WEBVTT - Behavioral Priming: Buy, Robot Human! 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.240 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.640 Chuck Charles w Chuck Bryant, the best all around Boy, 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.840 and there's Jerry Rowland. And this is stuff you should 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:23.279 know about. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.480 Really, wish I hadn't have told you that. I think 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.240 I've told you that before, though, so you forgot the 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:29.840 first time, so maybe you'll forget again. 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:32.919 I can't you know how people keep lists of like 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.800 episodes we say we should do, or movies we've mentioned, 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.159 or something like that. They should keep a list of 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.160 the different things that we've talked about and then completely 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.920 forgot we talked about, because I'm sure it would be extensive. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:44.800 Yeah, big list. 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:50.720 So speaking of big list, Chuck, we're talking today about priming, 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.040 which is the present tense of prime us, and what 0:00:55.080 --> 0:01:00.920 it refers to is a a psychological term where you 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:05.040 are prompted to respond in a certain way, behave in 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:10.440 a certain way, choose a certain selection based on some 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.800 prompt that was given to you without your knowledge. It 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.520 could either be so flashed so fast or something on 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.400 a computer screen that your conscious awareness didn't pick up 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.240 on it, or it could just be presented to you 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.800 in a way that you're not you're not aware that 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.720 it's actually related to the thing that you're being say, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:31.280 tested on. 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.959 Yeah, exactly. And this is a big, big thing in 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.360 cognitive psychology, and you know, we're going to kind of 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.120 get into the ins and outs of it. Some of it, 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:46.119 there's there's a lot of for some of it, there's 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.600 a lot of studies that sort of indicate that there's 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.400 a lot to it. There's another part of this that 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:53.840 we'll get to where there's a lot of studies that 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.760 aren't so great or that have been fudged or data's 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:02.520 been massaged or completely fabricated, where it seems like sometimes 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.960 they've been found out as far as researchers go. But 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:08.840 it all comes down to memory. And if you're if 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.440 you're talking to a cognitive psychologist, they'll say that you 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.639 have a couple of ways that you remember things. One 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.079 is your explicit memory or your active or conscious memory. 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.560 Like if you're trying to think of something and you 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.240 actively engage your memory to think of a thing, that's 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:24.760 what that is. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.800 If somebody asked, like what was Chuck's senior superlative in 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.680 high school? I would think back to a fact that 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.360 I learned, and I would say best all round boy, is. 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.840 It going to be one of those? And then implicit 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.000 memory is the other one. And that's just what you 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:46.040 remember on an unconscious level. So if someone asked me 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.560 what was your senior superlo, wouldn't even have to think 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.720 about it, best all around boy, boom, it just pops 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.079 right out as if it were my name. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.800 Right, So those are and this is really kind of 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.880 like breaking it down to a really rough basic level. 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.320 It's much more complex than that. Well, we bring that 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:08.040 up because yours. It's tapping into the different ways that 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:13.440 you access memories that priming is based on. Yeah, and 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:18.160 you said it falls under the rubric of cognitive psychology, 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.880 and that is true. Cognitive psychology has shown very clearly 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:27.920 that this actually works. That if you give somebody, say 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.400 a word, and you show them a list of associated words, 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.960 it's going to just happen that they they're able to 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:39.200 pick out the associated word faster than other words. There, Well, 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.360 we'll give you some examples. Rather than just me mushing 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.680 it all together. Let's let's tease it out a little 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.360 bit like a eighties per. 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.720 Yeah, oh boy, Yeah, Let let's do that, because I 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:52.520 think if we give some of these examples it'll make 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.760 a little more sense. For instance, this first exercise that 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:58.560 Dave helped us out with this they found this one. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.840 It's called the lexical decision, and that is the idea 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.080 that if you put a word up on a screen 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.640 for a couple of seconds as a priming word, then 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.000 as the subject, will indicate the next word on the 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.600 screen if it's real word or if it's a nonsense word, 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.880 but that will be influenced that's your lexical decision you're making, 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.640 but that will be influenced by that priming word that 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:22.640 you saw. So in this case, Dave, do you use 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.400 the example Doctor You're sitting there in the lab. Bill 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.800 Murray's on the other side, got the shaker already. Doctor 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:33.760 pops up on the screen for a couple of seconds. 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.280 That's your priming word, and then all of a sudden 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.360 other words pop up after that, and our job as 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.479 a subject is to say whether that's a real word 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.520 or a nonsense word. And obviously you would think if 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.080 the word nurse pops up, you're going to be recognizing 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.200 that a lot faster. So it's all about sort of 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.520 the speed at which you recognize this as a real 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:59.000 or nonsense word. Nurse would be a much faster decision 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.440 than if it was basketball, right. 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:08.520 And it's basically words that share a similar category are 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.919 more easily accessed once you've been primed, almost like the 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.719 way that we sort things is by putting them into 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:19.480 large categories like doctor, nurse, hospital, stethoscope, right, and then 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:24.279 once you open that category by thinking of doctor, you're 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.080 going to be able to access the other stuff in 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.640 that category much more easily than say something in a 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.880 totally different category like cheese in the same category as delicious, 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.719 that kind of stuff. Right, That seems for sure, that 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.520 seems like what it's tapping into, and it actually seems 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.799 to reveal that that's kind of how we store memories. 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:49.400 There's another another demonstration that was pretty famous that shows 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.679 for sure. Again, I just want to get this across. 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:55.559 Cognitive priming really works. If you give people a list 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.800 of words and one of those words has a letter missing, 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.039 say a vowel, that could make multiple different words they're 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.400 going to choose or they're going to fill it in 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.880 differently based on the other words in the list. So, 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.920 for example, if you have a list of words bread, milk, hot, 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.440 and then the last word is so o, blank p, 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.440 poop sure or soup Oh, I think would be a 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.880 good one, right, yeah, And depending on whether you know 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:25.719 how to spell, you might spell it with an oh 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.080 or you doesn't matter, You're still getting the point across, right. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.039 Or in another example of the same, you know, missing letter, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:38.400 if it was shower, water, wash, so blank p, you 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.160 might say poop there too. Actually, soap would probably be 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.000 the word. So you know, it's just a very intuitive 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.719 kind of thing happening because your brain is working in 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.440 a very unconscious way because or I guess non conscious, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.440 because it is primed by the words that precede the 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:56.360 one with a missing letter. 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.320 Right. And then there's also another another There's a number 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.600 of different ways of priming people cognitively, but one that 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.640 just makes total sense, and I think we've all run 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.960 into is repetition priming, to where if you are shown, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:14.800 like say, a pair of words, maybe sometimes one of 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:16.520 which is a nonsense word, and you have to pick 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.520 out the nonsense words. If you see, like in a 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.080 list over and over again, doctor and nurse, doctor and nurse, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.840 it comes up three times out of a seven word 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.160 pair list. You're going to move through those much more 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.520 quickly because it's right there in the forefront of your mind, 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.440 so it hasn't faded yet, so you're just going to 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.880 pick it out faster and faster the more it's repeated. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.000 That's a form of priming too. 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.520 Yeah, and these are all really super basic, you know, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.320 examples of cognitive priming, But it does show a lot 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.560 about how our memory works. That were not just computers 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:54.640 where we can just access a file by clicking on 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:59.800 it very easily. We develop shortcuts in our brain. We 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.240 take shortcuts when we see words relating them to other words, 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.720 and so it just makes sense, you know, you could 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:12.680 access something much much faster because you have been primed. 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.680 In other words, our implicit memory can be tapped into 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:18.560 a lot quicker than our explicit memory. 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.240 Right. And at the end of each of these experiments, 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.800 it kind of quickly became tradition where the researcher would 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:28.760 stand up and point at this and be like, you've 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.959 been primed, maybe adding a boo yah once in a while. 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.640 Yeah, and Deon Sanders just moon walks through the background. 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.720 Really, so we know that this is true also, not 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.960 just because study after study has shown that this is 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.920 actually correct. But when you put somebody in the Wonder Machine, 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.480 the fMRI gotta do it. Yeah, they found that, like 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:56.720 if you ask somebody the name of let's say, Anya 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.720 Taylor Joy, say who was the star of the Witch, 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.160 but also the Gorge, which isn't that good? 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.600 I thought that was fairly entertaining for a not great movie. 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.080 By the way, The Gorge, Yeah, it was highly watchable 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.120 on like a rainy, not feeling so great day kind 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:11.440 of movie. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.280 Way, agreed, Yeah, agreed. It just wow, it takes a 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.120 sudden turn. It's just really surprising. But yes, I agree. 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:20.880 I think that's a good way to put it. You 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.560 would stop and think like, oh, Anya Taylor Joy. And 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:26.360 by the way, the Queen's Gambit is one of the 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.319 best things I've ever seen in my entire life. 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.719 Oh yeah, yeah, the chess one. Yeah, that was great. 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:37.920 Okay, but if you also said, you know, name a 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.800 animal that you think of when we'd say the word dog. 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.079 What they found in the fMRI is that different parts 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.240 of your brain light up. So we do know that 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.040 priming does have a certain effect and it is different 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.559 than our normal kind of conscious recall, I. 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:58.040 Wonder if when they go into the fMRI Wonder Machine room. 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.199 Now the person running it just goes I'm telling you 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:03.600 what's gonna happen. Some part of light up and then 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.240 another part of light up, and you'll all be super happy. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:08.400 Right, you've been primed. 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.479 You've been primed in Deander's very slowly moonwalks. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:17.760 So, okay, that's cognitive priming. Now, imagine if you were 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.120 a psychologist and you said cognitive priming is kind of boring. 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.400 What if we could use that same stuff to get 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.560 people to eat more cheeseburgers, Yeah, or to vote for 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:34.319 a particular candidate in a political election, Like, what if 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:35.560 priming works for that? 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.600 Yeah? And that's you know, it's all fun in games 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.559 to just sort of look at these little experiments on 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:45.480 a campus somewhere. But if it has a real world use, 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.240 especially when it comes to marketing and advertising and stuff 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.720 like that, you can bet corporations are going to sink 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:52.720 some money into doing that. 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.679 Yes, So this is the handoff right here between cognitive 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:02.439 psychology to social psychology. And social psychology has studied priming 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.480 in great detail. It was a huge hit. You'll remember 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:09.000 back to nudge Economics, we talked about it in our 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:13.120 PR Live episode, like it was a big deal in 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.360 like the Late ought to about the twenty twelve. I 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.679 think something like those is just a big deal, and 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.079 it makes a lot of sense, Like it's the basis 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.679 of things like ideas like McDonald's uses red and yellow 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.840 in its logo because those colors are associated with excitement 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.920 or energy, your happiness, or they call it a happy 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:40.280 meal because over time your kid will associate McDonald's with 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:44.439 being happy or I'm loving it. It's just a jingle 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.600 or whatever, and it makes sense. It's very catchy, but 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.240 there's some part of your mind that it has been 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:55.880 primed to later on associate McDonald's with love, a positive feeling. 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.520 All of this is these examples of social psychology research 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.120 supporting this idea that you can prime human beings to 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.880 behave in a certain way just by using these same 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:12.040 techniques that cognitive psychologists prove work. Dog cat soup, soap, 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:12.920 that kind of stuff. 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.080 Yeah, as long as you beat them over the head 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.840 with it over and over and over again, because repetition 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.040 is one of the real keys here. Your brain just 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:25.120 being repeatedly exposed to that stimuli is going to you know, 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.160 strengthen that association over time, and brands know that, and 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.319 that's why it drives you crazy during you know, especially 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.319 like sports playoffs or something, when you see those same 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.360 ads over and over and over again. Yeah, it's a 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:38.880 it's big business. They're putting a lot of money into 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.160 into you know, sort of manipulating your brain essentially. 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.400 Yeah, I've said it before and I'll say it again. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:52.480 For some reason, some ad exec chose morning reruns of Murder. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.520 She wrote, all right, start TV over the air channel 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.520 network for the Burger King terrible singing. 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:06.320 There had to be some research into their viewership or something, right, it. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.120 Had to be. But the thing is, every single other 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.280 ad is for like human life insurance or health insurance 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.679 or dental insurance because you're you're just retired and now 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:21.120 you have Medicaid. Like every other ad that's almost stood out, 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:21.920 you know what I mean. 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:26.480 Well, you know, our senior friends in the world are 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.439 very concerned about their health and their healthcare, and they 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:31.800 still love those cheeseburgers. That's two things we know. 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.800 I guess that's it. But it really grated on my 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:36.720 nerves because I watched that almost every day. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:38.959 All right, why don't we take a break here. That's 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.000 a good table setting, I think, and we'll get back 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.840 to how this is used in media and politics. Should 0:13:45.880 --> 0:14:37.840 be no surprise right after this. All right, so we're back, 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:39.680 as promised. We're going to talk a little bit about 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.520 the media and politics, hopefully in a way that's just 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.800 sort of quick and easy and doesn't ruffle too many feathers, 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:49.120 because what we've seen is media of all stripes do this, 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.880 and politicians of all stripes do this. So it's not 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.480 singling anybody out. But when the media gets involved in 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.520 this kind of thing to shape public opinion, they do 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:05.440 so sort of a three pronged fork, which is agenda setting, framing, 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:10.080 and priming. Agenda setting being like, hey, what's what are 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.040 we going to focus on editorially maybe in today's paper 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.480 or every day until the election? How are you going 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.800 to frame this thing to suit what we feel is 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:25.440 probably our slant? And then priming it's basically, you know, 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.320 similar to the first two, but this is the subconscious 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.360 things where we're going to repeat things. We're going to 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.680 use certain words, certain images as to just sort of 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:36.240 reinforce how we framed it. 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.600 Yeah, so just for a quick example, let's say the 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:44.840 news decides to focus on crime, and that the framing 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.440 they uses that crime is on the rise, and you 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.840 hear about this over and over again, night after night 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:52.720 on the news, or you read about it over and 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.680 over again on your favorite news site. Eventually you're going 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.680 to be primed to think that crime is on the rise, 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.080 and you might even be a little scared of it. 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:07.280 Or relating to politics, a politician might latch onto that 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.040 and be like, crime's really hot right now. We're going 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.720 to make crime like the main point. We're going to 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.800 use it to set the agenda of our campaign, and 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.360 we're going to tap into that fear that this person, 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:21.720 this lack of safety that the people out there watching 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.080 the news feel because they're being told over and over 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.400 again crime is on the rise. Whether it is or not, 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:27.600 as irrelevant. 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.040 Yeah, there's no data, feel that it is exactly. 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.760 They feel that crime is on the rise. So we 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.840 a politician, are going to tap into that and use 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.000 it to helpfully get an election, because now we can 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.000 prime them to get that emotional response out of them 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.400 over and over again until we finally move them to 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.479 the voting stations to vote for me the politician. 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:50.160 That's right, I'd vote for you. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:54.760 By the way, I would never ever run for public life. 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:56.920 Oh of course you wouldn't, but I would never. I 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.280 would vote for you for like, you know, Neighborhood Watch 0:16:59.320 --> 0:16:59.720 or something. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.680 Would you vote for me for best all Round? Boy? 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.440 Oh man, I mean you got that one in the bag, buddy. 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:07.120 You don't need my. 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:08.399 Vote, thank you. 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.480 Dog Whistling is something that you know, you've heard more 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.560 and more as a sort of a term used and 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.240 you know, social media politics, on the news, stuff like that, 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.160 And that is when you use a word or phrase 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.560 that you sort of are in not sort of, you 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:30.359 are very much intentionally associating with a negative racial stereotype. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:35.560 But it's not explicit, so it operates on the unconscious level. 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.600 And this is where they tap into implicit bias, something 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:45.040 that everybody has, and you know, using these coded words. 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.760 Basically there are things that I will never take one 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:50.760 of these. It scares me to death. So I would 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.840 never sit down for an implicit bias test because I 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.360 don't want to know what my implicit biases are. It's 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.040 absolutely terrifying because we all have them. I guess that's 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.520 probably cowardly and I should know what my implicit biases 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.960 are so I can try and correct those. But it's 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.200 basically when they sit you down and then you say, 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.880 all right, respond very quickly as quick as you can 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:16.119 to a series of images or words, and anything within 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:20.040 two hundred and six hundred milliseconds is your implicit memory. 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.199 Anything after that you're thinking about, and they that's explicit memory. 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:30.280 Right. Two things about that. One If every if implicit 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.359 bias is a universal thing and everybody has it, you're free, Okay, 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:36.600 I have to feel as bad about it. I mean, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:38.800 it's definitely something you should work to correct, if you say, 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.040 but you don't have to feel like it's just you. 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:41.640 Right. 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.040 That's one thing. And then the second thing, too, Chuck, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.560 is if it is true that we all are implicitly biased, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.480 say like along racial lines. I feel like you could 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.760 explain it by saying, by it's an example of our 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:03.600 evolutionary history not being caught up yet to our current 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:08.639 social history. Like when we foreign modern societies, we jumped 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.520 light years ahead as far as evolution goes, and the 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.080 way that we think and see the world just completely 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:21.200 just hit warp speed. But evolutionarily there's still a big 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.600 lag catching up to it. So we're fearful of people 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.720 who don't look like us, or have a slightly different culture, 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.800 live in a different nation, just evolutionarily speaking, even though 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.520 we know we shouldn't feel that way, that that's not 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:39.040 actually how things are. That conflict between those two things 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:40.560 is what the real issue is. 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.880 Yeah, oh boy, that really lets us all off the hook. 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.520 I guess, right, So we don't have to do anything 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.760 about it. It'll work itself out in ten thousand years. 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.320 Well, here's the thing, though, is when people sit down 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.440 for these tests, they found that even people who explicitly 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.000 disagree with any kind of racial stereotype and like, I 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:00.760 would never do that, I don't have those at all. 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.160 They even while I was about to say, fail those tests, 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.480 they even chart on those tests as showing implicit bias. 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:12.520 Right, so we've made it pretty squarely into social psychology 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.879 territory I now. And there were some there were some 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:20.120 early experiments trying to figure out how you can persuade 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:21.280 people using priming. 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.080 Right, he's like the seventies, right, yeah. 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.160 Late seventies, early eighties, and so one of the first 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.280 ones came out of nineteen seventy nine, and it was 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:36.280 a social psychology experiment where you gave people scrambled, like 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:38.920 a scrambled word list and said make a sentence out 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.760 of this, right, And so you would get something neutral 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:48.159 like her found new eye and I knew her is 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.240 a sentence you could make out of that, or you 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:55.480 would give something like leg break arm his You could say, 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.119 break his arm. And so one group was given more 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.720 hostile word scrambles to make sentences out of the other 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.200 was more neutral, And then that was part one. After 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:12.760 that they were asked to consider a hypothetical scenario in 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:17.439 which somebody's kind of ambiguously responding or interacting with somebody. 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.120 I think I saw that Donald is refusing to pay 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.440 rent until his landlord paints his apartment, and the people 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:28.240 who were given the hostile word scrambles rated Donald is 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:30.719 much more hostile than the people who are given the 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.639 neutral word scrambles. So what they're showing is that you 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.840 can nudge people toward forming an impression about someone they 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:42.119 know basically nothing about, based on priming them, yeah, to 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.080 feel one way or another about them. And then that 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:47.800 was like, if we can do that, man, what else 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.040 can we do? That really opened the floodgates. 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.359 Yeah, and you know we're about to tick through a 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.160 series of little things like that that might be mind 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:58.879 blowing for you where you're like, oh my god, I 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.439 can't believe that works, but just you know, sort of 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.159 put that in your pocket for now. There was one 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.960 study where it was again it was unscrambling sentences. Half 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.359 the people were given sentences that had words that were 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.199 you know, like healthier, healthy, and active lifestyle words. The 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.760 other half got neutral words, and afterward they said, all right, 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.280 you guys are great. You can go ahead and leave there. 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.359 You can you know, go up the stairs there and 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:27.959 get out of here to the parking deck up there, 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.199 or you can take the elevator. And people who unscrambled 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:34.200 the healthy words were more likely to take the stairs afterward, 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:37.440 so you know, they're like, hey, that's pretty much proof 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:39.879 right there. They had been primed with these healthy words 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:41.840 to make a healthier decision afterward. 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:45.479 Right And well, like you said, we'll talk about some 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:49.320 of the more shocking or surprising studies, but before that, 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.520 we need to mention a guy named John Barg who 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:55.960 became basically the rock star of this field starting in 0:22:56.000 --> 0:23:02.399 the nineties. He essentially wrote a paper that said, like 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:05.879 all of this is possible, Like, here's how you do that. 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:09.879 Here's how you take the findings of cognitive priming and 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:13.320 turn it into social or behavioral priming. And he was 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.439 very famous for a couple of studies, many studies, but 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.600 there's two that really stuck out to me that Let 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.040 me give you an example. One is that he tested 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:27.119