How Small Habits Can Lead to Big Benefits

We often focus on what we can do individually to change our lives and improve our futures—through our own willpower, choices, and internal narratives. But according to Gregory Walton, a professor of psychology at Stanford, “our sense of self, our confidence, and even our relationships are shaped by the environments we move through and the way others see us.” In other words, places and people outside of us influence us more than we think.

Walton has spent years studying how subtle social cues—the way a teacher frames feedback, the way a partner approaches conflict, or the way a community signals belonging—can shape a person’s identity and future. He calls these tweaks wise interventions: small but strategic changes that can have profound effects on motivation, learning, and resilience.

In his new book, Ordinary Magic, Walton explores how small but powerful social forces influence everything from parenting to workplace culture to friendships. I spoke with him about how we can better understand the hidden dynamics shaping our lives, how small changes can help people feel like they belong, and how we can use these insights to foster better relationships—at home, in school, and in our communities.

Here’s our conversation, edited for clarity.

Hope Reese: The subtle ways we influence each other can go in a positive or negative direction. Can you explain that?

Gregory Walton: “Spiral up or spiral down” is a way to understand how a process goes out of one system and into another. Say you’re in a situation where you’re asking an icky question like, “Can I trust you?” And then you start to behave in a certain way. That behavior is visible to other people, and they are responding to that. That starts these cycles that can be either positive or negative.

For instance, say you feel a little bit insecure in a relationship, you’re unsure if your partner really is committed to you. Then they’re late again, and you think, “My fears are confirmed, they are not committed to me.” You lash out, even a little bit, or you hold back. That person sees that, and now they’re dealing with a partner who’s more difficult.

But you can also “spiral up.” For instance, where there’s a teacher and a student and the teacher can see the good and competent student that that student can become—even when they’re getting in fights and they’re not doing well in math class—they can hold up that image for the student.

HR: Some interventions are unbelievably effective for relationships. Can you talk about these?

GW: I have an understanding of how these interventions work, but I also share the incredulity and astonishment at them.

It goes back to the idea of spirals—and all a relationship is, really, is just that spiral between two people. I see you and I have a certain thought or feeling, and then I manifest that in some way, and then you see how I’m behaving towards you, and you have your thoughts and feelings, and you bring it back to me. When couples get caught in conflicts, the conflict itself is starting to imply a kind of broader negative meaning for the couple—every little offense, every little problem, becomes another sign of disrespect or lack of commitment.

Finkel’s seven-minute writing every four months is [one example of an intervention where couples] take a third-party perspective [of someone] who wants the best for all. Can both members of the couple find another way to see the conflict? And can they overcome the barriers that would prevent them from taking that into conflict situations? This [intervention] helps make conflicts more productive: Couples are less distressed when they have a conflict and presumably they’re more productive in dealing with it.

There’s also Karina Schumann’s intervention on taking five minutes to think about what your big-picture values really are before you engage in that conflict conversation. And it improves relationships a year later.

Denise Marigold’s compliment work is about the same process where each member of the couple gets space to essentially feel the love that their partner has for them and be centered in that, and then go into the conflict conversation. And then it’s just a completely different situation: You’re productive, you actually can work out whatever the issue is.

HR: There is one intervention that was shown to improve racial relations. Can you describe it?

GW: Research finds that cross-race friendships, even when they start at similar levels of closeness, degrade more quickly than same-race friendships. One process that might be contributing to that is the difficulty that both members of that friendship have in talking about differences that they have in, for example, their race-related experiences.

Kiara Sanchez wrote a paper about Black and white friends talking about Black friends’ race-related experiences called “A Threatening Opportunity.” She found that both groups saw really valuable opportunities in having those conversations, opportunities for mutual understanding, opportunities for greater closeness—but they also felt different kinds of threat in that. They had different kinds of worries. For instance, Black friends were apprehensive that their experiences might not be taken seriously or understood, and white friends were apprehensive that they might say something wrong or be seen as insensitive or potentially racist. Both people are treating a certain space as a no-go zone—but then, that space doesn’t get known, and that’s a barrier in the relationship.

In her experiment, she developed a structured protocol for young adults who are white and Black friends to have a personal conversation with each other over Zoom. In the first case, it was a general personal conversation about something in the Black friend’s personal identity and experience that they hadn’t shared before. In the second case, it had to do with their racial identity or background or experience. And in the third case, it was similar to the second case, but both friends also did an exercise to think directly about the apprehension and anxiety that that topic can pose to both friends. It was a way to surface that these conversations can provoke anxiety sometimes, but to represent that anxiety as a sign of the friends’ commitment to each other—their caring for each other and their commitment to that relationship—and going to that place that’s a little bit more difficult because they care about each other.

Everybody felt a lot closer afterward. But when Kiara tracked those friends over time, in that third condition, when friends had been given this support to think through the anxiety that that topic poses and then had the conversation, those friendships stayed strong from the Black friend’s perspective. They stayed just as close, and they felt more comfortable in having those kinds of conversations going forward, even two to eight months later.

HR: As far as interventions in the education space, what are some ways language can be used to support students when delivering feedback?

GW: The teacher can say to a student who did well, “Good job, you did well.” There’s research by Lora Park at the University of Buffalo showing that for women in math in particular, when a male instructor doesn’t just give them a good score but marks that score was good, that supports their experience of belonging.

When a student hasn’t done well, you can say, “I can see that you haven’t done well. I know that you can do better. I’m here to partner with you in your growth journey. Let me know how I can help.” It’s not about coddling. When you’re clear about the questions that are on the table for somebody, you don’t have to hold back in giving them critical feedback or telling them that they’re not there yet. You can be very blunt and clear about that, but you can also tell them about your belief in their potential and the quality of that ongoing relationship that you have with them.

“You did well, you worked hard at this, and I think you can do better. This is feedback to help support you.” A lot of times we don’t say these things. We imply them or we intend them, but we don’t say them.

HR: Telling students they’re smart is actually hurting them, right?

GW: Right. The classic Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck work on praise processes, like “Oh, you’re so smart,” shows that, yes, that feels really good. But it creates this kind of collective environment where when you struggle at something or you fail at something, your “genius” is now at risk—that maybe you don’t have it, maybe you never had it, or maybe it’s running out. This doesn’t equip you to be resilient.

HR: And coddling has a negative effect, right?

GW: This is the long history of the self-esteem movement. You walk into elementary school classrooms and still, today, you’ll see posters, “You’re number one!” There’s research that excessive, undeserved, non-contingent praise is bad and backfires for kids. For kids who are already kind of self-congratulatory, it breeds narcissism. For kids who are a little more modest, it can undermine self-esteem. It seems to produce the opposite of what it intends.

The three-legged approach that Eddie Brummelman talks about is 1) unconditional regard, I love you no matter what; 2) honest feedback, here’s where you are; and 3) a growth mindset, here’s my belief in your potential to grow and here’s how I’m going to play my role in supporting that. That’s what actually breeds healthy self-esteem and resilient kids.