PsyberSpace: Understand Your World

The Comfort Trap: How Familiarity Hampers Growth and Progress

In this episode of PsyberSpace, host Leslie Poston explores the concept of comfort and how it acts as a hidden barrier to personal and societal growth. Despite its allure, comfort can prevent individuals from taking risks, learning, and embracing change. The episode digs into the psychological and neurological reasons behind our preference for comfort, and its impact on behaviors, relationships, and social structures. Poston argues that comfort not only stifles innovation and accountability but also perpetuates systemic issues like racism and inequality. She urges listeners to build their capacity for discomfort as a means to foster resilience, creativity, and meaningful progress.

00:00 Introduction: The Hidden Villain in Your Life
00:35 The Comfort Trap: Why We Stay Stuck
03:07 The Neuroscience of Comfort and Resistance to Change
08:28 Comfort in Social Dynamics and Systemic Issues
11:28 The Cost of Comfort: Personal and Societal Impacts
22:43 Building Discomfort Tolerance for Growth and Progress
24:37 Conclusion: Embrace Discomfort for a Better Future

Research

Banaji, M. R., & Jost, J. T. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1994.tb01008.x

Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377-383. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025589

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.

Feagin, J. & Picca, L. (2007) Two-Faced Racism. Routledge.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.

Jost, J. T. (2019). A quarter century of system justification theory: Questions, answers, criticisms, and societal applications. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58(2), 263-314. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12297

Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1994.tb01008.x

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Klayman, J., & Ha, Y. W. (1987). Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing. Psychological Review, 94(2), 211-228. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.2.211

Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480-498. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480

Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn't he help? Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421-428. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x

Oluo, I. (2018) So you want to talk about race. Seal Press.

Tatum, B. D. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: And other conversations about race. Basic Books.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1991). Loss aversion in riskless choice: A reference-dependent model. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106(4), 1039-1061. https://doi.org/10.2307/2937956

Wason, P. C. (1960). On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(3), 129-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470216008416717