WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: Are Other Animals Superstitious?

0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:04.600
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:09.440
<v Speaker 1>Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here with a classic

0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:14.480
<v Speaker 1>episode from our archives. Superstition is a fascinating phenomenon, and

0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.200
<v Speaker 1>it turns out that humans aren't the only animals that

0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:22.800
<v Speaker 1>have them. I'll let former Lauren explain, Hey brain Stuff,

0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.200
<v Speaker 1>Lauren vogel bomb here. Imagine your hours into a late

0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.600
<v Speaker 1>night poker match. Hold up in the basement of a

0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.840
<v Speaker 1>sketchy watering hole where tensions are rising. You know you

0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.280
<v Speaker 1>should quit while you're ahead, but you just can't bring

0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.880
<v Speaker 1>yourself to leave any possible winnings on the table. The

0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.320
<v Speaker 1>streak has gone on so long it's like you can't lose,

0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.440
<v Speaker 1>except you do. One bad card deals you a killer blow.

0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:48.280
<v Speaker 1>The spell is broken and your hot hand is gone. Unfortunately,

0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.560
<v Speaker 1>it never existed in the first place. Researchers have taken

0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.200
<v Speaker 1>great pains to prove that the hot hand bias is

0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.560
<v Speaker 1>exactly that a bias. It's humans innate predisposition that makes

0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.160
<v Speaker 1>us believe we see patterns including winning or losing streaks

0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:06.360
<v Speaker 1>where none exist, especially when preservation or gain are involved.

0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:11.120
<v Speaker 1>Now we know that monkeys have the same superstitious bias too, oh,

0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.360
<v Speaker 1>and they really love to gamble. It seems we species

0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.360
<v Speaker 1>have more in common than just the of our DNA.

0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:20.800
<v Speaker 1>During a study by researchers at Clarkston University and the

0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.399
<v Speaker 1>University of Rochester, REESUS monkeys played a fast paced computer

0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.240
<v Speaker 1>game with built in rewards. Correctly guess the next step

0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.880
<v Speaker 1>in the pattern, get a treat. However, even when the

0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.640
<v Speaker 1>sequence was random, the monkeys gambled like they were on

0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.240
<v Speaker 1>a winning streak, showing a false belief in their run

0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.600
<v Speaker 1>of good luck. Despite being given multiple opportunities to rehearse

0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.440
<v Speaker 1>a different scenario, the monkeys stuck to the patterns they

0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.240
<v Speaker 1>perceived to be winning ones. Gambling monkeys hell bent on

0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.040
<v Speaker 1>a hot hand is one thing. Figuring out why they

0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.480
<v Speaker 1>share our pension for these patterns is another. A researchers

0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.760
<v Speaker 1>point to the odds of finding food in a monkey's

0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.640
<v Speaker 1>natural habitat. If a monkey finds a plump beetle under

0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:58.520
<v Speaker 1>tree bark once, it's a clue that he should check

0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.640
<v Speaker 1>nearby trees too. If he finds another beetle nearby, it

0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.600
<v Speaker 1>reinforces a pattern that the monkey will probably repeat the

0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.200
<v Speaker 1>next time he's hungry, even though he may never find

0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.520
<v Speaker 1>another beetle the next twenty times he looks. It seems

0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.720
<v Speaker 1>neither monkeys nor humans ever really make decisions that are

0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.280
<v Speaker 1>free from bias, and we don't even recognize that we're

0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.000
<v Speaker 1>doing it. Take the process by which some humans decide

0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.760
<v Speaker 1>to invest in a particular stock. A stock that rises

0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.920
<v Speaker 1>one day is never guaranteed to rise the next, or

0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.160
<v Speaker 1>ever again. Yet we believe that if a stock went

0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:29.880
<v Speaker 1>up once, it will do it again, and so surely

0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.440
<v Speaker 1>that will be the most logical investment. This belief in

0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.280
<v Speaker 1>winning and losing streaks may not be solely a product

0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.840
<v Speaker 1>of life experiences, as was previously thought, Because we share

0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.880
<v Speaker 1>the superstition with monkeys. Scientists think there may be a

0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.880
<v Speaker 1>genetic component to it and hope that further research could

0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.119
<v Speaker 1>lead to new approaches to treating gambling addiction, insight into

0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:57.280
<v Speaker 1>decision making theory, and more. Today's episode was written by

0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.320
<v Speaker 1>Laurie L. Dove and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Bang.

0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.000
<v Speaker 1>For more on this lons of other curious topics, visit

0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.720
<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of

0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.120
<v Speaker 1>I Heart Radio. For more podcasts of my heart Radio,

0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.000
<v Speaker 1>visit the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you

0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:12.320
<v Speaker 1>listen to your favorite shows.