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Pam King: With and For listeners. We are so grateful for you. I have so appreciated your curiosity and your enthusiasm about the show. If you’re enjoying this episode and finding it helpful, or inspiring, I would be so grateful if you would take a moment after listening to share it with a friend.
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We all want to learn and grow throughout our lives. How can we foster that in ourselves and in others?
Learning is holistic, active, and a relational process that connects our inner emotional life, the intricacy of our brain and our social environment.
Applying neuroscience and psychology to education and formation. Mary Helen, Immordino-Yang, draws connections between emotions, relationships, brains, stories, meaning and purpose to shed light on how we learn, grow and thrive.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: What this means is that thriving is a process of mental and emotional and physical and cultural and social work. That you do, nobody can give it to you. You build it for yourself, by the way in which you experience your world. And I mean, experiencing your world in a really verb like agentic way, by the way in which you. Construct meaning and witness and experience the things that happen.and so it really puts the power, I think, for something like thriving and for growth back in the person by saying, you are the one who’s capable of making this happen for yourself.
you do this not by searching.but by constructing, putting yourself in contexts where you are likely to discover and learn things you didn’t know before, and then really trying to actively make sense of what that means for how you understand the world. And dispositionally, Being brave and courageous in that way is I think what genuinely leads to happiness and thrive.
Pam King: I’m Dr. Pam King, and you’re listening to With And For a podcast that explores the depths of psychological science and spiritual wisdom to offer practical guidance towards spiritual health, wholeness, and thriving on purpose.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is the Fami and Donna at Professor of Humanistic Psychology at the University of Southern California
Known by the acronym candle She’s the founding director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience Development, learning and Education. Candle is just a lovely image for Mary Helen’s work that brings so much light to the world.
Just this spring, Mary Helen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This is a really big deal in the academic world. This is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies, acknowledging the exemplary and important nature of her scholarship. She’s also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous awards for her groundbreaking research and its implications for education.
With a focus on educational psychology and the role of emotions in brain development and growth. She’s an expert on the neuroscience of learning and creativity.
But her synthetic approach offers insight in how our brains shape human culture, morality, and relationships. She works with adolescents and their teachers. Particularly in low socioeconomic environments to understand how we build meaning together, looking at abstract systems level and ethical implications of learning complex information, navigating social situations, and narrating our own identities.
Her research underscores the active role youth play in their own brain and psychosocial development. Through the narratives they construct and capacities teachers cultivate to support student belonging and deep learning.
To learn more about Mary Helen and her work, check out candle.usc.edu.
In this conversation with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, we discuss the value of integrating neuroscience with educational, emotional, and moral development.
The strange and glorious case of the adolescent brain,
how we mature, learn how to think and feel, and exercise our agency and strive to become wise.
The emotional and relational nature of education and moral development expressed in nurturing conversation between caring adults and youth, the importance of agency intentionality and transcendent thinking in human thriving neuroplasticity, and the capacity to change our brains throughout our lifespan.
the big picture of thriving that brings together our mental life, neurobiology, other physical processes with relationships, community and society at large
Mary Helen, I am so grateful to have you on With For. I have been looking forward to this conversation for a really long time.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: fam. It’s really great to see you.
Pam King: I hold you in the highest regard as a scholar and researcher. You have done such pivotal and groundbreaking work and,so appreciate your commitment to understanding the growing and changing adolescent brain, and also your commitment Translating or doing research that actually has implications for how kids are taught, parented, served, cared for.
so I’m so grateful to your commitment to application as well as cutting edge research.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: No, thanks. Yeah. It’s a big and important topic.
Pam King: at this point in your career, why are you finding studying the brain so important?
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Oh, that’s a really great question. Um,I think the reason that we really are still working, with the neuroscience methods, of course, combining them together with the more humanistic, social, psychological, and, you know, applied field methods is because.
There are open questions facing society right now, like the connections between mental health and media use and education. The ways in which, people are politically divided the way in which we are anxious, right? There’s a huge amounts of anxiety in society right now and a lot of strife.
and I think to really understand those questions, we really have to understand human beings, what it means to be a person. In the modern context, because the world is not the same as it’s been, it’s changing incredibly rapidly and humans are amazingly adaptable, but part of our adaptation is to function in the world we’re in and what that can sometimes mean is that the design of the world gets kind of a runaway horse, right?
You know, the families grow up and the kids learn and the civic, you know, activities can get sort ofwhere they’re following behind the stuff that big tech and others are driving for us. And we need to step back and think about who are we now? Who do we aspire to be?
What kind of society do we want to build? How do we set up our young people, not just so that they can manage well in the world we have, but so that they are positioned to co invent together the world that they envision.and the only way we can really, I think, do that in a full sense is to use every kind of lens possible to start to understand the experience of the humans in the middle of the system, right?
Not simply what the outcomes are and the inputs are and how we can see cause and effect in the way things happen in the world, and predict things, but to try to really deep dive into the kinds of mechanisms and processes And by that, I mean the development of the person and the people in the world that we are currently finding ourselves in and how those developmental processes and mechanisms have particular kinds of affordances, assets, potential liabilities built in.
So to really make connections across these various kinds of problems. Very different levels of problems from you know, I fear for my children’s future in the current planet to how do I educate my children? How do I raise them? How do we think about the current political situation? How do we understand, you know, big questions like what am I for and why am I here and how can I make my life meaningful, to really understand those questions and tie them together, you into the whole humans that we are, we really have to use every lens at our disposal. looking at how the brain, mechanisms,are sort of, changing and, and the ways in whichpeople process information in an embodied way, in a neurological way and how those, those kinds of processes may shed light on.
The feelings, the beliefs, the experiences that we have together. that’s what I’m trying to do. So the only way that I’ve come to be able to really. Do that in a way that has a hope of satisfying, right? The true complexity of what it means to be a human is to try to use all of these
lenses together
Pam King: When we look at the brain’s neurology, we begin to see how so much of thriving requires a whole system of embodied processes.
Mary Helen does a kind of research that conducts qualitative interviews with her subjects. Which then correspond with longitudinal brain imaging and physiological processes. That means she’s comparing the self-reporting of her subjects, emotional states, beliefs, feelings, and so on with what lights up in different areas of the brain and in what way? And then she integrates all of this to see the big picture. She’s looking for how our internal, mental and psychological life works together with our neural pathways and other bodily processes, connecting all of who we are as an integrated whole.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: And what’s really important to understand is that one doesn’t trump the other, right?
So the brain science isn’t the real answer while what people feel Is just something that’s sort of subjective and somehow subjectivity is supposed to mean that it’s not reliable or important. Instead, what we’re really trying to do is understand how brain systems are another lens for looking at how people experience and feel and construct meaning and relationships within the world.
And then we also, of course, need to stay very tightly connected to how people construct meaning and relationships within the world and looking at that in a really dynamic, integrative way, a holistic way, rather than a way in which we’re trying to find the simple mechanistic answer. This causes that and stop there.
Pam King: and I love it because I don’t have the capacities to use the methodologies that you do. I think we bring very similar lenses. of looking at the many systems and how they interact in this world. And I know our listeners, I mean, the name of the show is With and For, and I think you’re going to help us understand, and I hope our listeners will come away of like how neuroscience is actually so insightful to the importance of the with, the who we’re with, how
relationships impact us.
And the four and our purpose and what we’re about.
So, and listeners, you’re going to hear a lot about the importance of emotions. You named it emotions, beliefs, relationships. I hope we can get into storytelling a little
bit.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: narratives are huge. That’s what we’re studying a lot right now. How people construct a story about what it all means, you know.
Pam King: exactly. and transcendent thinking I’m particularly.
Excited to pick your brand, but before going to that, I’m gonna start the question I ask all my, guests,just to get off the top of your head before you get into deep, is what is thriving to you?
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Oh, yeah. Okay. So I’m going to start by saying, I don’t think thriving to me is the same every day. it’s something that is dynamic, just like experiences, just like being a person in the world. The world is an emergent, dynamic, changing place where we’re adapting all the time, moment to moment and year to year to the changing context, including our own internal context, right? but so if you situate thriving in that developmental rather than static lens, then I think thriving to me means, um, meaningfully engaging, in purposeful living in a way that feels,productive and,and
Pam King: Is awesome. And so rich.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: I used to say to my kids when they were little, like.
you know, when they were playing the piano or when they were writing a story, whatever they’re doing, like do it like you mean it. And I think thriving is really about living like you mean it.
Pam King: hmm.what I hear you saying in that response is thriving in the moment is living both with presence, like, like you mean it, and
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Yeah, that’s
Pam King: And there’s this agentic quality that you have some ownership and, agency in that. I’d love to hear you say more about agentic.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Yeah. I mean, I think what it really means. is to pair together and balance simultaneously the feeling of being here in the moment
with the narrative of the longer term trajectory. And when those two are in alignment, that’s another way to say that you feel like your life is meaningful and you have agency in it.
So in other words, when the big picture reason why, and the purpose is consistent with the here and now and the feeling of mindfully being where we are, that’s, that produces drive.
Pam King: Mary Helen’s admonition to do it like you mean it, and her thoughts about agency intrigued me.
So much of our felt sense of thriving comes from our agency and ability, I might call that agility. It’s the def and skillful way of moving through life that feels empowering and gratifying, especially. And maybe necessarily. when it’s done for some good, true and beautiful purpose.
I want to unpack how those are related. Of how people, a word you used earlier, I think was co create. How young people can become co creators of the world. that they want to be a part.
um, I think that that leads me to ask you, in the world today, we hear a lot about mental health and
emotional health, and I’d love to hear what you consider emotional health. Why is that important?
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Oh yeah, what I consider it to be and what it’s important are two really big questions, not the same question. Um, why is it important? We’ll start with that. because, what we’re learning neurobiologically, and psychosocially is that, The way in which people subjectively emotionally feel in their life is not just a sort of added layer or a veneer on the top of their biology that is actually deeply ensconced in the functioning of your body, of your mind, of your health.
and of course,the, this leads to the next piece, which is the kind of permeability, if you will, between people. We are not isolated units who bump into each other a lot and so call us social. We actually co construct one another’s lived experiences by the virtue of being there together. So by living and being together, we are shaping the context.
That each other are living and being in together. And as we do that for one another, we give rise collectively to a sort of emergent sense of shared story, shared experience, shared narrative. And so to me, the idea of emotional health and wellbeing is found in the tenor of that and the existence and the richness and depth of that shared narrative that we co construct. Which is why it’s so much about relationships. It’s so much about not just here and now, but the long term sense of purpose and direction and aspirational sort of values that we’re. Striving for it’s about the community that we construct around us and community is not only in the real physical here and now of people I know and interact with, but it’s also a community of idea generators.
It’s a, it’s a a historical, uh, legacy of values and beliefs and,and stories that we live by, that we aspire to try to understand anew through our daily actions. So it’s really, to me, about, again, that notion of moving between the long term, you know, sort of, future oriented and historically relevant narrative about who I am and why I’m here and who we are and why we’re here and how we got here and where we’re going, and the real embodied emotional, physical experience and social experience of being here now and aligning those two, if you will, levels of being.
Pam King: One of the reasons I find Mary Helen’s work so inspiring is the connectivity of it. She’s synthesizing empirical evidence with the lived experience of daily human life and really our personal understanding of it.
That’s where so much insight and growth can come from when we can understand the science of the whole process of being human together. It’s not just about my individual isolated brain or your individual isolated brain. It’s about the shared story that emerges when we as individuals relate and connect it’s the richness that emerges from being with and for each other.
Pam King: I’m really fascinated by your research on transcendent thinking, which
we’ll get into more in depth.
But one of the concepts that I am hoping to elevate that I think is really overlooked, um, in our culture is not just emotional health, but spiritual health.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Um, and a lot of that has to do with how we make meaning.And making meaning out of love and pro social transcendent experiences. If this is meaningful for you, I’d love to ask you how you might consider spiritual health based on your research. Yeah. So the way I would think about this is really, it’s a special Case or a specific dimension of the processes that we’ve already been talking about. So to me spiritual health is the health of the connection between the here and now The way I feel and the motives and intents and goals and actions that I enact in a social way in a personal way right toward myself toward other people and in the community that I You physically find myself in, and aligning those with a version of, you know, the bigger story of why and how we’re here and what I should strive for.
And that the word should is carefully chosen there. it’s an aspirational state to be spiritually well in my mind. It’s not a concrete sort of Essence that you hold so much as an intentionality that you iteratively reconstruct in community and not only in the community of the real physical people around you, or who are alive now, but in the community of the history of humanity and the future of our species and our planet.
So I really have a kind of pragmatic, if you will, and sort of situated, conception of what spiritual health is. Uh, looks like it means
Pam King: For Mary Helen Spiritual Health is about aligning our feelings, beliefs, motivations, goals and actions, both personally and socially, with a bigger story of why we’re here and what we should strive for.
The image of a grove of trees comes to mind. The way the roots ground each individual tree interweaving below the surface, finding mutual nourishment and support and reaching up and out into a beautiful and life-giving contribution and being in the world.
I really appreciate that. I mean, there’s definitely this aspirational. looking forward, but there’s a sense of being rooted and connected in your own values or moral values and aspirations and sense of purpose and how that connects to this broader story, that you’re a part of and then your intentionality to live that out consistently and coherently.
Is that somewhat
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: that’s absolutely right. And then I would add to that, that, you know, I could see people asking, well, how do I know what my values are? How do I know what I believe in? Right. Where do I get that from? And to go looking for that, Especially when we’re talking about a spiritual wellness,
to go looking for that. And, and of course, Learning from others,is a huge piece of how we learn. there’s no reason you have to invent this on your own. But at the end of the day, there is a kind of agentic construction within yourself. and that, that process takes work.
It takes, intentionality. It takes a willingness to sit with yourself and to not know. It takes a kind of humbleness, right? In the sense of being willing to construct and deconstruct your own beliefs, your own morals, your own ethics, to re examine again and again, why and how they came to be like that and why and how they’re serving you in the world. And that kind of questioning that kind of curiosity, is really a disposition that is inherentto real wellness and fulfillment.
Pam King: And like I said, it takes effort. It takes work. Nobody can give it to you. Nobody, there’s no set of actions you can do that will, you know, That will make it happen for you.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: and this is also for young people need opportunities to really explore and live in this space and to develop the proclivities and the tolerance for being patient with themselves in that space
and not just settling on a quick or easy or sort of cognitively, you know, concrete. Answers that you can trot out in a kind of automatic way, but dispositionally learning to deconstruct your own assumptions, examine them, look at them, think about where they came from and what they enable, what kinds of potentials, they make possible and what ways they may also be, you know, blinding you.
How they may also keep you from seeing. In other ways. and I think a big piece of that too, and it’s something that I’m really advocating for, and for example, civic approaches to high school education right now, also all education really, but you know, high school is. For sure, right? because teenagers are all about, right?
The development of this capacity, right? Is to really encourage and kind of mindfully and strategically build spaces for these kinds of conversations where we don’t only, sort of examine our, and honestly look at our own proclivities and assumptions and beliefs and morals and query those deeply, but we also engage with others, you know, ways of thinking about things and really try to appreciate, where they are coming from and why they feel and think the way they do and what that might mean for you, for the world, for them.
Doesn’t mean you have to agree with people. Sometimes I don’t agree with myself, right?that’s okay, right? That’s actually good.
Pam King: It is not a new scientific discovery that adolescence marks a transformation of how we encounter and engage the world.
But we’re learning more about the role of the brain and what happens to the brain during this incredibly important and honestly daring and bewildering phase of our development.
You listeners with teens, I see you. I see you. But the science here says a lot. The adolescent brain isn’t just a miniature adult brain or a more advanced child brain.
It’s undergoing a massive remodeling. Mary Helen says,
With that massive remodel. No wonder they act that way.
Well, and this is really getting at the wheelhouse of your research. and I’d love to unpack a bit for our listeners. Like, when I started studying psychology, understanding kind of what was going on in the brain.
So this is a little later in life because I’m old enough that there wasn’t a lot of neuroscience when I was an undergrad studying psychology. But I was like, okay, so the adolescent brain actually develops capacities because of the connections that are happening for more abstract thinking
and for thinking about bigger ideas.
And I was like, okay, cool. Oh, this is why in college kids stay up all night discussing the meaning of life
because it’s like a new skill and it’s really
exciting. enticing. It’s just, they live for it, right? Yeah.
but I do have a concern that in this day and age, there’s so much distraction from these profound interpersonal conversations about the meaning in life that kids may not be spending as much time doing that.
But before we get into like the demise of screens and all that,I’d love to hear a bit more about how you’re learning about brain integration,
about how young people particularly gain. Capacity for what you call transcendent thinking. and I’d love for you to describe for our listeners how you understand transcendent
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: yeah, there’s so much in what you’re saying. So I’ll start with transcendent thinking and then I’ll step back to adolescent brain development.
Okay. So, what we’ve called transcendent thinking, It is basically not a new discovery, right?
philosophers and educators and scientists and parents have recognized and appreciated in various ways for millennia, you know, that adolescents really think about the world, come to make meaning of the world in ways that are different than they did when they were children. Children are deeply observant, right?
And they’re deeply connected to the things that are happening around them. They’re curious about those things and they try to make sense of what they’re seeing and understand how things work.adolescents continue to do that. Of course, all human beings do that, but adolescence is really a time period in Kids start to develop capacities.
And I would say, I mean, there are glimmers of these capacities in childhood. So it’s not like somebody taps you on the head when you turn 13 and bam, you become able to do this, right? So like when the stars align, when the situation’s right, younger children will also show glimmers of this, of course.
But what adolescents are really all about in terms of psychological development, I think, is. It’s the deep drive to try to understand not just what’s happening here and now and, and why and what it means, but something about the broader story that transcends context that is true everywhere I go, that teaches me something about who I am at my core, no matter what context I’m in and with whom, right?
That teaches me something about what’s right or good or just. or wrong or bad or evil, no matter where and when we’re talking about. What is the bigger lesson? What’s the story behind why? And, you know, adolescents are working on this in social meaning making, which is the domain in which we’re talking about it right now, social and personal development and meaning making, but it’s also what they’re working on in terms of cognitive and intellectual growth, right?
These things are not separate. We are not Frankenstein monsters with lots of little parts. you know, a part that can do science and math and a part that can think about spirituality. It’s all the same me doing both at the same time. and that’s something else about the neuroscience is really starting to underscore the reuse of the same neural systems and platforms that feel your guts, that let you know if your lunch is digesting well, if your heart’s pounding, right?
If you’re feeling like you have a stomachache or if you’re well, or if you’re cold or if you’re hot. Those. Same brain systems that are managing very basic physiological embodied, processes that are essential for survival, right? Are and consciousness are also the platform for experiencing the world, for being interested in things, for caring about ideas.
literally the same brain parts, right? So when I talk about
this,
yeah. Did you have a question?
Pam King: Well, I was gonna say, does that give some credits to the phrase gut instinct?
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: I think it does. But what I want us to realize is that gut instincts don’t come out of nowhere. They’re not something you’re just sort of innately born with. You learn how to have an instinct. It’s really an unconsciously set of connections from previous experiences you’ve had that you are putting together in this complex way that kind of bubbles up as a sort of a shift in the way that you feel about or think about a situation or what you are inclined to notice about it.
So, yes, gut instincts. Absolutely. We do live by gut instincts, but I just want people to realize that you learn how and what gut instincts to have. You, these are the, you know, uh, that doesn’t just mean that you automatically should know how you’re supposed to feel here. You have to have experience in these situations to learn that.
And we’ve actually shown in neuroscience, like developmental neuroscience around, like for example, in China versus the U S looking at the differences in the ways that people. sort of experience, you know, moral and ethical violations and moral and ethical fortitude and virtue, right? The, how they know it.
is shaped by the cultural ways of knowing, right? Which isn’t actually surprising for a developmental scientist like you. so, so adolescents are doing this thing, you know, and they’re doing, like I said, in intellectual spaces too, like, you know, there are these hidden stories, these hidden layers, levels of explanation that imbue meaning, and systematicity and purpose to the world and to the things we witnessed in the world.
And adolescents are all about grappling with those.so if we take it back to brain development and adolescence now, you know, I would say maybe the last decade, a little bit more than the last decade. Now, maybe the last 15 years, there’s been an amazing, yeah, really the last decade, an amazing, uh, just,increase in the amount of interest in adolescent brain development in part, because we suddenly have come to realize as a field.
Given the new tools that we have, that even though the adolescent brain doesn’t really get bigger, in fact, it gets smaller, a little smaller, right? It kind of shrinks a little bit. that adolescent brains are not just immature adult brains. They are actually undergoing massive remodeling. so to speak in not so much in the big growth that you see from an infant to a three year old where it’s obvious their brain must be developing because their head is huge now.but, in the ways in which the networks, the sort of fiber tracks, the cells that are actually sending signals and communicating in these dynamic emergent patterns that really seem to have important, contributions to the mind, the ways those patterns are shifting and balancing with one another are tied to patterns of thinking.
So transcendent thinking, to kind of let the cat out of the bag, seems to be a really important Brain process driving brain growth, actual physical change in the structure of the brain that we can predict based on the degree to which kids grapple with these bigger connections and as kids Are struggling to move back and forth psychologically speaking to make meaning right to connect the big narrative to the here and now and back again, those connections and that movement, we showed is actually associated in real time with a kind of dynamic. network balancing and shifting. So the, so large networks in the brain that are involved in things like attention, emotion, experiencing the interior of the self, constructing consciousness.
And autobiographical memory and agency, those networks are sort of balancing with each other actively, almost like you can almost think of it like a seesaw. So not that the brain is tipping itself back and forth physically, but that the network dynamics, mathematically speaking, certain networks are telling other ones to quiet while they come on and then they’re quieting when other ones come on.
And as those are balancing with each other. They’re literally showing us that kids are grappling by their own description with moving between these levels of meaning.and so that mechanism that we called transcending mentally, of building a transcendent understanding. And connecting it to a concrete here and now kind of, you know, situated understanding and moving back and forth, whether they’re doing it in math class around the idea of infinity and connecting it to fractions, right?
or, or whether they’re doing it in the moral realm or the spiritual realm, that grappling back and forth. What we showed, is that it actually allows us the degree to which a young person did this in a. But we had an amazing show where we talked to people for two hour interview where we gave them a whole lot of true, interesting stories about real teenagers from around the world and ask them how does this person’s story make you feel?
And you can say whatever you want. They can say whatever you want. And kids did and kids, but kids were super enthralled with the task, nobody needed to leave and go to the bathroom in the middle. Like, I mean, literally out of 65 kids, I don’t think anybody left for a bathroom break in the middle, because it’s just kids.
Kids love to think about this. They really want to think about, wow, now that’s a, I didn’t know that was true. You mean that happened to that girl where, you know, she lives in this place called,uh, called where, where there’s these Tali ban people and they don’t let girls go to school, wait a minute. I didn’t know about that.
They’re really interested. And then they stop and think and say like, wait, I didn’t know that there are kids, there are people in the world that don’t believe in some people getting education just because of who they are. Well, now that I think about that’s not right. I should do something about that, right?
I should work harder in my opportunities so that maybe I could make that different, right? And they actually start to move between me here now, what I should do and these big stories. And what we show is that the degree to which kids did that was, well, we, in real time, it was associated with them moving their brain network activities in these patterns that we could identify.
And then those in turn predicted when we brought them back two years later in, you know, late teens, right? 17, 18, 19 years old around there,how much their brain would have grown since the time they were there before. So they literally, so comparing a kid to their own self two years before, not comparing kids to each other, saying some kids have brains that do this.
Some kids have brains that, you know, don’t really do this, right? But instead of saying, here’s Pam King’s brain at age 16.
Here’s Pam King’s brain at age 18. How much does Pam King at age 16 really think in these ways? Is she really trying to understand the bigger picture? Then we can predict that Pam’s brain will have changed a lot by the time she comes back two years later.
And what was incredibly cool was that the brain changes themselves. So the kind of, if you will, it’s like an exercise for your mind, right. And for your brain, When you do the work of actually thinking in these ways, it’s It grew the brain in ways that in turn predicted how, identity development, for example, in late adolescence, 19 years old or so, right?
How much do kids, not what kind of identity they have, but how much do they say, yeah, I’ve spent time thinking about who I really am and what I stand for and who I want to be. And thinking about that with the people around me, care about. and they, the less they say things like, You know, I just kind of go along with the crowd.
Whatever everybody else thinks is a good idea. I just do that. I don’t really have a good sense of right and wrong. I rarely try things on my own. I just do what everybody else does. Okay. Which is bad for you. It’s not good for you. Yeah. That doesn’t lead to happiness or thriving or fulfillment, you know?
And then the identity development in turn predicted really basic psychosocial outcomes when kids were in their early twenties, like How much do you like the person you’ve become? Slide a little slider back and forth on your computer screen.here’s a whole list of all the relationships of people you might have in your life.
Your boss at work, your teacher at school, your partner, your children, if you have them, your friends, your parents, your siblings, like, like any of these that you have, go through and list, you know, and rate how satisfied are you with the quality of the relationship you have? With that person and kids who did more transcendent thinking grew their brains more growing their brain more meant they had a stronger identity development.
at age 19 or so, and stronger identity development at age 19 or so in turn predicted at age, you know, 22, how much they liked themselves, how good they thought their relationships were, how much they thought they were achieving really well at work or school, whatever it is they were doing, and that these opportunities are what they had always sought.
Um, yeah, so, so, What this means is that thriving is a process of mental and emotional and physical and cultural and social work. That you do, right? There’s kind of no freebies. Nobody can give it to you. And you build it for yourself, but I don’t want to, I don’t want that to come across as in an independent way that doesn’t involve other people.
You build it for yourself by the way in which you experience your world. And I mean, experiencing your world in a really verb like agentic way, by the way in which you. construct meaning and witness and experience the things that happen.and so it really puts the power, I think, for something like thriving and for growth back in the person by saying, you are the one who’s capable of making this happen for yourself.
And you do this not by searching.but by constructing, putting yourself in contexts where you are likely to discover and learn things you didn’t know before, and then really trying to actively make sense of what that means for how you understand the world. And dispositionally, right? Being brave and courageous in that way is I think what genuinely leads to happiness and thrive.
Pam King: I love your affirmation that young people, adolescents, have agency. They actually can influence the way that their brains develop and not so much grow, but more fully integrate. And the more proactive kids are in terms of exploring and then really wrestling or reflecting on The beliefs, the rules, the laws, the stories,
the perspectives that are
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Why is it like this?
Pam King: there. Yeah,
and what’s the implication for me versus the implication for the world? The more apt that is to kind of repurpose some of those brain networks in ways that guides them, that gives them meaning, that gives them a sense of purpose that then allows them. To be more agentic and pursuing those aspirations
because they’re clear on what their values are and what’s meaningful.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Yeah. And let me just say one, one more thing. So, what was really interesting is that every kid in our study did at least some of this,
So they all could do it. They all could do it. Now the question is, why? Do you, like every kid could do it because they did. So, so then when you’re out in the world going around having stuff happen, do you think about these big questions is really what the experiment is meant to capture.
and what we found that I think is also really important is, you know, we measured kids standardized IQ. We measured, you know, we talked to families about income to needs, like what kind of financial situations they were in also about, um, you know, parents education levels and those kinds of things. And none of those other factors like IQ or parents education level or financial, considerations, I mean, the kids were all in stable situations, right?
but none of those things actually changed the effect. How young people think Was predicting how they would develop their brain across time. And of course, certain kinds of situations and contexts are conducive to certain patterns of thinking, right? So it’s not that, you know, it doesn’t matter what kind of situation you’re in.
It matters a lot. If you’re in, if you’re in a lot of danger or if you’re very anxious, because you’re not in a safe place or you’re not in a stable situation, culturally, socially, or heaven forbid, physically, you are not neurologically in a place that is conducive to kind of letting go of the outward vigilance, then the attention and watching out for yourself in the physical sense, looking out, we called it in order to you, you need the strong relationships.
You need the safety. You need the, the space and the time to be able to engage in that kind of thinking. So, so sure, when kids were engaging in that kind of thinking, they grew themselves in these ways, and it didn’t matter who they were, right? It didn’t matter, girls, boys, different ethnic groups.
We had all kinds of different kids in there, right? None of that, none of that really was associated with the outcomes at all. What was associated with the outcomes was just how inclined are you when we. When we ask you to think about what you see in the world, how inclined are you to really think about it? You know, and think about not just, you know, reacting emotionally to the thing you see, like showing empathy, for example, those were good things too, right? Like, oh, poor girl, I feel so bad for her, right? I wish I could help her. that’s nice. That’s good. That’s useful. You need that in a day to day period.
And kids who did more of that. Reported also having more friends and like a more diverse group of friends. And, you know, all the, there were great things that came from that kind of day to day, emotional, engaging with other people and being aware of the people around you, but we didn’t find an effect of that on brain growth over time.
What really grew the brain over time was, was this proclivity and disposition to try to go to these deeper thoughts and
Pam King: To really reflect.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Yeah. To reflect on things.
Pam King: I find so much hope in the idea that transcendent thinking. Big picture thinking that connects and reaches out and wonders and stays curious and lives in reciprocity with the world outside ourselves.
This fosters the healthiest kind of growth and learning in the adolescent brain,
and as she worked through this, she consistently made connections back to how transcendent thinking impacts our lives and contributes to our thriving throughout the lifespan.
So for those listeners out there going, Oh shoot, I don’t know if I did enough of that at 14.
How relevant is your, these findings? For implications for adult brains. Is
reflecting helpful for us at this stage or is that train left the station and
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Yeah, no, if there’s anything where, and here I mean the field, not us personally, but if there’s anything that’s being learned from neuroscience right now is that the brain is An evolving organ that is adapting and changing and growing and, across your entire lifespan. And we used to think that the brain’s kind of done by, you know, pick your age.
It depends what era of research you’re talking about. and you just kind of learn more and stuff more in the file drawers. but like the, everything is the structure is set up, you know, Of course, there are periods of time in the lifespan that are more plastic, right? Where your brain is more malleable by experience. And what’s really interesting is to note that those periods of time are periods that are associated, one with a major social role change. Okay. Like the transition to parenting or menopause or,conjunction with social role change, you know, hormonal change, right?
Which hormones are the brain is bathing in hormones, right? Like these are signaling molecules that are sending messages around your body and through your brain and back out into your body. and so, you know, adolescence is a major period of what we call plasticity, right? neural reshaping with experience.
And, uh, so are, is the transition to parenthood. So is, you know, the middle adulthood phase. So is older adulthood, right? But, there’s never a time when your brain doesn’t, doesn’t change by the way you use it. I mean, in that sense, you really can sort of think about. The brain as like a muscle, right?
And there’s never a time when exercising won’t make you more fit. Yeah. Okay. You’re not going to win the Olympic, you know, sprinting race at age 80, but that doesn’t mean that whatever you can do to exercise, isn’t going to be good for you, And isn’t going to change your body and your muscles and your cardiovascular fitness for the, for good.
So, yeah, so, so don’t lose heart. and also. Recognize that you’ve lived through a lot of things that you’ve learned from, that you’ve adjusted to, that you’ve adapted to, and those things stay with you and they really inform your perspective now. So older people bring a lot of wisdom, right?
a lot of lived experience that you can now use as fodder for these reflections.
Pam King: One of the ways that, what’s very fundamental to how I understand thriving is where you started, being adaptive. and so there is this constant, both. conscious and unconscious reading of the environment of what’s going on.
how do I respond with what is right or what is good? What gets to those long term purposes, goals most effectively in the moment, and in our world that is constantly changing, these days where, you know, who knows what’s tomorrow, how Does this process of meaning making, how do we iterate that quickly enough to adapt?
or what insights do you have about living in a changing world and how is meaning making process helpful to that
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Yeah, you’re basically talking about maturity, right? You’re basically talking about, what makes people wise, right? and, so there’s a couple of things. You need a lot of ability to notice, right? You have to have a lot of experience, in the world.and you need to be sort of inclined toward or disposed toward maturity.
paying attention to things that have problematic implications or that are worth thinking about more while letting go things that, you know, are just kind of not important enough to think about and aren’t worth thinking about more. And, you know, so I kind of like, when I teach about this, I sometimes joke, it’s kind of like me at the grocery store, you know what I mean?
Like, I, you know, I’ve, you got to get in and get out. You can’t spend all day at the grocery store. So you get in there and you’re like, I know I like this bread. I’ve already read the ingredients. I know it’s tasty. My kid’s not allergic to it. Move on. I want this cereal. I want this, then you get to the fruit or the fish.
And you have to stop and think, you know, Where did this come from? And it’s right. and is it healthy for us? Is it healthy for the world? Is this what we want to buy this floated halfway around the world on a ship? Do I need to buy this? And so, you know, like thinking about the bigger story when the bigger story pertains, but just getting efficiently in and out when automaticity is all you need.
So what really I think is the key to maturity and to being able to do this is to learn to notice. And to spend the time and to, you know, build into your world as best you can, the time and the space and the social support for reflecting on the things that are worth making sense of, and moving on past the things that are just instrumental, uh, mechanistic stuff that actually doesn’t have enough implication.
To be worth really spending time on. And so moving yourself in and out is I think part of what makes a mental health, go right. Like, you know, thinking too much about the wrong things. We call that ruminating, right? Worrying too much about the wrong stuff around you. We call that anxiety, right? You know, stuck on whether something is how you think it should be, or whether there’s an issue with it.
We call that OCD, right? Where you just can’t let it go. It’s never done. really mental health and thriving and flourishing is really about sort of having the capacity and the disposition and caring for yourself as you sort of move yourself strategically in and out of these kinds of reflections and engaging in ways that are appropriate for the situation, and then also helping the young people around you.
To, uh, you know, sharing exteriorizing, you know, making your thinking visible is how some say it right so that the young people around you can share with you,in your thought processes and then maybe also. Help you see where they weren’t advantageous. So they weren’t adaptive, or you might’ve missed something, or you might’ve thought too much about something that doesn’t matter.
you know, teenagers are great for pointing that out for their parents. And so like, yo mom, don’t make such a big deal out of that. It’s, you know, that’s not right. But what really matters is right. And so, you know, learning to see in a different way and keeping that fresh, you know, keeping curious.
I think that’s, I think that’s what you’re really asking,
Pam King: And I think some of this work has even helped me in my own personal life of like, okay, wait, you cannot have to think about that. In
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: No, that’s right. There’s some things that are not worth thinking about. You know what I mean?
Pam King: you’re doing yourself and you’re doing others benefit by just letting that go. and focusing and reflecting on those bigger issues.
I’d love to ask you, something that comes up in Spiritual Health and Thriving, and you’ve touched on it, is the notion of beliefs.
And obviously we all grow up in contexts where there are various beliefs, whether political, religious, whatever. and, In this day and age, in our very, not just pluralistic world, but in a world where people are increasingly untethered from the civic institutions or organizations or religious congregations, that offered a point of view on various beliefs.
I’d like, I’d be curious in your perspective on, When are giving kids, young people, a narrative of beliefs helpful and to what extent? Because at some point they’ve got to rethink it and reflect and go all through these processes to really come to their own of what matters. But do kids need a place to start?
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: Oh, that’s a really deep question. Um,I think what kids need a couple of things. Kids need safe social spaces and relationships in which to make sense of what they’re witnessing and experiencing. So they need to learn what I call is learn how to feel. And we all have a sort of intuitive sense of this one.
Like, you know, your kid says they’re, you know, they have a stomach ache and then you realize, no, I think you’re not sick. You’re actually nervous about this thing that’s going to happen. Right. So let me help you. Feel that stomachache in a way that actually is connected to what I can see seems to be the reason, So, so helping kids to kind of learn to notice themselves in a way that also supports a disposition and a kind of,a,a Comfort If you will, with also not knowing, like getting, learning to be patient with things you don’t understand and not to just dismiss them as not important and, or to too quickly settle on to really concrete explanations, which I understand parents like to do because it,gives a sense of finality, a sense of.
A sense of, uh, safety right then and right there. And, you know, some of that is warranted. There are levels of answers, depending on the developmental needs of your children and the age that they’re at and what they’re really grappling with, where you can sort of, provide an answer in a way that satisfies enough so they can go to sleep that night.
But at the same time, really keeping alive and modeling for kids, not just what the beliefs are, but how you come to them and why you hold them. And, and those discussions I think are really powerful developmental tools for raising children because they help kids learn to think about not just what’s true or, you know, what you should think or do, but why,and not just the doing, but moving beyond the doing to the intentions behind.
What did somebody intend? why would this have happened in that way? How did they think about it? What is the perspective that you and others could bring and what are multiple kinds as kids start to get a little bit older, you know, fourth, fifth grade, what are multiple perspectives on this, right? How could this be understood differently?
And then why would you not endorse that? Or you would endorse that, right? Like, so I think really developing a kind of curiosity about where and why things, you know, where things come from and why they come that way. and then also helping kids settle into a core set of values that That we can sort of all agree upon, but that will play out differently at different stages in their development.
So, um, there’s a core value, I would say that, you deserve to have agency in your world, you are never somebody else’s instrument. You are your own person. in my world, okay, that’s not something that’s universally human true, but that’s what I would hold for my children.So in appropriate and considerate ways, you have a right to exist. You know what I mean? And to be and to your own experience of existing and being. And I think something like that is, is something that you can right. teach to kids. I remember sort of, not to be too personal, but I remember sort of having a talk about that with my teenager who was in his first little boyfriend, girlfriend relationship in high school, right?
Like, no, you do have a right to your own feelings, right? You also have an obligation to think about those around you and how your behavior interacts with theirs. and then I think you have an honest obligation to be kind. To be compassionate, to be honest, but you do not have an obligation to join somebody’s worldview with them, or you have a right to your own perspective, right?
And then those kinds of beliefs, if you will. Become things that are true forever because the content of the belief and the complexity of the information and consideration that goes into it changes over time. You know what it is when you’re four and what it is when you’re 20 and what it is when you’re 60 are not going to be the same.
But the, that core intentionality that I honor my own and others agency. that’s something that I think is always true, and we always can come back to. I respect other people’s experiences, even if I don’t agree with them, even if I think I’m really sorry, but we’re gonna have to lock you up in prison now because we can’t let you enact your vision for the world out freely in it because you’re harming other people, right?
Like, but still I respect that’s what you genuinely experience. and, you know, we can’t let you be free, but I do respect and have compassion for the way in which you see it. And I think helping kids to develop those dispositions and to also honor their own truth. To think about,you know, my, my mom used to say from, we were little kids, uh, you know, there were four of us, uh, really close in age, very hot blooded, little kids.
And she used to say to us, like, you know, people would say, be good. Like when they went out and left us with the babysitter and she said, like, you are good now behave accordingly. And what she meant you are good. So I want you to think about how are you going to enact that in different ways? Because in different situations that could look really different.
You know, you might actually be mean to somebody or dismissive to somebody or really stand up to somebody In order to enact your goodness in a particular context, right? You could actually You know do something that could be considered bad but in the service of a genuinely moral intention, right?
So I think that’s how I think about raising children that way I don’t think that we need to talk down to them and give them a sort of concrete version You of what they should quote unquote believe in, uh, and understanding that they’ll outgrow it later. I think there’s a certain, there’s a certain, willingness to engage with how they make meaning and to expect them to iteratively do that, that in a safe way that I think is really essential to healthy, healthy development over time. and then it’s also okay to wonder about the bigger questions and not to know the answers to those right now. That’s all right, It doesn’t all have to make sense.
But you can still honor the emotional experience you’re having of it and situate yourself in community with that experience in a way that you’ll find, supportive and comforting.
And so, you know, that’s how I think about things. So different parents will have different values, different beliefs, different, you know, different versions of what I’m saying. And I think those become the core rather than the substance of, you know, the concrete belief itself.
Pam King: Well, and I appreciate how you’re connecting the value, perhaps more than a belief, into action. Like, because you matter and value and can have a unique perspective, there’s implications. That means you don’t have to be fused or taken into someone else’s worldview. You can
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: No, you don’t have to, you have the right to your own view.
Pam King: implication for that belief that you’re offering.
Mary Helen, thank you so much for joining me today. I know our listeners will so benefit from the tools, that you’ve spoken about, that you’ve given us clarity about how the significance of reflecting, having safe spaces and people to do that with, so that we can continue. to make meaning and co create the world that we need.
Thank you.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: You are so very welcome, Pam, and it’s really my honor to be here. Thank you.
Pam King: Well,
Mary Helen. Immordino-Yang’s. Big picture research on the brain shows how. We’re woven together in an intricate and glorious network of life, and when we synthesize the neurological, the psychological, the physical and the social, we’re able to come to a deeper and more impactful understanding of human development and thriving.
The key takeaways that I will carry with me from this conversation are the following.
Brain science isn’t better or worse than other perspectives on human life, but it offers incredible insight for how we grow and thrive.
Stories and narratives are the essential threads that hold our lives together.
How you think and the story you’re telling yourself matters for your thriving.
Education isn’t just a cognitive process. Our emotions, our bodies, and our sense of connection and safety in relationships play a central role in learning.
Spiritual health connects how our transcendent thinking informs our identity and how we live in reciprocity with the world beyond ourselves.
Thriving involves an agile agency that helps us live with skill and intentionality. So live like you mean it.
With and for is a production of the Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. For more information, visit our website, thethrivecenter.org, where you’ll find all sorts of resources to support your pursuit of wholeness and a life of thriving on purpose. I am so grateful to the staff and fellows of the Thrive Center and our with and for podcast team.
Jill Westbrook is our senior director and producer Lauren Kim is our operations manager. Wren Jeurgensen is our social media graphic designer. Evan Rosa is our consulting producer. And special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy.
I’m your host, Dr. Pam King. Thank you for listening.
Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is the Fahmy and Donna Attallah Professor of Humanistic Psychology at the University of Southern California. And she’s the founding director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education. Candle is just a lovely image for Mary Helen’s work that brings so much light to the world. She’s also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received several national awards for her ground breaking research and its implications for education With a focus on educational psychology and the role of emotions in brain development and growth, she’s an expert on the neuroscience of learning and creativity. And her approach offers insight on how our brains shape human culture, morality, and relationships. She works with adolescents and their teachers (particularly in low socio-economic environments) to understand how we build meaning together—looking at abstract, systems-level, and ethical implications of learning complex information, navigating social situations, and narrating our identities. Her research underscores the active role youth play in their own brain and psychosocial development through the narratives they construct, and capacities teachers cultivate to support student belonging and deep learning. To learn more about Mary Helen and her work, check out candle.usc.edu.well
Episode Summary
Applying neuroscience and psychology to education and formation, pioneering researcher Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang draws connections between emotions, relationships, brains, stories, meaning, and purpose to shed light on how we learn, grow, and thrive.
Her research on the brain shows how we’re woven together in an intricate and glorious network of life, and when we synthesize the neurological, the psychological, the physical, and the social, we’re able to come to a deeper and more impactful understanding of human development and flourishing.
From the intricacies of adolescent brain development to the emotional and spiritual scaffolding of a meaningful life, she explains how transcendent thinking, story, and emotional engagement fuel identity formation and long-term flourishing. Drawing from cutting-edge research and humanistic insight, she explores how young people co-create their worlds and how adults can support them in becoming adaptive, wise, and agentic.
In this conversation with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, we discuss:
- The value of integrating neuroscience with educational, emotional, and moral development
- The strange and glorious case of the adolescent brain—how we mature, learn how to think, feel, and exercise our agency, and strive to become wise
- The emotional and relational nature of education and moral development—expressed in nurturing conversation between caring adults and youth
- The importance of agency, intentionality, and transcendent thinking in human thriving
- Neural plasticity and the capacity to change our brains throughout our lifespan
- And, the big picture of thriving, that brings together our mental life, neurobiology, and other physical processes—with relationships, community, and society at large.
Show Notes
Episode Highlights
- "Thriving is really about living like you mean it."
- "We co-construct one another’s lived experiences by the virtue of being there together."
- "You learn how to have an instinct—it’s not something you’re just born with."
- "Transcendent thinking literally grows the adolescent brain."
- "Meaning-making is an abstraction, a transcendent story we construct to bring coherence to our lives."
- Thriving as dynamic, purposeful engagement
- Emotional experiences shaping brain development
- Co-construction of identity in social relationships
- Adolescence as a time of neurodevelopmental remodeling
- How transcendent thinking fosters brain growth over time
- Adolescents’ drive for deeper moral and ethical narratives
- Meaning-making as a tool for personal and societal transformation
- Linking personal experience with historical and social narratives
- Default mode network and its role in reflection and creativity
- From instinct to insight—how the brain learns to feel
- The relationship between emotional health and physical well-being
- Gut-brain connection, serotonin, and embodied cognition
- Transcendence as a cognitive-emotional developmental milestone
- Influence of media, anxiety, and political division on adolescent minds
- Brain-based evidence of narrative engagement growing identity
- Learning to align present feelings with long-term purpose
- Brain science dismantling the myth of "subjective = unimportant"
- Agency, presence, and intentionality in thriving
- Integration of neuroscience with humanistic and applied methods
- Role of narrative in therapy, art, education, and spirituality
- How adolescents learn to feel, not just what to think
- Culturally-rooted belief systems shaping neural responses
- The importance of reflection, introspection, and deep conversation
- Adolescents’ innate capacity for moral concern and big-picture thinking
- Learning through story: case studies in adolescent empathy
- Reclaiming agency from external cultural and tech influences
- Identity as a lifelong, evolving narrative—not a fixed outcome
- Growth as intentional reflection, not cognitive acceleration
- Spiritual wellness as iterative construction of meaning and values
- Parenting and mentoring for deep reflective growth
- Adaptive wisdom: balancing immediacy with long-term vision
- Signs of flourishing: self-liking, relationship quality, agency
- Importance of diverse experiences and safe, supportive relationships
- Adults thriving through neuroplasticity and meaning-making
- The lifelong role of story and belief in shaping purpose
- Cognitive engagement and values-based direction over passive success
- Emotional safety and time as prerequisites for transcendence
- Listening, asking why, and welcoming the unknown as virtues of thriving
- Pam King’s Key Takeaways
- Brain science isn’t better or worse than other perspectives on human life, but it offers incredible insight for how we grow and thrive.
- Stories and narratives are the essential threads that hold our lives together; how you think and the story you’re telling yourself matters for your thriving.
- Education isn’t just a cognitive process. Our emotions and our bodies and our sense of connection and safety in relationships play a central role in learning.
- Spiritual health connects how our transcendent thinking informs our identity and how we live in reciprocity with the world beyond ourselves
- Thriving involves an agile agency that helps us live with skill and intentionality—so “live like you mean it.”
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