📖 Neuro Nook Recap: January 2026– What We Value
📘What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change by Dr. Emily Falk, Ph.D.
💭 Think about it…
the value calculation in real life…
“Getting takeout trumps saving for retirement,
hitting deadlines trumps professional development,
the Internet vortex trumps spending time with the people we love.
In this way, the choices the brain hands down don’t always align with what we might explicitly think of as the thing we value most.”
What’s This Book About❓
A neuroscientist reveals the hidden calculations that shape our daily decisions―and how to make more fulfilling, impactful choices in our work, relationships, and lives.
💌 Words From the Author:
”Once you understand how the brain assigns value to different options,
you can view the decisions you can make with a broader lens…
The value our brain assigns to any given option is never fixed.
Your behavior isn't determined solely by your genes
or your education or your personality,
and is highly dependent on context and culture.”
💭 Reflection Questions for Real Life Integration
It makes it worthwhile to do an audit every once in a while and to work towards developing awareness of why we do what we do. What are the everyday choices we’re making?
How are we making them?
Are there no new choices that we can make or ways to choose differently?
Are there possibilities we haven’t even considered?
And are the choices we are making really serving the lives we want to lead, the people we want to be?
What do you see people around you doing that you respect, admire, or want to emulate? What do you see people around you doing that you want to challenge or avoid? (63)
What would you do if you came face-to-face with your future self? What choices fill most of your days without much thought?
Fill in the blank: “ Being a _____ makes me feel _____..; “Being a ______ reflects my true ______.”; “When I am being a ______ I experience _______.” (pg 111)
Collect some objective data about the sources of ideas you're exposed to most.
What patterns do you see if you make a list of who wrote the last 10 books you've read or who hosts the podcast you've listened to in the past few months?
How about if you make a list of the people you've talked to the most at work in the past 6 months?
Whose ideas are getting the most priority going into your brain?
What opportunities for connecting people and ideas, for making connections, let you notice if you expand your assumptions about who has relevant ideas or expertise for understanding the world and the problems you want to solve in your daily life?
The more power you have in a given environment, the more important it is to perform this kind of questioning and evaluation. (136)
Introduction
In What We Value, neuroscientist Dr. Emily Falk explains how your brain decides what matters in real time. Not in theory. In everyday life. From what you scroll past. To how you speak up. To why short-term comfort often beats long-term goals. This book pulls back the curtain on choice and shows how value lives in the brain, shaped by identity, relationships, culture, and context.
📘 Key Insights from What We Value
The Value-Based Decision System
Your brain runs a value calculation every time you choose. It weighs options on a shared internal scale, even when choices look unrelated. Comfort versus growth. Belonging versus honesty. Now versus later.
The process works in three steps.
1. First, your brain assigns subjective value to each option in the moment.
2. Second, it selects the option with the highest immediate value.
3. Third, it tracks how rewarding the outcome feels and updates future choices.
This system prioritizes what feels most relevant right now. Not what matters most long term. Immediate reward often wins unless attention shifts.
The Self-Relevance System
The self-relevance system answers one core question. Is this me or not me?
It draws from past experiences, current identity, and imagined futures. When a choice aligns with how you see yourself, it feels rewarding. When it clashes, resistance shows up fast.
Identity feeds the value system. Choices consistent with identity feel easier. This explains why behavior change sticks when actions align with who you believe you are.
The good news. Identity stays flexible. You do not need to believe every story your brain tells you about who you are.
The Social-Relevance System
The social-relevance system tracks what others think, feel, and do. It predicts reactions. It seeks belonging. It treats social approval as a reward similar to money or food.
This system shapes what you value without conscious awareness. Norms. Media. Group behavior. All shift your internal value scale.
Social influence does not act from the outside. It reshapes value from within. Awareness restores agency.
Change Works When Attention Changes
The value system favors immediate rewards. Long-term benefits feel abstract. This explains why advice often falls flat.
Change sticks when attention moves to what feels good now.
Taste before health. Connection before obligation. Identity before instruction.
Tools like value affirmation, cognitive reappraisal, and temptation bundling help align immediate reward with meaningful goals.
💌 “The core trait that we can grow in ourselves is curiosity!”
Here are several ideas from the book that matter for real life.
Value Lives in the Moment
The brain does not rank choices based on long-term importance. It ranks them based on what feels most rewarding right now. Immediate comfort, social approval, or emotional relief often outweigh future benefits.
This explains why good intentions fall apart under stress. The brain follows relevance, not ideals.
In daily life, this means change starts by reshaping what feels rewarding in the moment. Make the better choice easier. Add an immediate benefit. Reduce friction. Long-term goals survive when they feel good today.
Identity Drives Behavior
The self-relevance system constantly sorts experiences into “me” or “not me.” When a behavior fits your identity, it feels natural. When it clashes, resistance appears.
This is why advice often fails. It asks people to act against who they believe they are.
Lasting change comes from identity alignment. Behaviors stick when they feel like expressions of the self, not corrections of a flaw. Small actions tied to identity quietly retrain the brain’s value system.
Social Influence Happens From the Inside
The brain tracks what others think, feel, and do. Social approval registers as a reward. Social disapproval registers as pain. Over time, this shapes what feels normal and valuable.
Social influence does not pressure behavior from the outside. It reshapes internal value.
This makes awareness powerful. Notice who fills your attention. Notice which behaviors you see repeated. The social environment you inhabit teaches your brain what matters.
Attention Rewrites Value
What you focus on gains weight in the value calculation. Shifting attention changes how a choice feels.
The same decision can feel appealing or exhausting depending on what you highlight. Immediate pleasure. Social meaning. Personal relevance.
Before reacting, pause and redirect attention. Look for the dimension that aligns with your values. This small shift often changes the choice without force.
Why Defensiveness Blocks Growth
Threats to identity trigger defensive responses. When self-worth feels at risk, the brain closes off new information, even helpful advice.
The book shows that reflecting on core values stabilizes your identity. This makes the brain more open to feedback and change.
Before a tense conversation or stressful encounter, grounding yourself in what matters most reduces defensiveness and increases flexibility. Common ground becomes easier to find.
Change Works Better Through Connection
Brains sync during shared experiences and meaningful conversations. This synchrony supports understanding and trust.
Connection comes before persuasion. People learn and change more readily when they feel understood.
In daily life, this means starting with shared experience rather than argument. Build alignment first. Then explore differences.
Small Choices Shape Culture
Individual decisions do not stay individual. Others observe them. Over time, repeated behaviors shift norms.
Culture changes through accumulation. Quiet choices. Modeled values. Visible consistency.
The book leaves readers with a grounded truth. Value is flexible. Attention shapes it. Identity reinforces it. Social context spreads it.
You are not only making decisions. You are teaching your brain and the people around you what matters.
“The way people wield power can result in harm,
or it can result in well-being and increased civic engagement…
Knowing that what we express can be contagious, we can take steps to be more aware of which sorts of behaviors and rhetoric we reinforce and which we discourage. Doing so may lead those around us to be more aligned with the values we want to see in the world.”
📝 Brain Health Rx from What We Value:
“Pause for five minutes before a challenging conversation.
Name the values at the core of who you are.
This reduces defensiveness, increases openness to advice,
and supports better decisions in the moment.”
✨ Final Thought
Your brain stays open to change. Value never fixes itself in place. Every choice sends a signal. To yourself. To others. Over time, these signals stack and shape culture.
You are not only responding to the world. You are quietly helping write it.
Bonus Resources From Our Neuro Nook Members- Thank you for engaging with us!
Explore the book, “Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein
Learn more about the term “echo chamber” and how this contributes to the spread of misinformation online
Values in Action (VIA) Character Strength Inventory (developed by Christopher Peterson, Ph.D. and Martin Seligman, prominently recognised as a leading authority in positive psychology)
💬 Closing Takeaways from the Hosts
Heather: By identifying and highlighting ways that different choices we want to make can be consistent with who we are, we can feel a greater sense of agency and autonomy over our behavior and experiences and help others do the same. (p38)
Krystal: “When we make choices, others see them… but if enough of us make a different kind of choice than broader systems advocate for, then we can shape the kinds of cultural norms that challenge them. Maybe, slowly, it could even lead us out of the cave. Slowly, we realize that the walls don’t have to be so tight, that we aren’t alone, that each one of us has so many sources of light, illuminating so many possibilities. It’s not only that we make ourselves with the choices we make–the choices we make, together, in the long run, create the world we live in.” (207)
✍ LIVE AUTHOR APPEARANCE HAPPENING NEXT MONTH! 📚
🗓️ Thursday, February 5, 2025 | 🕛 12:00-12:45 PM EDT
🗓️ Upcoming Neuro Nook Meetings
Join me at the Virtual Brain Health Center with Brain Health Mentors for the upcoming Neuro Nook Book Club discussions, where we explore thought-provoking books that deepen our understanding of brain health and wellness.
Here’s what’s coming up: Mark your calendar for Thursday, February 5, 2025!
📖 Book of the Month- ✍ LIVE AUTHOR APPEARANCE! ✍
📘 Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World by Anne-Laure Le Cunff | Learn More
❓What’s it about❓
A guide to replacing linear goal-setting with experimental thinking, offering scientific research and practical tools for discovering authentic ambitions through personal experimentation and embracing uncertainty.
“Whether you’re looking to improve your health, career, or creativity, Tiny Experiments is a powerful guide to embracing curiosity and developing an experimental mindset. Instead of big changes, this book encourages testing small tweaks that lead to lasting growth. Perfect for anyone seeking more freedom in how they design their life.”
Save the date for our future book club meeting from 12:00-1:00 PM EST on:
March 5, 2026 ✍ **LIVE Author Appearance** ✍
The Gaslit Brain: Protect Your Brain from the Lies of Bullying, Gaslighting, and Institutional Complicity by Dr. Jennifer Fraser, Ph.D.
In brain health & wellness,
- Krystal