America in Flux: Moving Forward in a Changed World
As we reach the 2nd anniversary of the day the COVID pandemic upended American lives, there is a sense of fatigue, and a growing recognition of what we’ve lost. Through Ipsos’ America in Flux longitudinal digital ethnography study and data collected through our award-winning KnowledgePanel®️, we have followed families throughout the pandemic.
Listen in as Liza Walworth from Ipsos’ Ethnography Center of Excellence re-visits video excerpts of these families’ experiences and emotional journeys, and Ipsos Behavioral Scientists, Jesse Itzkowitz and Sarah Mittal, who will discuss how they and others can move forward and heal. You will gain a better understanding of the American COVID experience, where people are today, and how your brand can connect with and help them move forward.
Brands have leveraged America in Flux insights to educate leadership, guide strategic and communications decisions, build empathy within the organization, and inform diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Our latest instalment (February 2022) focuses on the ups and downs experienced during the 2-year pandemic rollercoaster.
AI-generated audio transcript is offered below. Apologies in advance for inconsistencies that have been included.
0:04
Thank you for joining us for today's Ipsos webinar, featuring insights from our Ethnography Study America in flux. Today's webinar will be presented by Liza Walworth, Sarah Mittal, and Jesse Itzkowitz, and you can read more about them on the slide in front of you.
0:22
Throughout today's session, you will remain in listen only mode, however, throughout the webinar, you may submit questions online using the Q and A feature.
0:32
Time permitting, we'll answer questions at the end of today's session, however, if time run short, then your question will be answered by e-mail.
0:43
Today's webinar is also being recorded and will be directly e-mailed to you.
0:49
So now, without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce today's first speaker, Liza Walworth. Vice President with Ipsos is qualitative research practice. Liza, you have the floor.
1:04
Thank you, Elen.
1:06
Hi, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon.
1:10
I'm Liza Walworth, Consumer Anthropologist filmmaker and Founder of ... US Ethnography Center of Excellence.
1:18
And, I'm really excited to share with you, today, some results from a recent initiative that Jesse, Sarah, and I did with friends. And, if so, says, Public affairs division, and, some of you, may know, we have a lot of quant and qual that we've all collaborated on over the past two years.
1:40
Tracking the impacts of ....
1:44
And this has been the Ethnography Center of Excellence, the Behavioral Science Center, and Public Affairs Together.
1:51
And about two months ago, we were talking about the upcoming two year anniversary of locked down in the US.
2:01
and like if suppose this data was indicating we ourselves were feeling a little fatigued, burnt out stock and decided to now what can we do to figure out how we could even help ourselves on an individual level make years to read better? How, how might we start to heal in terms of all that we've been through?
2:26
So what we're going to do today is Jessie and I are going to take you through what we have here at Ipsos in terms of the font and ethnographic wall in terms of the past two years.
2:39
Then we're going to look at the literature and what behavioral science shows as proven ways of improving one's well-being.
2:49
Then, of course, there's the final little piece, we are going to turn to our America Influx Respondents to test out a few things that we thought might help us all improve our movements and our outlooks moving forwards, so, that's, that's today's journey.
3:08
And let's start by taking step back to two years ago, and all that we've been through, in terms of this content covered experience, and we've all, we've all learns.
3:27
Sorry, we've all been through a number of different losses in terms of how, the past few years have have hit us individually, Collectively, we have, first and foremost, lost people. It's lost colleagues, friends, family.
3:48
We have lost senior year of high school, or freshman year of college. There have been in person holidays, in person, school.
4:00
We've had a number of different things, just even from the headlines here that we've collectively encountered in terms of not just the the masks, the testing, the vaccine, but the civil unrest, the deepening and sort of intractable nature seemingly of the political polarization that has happened.
4:25
There's been climate change, you know, this media headline, sort of last year, really takes us through all that has happened, with most recently.
4:34
of course, in addition to the armed conflicts that have been ongoing on other continents.
4:40
Now we have war in Europe, so whether it's been something directly tied to Kobe, something indirect, or something that, we have encountered through the lens of coven, like, Climate Change.
4:57
Like this one rest, like, you'll see a little bit later on how things have impacted our American Flux folks in terms of that indirectness or directness of covert.
5:09
We've all collectively and individually been through, Alas, and we're going to first look at some of the quant in terms of how people have been coping and how it has impacted positive look into the future.
5:24
And then we'll also look at things in terms of America and flux, will not this look like for them from a more ethnographic viewpoint.
5:33
So I'm going to turn now to Jesse, so that he can detail how folks have coped over the past two years.
5:41
Awesome. Thank you, ..., and you know, I think we all very much resonate with those headlines and have certainly experienced that roller coaster on a personal and subjective level. This is also something that we've been tracking as well here at Ipsos. And what you see on this graph are the results of our Ipsos pandemic adaptation continuum, and this measure was really built out of a number of different sources, both scientific medical, as well as from public policy organizations. Including things like the Kubler, Ross Scale of Grief, thinking about the World Health Organization, pandemics stages. And we've collapsed that measure down here into those two dimensions that life was mentioning, you know, what is the sentiment, that things are getting better? And how do we feel as though we're just coping.
6:35
And you know, if nothing else, this shows you the masseur reversals in kinda, how feelings are within the United States. Over time, you know, we all had that moment in February and March after we're getting kind of vaccinated and all of that kind of excitement there about, you know, we're going to be able to start doing things again. And then really starting to see things. You know, deteriorate with the delta ovarian proving, once again and now, not only with Aamir Khan, but with the thread of other variants on the horizon. And, certainly, disruption abroad. You know, we see that starting to collapse again, And so, this really, you know, describes those ups and downs in a quantitative way, and this next slide also, I think, is so illustrative and how we all feel right now.
7:27
You know.
7:27
one of the things that we're all dealing with is, when will this be over.
7:33
And I think just that bar, on the left, when you look at how people felt earlier this February, Versus last February, There's a massive difference, right. We have about, you know, 5% more people.
7:46
You know, almost half of America feels, it's never going to be better, or it's never going to be the same, or it's going to be at least a year until that's the case. So, there's a lot of kind of anxiety and how we're going on and this decrease in optimism keeps coming, you know, that decrease in confidence keeps coming.
8:04
And so, all of this has really fed into our cumulative view that this might not end over a year. So this is just some quantitative data. that's illustrative of, I think, how we've all been feeling.
8:16
But we also have some incredible stories as well, and why, so maybe you want to tell us a little bit more about how these perspectives have been represented in our ethnographic work.
8:27
Great, thank you, Jessie.
8:29
Yes, we'll delay here.
8:31
So, also two years ago, we launched America in Flux, which is a longitudinal digital ethnography project where we identify five states that we thought would give us some regional variety.
8:48
In terms of how people, communities, states, regions, were handling the massive disruption that was at that time, and would allow us to track how things played out. However long, you know, this all continued.
9:05
And so, within those five states, we chose 25 households, which have a variety of different ages, life stage, generations', household, makeup, racial and ethnic backgrounds.
9:19
We really wanted to make sure that we were able to virtually and somewhat figuratively embedded with a number of different perspectives and experiences.
9:32
Initially, we thought it might not be a hugely long study, But here we are, two years later, and it continues, and as part of that, like the civil unrest that I maybe not too, before the aperture of the study quickly grew.
9:49
We had initially conceived of this, You know, it was 19: how can we how can we study? This is an anthropologist, you know, at all in real-time to be paying attention to the impact on beliefs and behaviors and that expanded to civil unrest, and then the political and cultural divisions within the country.
10:09
And so, those three things, intersecting meant that there was a whole lot of flux. And we were able to see all the different changes, improvements, steps, forward steps, back over the course of a year.
10:26
As, you know, when we last had a, um, a webinar that drew from America and Flux, we were able to highlight, you know, experiences, such as Brandis from Atlanta and Geron. He's actually just north of Portland, but in Washington State.
10:43
And after a year, they were incredibly tired.
10:48
Brandis was here at the hospital late at night, while early and locked down with her son home.
10:55
You know, school just basically shut down. They were making cookies.
10:59
Just a couple of weeks later, it was Panda Express, and so, well, that was June, come January.
11:05
The numbers were up in terms of Kovac cases, at the hospital, and she was really, really tired, meanwhile, Geron, and she's been working as a financial advisor. He's an independent consultant. And he used to travel a lot to meet with his clients, but all of a sudden, he's at home, his two children are at home. His wife is at home and everyone was just worn out. It was very volatile. You'll see a little bit later in terms of his family situation, and it was a year ago taking a toll.
11:41
So, the beauty of this project is that we've been able to continue to be in touch with these respondents and hear from them, learn from them, and now a year later No. Thanks.
11:56
Are much better for her brand disorder for Geron brandis.
12:00
Things are a little bit lighter in terms of the covert numbers of a hospital, but still very, very busy and staffing has been very problematic.
12:10
She's just found out the landlord wants to move back into the house, so, she and her son, who is about to graduate from eighth grade Kendrick.
12:20
They now need to figure out how to move. And while the need to move, is not something tied directly to coven. The fact that the housing market is just off the charts, and she may not be able to swing a mortgage to stay in house and instead, move to a different school district, moved to an apartment that is covert related.
12:41
Meanwhile, Geran, you know, the roller coaster has continued mental health over the course of the past year became a larger issue for his family, is all three fixed. All three of the other family members are in therapy at this point. And I'm about to show a video where you will see a little bit more from him about, you know, what this roller coaster has been like.
13:07
So rather than you talking about it, let's move to contextualizing the past two years in terms of individual and household stories from our America and flux.
13:21
Respondents should be a subset of folks, but a bunch of different life stages, and different impacts and ways of coping.
13:32
In terms of what the past two years has meant for these individuals, bear with me.
13:39
Take us over to our first video.
13:49
Our universe, we recommend that everyone going online, everything just happened so fast. It was really kind of insane during our spring break, I think I hit pretty much my low there. No, energy. No, motivation just procrastinating I remember distinctly, there was a lady in the back who was praying really, loudly really intensely, and even though I'm not a religious person, I kinda that really struck a note about how scary situation like that would have been. We have a small business. So, I think my parents said during lockdown revenue, is about 60 to 80%, there's just been so much uncertainty in the world. So it's kind of hard to know what's what to do with the plan for.
14:32
That's kinda, wow, that's been over a year. Since we've had this pandemic, I personally haven't done too much about AIP heritage map, but now I think because like this is something I have to do a lot for my boss and as she's a permanent kind of crane American woman, being surrounded by the hand all the time, is a little bit exhausting.
14:53
I'm still currently living at home, that these are all actually from Paris where I went recently. I'm able to save a lot and kind of look out for my future a little bit more, for trips, for just kind of luxuries that I probably couldn't have. If I wasn't living at Home Code is here, it's going to stay. Nothing will ever get rid of it for certain. And it's kind of just seeing and doing acting in the moment, versus kind of planning ahead through this code thing. I noticed a decreased in ability to feel really happy.
15:27
It is just a Long Time with coven and adding to so much unrest.
15:41
Healthwise I'm doing OK. Emotionally, I can tell, I'm very different. I really can't sleep anymore. It just had a friend lost three people to code it. Within a matter of two days, her husband and wife and then a good friend. I don't see a lot of bright light, but yet when I go out now, Mass, are few and far between.
16:07
I know a lot of people who just don't think this is real, even my own family members go back and forth as to whether this is serious or not.
16:14
We're trying to just live life and as normal as possible but we've got this, we've got smoke from fires, it's just crazy.
16:24
We need to redo.
16:25
I'm 2020.
16:27
Do you feel like you learn as much when it's online teaching?
16:31
Even though your mom's doing a ton to help you, does it feel like a lot Ross?
16:38
Rosalind's really tired of having to help? I just told her, we should just have, might do some special needs stuff.
16:44
I find myself being a little less patient than they used to be.
16:47
And it's tough, It's all of, it's all that stuff we have got help from various doctors for various family members.
16:55
Well, this is really happy at Portland State. The music program, their schools go on welfare. For the most part, for both the kids, I think our youngest has had difficulty talking to people, he kinda disengaged quite a bit.
17:07
And so, we've been trying to get them some extra help, so that he'll talk with people more, have a small business that really are impacted. Because all my plans for the business were based on, the consistency of things that the world is gonna stay consistent, but really, any small thing creates this huge. So you have to prepare for all that. I'm hoping to be much warmer, state, like Florida, and I'm going to try it out this year.
17:38
Then, just thinking about, like, how to move our business there, What ended up happening in May was I met a girl, moved into her house. She sublet a room in the house for a month.
17:48
She couldn't Chicago, and I still lived in Brooklyn and some point in the long distance and just became really annoying, so that's where I am right now.
17:56
I don't have a cookie business anymore, and they're posting the recipe, because I don't think I'm going to provide it. It's just not in the cards a moment, and I got a job at QuickBooks, like the actual company.
18:08
That was, it grateful that the government gave me all the sick unemployment money in, you know, food stamps, ah, Medicaid and everything. So I just felt like I was supported.
18:19
I did some online dating during Covert. That was weird, that the, you know, like, a lot of texting and face timing, and not really meeting people in person. I'll definitely grown closer, I think, to my children, because we've spent a lot of time together. We femoral honest with each other. I got divorced last year, like at the beginning of coping, and then, I am now married.
18:38
two of my children are in counseling now, there receiving services, because one is very, very angry all the time and one is just very depressed all the time. So, that concerns me. I mean, they definitely feel stressed.
18:49
Gavin is no longer receiving any counseling.
18:52
He kind of decided that he didn't need it. Tommy Genders and football gavin's a restaurant until they get to do workouts. They love that and then ... a gym membership. Everyone does their chores Hamilton, I'm working on picking up after themselves, helping me out because I feel like during covert, I did a lot more because I was home so much. And now, you know, I am at work in person. Obviously, there's ups and downs.
19:17
We know there's, there's been moments of anger, lots of disappointment just around the people around me, people I grew up with, and how their lack of taking things seriously has been, You know, frustration around the lack of a strong plan. Nationally stores, or opening backup things, feel like they're going back to normal construction right out in front of her house. Roads, being fixed, but it is not there yet, It's not there yet. And that I think that does cause a little bit of stress.
19:47
My hope is that, you know, things get back to better normal, but just hope that we can get back to a place where decisions don't have to be, have Plan B's. And it doesn't have to be, you know, a large number of contingencies put into place. What if this happens? What if that happens that we can just kind of go about it and do what we want and and feel comfortable? Comfort is probably the biggest thing.
20:29
All right, So.
20:32
You see, that didn't work just a bit.
20:37
Well, there is a lot that happens, or, folks, we try to include some, some positive outcomes, but losing your company, losing senior year, in person, all of the mental health challenges that Noah and the rest adjourns family have been undergoing.
20:56
And then Terry, No longer working as a nurse, you know, a number of examples of, oh, when a long have you grown, it's been.
21:07
So, how about we?
21:11
see how science might, give us a path forward? Just, you know, it's, it's, it's sad, and I mean, it's, you know, we've gotten to know these people so well over the past two years as we've heard their stories and Been in their homes with them as they have experienced this. And, You know, the one thing that really comes through to me from listening there is just a pain in their voices, and You know, as we were thinking about kind of where we've been, We've all experienced those losses. We've all had that pain to various degrees, and different levels of personal nature.
21:45
But how do we move forward from that, Right, I think, you know, what we're all looking for now, is, how do we heal? As individuals? And how do we heal as society as well? And so, you know, we're, we're very lucky that there are some answers there, and not only has Science given us, you know, wonderful things like the vaccine, but also can potentially help us get, you know, some answers towards this as well. So I think it's useful always just to kind of provide that context of where we're coming from. So we're providing a behavioral science perspective on this. And we typically think of behavioral science here in two ways.
22:23
It's really what does, know, what are those hidden and non conscious factors that are driving our decisions and then, you know, how can we leverage those factors in order to create attitudinal and behavioral change? And so we're very interdisciplinary. We tend to look at anybody who has a say about decision making.
22:49
So, even on this study, we've incorporated elements from cognitive psychology, which is really about how we process information. You know, what do we pay attention to? What do we remember?
22:59
What are those different associations that we have mentally?
23:03
And we also bring in social psychology, you know, how of our own identities been affected. You know, what are the things that we've been doing to connect with others?
23:13
And with ourselves, behavioral economics. You know, this is probably what most of us have seen in the airport books like Blink or Nudge or Predictably Irrational, all around how we can shape the environment around us in order to make certain outcomes more or less likely.
23:29
And then finally, cultural anthropology. And this is where we've been so lucky to be able to partner with ...
23:35
and her team, because at the end of the day, our decisions have meaning and those meanings aren't completely individually driven, right? A lot of that is around our culture and the society that we're in.
23:48
So the reason why, you know, we've brought this to light here, I think, is illustrated well on the next slide. And you know, this is always a good place to insert a little bit of levity into the situation. And you know, this gives us a quick laugh right, they're taking the escalator up to the gym.
24:07
And what is so nice about this from a behavioral science perspective because it shows us that our intentions aren't always enough Right, that there's more to the story there.
24:18
Clearly there was an intention here for these people to go work out and have a wonderful and sweaty time at the gym, but upon first sight of seeing those escalators they jump on them, right? And, so, here, it's not that, they're being stupid. It's not that they're being kind of, you know, not thoughtful about what they're doing.
24:39
But, it's truly reflective of that non conscious fluence.
24:43
And, as a useful primer, you know, on the next slide, we kind of have broken this down into one of the most rudimentary and fundamental frameworks within behavioral science, which is this concept of System one and System two.
24:56
And, you know, it's not that one system works. And one doesn't know this is a continuum between them. But it's sort of explains when and where our non conscious mind tends to dominate our decisions.
25:09
and when our conscious mind tends to dominate our decisions. And so system one, this is our kind of non conscious mind. It was very much trained to make it easier for us to think about the things that were most pressing. It sort of offloaded. A lot of that information processing into kind of something automatic.
25:29
And so it's really fast. It captures a lot of information all at once.
25:35
But in order to match those patterns, effectively, it has some shortcuts that it takes.
25:40
And so even though it's very high bandwidth, it often leads to those behaviors that might be different than what we intend.
25:48
On the other side of this continuum, it is system two. And this is what we think of as kind of our conscious mind, You know, it's slow, it's deliberate.
25:55
We can control it, and it's very much, you know, thought to have developed as a way for us to operate within society, right? How do we plan for the future?
26:05
How do I think beyond the current moment, how do I communicate with others and convince them that my plan might be the best way to move forward?
26:15
So, both of these, kind of two systems work together and some of the ideas on how to move forward really lean into kind of that combination of system one and system two activity in order to help us feel better.
26:29
And we've broken this down into kind of three key components and across all of those different areas of decision making that I shared earlier, these three always bubbled to the surface of what actually Controls our decisions and our behaviors.
26:46
And they're relatively simple At the end of the day. You know, the first start our goals. What do we want?
26:51
and how much do we want it?
26:53
The second or our beliefs? What do we know? What do we think? What do we feel? What kind of knowledge do we have? What are our attitudes?
27:01
And then, all of this is really determined by the various contexts that we're at, Right, how I feel at work, and my goals there. And what I think about might be very, very different than when I'm on a ski vacation with my two younger daughters. Right. And there's going to be a lot different kinds of beliefs and goals that occur within that context. So, using this framework, Sarah, and I had the opportunity to go through the academic literature.
27:26
And really start to look at what we could do as individuals to move forward.
27:33
And there's actually quite a few of these more that we won't discuss today, but the four that we've really centered on, you know, thinking about what we can all do that might actually be relatively easy for us to do. The first is kind of thinking about spending some time in nature. You know, What are the effects of that?
27:51
How might that help us feel better in certain ways?
27:54
Sarah will talk about kind of that unique experience of breaking bread with our loved ones, whether they be our friends, or family, and some of the restorative effects that that brings to our lives.
28:06
I'll jump back in and talk about, you know, some of those hobbies, like my house is a sourdough house. And that's definitely a Saturday morning activity for all of us.
28:15
But all of those hobbies and interests that we've cultivated and developed over the last couple of years, you know, how might those have helped us cope in different ways?
28:24
And then finally, you know, Sarah will conclude with, you know, helping others, you know, how do we create that upward spiral of our emotions by, you know, taking care of others and really showing, you know, that gratitude in order to not only make others feel better, but also ourselves.
28:41
So, I'll start off by talking a little bit around noticing nature. And this is really, really some fascinating work that's been done over the past decade or so.
28:52
And really, at the end of the day, you know, it says, You know, really, communing, with nature is restorative for us, you know, it connects us to our evolutionary past, You know, would they call it sort of innate biophilia?
29:07
You know, we have this love of nature even from a young age, and as we've kind of urbanized ourselves into homes and permanent shelters with electricity and running water, and all of that good stuff, there might be that goal that's not being fulfilled of actually being in nature and experiencing things firsthand.
29:26
You know, the second is our escape.
29:28
You know, it not only takes us out of our current mindset, but it also removes all of those different cues that might have been stressors for us. Whether it is the online learning or the bills that are paying up, or the cost of 12 eggs as I go into the grocery store due to inflation.
29:48
But it also provides something else, and that's a kind of constant and changing level of stimuli for us to pay attention to. So, there's almost some distractions there, you know, as we're within nature.
30:00
Then finally, you know, nature itself is physically calming.
30:03
And this has really been built up with all of the associations that we've had over time and you know, you can think of them yourself, you know when you want to relax. Maybe you turn on that white noise machine.
30:13
And whether it's the sound of a babbling brook, the rustling of the wheat field, and the wind, or even a rainstorm outside. You know, these are all things that we mentally and non consciously associate with feelings of calm and nature itself.
30:28
So on the next slide, you can really kind of see how this plays out. So this was tested in the lab: There was a two week intervention and they kind of had three different groups. They had one group say: I want you to be very mindful of nature and go out and do stuff.
30:43
The other one was a little bit more man-made, want you to focus on some things that you love, maybe some man-made objects or environments that you could try to connect with.
30:51
And then the third group had no intervention whatsoever and you can see here they were measuring positive effect. How good did you feel? And what they found was, you know, very, very clear that that connection with nature had a significantly greater effect on people's well-being than interacting with toys or mandated environments, or just doing nothing at all. So, again, a really interesting way that, you know, we can possibly improve going forward, and I'll hand it over to you, Sarah, to talk a little bit more about, you know, what we can do with our friends and family.
31:22
Yeah, we'll start with the big, broad picture, too. So, you know, eating together is a human universal. Actually, even across history and time, right? We can say that hunting and gathering has always been a communal activity. And so, naturally, it's a way for us to grow closer to our relationships, build trust, of engage with others, feel like we're part of a community, to build that social support.
31:47
A really cool set of findings finds that, well, we're enjoying the, we actually literally physically enjoy it more when it's shared with others, as well. So they hook people up to FMRI machines and found that when you are sharing a meal with others, the reward center of your brains actually have higher activation. Levels.
32:05
Are light up more, right when you're sharing that food versus eating alone, and we can't talk about food in the pandemic without talking about families and home cooked meals and so sort of two different pieces of information here.
32:19
About 50% of families say they increase their number of home cooked meals and importantly windows meals are shared.
32:27
Everyone sort of sits down at the table together. What they find is that this increases everyone's score on family functioning, so like family dynamics or better, it also strengthens your relationship with your partner, and each individual within the family benefits from self-esteem.
32:45
On the next slide, we'll look at how this goes into the field, and how it's been looked at.
32:50
So the first set is a qualitative study, where they actually had people keep food. Diary is essentially where they talked about the meals that they had, what were the experiences around, the food, in the meals, how are they prepared to, where they shared with most importantly, Then they have follow up in depth interviews, and one of the largest themes that they saw in those diaries and in those interviews was that when you were able to share that experience with someone you cared about, and they did have lunch where it was just a good friend. It didn't have to be a family member, or a relative directly.
33:23
That you had enhanced feelings of well-being, that it elevated the experience overall, by being able to prepare a meal and then share it with someone else.
33:33
Below, you're seeing a more experimental approach.
33:37
So, here, they brought people into a lab, and expose them to imagery that was related to eating alone, or eating together. So, you can imagine, like, going to a restaurant and Each order separate meals, Right, and you share a meal that way, or literal sharing of food. So, like, family style your order, the big Italian, play, the spaghetti, and serve yourselves off of it.
33:57
And what they found was that, eating together and sharing food both lead to increased sense of pleasure ability in that industry versus the eating alone. So, this seems to be a really powerful thing.
34:10
That's been great, and as for a long time and something really easy, we can do to help, again, elevate the experience of something we're going to do, which is to eat. Right?
34:26
It's really interesting, you know, when you look at that, and, and, because, you know, we've all done that. And the other thing, we've all done, as well as, kind of think about what our own interests are. And there's been a lot of work within the academic sciences around the ways in which our hobbies can actually help us feel better. So, you know, it's been shown within the medical community that, you know, these hobbies help really stave off some of the depressive symptoms and depressive thinking that sufferers have when they're experiencing depression. Know, that engagement, as well, has had physiological benefits, literally lowering the amount of cortisol, or stress hormones, and our blood, and also decreasing our blood pressure. And then, kind of lettering up to just feelings of life. Satisfaction and life engagement. And, you know, we know why this works from behavioral science.
35:14
Rituals really provide us with that sense of certainty, moving forward, and that comfort in doing something a little bit more familiar. You know, rituals create a sense of escape from those stressors that we might currently have had before and give us that flow state where we're able to match our mastery over the hobby, with the continuing challenges that it provides for us. And then finally, it gives us a way to achieve, right. This is just something that might make us feel good about our own efficacy. This is something that I control that I can actually make better. And on the next slide you can see this was a really interesting study that was done where they surveyed, you know, 5000 people during the pandemic and they found, you know very, very clearly that you know, these hobbies were lowering people's anxiety as well as their depressive symptoms moving forward.
36:04
So yet another way that we can continue to move forward, I'll hand it back over to Sarah can really talk about, you know, where that charity gets us.
36:14
The last one we're going to focus on is helping others to help yourself actually. So put really simply, we feel good. We get warm fuzzy feelings right when we're able to help others.
36:26
The other thing that it does, though, when we're in a pandemic and we feel uncertain and like, we don't have control, is that taking care of someone else is a way for us to affirm our sense of autonomy or that we do have control, competence, and then our ability to be able to do that.
36:42
Lastly, we are naturally social beings. We need to feel connection and everyone does, at least to a certain extent. And so taking care of others as a way for us to avert our social cells, increase our sense of relatedness and social capital and our social connection.
36:58
And this one, they took out of the lab actually to the real-world we can say, and they passed out Starbucks gift cards.
37:06
Specifically, they had instructions on how you should spend your gift cards to their four conditions here. The first one, they had to go to Starbucks alone, spend it on yourself.
37:17
That's the blue bar. The next one they have, you go to Starbucks with someone else that only use the gift card on yourself.
37:25
The third one, or the orange bar, is a low connection, so you are giving the gift card to someone, but not going with them to Starbucks. You can think of this as the, like, pay it forward, a random act of kindness type of thing they were trying to get out. And then lastly was, take someone else to Starbucks and pay for their coffee, or their dream, and your own.
37:47
And what they found was they followed up, by the way, same day, on people's overall happiness, was that that last condition, where you are able to share a moment with someone else, and take care of them, had the most positive effect on your overall happiness.
38:08
These give you a sense of, you know, some of the things that the laboratory has shown, and, you know, science is messy, and what really matters at the end of the day, as we spoke about earlier, is that context that people are. And so, we were able to partner with our public affairs team, and using their award winning knowledge panel group.
38:29
We were able to test this out around kind of the American public, and what you can see here is how reported behaviors. If people did these are not actually led to their current state of well-being. And you can see, across the board, these lead to significant increases in their perceptions of happiness going forward. So this was fascinating to all of us. And you know, not only did laser, Sarah and myself absolutely start doing these a little bit more as soon as we got the data. But we wanted to see how impactful this was for all of the individuals that we'd been tracking and speaking with across the pandemic.
39:09
So lies, I'll turn it back over to you and we'd love to hear more about how our folks kind of experienced these things together.
39:18
Awesome, Yeah.
39:19
So, this is really exciting to be able to leverage what we've been doing for two years, in terms of both quiet and fall, and in terms of translating what came out of the knowledge panel.
39:30
And applying it to what we already knew about the response in America in flux, I went from four buckets to five different things that we would ask the respondents to do. We usually gave them three choices. They could have, you know, their choice of those three, and do it for three times over the course of a week. So, eating with friends and family. We ask that there be no devices at the table. We, of course, went was spending time outside of nature.
40:00
As you can see from the photo in the back Jaron Avid cyclist, he found additional rewards from having a long time in addition to exercise earlier in the pandemic. So, you know, perhaps this was something that he might try to dial up in terms of what he's doing these days. Or maybe he would pick up restart or increase the frequency of a hobby.
40:25
We also suggested the possibility of starting that meaningful project that you've just been putting off and putting off and putting off. And we also wanted to test out doing something nice for someone. And it could be a different person each of those three times. It could be a different thing each of the three times. And we really just sort of suggested a spread of things for folks to choose from, rather than saying, OK, go join a gym or do something really crazy for us.
40:56
See what might be within your repertoire, even if you haven't done it really frequently of late or you haven't done it in two years.
41:06
What could you bring into your life now and share with us over the course of the week?
41:11
The impact, so, with digital ethnography, we ask people to, as you've seen film themselves, and, you know, also provide some sort of talking heads about how it's all going.
41:24
So in this instance, we wanted to see the, whatever they chose to do, an action. We wanted them to give us feedback right after they have completed that action, where that activity, and then we wanted them to sum up after the course of the week as to, you know, how it felt, because it's something that they might continue doing.
41:43
So, uh, my 1, 1 piece of advice in terms of watching this video is to just track facial expressions, because I think that will help us see where it's working and where, perhaps it was not, let's two T here we go, improving our well-being in 20 22.
42:09
So one of the things I really like to do is, are our neighbors that live live near us, I like to speak over there, might be, for trash is supposed to go and pull the trashcan vacuum. So, it's always a game that maps to see if I can speak in without them knowing that I'm here and get it out there. That way, they're surprised.
42:38
I came to the decision that I'm going to see clutter and organize and put away all my laundry. I'm going to de clutter and organize my table. I am just being real. I'm going to de clutter and organize all of my home, and I'm going to put things on recovery and offer up and sell things that is going to be my feet for this week, when the things they've been trying to do, especially this year, is take like a lunch walk instead of taking a lunch break. Honestly, especially during the wintertime I would take a nap during my lunch hour, It's kind of nice Just be able to go out distress from whatever I'm working on at the moment. She don't take my work phone or any of my work materials for me to just kind of fully relax, listen to a podcast, just kind of being compressed from whatever is happening that afternoon.
43:36
We have a friend who used to live near Washington to Idaho, not near a Trader Joe's, and his favorite thing to eat, because we've got a Keto diet, is a first grade for a Trader Joe's. but we're gonna send them a little care package. And we have. Hopefully, by the longtime. So, I really like your suggestions. And I am. Sharing with my neighbors. So, my in-laws are big golfers.
44:17
And so, one of the things that we did when they came to to Atlanta is we're gonna have gone together once a week.
44:25
But it's been something that is a way for us to better understand who her parents are.
44:34
It's even become a point of, during the week. You know, we'll talk about when we're gonna go next. And how are we gonna bet on who's gonna win, who's going to lose? And who's gonna pay for lunch? Kind of binds us together in a way that I think we never thought was going to be going to be possible.
44:51
Very pleased with my work for day two, getting things accomplished.
44:55
It makes me feel really great, Encouraged, still have some stuff to do, but man Day two has been successful.
45:03
So I thought I'd do a nice little bit of service. This was actually for a family member.
45:07
My youngest loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I am making him three pj's a Noah look.
45:19
That sounds good.
45:21
Are you happy about that?
45:23
Do you like ...? Yeah?
45:25
I'm glad I can make you, any of your favorites of you.
45:33
Going in the lunch hour has been a really nice improvement. Being able to take that time off is something I've enjoyed, and I'll probably continue on. Think it's been made a meaningful improvement, especially since I'm trying to get healthier, and more fit for the summer, and it just seems like a smart decision to do. Adding that into my routine, I think, is going to be something that I can use to to kind of help reset and feel like I'm doing something for myself, is something that I'm very thankful for it and have high anticipation that don't have good mental health benefits. For me. I decided to take this meaningful project to the next level I found on Craigslist.
46:12
Um, To help a family clean, and organize when the man, the husband, the father, saw the kitchen, he was trying to hold Baucus tiers.
46:23
And I was thinking, This is a meaningful project that I started on my own for myself.
46:31
For my husband, it's turned into a meaningful project to help another family. So while we are doing these things, kinda feel good to take a break at break from like to every day.
46:45
Hustle, bustle of business. one thing to another and the screen time is wrong.
46:52
So we felt like a good, healthy break. It felt good, too.
46:56
Think like you're giving back and communicating with people how you feel, and, it was just kinda like a welcome change. So, I think we all need to take time out of your schedule to make a complaint, to do stuff like this. I don't know, I feel good when I'm giving. Thanks for other people. They think they, they like it. I like when somebody is thoughtful enough to do something for me, and it makes me feel good.
47:21
So, I think we're all better off if we do something nice for somebody and hope that they get in the spirit of doing something nice for other people.
47:38
And just, it's amazing, right? I mean, as you said, lies, you know, the looks of mister ... face, you know, that look on Allison's face as she realizes that her own hobby and passion of organizing at home can bring that same joy to others.
47:54
And even just like seeing those cookies, go in the oven, right, for somebody else, like, those are all so powerful. And I think, you know, it's a, it's a nice way for us to think about our own lives and those just micro things that we're able to do that aren't that big to do, that can just make us feel better. And whether it was the smile on their faces, the smile on those faces they were helping. Or even just the optimism that people felt as a result was really transcendent in those videos. So, thanks for providing that lies.
48:27
And, you know, I think there are probably some lessons for brands as well, right, And, you know, as we move forward as well, so, love for you.
48:34
Share those with us.
48:36
Yeah, so, first of all, I need to incorporate some of these insight into my life to a greater degree than than nothing.
48:45
Some of these currently are currently there. But, you know, we talked about this a little bit earlier as a team, and then watching the video.
48:55
Again, I think this is something that we can individually take on to improve our moods.
49:02
You know, I think all of the material that was covered by Sarah and Jesse, in terms of those benefits being outside Oregon deals with others.
49:10
We did have people within our respondents sample, who did two meals. Not, everyone has stuck with the meals together. So that was something that, we, we saw people choose there, was collecting trash in the neighborhood. You know, there's a lot that people said.
49:27
improves things for them individually. For their family, for their neighborhood. So I think that's something that all of us can take away and apply to ourselves immediately.
49:37
I would also say that there, there's something to be said for sharing this with colleagues, teammates, the organization.
49:46
You know, this is not necessarily something that has to happen only in a home or outside of home. It could happen in the workplace.
49:54
It could happen, well, I guess home is the workplace for, for a lot of us, still, but maybe there's a new way of looking at the office, or looking at how team, time together, could be spent. Or you could encourage those in your organization to do in terms of work-life balance.
50:12
And then I think critically is what we all can do in terms of supporting customers, consumers, what can brands, products, and services do to help individuals' health groups of people improve their well-being.
50:31
You know, REI I think is already doing this in terms of the opt out Black Friday exercise. You know, the stores are close, they want everybody to go outside. We've seen that being out in nature as an example of something that will improve your mood.
50:48
So, I think for those joining us today for this, we can all ask some questions as to, you know, what we could be doing for, for people. Especially as you're starting to look more and more apps, organizations, businesses, brands, as as guides, and is more active, sleep oriented.
51:10
Institutions, you know, how can we start to come together and encourage or enable our consumers to take these steps to improve their moods as we move into Year three?
51:21
And hopefully, you'll learn to improve and cope and heel to toe in February, just because you don't see the uncertainty coming to a quick and, and all that's right.
51:33
Love to hear what what Sarah and Jesse to say on this to. No, I completely agree with you, Sir.
51:40
Eliza, and it's actually, I was just thinking, like, speaking of questions, are some great questions that people have been asking, and although we're certainly not going to have time to get to all of them today, please keep asking them in the box. Will be able to loop back up and answer those, follow up through e-mail of any that we don't get to answer here. But, you know, I think one of the really interesting ones that's here, and Sarah, maybe I'll let you take a first crack at this one, is, you've given us a lot of things that we could be doing. Is there anything that we should potentially stop doing? Or even other elements that weren't in those four, that can improve our well-being?
52:17
I'll start with the day. We did collect some on the quantitative data in the large survey, where we looked at some things that maybe could be working against us, and our well-being.
52:28
And one of the big things that stood out on number of well-being measures that we ended up collecting was just putting on your smartphone. So, the more time that you spent on your smartphone, the less happy, walesa meaningful your life was.
52:41
And I think this is a really thought provoking one for brand. So, you know, thinking about when you go to Disney, it should be about connecting with your family, the Tide, but right now, the way they have it set up as you kind of have to use your phone to navigate. Even just how to go from one area of the part to the other. But also how to lie to yourself up and live and things like that. And there are some brands that are taking initiatives.
53:05
Lifted, actually, Last month, just launched a Tea Talk initiative, which is encouraging, Especially moms to disconnect and have tea with a friend or family member, and we connect socially with them, which is one of the other positive activities that we had collected on. So like reconnecting with an old friend or family member, of course, exercise.
53:28
We already talked about food, but specifically eating healthy actually was another one that we found the facts for giving to charity of spending time with a religious group. Or even just generally, any sort of social community that gives you that sense of connection that we're really longing for right now are some of the other things that we could do.
53:48
Yeah, it's it's fascinating, right, and I think it's such an interesting counterpoint to some more of like the technology assisted experiences that we've seen so many brands and companies develop over the past couple of years. Now, even today, there was an article in the Times about ski resorts getting rid of their paper maps. And so, you know, just thinking about, where's the old-school Maybe gonna give that better experience given some of the things we see here. Why is that? There's a great question for you, as well.
54:16
A lot of the things that people did, they did because you asked them to do how sticky two effects of those behaviors will be going forward.
54:25
Well, I think, um, that's something that we definitely want to follow up on. You know, this obviously is a snapshot.
54:32
We often saw people sort of default to things that were there before, and just sort of dial things up.
54:42
Chanelle was very upfront with us and said, you know, I am only continuing to do these paper, we word searches as a break, and I'm not doing it for you. This is not going to stick, I need it on my phone.
54:55
I needed to be easier, I've got too much happening right now.
54:59
But she talked about how she wanted to have less on the plate, so that she could get back to meeting more frequently, because that was something that she really enjoyed doing before, and she just has not been able to so folded into the mix right now, so I'm hoping that, you know, as this moves forward, we'll check back with people, will see if things have continued to be part of their routine.
55:22
You know, if you make something a habit in, it gets rewards, you're more likely to then have that stick, so no longer term, is this something that remains within their lives. They expand upon it and they inspire others around them.
55:37
This is all something that I would love for us to revisit, because a week is great, but it's awesome.
55:44
It's unique to patch and membership in June.
55:48
Yeah.
55:49
No, it's a, it's a great answer, and certainly, that's one of the things we'll be looking at long term, right. Not only how sticky are these behaviors over time, but do they continue to deliver those rewards in the same way that they have before, right? So, much in the same way that we can imagine, you know, going to top golf with our in-laws and our partner is going to be enjoyable for us. How might the same thing be true for making that family meal once a week, or taking the time to do something for your neighbors based on ... expression? I think that's something he's gonna keep doing, but definitely worth checking up on as we go forward. And I think, you know, just to reinforce, some of the points you brought up earlier lies. I know that question about what can we do with this.
56:34
And I love the idea of this is also related to our work, right? So I think like, as you talk to, you know, your HR function within your company, like, what are the group things that we can do together as things become safer? Where are those opportunities to break bread with one another? Or where do we even encourage, like, employee groups around certain hobbies or interests that people have?
56:58
Whether it's listening to a grateful, dead show, on archive dot org, or having that knitting circle or reading club for those of us that are more kind of active in those area? So a lot of really, really great ideas here. Lots of remaining questions. Thank you so much, everybody, for asking those great questions. We'll definitely get back to you with some answers here. But on behalf of Lies and Sarah and myself, just wanted to thank all of you for your escape today and hanging out with us. It's been our pleasure to help you help yourselves. We've all definitely felt a little bit better as we've been doing it. And thank you again for your time and joining us. And we'll be in touch with you soon.
57:41
Thank you.
