding self-actualization to unconscious processing as a marker of intelligence—you’ve studied the light triad, which is something that my own students are currently using as a research tool—and way more. This is something that I absolutely admire about your work.
So with that said, is there a particular finding from your research that is critically important that you wish everyone would know about?
SBK: Yeah, absolutely. One drum that I’ve been banging on for as long as I’ve known you (based on part of my dissertation research) is that openness to experience is NOT the same as IQ. It’s a personality traits that incorporates intellectual curiosity and other forms of cognitive exploration—not all forms of exploration are behavioral—like needing to conquer new lands. Sometimes, we need to conquer new lands in our own minds. In a lot of ways, that’s the most important world to explore.
We find about a .5 correlation between IQ and that kind of cognitive exploration. Thus, you can can have a lot of people who are incredibly bright but who don’t know how to engage in cognitive exploration, as opposed to people who, in fact, do engage in much cognitive exploration and who are more reflective and more curious about their experiences and about the experiences of others.
And, on the other hand, you can have people with relatively low IQs who are incredibly and authentically intellectually curious. So that’s a big one, I’d say.
GG: So intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness may be able to supersede what we think of as “intelligence” in various life domains. Would that be a fair summary of these ideas?
SBK: I like it—I dig it!
GG: I like that your ideas generally have an eye toward the question of “how can we help people make improvements in their lives”—it’s all clearly positive psychology. It’s work that helps people move toward more thriving in life. And I can see that theme spilling across all the answers you’re giving.
So thinking about that, it’s noteworthy that positive psychology is known for thinking about how we can help people make improvements at the individual level but also about how we can help communities, broadly defined, make improvements toward thriving as well. With that in mind, what’s something that you think should be done at the societal level (defined as broadly as you want) to help improve the larger human experience?
SBK: Well I do think a lot about what self-actualizing society would look like—and how we can work to make that a reality. Certainly, a self-actualizing society is one in which people feel a freedom of speech—but they also feel a freedom regarding expression more broadly—being able to talk about their own personal experiences. They have access to resources that allow them to be more creatively fulfilled—not just fulfilled for food…
I think that for all these points, I keep using the term freedom (I’m going to sound very libertarian here!)—but I truly do think that freedom is central to self-actualization and it starts young.
Like in an education system, allowing kids to explore their passions and their love for things, even if that gets in the way of some other standards that the school has set forth for everyone—especially in high school. That said, I do understand that literacy is important—as is basic math…
But beyond that, come on! Let’s let people start to individuate and work toward self-actualization before they’re 18!
GG: That reminds me of much of the work on perceptions of control that I studied when getting my PhD in social psychology. I vividly remember study after study after study showing that when people perceive that they have control over their worlds, in terms of small, immediate kinds of things as well as larger kinds of life issues, generally speaking, positive emotional and psychological outcomes tend to follow.
And I just want to comment on one kernel of what you were talking about earlier, pertaining to the self-actualizing society. What a beautiful concept! I never heard about that concept—I’d never thought about that before. And this makes me think that any thoughtful reader can think about this concept and then think, essentially, what can I do to push toward that?
SBK: 100%
GG: So stepping aside from you as a scholar, I’m not sure if everyone knows this, but you are kind of an interesting person beyond that—and you have lots of personal interests and experiences. Tell us a few fun facts about Scott Barry Kaufman!
SBK: Well, around the time I first met you, I had tried out for American Idol—and was rejected two times…
I love singing—opera and musical theatre. I love playing cello. I love dancing hip hop! I have a TikTok channel where I post videos of myself dancing hip hop (not all of my videos are hip hop, by the way—but still!). I’m really into hip hop music and break dancing.
I like to be silly and have fun. I think I still have a playful spirit. I keep getting older and am like “why do I still feel like a child?” It’s funny how that happens. You just kind of wake up one day and are like “wow, I’m middle-aged!” (lots of laughter!) “It’s like when did THAT happen?!” I really feel like I have a free spirit and I love to go on adventures.
Maybe that’s not enough fun-facts about me???
GG: That’s more than the average person could say on that, I promise you that—so thank you for that!
And I think that there’s a lesson there too. There’s always a behind-the-scenes behind any behavioral science researcher and there’s often just as much to be learned by this kind of information. You’ve got a heck of a story to tell, Scott.
So final question: Sort of a classic—Is there anything related to the human condition in a broad sense—anything that you’d like to add?
SBK: The human condition is something that we all have to, in our own ways, solve. I really do think that, at the end of the day, we have to take responsibility for our own existence and for how we show up in this world and for how we react to things and to how we react even when terrible things happen—even when terrible things may happen to us. We all have to solve the problems of human existence in our own way.
It’s not easy being human—I want to recognize that. I wish we could all bond more around that fact as opposed to being divided from each other—as we are seeing so much of today. So that’s one thing that frustrates me is that, in many ways, we’re moving in the opposite direction from helping each other in being human.
And then lastly, I want to give you a shout-out, Glenn, for supporting me so much—especially early in my career. I really don’t think I’d be where I am today if it weren’t for your support and I really can’t thank you enough.
GG: Gosh, well working with you across the years—with collaborations that have gone on and off, depending on different place we’ve found ourselves in life, has been such a gift for me. We’ve always stayed connected and I feel like my scholarship and my life more generally have been dramatically improved because of our collaboration and our friendship.
SBK: That gave me chills—well you’ll always be my brother from another mother—whether you like it or not.
GG: Right back atcha, Scott! Thank you so much!
Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is a cognitive scientist and humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential. He is director of the Center for Human Potential and has authored 10 books, including Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined and Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. He is also host of The Psychology Podcast. In 2015, he was named one of “50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world” by Business Insider.
To learn more about Scott and his work, please check out these resources:
Website: scottbarrykaufman.com
Other links:
Instagram:
Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman (@scottbarrykaufman) • Instagram photos and videos
Books: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/books/
Note: The views expressed by my guest do not necessarily represent my own views on any particular matter. ~Glenn Geher