WEBVTT - Objects of Love 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.880 My name is Robert Lamb. My name is Julie Tuglas. Julie. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.000 Do you have any magical objects with you today? Any 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:25.159 good luck charms, any personal items of importance? Nope, I 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.440 was thinking about this. I'm not really into the sort 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.760 of magical thinking lucky items I have to say. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.919 hold up your hands. Do you have any rings on? Oh? 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:39.320 You don't have any rings on? Nothing? Nothing? Huh okay, Yeah, 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.240 I mean maybe I have my lucky underwear on. Maybe 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:47.240 I don't you, Um, I mean not underwear? No, well, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.199 I mean nothing. Let's see what do I have on? 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.040 I mean right now? I just I have my wedding ring, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:54.840 and I do. There's so there's a certain amount of 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.240 magical thinking involved in that. Um, do I have any 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.400 And No, I don't have any amulets on me right now. 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.440 But I in the past, I've I've certainly fallen in 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.000 the habit of using them. I think I've talked about 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.880 this before. I previously had a Ganesha remover of obstacles. 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:15.319 Remover of obstacles. The the Hindu god that is that 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.360 has the you know, the elephant appearance. Uh, And I 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.440 had featured on The Simpsons in a hilarious episode. Yes, yes, 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.280 also also made fun of there. But I would carry 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:27.520 it around because you know, remover of obstacles and you 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.479 know all this various ties into ties into creativity and all. 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:32.280 And so I would carry that in my pocket. And 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:34.440 then eventually I lost it, like it crawled out in 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.920 the washing machine or something and left me. And and 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.240 so I've always felt I felt kind of bad. I'm like, 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.280 where did Ganesha go? Did Ganesha abandon me? And then 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.760 and then I found Ganesha put him back in and 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:48.920 then and then he disappeared again and hasn't come back. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.280 And and then also in the past, all occasionally like 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.320 pick up a rock, Like if I'm at the beach 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:57.520 and I'm having a particularly good day, I'll pick up 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.280 that rock and take it with me, and That'll end 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.200 up in my pocket for maybe a year or so. Um, 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.640 you know, because that kind of comes to symbolize like 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:07.400 a nice memory, and so I can take it out 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.680 and I can sort of think back to that time. 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.359 So what I'm hearing is that you have various kinds 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:19.160 of movies. Yeah, security blankets. Oh, yes, yeah, I guess 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.120 they are to a certain extent security blanket. I mean 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.720 they're not you know, apples to apples, but there is 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:26.600 this sort of warm and fuzzy thing that you're trying 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.839 to evoke with with an object, right, yeah, I mean 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.200 it's uh, I mean it's weird for me because like 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.760 when I'm if I'm holding a ganitia, I don't actually 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.280 think that I'm using this as a totem to to 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.520 get in touch with some sort of a god, you know, 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.720 like it's not like a literal interpretation of the amulet, 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.480 but there is a certain amount of positive thinking that 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.360 that comes with having it. And I've also wondered a 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.680 lot of times when I'm passing by my own desk 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.880 or coworkers desks, or seeing somebody's desk on TV where 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.600 they have action figures, uh, typically like a dude's desk, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.480 you know, we have various action figures, and I wondered 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:08.720 to what extent our modern action figures kind of akin 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.480 to the amulets of old, you know, like today we 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:13.919 don't have a pathion of gods to really call upon 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.760 for the most part, but instead we have all these 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:21.240 various pop culture icons and cartoon characters that represent various 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:23.280 things at least on like a subconscious level, and we 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.720 keep them around to draw strength from them. You haven't 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.840 found the Pantheon room. They just Wantheon room. No, do 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.520 we have one? Oh my goodness, but to the room 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.440 with the black toilet and the black sink. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:37.720 the superhero bathroom. Okay, well, see I've been missing that. 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:39.520 But if you if you passed by my desk, you 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:41.760 passed by like Jonathan Strickland's desk, you passed by is 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.440 these office you'll see little little figures, you know. So 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.040 I wondered what I mean. Obviously they're on our death 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.440 they're in our workspace, they're in our work environment, informing, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.880 you know, our our relationship with our with our work, 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:56.560 with with what we're trying to do with and and 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.760 representing a little bit of who we are. So to 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:03.520 what extent are those was becoming deities? I don't know. Well, okay, 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.120 so that's what we're going to try to get to 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.520 the bottom of today. We're gonna look at objects, our 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.520 relationship to objects, and we're going to try to figure 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.600 out how much of this has to do with our 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:17.560 own uh ability to acquire things, and whether or not 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:22.120 this acquisitiveness is natural to us, and then we're gonna 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:24.760 look a little bit at a compulse supporting too. When 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.480 it comes to materialism, it is really a distinctive human 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:30.400 trait for the most part, especially when you look at 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.599 its more outrageous examples. The one that I was really 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.320 partial to was the one I brought up by Steve 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.680 Taylor in his article The Madness of Materialism, which just 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.560 a great, short, little article, but he he mentions gold, 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:49.000 especially the like European colonists love of gold and in 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:54.039 their flashes with with the native peoples in the Americas. Uh. 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.360 There's one example that he brings up where in Indian 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.479 chief in Cuba learned that the Spanish sailors were about 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.240 to tack as end, so he actually praised to the 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.240 spirit of the gold to for for a like they've become. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.080 They're trying to figure out why are these one of 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.400 these these people so into gold, this this shiny rock 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.080 from the ground. They must have some sort of They 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:13.839 must believe it's a god. They must believe that it 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.040 is that has supernatural powers, because otherwise, why would you 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.680 go to such ridiculous ends. Why would you wage all 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.000 of this bloodshed just to get it right? Because otherwise 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.040 it's like, well, you guys are just talking like ferrets 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.400 going after something shiny. So surely this piece of gold 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.800 has something to it. And he prayed to it right 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.719 and it didn't work. Didn't work because, as as he 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:36.520 points out in this article, as Steve Taylor points out, 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:41.640 a certain amount of hoarding of resources makes evolutionary sense. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:43.800 You know we've talked before and in the wild there 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.200 are certain things that are scarce. I mean food itself 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.200 is going to be scarce, uh, to varying degrees. And 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.320 so to whatever degree we can plan ahead that we 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.159 can stockpilot, the better off will be. If that means 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.320 bearing nuts in the yard, if that means uh, you know, 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.159 finding something that is that is more rare in nature, 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.320 like sugar and being able to store that away like 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.320 like all that makes sense firewood. I mean, there are 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.200 things that are they're part of our survival that that 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.599 that makes sense when we're hoarding it. Well, it makes 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.440 sense I think to a culture that is settled. But 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.320 if you look at back at early man um in 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:23.640 particularly the fact that early Man was a nomadic species. Um, 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:28.080 then you know that hoarding or stockpiling just really wasn't convenient, 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:29.960 That's right. I mean yeah, if you're always on the 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.719 mood move if you even if you have kind of 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.480 like cyclical uh patterns to your to your movement, and 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:38.680 you know, going from you know, north to south depending 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:40.960 on what the weather is doing, Yeah, you're not gonna 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:42.240 be able to carry all of this with you. You 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.320 can maybe stockpile some of it, but you're not going 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:46.840 to carry it all on your back. Yeah. So there's 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.120 just a big question mark, like is this really genetic? 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.839 Is this something that's natural to humans, this impulse to 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.560 buy and possess things, or is it something that really 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:00.320 is um more symptomatic of modern man, particularly from the 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.480 nineteenth century on right, when things became much easier to produce, 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.719 to produce cheaply, and then to acquire cheaply. Yeah. And 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.400 I mean when it comes to stockpiling things that are important, 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.040 I mean, when once we get out of this uh, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.360 this transitory nature of culture and we get into into 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.760 actually settling in areas and growing food, I mean, being 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.840 able to stockpile food. I mean that's part and partial 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.480 to a lot of our cultural growth as as a 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.680 as a species, our ability to put food away, have 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.720 more food than we need, and then specialize our roles 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.880 within a community. But what about just buying lots of 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.800 plastic things, right and putting them in a storage unit 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.320 and then that storaging in it being auctioned off in 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.160 a show called storage Wars or something like that. Right, Yeah, 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.280 because yeah, then it's it seems like we're definitely getting 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.920 into pathological area. We're getting into an area where it 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.720 is just it is a sickness. It is some natural 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.680 instinct that has been perverted. Because even even though the 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.160 you know, the native peoples of the Americas couldn't understand 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.200 the luss for gold, if you put gold within the 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:03.320 context of of of wealth and then wealth equals power, power, 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.440 wealth equals comfort, wealth equals food, then I can see 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.680 the cognitive steps you know, necessary to think I gotta 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.880 have all the gold, right because I have to possess 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.480 the symbol of it, which is probably a large part 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.680 of why we do have this such such a high 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:22.680 degree of acquisitiveness, right, like wanting to get acquire everything. Um. 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.800 But you know, the question is is that genetic Well 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.840 there was a study by Justine Giddon's, Julie Shermer and 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.640 Philip Vernon from the University of Western Ontario, and they 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:33.520 wanted to know how much of it was an environmental 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.880 how much of it which genetics. Of course, they turned 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.800 to the twins. Uh. They recruited two hundred and forty 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.440 pairs of twins, identical and fraternal, and they looked at 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:50.440 the benchmark of individual differences um, personality, values, happiness, and 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.719 we know about forty pc of those traits are heritable, right, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.959 So to the surprise of these researchers, they found that 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:02.239 individual differences in materialism were almost entirely attributed to environmental 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.080 factors and not a genetic thing going on here. So 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.680 that kind of makes sense, right, And that actually makes 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.880 sense to me in the context of hoarding, because yes, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:17.360 hoarding does have some pathological brain disorder elements to it, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:23.520 but a lot of the triggers for hoarding our environmental. So, um, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:25.800 you know, if you had a loved one who recently 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.679 passed away or something that was life changing, that kind 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:30.720 of sort of flipped the switch and hoarding behavior. And 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:32.959 when I talk about hoarding behavior, I'm talking about an 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.439 excessive collection of objects. This is like one of those 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.520 things where it's like I must keep every newspaper that 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:40.640 has ever come out. And it's not just keep them, 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.240 but like if you were to be separated from those newspapers, 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.320 you would suffer, you would feel pain, you would you 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.079 would be confused, you would have an inability to really 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.680 make clearheaded decisions about the sort of stuff in your life. Yeah, 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.959 and you've seen one of these shows. To me, that's 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.280 enough supporting shows, because it can be a bit much 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:58.960 to take in, and it can be and there they're 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.120 kind of depressing. Uh, but but I think I saw 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:04.000 one once where it was like food items and it 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.120 wasn't in a sense that like I need to save 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.120 all the sweet potatoes because I love sweet potatoes and 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.680 I need need to eat the sweet podata is later, 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:12.760 but it would be like, oh, the sweet potato looked 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.200 really good. This is a really cool looking sweet potata, 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.680 and like this weird emotional attachment to the sweet potato, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:19.680 and then it must be kept even though it's rotting 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.800 in the refrigerator. Yeah. Well, it turns out that people 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:29.000 who have hoarding behavior or hoarding disorder, they actually have 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.199 a part of their brain. Um, this is an interior 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.160 singular cortex. This part of their brain is actually not 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:38.679 behaving the same way as quote unquote normal people, because 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:40.960 that is the part of the brain that's actually governing 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.120 your decisions in and you restraint. Is that also, um, 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.800 some some impulse control, yeah, um, but primarily it's the 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.400 decision making. And so if you take people who have 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.199 the hoarding disorder and you look at them in m 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.360 r I scans when they are considering whether or not 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:58.920 to part from an object that they own, you'll see 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.320 that You'll see the fuzzy nature going on there, so 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.079 you know that it is, Um, it is a brain disorder. 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.200 It is this this part of their brain that is saying, 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.040 I just don't know what to do here. And so 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.439 it's not just like Okay, I need to have everything 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.800 in the world, or there's some sort of gluttonous you know, 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.600 void that they're trying to fill. It really is coming 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.640 from the decisions that their their brain circuitry is making. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.720 And um, this is I thought this was really interesting 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:30.320 when I found out about it. Um. Hoarding behavior actually 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.000 has some connection, or a lot of connection to narcissism. 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.360 So you think about narcissism and you think about vanity. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.400 You think about narcissus, you think about the function in 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.520 the pool captivated by one's appearance. But it really is 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.959 sort of a coping mechanism, and I believe it was 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.240 Dr Rebecca Beaten. She explained this to me a couple 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.240 of years ago when I interviewed her um about hoarding. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.640 She told me that kids who are feeling abandoned from 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.480 their parents, or they don't have a significant relationship with 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.480 a parent, or really any sort of guardian in other words, 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.960 they they're not getting that emotional connection or even sort 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:07.520 of the touch of the hug or any of that, 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.199 they begin to turn inward and they began to become 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.599 narcissists because they have to find self comfort from themselves, 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.000 and some of that gets attributed to objects. So then 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.840 they began to collect objects. Is this part of comfort, 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:23.800 and that's where you see the behavior played out. And 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.840 of course this brings to mind the Peanuts character Linus 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.080 and his blanket, right, his woobie, his his comfort blanket, 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:33.959 his uh or if you want to get into the 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.040 more technicals, his comfort object, his transitional object um, which 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.040 is something you see with a lot of a lot 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.320 of kids. I mean, it's Uh, let's see, did I 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.360 have no Now, my sister definitely had a blanket, uh 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:47.720 called blankie and uh, and it got to the point 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:49.800 where they ended up like cutting off the edge of 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.439 Blanky so that she could continue to carry Blanky around 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.080 with her. And I think she may still have I 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:57.080 think she still keeps blankly around. Well, you know, my 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.880 daughter's four, and the same thing has happened to her blanket. 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:03.840 She calls it Blankie's blankie. Wait, now, the part that 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.960 came off she carries around is called Blanky's blankie. So 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.280 it's the blank like the shard of blanket. It's all right, 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.679 it's like a like it's kind of like a religious artifact. 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.160 And she hides it in her bed and she's really 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.400 freaky about it, like we can't find it. It's like 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:24.240 blank is blanket. Well, I mean to an uninformed observer, 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.400 it could seem a little freaky because it's like, because 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.319 it is kind of borderline religious obsession, it may seem like. 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:31.320 In fact, if you go back to the nineteen forties, 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.079 attachment to a special object by a shot was regarded 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.360 as just pathological behavior and it's just a case of 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:42.120 childhood fetish reflecting something askew in the mother child relationship. Yeah, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.520 I must be doing something wrong because your kid has 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:48.320 this gross the scrap of a blanket that they're carrying around. 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.320 And I think it's interesting that they look at it 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.320 as a fetish, particularly if you kind of take a 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:54.480 wide angle view of that period anyway, where you see 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.520 a lot of this idea as of fetish fetishism coming out. Um. 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:00.520 But yeah, it wasn't until the fifties right when they 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.160 started to say, you know what, this is actually a 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:06.000 normal thing, it's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, people like DW. 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.280 Wincott started defining these is normal and necessary and is 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.080 a transitional experience, a key step in an infantsi ability 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:18.320 to distinguish this inner subjective world from the outside reality. So, 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:20.320 you know, through the even through the seventies and eighties, 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.440 there was still this sort of people are still clinging 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.640 to this old notion that it's there's something wrong that 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.440 the kid has some you know, some anxiety problems or something, 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:29.840 and that's why they're holding onto it. But but really, 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.000 the the the academic understanding of it was was pretty 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.600 much in place, Yeah, because they began to understand that 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.840 this could really help allay some of the fears, um, 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.160 some of the anxieties that children have. Of course they 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.760 haven't because remember they have an entirely new view of life, 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:50.760 so they have to categorize every loud sound, every image 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:52.720 and try to make sense of it. Is it a threat? 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.720 Is it not a threat? And so this transitional object 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:57.560 really does help because it is sort of like the 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.960 stand in for, you know, parental unit or something else. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.760 There's a study by G. Japara, R. H. Passman, and C. Eisenberg, 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.480 and they found that during a routine third year pediatric examination, 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.240 the security object enhanced rapport with the examining nurse and 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.240 then children attached to a blanket who were allowed access 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.400 to it were rated as less distressed and they experienced 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.880 less physiological stress um and that is evidenced by the 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.720 heart rate and this is stallic blood pressure. So this 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.080 is in contrast to kids who are undergoing medical evaluation, 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:33.400 evaluation without their movies. Really, yeah, and certainly these woobies, um, 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.400 as you said that they can end up becoming like 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.920 an important parenting tool. I understand as well. I mean, 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.800 if you're if you're you use it wisely, right, I 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:42.760 mean it's i guess it's powerful stuff to play with, 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:44.440 But I was reading about how you know a parent 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:46.440 can can use it to their advantage, and a kid 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.800 needs the wovie too to remain comfortable in a position 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:52.840 when the month is away. I think it's really important 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.880 to um, like around age one and so on and 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.040 so forth, when when they start to feel the separation 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.400 anxiety as you say, like leaving the house or even 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:03.720 just sleeping at night, I think having something to grab 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:07.080 onto is really important. One of the interesting things about 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.720 studying transitional objects is that is that there's ultimately kind 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:13.840 of a lack of uniformity in the definition of it 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.680 and also the cultural significance of it. Like some of 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.560 the cultural stats are pretty interesting, like um, the United States, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.040 sixty percent of children have at least a mild degree 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.920 of attachment to some sort of soft inanimate object. And 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.000 I think, looking back, I did have. I had a 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:33.800 stuffed rhinoceros named Rinchiu had an attachment to um. But 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:35.600 but I don't know. Then you're getting into like stuffed animals. 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.520 You're getting into a whole different area because those have personality. 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.920 I don't know, does Blankie or does Blankie's Blankie have 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.040 a personality. Do you think, well, sometimes Blanky's Blankie gets 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.400 some new trouble or does things like takes all the 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.600 toilet paper off the toilet roll or something like that. 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:55.480 But um, generally I think that's just general scoundrelness right now. Well, okay, 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.880 so anyway, six children in the US have some sort 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.560 of mild degree, thirty two percent exhibit strong attachment. But 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.520 then if you look at incidences of attachment in the 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.359 Netherlands and New Zealand and Sweden, that's that's comparable to 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.560 the United States. Korean children have substantially fewer attachments to blankets, 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.520 down to eighteen percent, uh that compared to American children, 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.160 but in Korean born children living in the United States 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:23.960 to play an intermediate percentage of thirty four percent. Five 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.639 percent of rural Italian children have transitional objects compared to 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.080 thirty one percent of urban Italians, and it goes as 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.880 far as the sixty two percent of foreign children living 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.560 in Rome. So I don't know, you just see the stats. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.040 I guess kind of skewing towards urban areas. Yeah, as 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:41.920 we say, that's interesting to see that it can be 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:43.960 you know, within one country you could have such a 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.840 so many different variables there and oh but in London, 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.919 just sixteen percent of children have a special security object 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.000 in there the that's London. So there goes the the 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.400 urban argument. See, it's just it's it's hard to find 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.680 the exactly what's going on. There's just so many cultural 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.480 factor to look at the get well, and you have 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.359 to wonder too if if part of that is just 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.840 to say, like, that's not as accepted and therefore maybe 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.800 in that culture it's not as encouraged, or it's not 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.680 maybe as prominent, people don't see it as much. Yeah, 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.040 or maybe there's less of a culture of these are 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.000 my objects and these are your objects, and it's more 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.080 these are our objects. You know, some of us had 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.439 to do with memory to write, like they would go 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.679 back and say, oh, did I have an object that 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.439 I was connected to? And so they're collecting some of 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.800 this data from faulty memory where people are saying yes 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.520 or no and they couldn't exactly remember. I also want 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.480 to point out to that, uh, you know, transitional object 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.600 is very different from a pacifier, And of course a 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.880 pacifier is something that's used to self soothe and babies, 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:45.960 but I kind of think of it as gum for babies. 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.360 You know, it's an activity to to try to help 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:53.560 them with their eventual um eating skills. Uh, they're swallowing skills, 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.280 and it kind of helps keep them occupied if they're 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.680 hungry and you're trying to prepare a bottle or something 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.240 like that. But it is very different in terms of comfort. Yeah, 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:04.280 all right, we're gonna take a quick break and when 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.479 we come back, we will get into the world of 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.000 magical thinking, lucky charms and something called the I ke 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:19.960 ef fector Okay, so we're back, Yeah, and we're going 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.000 to get into the realm of magical thinking. This is 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.399 territory that we've we've moved through many times before, but 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.080 it it continues to be important because it really does 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.080 deal with how we think about the world and versus 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.240 how the world really is. I mean we Magical thinking, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.200 of course, is uh the belief that an object, action, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.400 or circumstance not logically related to a course of events 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.200 can influence its outcome. So in magical thinking, you get 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:48.520 into all these ideas of of everything from a haunted house, 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.200 the idea that oh, something bad happened here, so now 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.080 something is bad with the house, you know, like the 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.680 idea that that that that an event can affect the 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.200 physical object or even near mementos. I mean I've mentioned 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.240 my father's watch before, you know, like obviously that's that's 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.200 something that has significance to me. And there's a certain 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.400 amount of magical thinking involved there. Um, you know, even 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:12.640 if it's at a subconscious level, even if I'm not thinking, 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:14.520 oh this this has the spirit of my dad, and 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.520 I think, oh, that's that is that was his watch, 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.720 and there is some sense of him about it. So 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.600 magical thinking kind of uh, you know, is intertwined in 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.320 all our lives, uh, to varying degrees, and you know, 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.520 be it conscious or subconscious. One of the more more 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:33.920