WEBVTT - Ep64 "Why do familiar things lose their shine (& what can we do about it)? " 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.879 If you could get a kiss from your favorite celebrity, 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:12.159 how long would you want to wait before getting it? 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.560 Why do things seem less meaningful or joyful over time 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.400 than they were at the beginning. And what does this 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.840 have to do with Netflix releasing all the episodes of 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.000 a new show at once so you can binge, Or 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.560 why companies always feel compelled to come out with new 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:36.280 and improved products every year, Or why French revolutionaries wanted 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.479 to make a week equal to five days instead of seven. 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.080 Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me David Eagleman. I'm a 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.400 neuroscientist and author at Stanford and in these episodes we 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.520 sail deeply into our three pound universe to understand why 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:07.800 and how our lives look the way they do. Today's 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:13.199 episode is about why familiar things can sometimes lose their 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.880 sparkle and what we can do about that. So let's 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.200 start with the fact that when your brain sees something 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:25.200 new and then sees it again and again, it becomes 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:30.120 more efficient at processing it and it burns less energy 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.000 on it. So imagine the first time you hear a 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.920 really cool new song playing at the coffee shop. You've 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.319 never heard this before, and your brain is screaming with 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.720 activity processing the tune and the rhythm and the lyrics. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:50.120 Why this is because in large part, your brain is 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.480 a prediction machine, and this is a new song, and 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.360 so it is unpredictable. You don't know where the lyrics 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.400 are going or the tune and so on. The song 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.840 is cool and interesting and it holds your attention and 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.760 you can't wait to hear it again. So you jump 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:08.919 on your cell phone and figure out the name, and 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.800 you play the song from the beginning, and you love it. 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.080 Now you listen again. Okay, it's still good. Are you 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:20.480 going to listen fourth time? Maybe tenth time? It's not 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.919 clear you're getting the same enjoyment out of it at 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.680 this point. So this is what economists refer to as 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.520 diminishing returns. You're not getting as much out of it 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.480 as you were at first. And in neuroscience we can 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.120 measure this directly in brain activity, and what we see 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.640 is less and less activity in the brain each time 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.160 the song plays. So the first time your brain is 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.200 on fire with activity, and then the second time we 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.640 measure slightly less. And as you listen to the same 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.200 song again and again, you have lower and lower activity. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.919 This is called repetition suppression, which is to say that 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:07.560 repeating something increasingly suppresses the brain's response. Why, well, it's 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:13.040 because we devote attention to things that are surprising. Because 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.040 the brain's job is to make an internal model of 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.320 the world, and the way that you optimize learning that 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.520 model is by ignoring the stuff that you already know 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.640 and just paying attention to surprises. So in the case 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.079 of the song at the coffee shop, you're not enjoying 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.679 it less because the music is any different, but because 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.960 you're different, your brain has become more and more efficient 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.040 at recognizing and processing the song, and that frees up 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.640 its cognitive resources for other tasks. Or just think about 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.200 the first time you walked into your living room when 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.680 you were first shopping for a place to live. The 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.040 first time you entered, you were keenly attending to the 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.520 layout and the colors of the pain and the lighting 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.480 and the smell and the sounds. But now that you 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.640 are an expert on your living room, you don't notice 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:13.480 any of this. All your brain cares about consciously is novelty. 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.680 In this case, is there anything out of place in 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.919 your living room? Did the couch get shifted over? Or 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.000 is there a stain on the ceiling, or is there 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.960 a candy wrapper on the floor. This is how the 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:30.960 brain constantly optimizes its function by paying attention to new 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:32.320 things and not. 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.400 Responding to the familiar. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:39.360 Now, this is at the heart of what drives brain plasticity, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:44.200 how your brain constantly is reconfiguring its circuitry. And in fact, 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.919 in my book Live Wired, I proposed a new framework 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:52.400 called infotropism, which is how the brain constantly seeks to 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:56.240 extract the richest information from the world, which always comes 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.240 from the new things, the things that it didn't already predict. So, 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:05.000 just like plants do phototropism where they move towards the light, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:11.920 so brains grow their circuitry toward the highest new information. 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.240 Now that's what's happening under the hood. But what I 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.479 want to explore today is the consequence of this, how 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:24.240 that influences our daily lives, Like the fact that familiar 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.920 things like songs and living rooms and relationships and jobs 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:32.719 and so on lose their color with time, and what 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.240 we might do about that. So for that I called 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:39.320 up my colleague Tolly share It. She's a neuroscientist and 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:44.400 professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and at MIT. 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.960 And she's recently co authored a book with Cass Sunstein, 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.599 the author and legal scholar at Harvard, and this book 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.719 is called Look Again, The Power of Noticing What Was 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:04.839 Always There. So here is my interview with Tlly. Kelly 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.680 tell us what is habituation. 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.080 So, habituation is our tendency to respond less and less 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.000 to things that are repeated or that are constant. So 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:17.119 let's take a really easy example. You enter into your room. 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:21.239 It's full of smoke. At first, the smell of smoke, 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.719 maybe it's cigarette smoke, is quite overwhelming. But after twenty minutes, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.720 studies show you can't even detect the smell. You habituated 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.880 to it. And just that you habituate to smells or 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.320 even to a cold you know, you jump into a pool. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:39.520 It's really cool at the beginning. After a few minutes 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.799 you kind of get used to it. We also habituate 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.679 two kind of more complex things in our life, both 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.760 good and bad, and so we have less of an 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:51.320 emotional reaction to them. Right, So maybe it's a romance 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.359 that was exciting at first and you habituated to it 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:58.040 over time. Maybe it's a new house that is really 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.520 brings you joy, but while you kind of stop noticing 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.960 it as much. As a consequence, those things that really 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.880 should bring us more joy on a daily basis do 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.000 so less because of habituation. And on the other side, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.720 you also habituate to the bad things. So there might 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.440 be a lot of you know, bad things, even some 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.760 terrible things around us. But if they're constant, if they're 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.240 there all the time, we stop noticing them. Sexism, racism, 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.920 cracks in our personal relationship, inefficiencies at the workplace, and 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.960 if we stop noticing them, that means that we also 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:31.320 less driven to change them. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.800 Now, why do you brains habituate? Is it critical for survival? 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.080 Yeah, so there's a few reasons. I mean, first of all, 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.600 it's important to say that every animal habituates. It's not 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:47.480 just humans, right, every single animal and I would say 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.000 probably every neuron in our brain shows this habituation. Right. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.320 They fire less and less when things are constant. When 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.600 you see something that is, you know, in a range 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.400 of species, that's just there's probably a good reason for it. 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.560 There's probably an adaptive reason for this. So a simple 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:11.080 one is it means that you can save resources. Right, 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.360 So if your Neuren's keep responding to things around you, 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.080 but those things don't change. You're kind of like using 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:21.040 resources that you should probably save for the next thing 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.640 that is coming your way. Right, So it's a way 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.000 to save resources. That makes sense. If something doesn't kill you, 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.560 probably you can stop responding to it, and you might 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:32.480 need to, you know, respond to something else that's coming 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.880 your way. But on a higher level as well, it 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.000 does motivate us. So if you imagine your first entry 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.600 level job, you were probably really excited about your first 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.320 entry level job, but if you were as excited about 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.400 your entry level job ten years later, you wouldn't be 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.320 motivated to go, you know, and get that next thing, 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.760 get that promotion. Right, So it's a way to keep 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.719 us motivated, and that's good, which means that it kind 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:04.640 of dries us to progress, to try new things, to evolve. 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:09.200 And then the third reason is that it is on 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.040 average also good for our mental health, mostly because we 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.400 tend to habituate to the bad things in life, which 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.319 means we could bounce back. You know, there are things 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.439 that happen, perhaps a breakup romantic relationship, a loss of 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.920 a job, or you just didn't get a project that 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.319 you were wanting to get. If you just continue feeling 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.360 bad about this and dwelling in it over and over 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.720 and over, then you won't be able to just go, 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.640 you know, progress and move ahead. So in fact, we 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.600 see that individuals who habituate slower to the negative things 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.199 in their life, they tend to have more symptoms of 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.720 depression and in general. In fact, we see that problems 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.960 in habituation, different problems of different kinds, are associated with 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:03.920 a whole host of different mental health disorders and psychopathologies. 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:06.679 Got it, okay, So that's habituation. 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.200 We get used to things, our brains establish a model 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.520 of the world, and once they have that model, then 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.240 it doesn't have to use much energy to represent it. 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.880 So what is this concept that you've introduced about dishabituation? 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:25.680 Right, So, disabituation means that you suddenly notice something that 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.080 you've habituated to, so you're stunnenly starting to respond to 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:33.559 it again. And we have an example. It's a visual 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.400 example which I think kind of makes a point in 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.840 the book. When you open it in the inside cover, 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.840 it's blobs of different colors. You have green, yellow, pink, blue, 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.120 with a little fixation in the middle and if you 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.199 just fixate on this fixation in the middle and don't 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.240 move your eyes for about thirty second or so, what 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:58.680 will happen is that those colors will suddenly become great. 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.640 You won't be able to see the colors, and if 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.760 you're really good at it, the gray eventually becomes white. 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.600 That is habituation, and that happens because the same neurons 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.800 are getting the same input of color, and so they 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.160 stop responding. Now the moment you move your eyes, then 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.840 you experience dishabituation. The moment you move your eyes, you 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.559 can see color again. So now different neurons are getting 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.600 different input and now you can perceive the color again. 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.600 So that's disabituation, being able to feel and notice things 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.480 that perhaps you had stopped noticing because they were there 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.560 all the time and you habituated to them in the past. 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.960 So what are some real life examples of disabituation. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:46.000 So let's take kind of like a simple example. We 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.600 habituate to our environment. Right, I'm sitting in my office. 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.320 I'm not noticing all the things around me because I'm 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.000 used to them. Right, I'm sitting here many hours many days. 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.240 But if I leave my office or even let's say 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.360 I leave my home for a certain amount of time, 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.360 perhaps it's a weekend, perhaps it's a week away on business. 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.240 When I come back, I will experience, at least for 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.800 a short amount of time, dishabituation. So suddenly I will 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.520 start noticing things again and I will appreciate the good. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.280 So maybe there's nice views out the windows that you know, 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.840 now I can see green outside my window, but it's 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.120 not really bringing me as much joy because I'm habituated 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:23.959 to it. But if I'm kind of going away and 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.840 then I'm coming back, now I start noticing things again, 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.480 even the small things. You know. It could also be 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.400 family members you take it's you know, you take them 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.400 for granted they're there, but being away for a week, 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.680 you come back and you're kind of like, oh, you know, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:43.280 you feel the joy again. There's a wonderful quote from 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.679 Jodi Foster, which actually we saw after the book was 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:49.559 already written, so it's not in the book. And the 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.160 book we have something else also interesting by Julia Robinson. 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:53.240 But this this. 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.400 Quote from Jodie Foster. She talks about how she left 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.800 her home in La for I think it's six months 0:12:59.920 --> 0:13:03.480 or so. She went on site to film and then 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.360 she says, what happens when she came back? So she says, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.520 I came back from somewhere that is amazing and beautiful, 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.319 but you know, you long for really dumb things that 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.400 you've just used to that six months ago, I'm sure 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.280 I was bored by. But right now I'm like, my god, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.360 avocados are amazing. Or I'm so glad I get to 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.960 get to go to the gym again. So things that 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.080 six months ago were sort of what I was trying 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.240 to escape from. Now everything is amazing. Right, So what 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:34.080 she's describing is dishabituation. Right, she comes back and now 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:38.360 she's disabituated to avocados, she's disabituated to working out in 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.560 the gym, and now those things become, you know, something 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:43.280 that brings hers joy. Of course, this is not going 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.719 to last very long, probably just a few weeks. But 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:48.160 that's that's disabituation. 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.320 So what does this have to do with companies putting 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.240 out new and improved products every year, or car manufacturers, 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.120 you know, changing tweaking the model even though the model 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.960 is perfectly great last year. What does all this have 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:02.680 to do with that? 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.240 Right? So we habituate to material things, right, So when 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.640 you buy that new phone you may be excited at first, 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.920 or the new car or the TV. But if they're 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.400 there all the time, you use them every day, the 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:17.880 joy goes down over time. 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:18.360 Right. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.240 And then when you know they come out with oh 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.920 new and exciting, that won't makes you want to get 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.120 that new things to get the kind of like joy, right, 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.440 the little boost of joy from this new thing, which 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.120 of course you will habituate too after a while. Again, 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.800 so it does drive consumption, and in fact it probably 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:42.200 drives over consumption. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.760 Interestingly, in the book, you talk about disabituation entrepreneurs as 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:51.280 people who see things that have become normal to everyone 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.760 else and they try to make changes. And one example 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.920 that I've always loved is during the French Revolution, there 0:14:57.960 --> 0:14:59.920 were people who said, look now that we're building a 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.200 new society here, let's change the week from seven days 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.800 where you work five days and have a weekend to 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.880 a five day week where you work for three days 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.120 and then you have two days off. And I remember 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.560 that striking me when I was a high school student 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:16.920 and learned about that, because I was so used to 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:18.960 the idea of a week being seven days, and it 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.560 never struck me that you could do something different, So 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:25.000 tell us about dishabituation entrepreneurs. 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:25.600 Right. 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:32.120 So the idea is it's an interesting example that you're mentioning. 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.440 So the examples that we have in our book is 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:40.560 mostly about how we kind of get used to discrimination 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:45.600 in our society or inequality. And the idea is that 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.960 if discrimination or inequality or other kind of not so 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.600 great things that our society are around us all the time, 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.400 we stop seeing them. In order to see them again. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:00.000 One thing is we could have someone to kind of 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.800 like say, well, this is what's happening, which is hard 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.560 to do, right, how do you do that? How do 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.160 you make people notice these things that are just the 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.000 norms have been in society for such a long time. 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.000 And maybe i'll just before I tell you how one 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:16.960 can do that, let me give you an example of 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:21.359 why we will actually not be able to see discrimination 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.200 and in quality if it's been around all the time. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.560 So the main reason is that our brain is a 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.120 statistical machine. So we have experiences in our life, and 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.720 based on these experiences, our brain makes assumption about what 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.960 is a norm, right, what is to be expected? And 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.320 if what you encounter is what you expected, there's no 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.800 surprise signal in the brain, you don't notice it. So 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:49.440 let's take a simple example. You walk into a plane 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:51.960 and you look at the cockpit and the pilot is 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:56.800 a man. And your experience is that in most cases 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.560 when you walk on a plane into a plane, you 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:00.480 look at the cockpit, most times it is a man, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.080 and so your brain has made these predictions and the 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.840 experience fits your prediction. So now there's no surprise signal, right, 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.280 nothing to think about. So we don't notice that. Not 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.080 only does a brain makes predictions based on the experiences 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:19.320 that we've had, but it also makes assumptions about why 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.800 we see these things. Right, So maybe the assumption that 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.879 you would make is that males are better at handling 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:31.000 large equipment. And now those assumptions may actually influence your 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.639 actions and decisions. So maybe it will influence who do 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.359 you decide to hire, who do decide to promote, And 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.359 that is the problem that we're facing. What you want 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.560 is a surprise signal, right, What you want is actually 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:45.520 to go on a plane, and when you see that 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.080 ninety percent of the pilots are man, you want actually 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.800 to have a surprise signal to be well, that's unusual. 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.000 Why is that the case? So with disapituation entrepreneurs. You 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.280 want them to induce a surprise signal. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.280 Okay, So let's get back to this issue about how 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.480 we disabituate in our lives and what we can do 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.640 about it. So you quote the economist T. Boor Satowski 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:16.680 who says pleasure results from incomplete and intermittent satisfaction of desires. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:18.439 So unpack that for. 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:24.159 Us, yes, okay. So the idea is that pleasure will 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.920 reduce when we are encountering things, even if they're super great, 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.280 if we're encountering again and again and again, the pleasure 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:33.439 will be reduced, right. And what we want is we 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.880 want to create breaks from those pleasurable things in order 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.800 to experience a pleasure again. And let me give you 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:45.000 first an example of just how pleasure goes down over time. 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.280 So I was working with a big travel agency a 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.240 few years ago, and they wanted to know what makes 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:55.359 people happiest on vacations. So we went to resorts and 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.119 we ask people questions to figure out what makes them 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.280 happy and when are they the happiest. And what we 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:06.480 found was that people were happiest forty three hours into 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:10.239 a vacation. So forty three hours in that's when like 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.920 pleasure was peeking, right, And after that the amount of 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.639 pleasure went down and down and down and down over time. 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.600 You know, day eight they were still happy, but they 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.440 weren't happy as they were at day two, forty three 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.800 hours in Why is that? Well, forty three hours give 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.440 them some time to unpack, you know, and start focusing 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.840 on fun. But from that time on, pleasure just reduces 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:36.040 because of habituation. So the things around them are less noticeable, 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.720 so brings less joy. And the other interesting finding here 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.400 that when we ask people what was the most fun 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.719 part of the vacation that brought you most joy, the 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.520 word that they used more than any other word was 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.359 the word first. They said, the first view of the ocean, 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:56.240 the first cocktail I had, the first suncastle that I built. 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.639 Now the second view of the ocean that was still great, 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.240 and the second cocktail for the fifth cop that was 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.520 still good, but not as good as a first. And 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.240 that is because the first are the new experiences. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:07.600 Right. 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:09.919 So if you think about, okay, so how can I 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.840 make a vacation more joyful? It suggests that one way 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.720 to do it is perhaps to have more frequent vacations 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.320 but shorter ones, and of course sometimes this is not 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.719 possible if you're flying to the other side of the world, 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.280 that that will be difficult. But perhaps you can have 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.480 vacations that are closer to home, but just have more 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.720 of them. So have more of those firsts, more of 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.320 those forty three hours in. Okay, So that's that's talking 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.159 about vacations. But let's think about things that are that 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.159 are simple, even more you know, simple than a vacation. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:45.040 So there's a really surprising experiment that looked into when 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.280 and why does music bring us joy? So they had 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.159 people listen to a song that they liked, and before 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.399 they listened to the song, they said, Hey, would you 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.080 like to listen to this song from beginning to end 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.000 no internal options? Or would you like to listen to 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.840 this song with small interruptions every twenty seconds? I'll stop 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.240 the song for ten seconds. What would you prefer, David, 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:10.520 If you had that, it certainly. 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.600 Seems like I want to listen to the continuous version, right. 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.919 So ninety nine percent of the people said no breaks 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:22.080 for me, please, right. It is the most intuitive thing. Surprisingly, however, 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:24.440 when they actually did the test, so they had one 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.760 group listened at beginning to end, and the other group, 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.800 they had breaks in between. What they found that, in fact, overall, 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.960 people enjoyed the song more with breaks, and they were 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.560 willing to pay double to hear this song in concerts. 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:39.919 So why is that, Well, if you're listening to the 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.520 song from beginning to end right no interruption, you're really 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.000 enjoying at the beginning, and then perhaps you're enjoying it 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.200 less over time because of habituation. Again, you're enjoying it throughout, 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:53.960 but less versus I break it after twenty seconds, and 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.760 now when I start again, so you disabituate. So now 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.119 I'm starting again, the joy pops up again, right, and 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.919 then you started habituating. I break it, there's a dishabituation, 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.760 so joy goes up again, and so on and so forth. 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:08.800 And they did that with other things like a massage. 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:10.760 They asked, hey, do you want a massage beginning to 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.560 end no interruptions or would you like interruptions in your massage? 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.800 Everyone said, of course, I don't want interruptions in my massage. 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.520 But again, when they did the experiment, people enjoyed a 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:23.560 massage more when there were interruptions, because you know, they 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.600 habituated to the massage. There was a break they started again, 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.520 Joy pops up and so on and so forth. So 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.520 that suggests that we want to break things up right 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:37.960 instead of binging on that Netflix show in one night, 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:40.520 you know, take it a little bit at a time. 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:58.119 So Netflix recently started a new model where they'll release 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.200 an entire season all at once that people can binge. 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:03.879 But it sounds like your advice would be different. 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:06.760 Yes, And in fact, I've heard a lot of discussion 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:10.760 about this. Not only do I think you will enjoy 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:13.680 it more right if you have to one half of 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.000 a week or whatever, wait a week, Not only will 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:18.960 you enjoy the experience at the time, what you're also 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.720 gaining is a joy of anticipation. There is I told 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.440 you about vacations and how forty three hours in is 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:29.600 the most joy. In fact, the most most joy tends 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:32.639 to be before you even left your house to go 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:36.119