WEBVTT - But, Mom! The Science of Whining 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from house Stop 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.720 works dot com. Hey, wasn't the stuff to Blow your Mind? 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.680 My name is Robert Lamb Kianda. I'm Joe mcformer. You know, Joe, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.360 I have a three and a half year old in 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.640 the house and uh and I and I grew up 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:26.119 with two younger siblings, so I'm pretty familiar with whining. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.600 I imagine you're pretty familiar with whining as well. You know, 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:31.880 I don't have kids, but I was once a kid 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.839 myself and familiar with whining from a personal perspective, and 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.800 also I had a younger sister, and so I heard 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.199 some whining there, and of course whining from the other 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.519 kids I knew. I actually just heard some whining recently, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:49.000 I think when it was Halloween and there were I 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:50.880 don't know, maybe you can judge whether this was whining 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:55.240 or not, UH listeners at home on on Halloween night. 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.240 It was a wonderful occasion when all the stuff to 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.480 Blow your Mind people got together at my house. So 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.200 Robert was there with his child, and Noel was there 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.880 with his child, and Christian was there with his serial 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:11.120 killer mask and UH, and at one point I remember 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.880 I think there was some disagreement between parents and children 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.640 about whether it was time to go or then you 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.520 definitely heard whining. Was there whining? I'm not sure how 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.280 to classify it. There's so much whining in my life 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:24.720 at this point it's hard for me to remember specific 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.240 incidents of whining unless it's unless the material being whined 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.280 about is is really you know, sets itself apart. But yeah, 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.959 I feel like I'm constantly saying, well, what's a nicer 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.759 way to say that? Or I can't understand you when 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:39.880 you talk in that whiny voice, which is one of 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.559 those things that I specifically remember hearing my parents say 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.800 to my younger sisters growing up. Now, of course they 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.040 were lying to you because they could understand you. They 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.000 just didn't want you to do it anymore. Right, It's 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:52.760 like the way that you were phrasing that is so 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.800 irritating and just so grating on my sanity that I 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.480 cannot acknowledge it. I refuse to listen to you while 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.320 you were talking in that whiny voice. So today we're 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.720 obviously going to be talking about the science of whining, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.120 and whining actually does turn out to be a kind 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:13.680 of interesting feature of human communication. What is whining and 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:18.000 how is whining different from from talking, from crying from 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.040 all the other ways we communicate. Well, it's often described 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.880 as a combination of several different things, So there's an 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.920 element of pleading to it, demanding, pestering, and nagging that 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:34.360 escalates in pitch. It begins during infancy and peaks. Luckily, 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.040 it's good to know for me that there is a 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.560 peak to it between two point five and four years 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:41.760 of age. You know, it's funny because they say they 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.960 say it peaks, but I've read in some of the 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.200 studies that we're referencing in this episode that whining never 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:51.040 really stops, like you carry it into adulthood. Yeah. I 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.040 think it's just that most adults learned to curb it 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.480 and know that it sounds that they're ultimately humiliating themselves 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.720 and they're whining about something. And uh, for the most part, 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.440 it is a child whining at a caregiver, but ultimately 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.840 anyone is fair game. Well, usually I think whining goes 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:12.160 up right, you don't wind down. Parent doesn't whine at 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.560 the child, The boss doesn't whine at the employee. I mean, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.800 maybe they would, but most of the time the whining 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.480 goes up. The superiority change. Yeah, so I've definitely heard 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.480 kids whining at other kids. I didn't want you to 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:26.840 take that, that sort of thing, I wanted to play 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.359 with that, etcetera. It comes from a from a perceived 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.679 position of disadvantage. You know, I say, like I've been 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.720 I've been taking advantage of I've got to wine at 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.200 the person who who, at least for now, is the 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.800 upper hand. Like a whining at another child is generally 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.840 immediately followed by whining at the nearest caregiver to point 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.720 out the slight that just took place. Yeah, yeah, she 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.960 took a sip out of my coke. I don't want that. 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.360 I don't like it. She has to give me hers now. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:57.960 Oh yeah, I mean it's everything like I wanted to 0:03:58.000 --> 0:03:59.920 be the one to get the fork out of the drawer, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:01.480 or I wanted to be the one to do this. 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:03.480 I wanted to be the one to do that. It 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:08.000 just goes on forever. Yeah, I can't find my shoes. Yeah. 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:13.280 Uh So I was interested in how whining compares to 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.040 other methods of communication, and I actually found a study 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:20.240 from eleven that looked into this. It's sort of tried 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:25.960 to categorize different modes of attachment communication. That's something that 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.800 that often gets brought up a term, this attachment communication, 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.719 because it's not so much something that's likely to occur 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.840 between strangers. It's sort of a communication between child and caregiver, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.760 or it plays on an existing relationship. But the paper 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:45.800 was called Screaming, yelling, whining and crying, Categorical and Intensity 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:51.200 Differences in vocal expressions of anger and sadness and Children's tantrums. Uh, 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.240 and so it was a two thousand eleven study that 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:57.479 tried to categorize the different types of noises young children 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.200 make while throwing tantrums. And they use high fidelity audio 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:06.839 sampling of natural emotional episode. So instead of having people 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.080 try to whine and then listening to what that's like, 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.599 they tried to say, okay, catch some kids whining in 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.520 the wild, and what does it sound like? And it 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.039 groups together under a couple of categories that they have 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:25.600 an anger category which includes screaming and yelling, and then 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:31.200 they have a sadness category that includes fussing, whining and crying, 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.640 and fussing, whining and crying ultimately end up being categorized 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:40.400 as three stages of escalating intensity and sadness. So you've 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.440 got a sadness episode that's mounting, and it starts with fussing, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:48.040 which they describe as typically short, flat or falling melody, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:54.640 relatively quiet and low pitched, so no, no, no. Then 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.640 you move up to whining, which they say typically contain 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.520 some verbal content with an up and down melody. May 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:09.960 also include relatively shrill, monotonous non verbal vocalization son, And 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.760 then of course you go to the old classic. Crying 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.919 is relatively loud and effort full, typically with up and 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.719 down melody. Breath may be interrupted, as in sobbing, similar 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.200 to an infant's cry. So they put whining here in 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.800 the middle of this spectrum of escalating sadness. I don't 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.719 know what you'd think about that as apparent yourself. I mean, 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:36.200 does that ring true to you? Um? Yeah, certainly. I 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.760 can see crying position making sense, but whining and fussing 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.520 is some Sometimes I feel like that's kind of a 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.960 toss up because it kind of comes down to can 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.480 I talk you down from a wine or down from 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.800 a fuss more easily like? Which? Which? Which is the shorter, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.160 shorter route connecting it to normal modes of communication and 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:02.480 behavior and God, I feel like maybe whiny is easier 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.400 for me to to to deal with and fussy. Huh. 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.560 I don't know, but it's it's kind of a toss up. 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.480 I'm gonna have to think about it during my interactions. Uh. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.760 From here hunt out take a scientific approach to your 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.560 child's low intensity distress. Yeah, and I even I have 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:17.880 to ask him as that it now is this a 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:19.920 fuss or whine? I need to know for the research. 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.160 Oh and another thing I just wanted to say was 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.760 that numerically in that study I just looked at across 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.720 the course of it, they recorded a thirteen different children 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.400 featuring multiple tantrum so there are a bunch of different 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.320 vocalization incidents recorded. They found that whining was by far 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:42.080 the most common of these five vocalizations yelling, screaming, fussing, whining, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.800 and crying. There was way more whining than anything else. 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.480 That sounds about right. But surely somebody has tried to 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.880 come up with a sort of scientific theoretical explanation to 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:58.080 explain the nature of whining, where it comes from evolutionarily speaking, 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.840 and and how it fits into the broad or spectrum 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:06.360 of human communication and and caregiver to h caregiven communication 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:11.560 caregiv child. Yeah. Indeed, and there have been at least 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.360 a couple of good studies that we're going to discuss here. Um. 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:19.520 The first of which concerns mother ease. More mother ease 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.560 as in like Chinese like a language. Now well yeah, yeah, 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.760 essentially h. The more technical term is child directed speech 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:32.160 or cd S. Mother ease is the annoying way that 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.560 you might hear not only a mother, but a father, 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:38.840 any kind of caregiver speaking to a child in their charge. 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.880 So it's sort of a colloquial name like baby talk, right, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.240 It's it's kind of like baby talk. Um the and 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.600 and it's it's similar in many ways, uh to whining. 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.280 The two modes of speech seemed to have a lot 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:55.480 in common, though, Mother Rea's plays a definite role in attachment. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.360 So Motheria's an example would be like, hey, honey, I 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.800 really need you to see about getting your socks on. Hey, honey, 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.360 we don't actually wear socks like that in this house. 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.160 So those would be two examples of mother EA's um. 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.360 And and hopefully when you encounter it, you're not encountering 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.400 an adult speaking to you in this way, because then 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.719 that that can be even extra annoying. Okay, So I'm 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:22.640 trying to note the sort of acoustic or sonic characteristics 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.560 of what you just did. For for the child directed speech, 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.720 one of the things was that it was slower than 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.320 you normally talk. Yes, you put a little more space 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.760 in there, and it sounded a little bit higher, like 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.839 you're elevating your pitch. Yeah. What's the other thing, It 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.360 almost has kind of a melody to it, right, Yeah, 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.640 there's a there's a melodic aspect to it, and in 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:47.040 early development that it's believe that the melodic maternal speech 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.839 functions uh uh more to to elicit and maintain attention 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:57.880 by accommodating the the infants very limited auditory and cognitive capabilities. 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.920 So in a sense that just the melody is being 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.720 used as a way to modulate the infants effective state 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.920 without having depended as much on the actual language, like 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:11.280 really the languages as much there for the the the 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.440 parent that it's speaking as anything. Okay, So those things 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:16.920 we just mentioned in the in the scientific terms would 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:22.160 be what they call slowed production, So slower talking, increased pitch, 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.920 and then um they say quote often flows into smooth, 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:31.719 exaggerated pitch contours. That's the melodic nature of it, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.040 I mean it's also you think of nursery rhymes too. 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.400 In this case, nursery rhymes are even more melodic and 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:42.400 ultimately musical. But uh, but it doesn't in the nursery rhyme, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.560 it doesn't necessarily matter for the young child what is 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.880 being said, which is why one of the reasons why 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.120 so many in nursery rhymes have horrific imagery in them 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:54.880 about animals pecking out each other's eyes. But but yeah, 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:56.840 the the idea here is that mother reason also serves 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.000 as a scaffolding for the early stag stages of lane 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:04.040 enguage acquisition. The actual words are irrelevant, but the melodic 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.319 tone is key. Okay, So they sort of use like 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.600 a parent would use this child directed speech pattern to 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:17.320 to manage or maintain the child's emotional or affective state. Yes, so, yeah, 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.760 it's about getting their attention and you know, thinking about 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.440 like in my home, we try as much as possible 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.760 to speak to our son more or less like he's 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:29.840 an adult. You know, not really do a bunch of 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.520 this mother ease, but you find yourself doing it, especially 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.440 if you need to captivate their attention, you just fall 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.160 back on it. But that's interesting. Then do you feel 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.760 like when you're when you're inexorably drawn towards using mother 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.880 ease or child directed speech, does that feel like a 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.200 cultural thing? Do you? Or do you? Do you feel 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.360 like that's in your bones, that's in your d n 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.719 A is at a function of your revolution? I mean 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:58.400 maybe both, because I because as I'm saying it, I'll realize, hey, this, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.280 I remember my my my mom or my dad having 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.200 to talk like this with if not, if not with me, 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.439 then at least with my younger sisters. If I'm having 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.360 to say, hey, bash and I really need you to 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.440 get your clothes on right now and go, I really 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:14.560 don't like having to talk to you like this in 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:19.080 this crazy weird singsong voice. Uh. And it's you know, 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.240 I don't know it feel it feels as much part 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.800 of background as anything. But maybe it has evolutionary keys 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:27.959 as well. But you know, one of the things about 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.280 the child directed speech that I saw come up in 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.480 the literature was how you would use different types of 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:38.360 of melodies or sort of u uh tone contours or 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:42.600 pitch contours to signal different attitudes towards the child. Yeah. 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.800 So on one hand, there's consistently rising contours that are 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.840 all about just electing attention, and that would be like like, hey, buddy, 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.120 it's time for us to see about getting our shoes 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.080 on so we can leave for today. And then there's 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.800 parents up prohibiting something. And then you see faster rising 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.520 on tours, which would be again like now, bastition, we 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:05.640 really don't wear socks like that in this house. So 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.160 as you see, it's still that very much that signature 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:14.319 Mothery's style, but faster rising contours. Oh Man, as an outsider, 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.800 I give that a doctor spock. Fascinating. But so we 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:19.560 got to bring it back to whining. What is the 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.120 link between child directed speech and whining? Well, there's a 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:27.160 two thousand five paper titled Whining as Mother directed Speech, uh, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.280 and this it explored this connection of the potential connection 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.920 and this was published in Infinitial Development and it's the 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.000 work of Rosemarrie I. Socle, Karen L. Webster, Nicholas S. Thompson, 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.120 and David A. Stevens. So what they did is they 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.760 took eighteen undergrad students, seven males and eleven females. They 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.079 were these were all non parents, because previous studies had 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.960 had demonstrated that there was an equal effectiveness of whining 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.720 on non parents, and we'll actually don't have to have 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.280 just still get your brain, it'll still get you. There's no, 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:02.520 it doesn't matter. So they exposed these individuals to stimuli 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.360 of six renditions of the sentence I want to go 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.640 to Boston, each spoken by both the male and female, 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.080 and the addition, these were the modes of each rendition. 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.800 There was wine, you want to go to Boston, all right, 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.000 I think that was good, and then there's just the 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.000 neutral I want to go to Boston, which I'll supply 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:22.840 I want to go to Boston. Oh, there you go, 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:24.680 you got it, you got it for me? Oh no, no, 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:26.960 I'm sorry, No, no, no realized, No, no, no, I'll 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.400 do the next one boasting, I want to go to 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.840 Boston someday I will, all right, now demanding, give me 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:35.840 a demanding I want to go to Boston. I want 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.440 to go to Boston, all right, And then the next 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:40.960 one question there would be uh, I want to go 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:48.040 to Boston, and then finally I want to go to Boston. Yeah, 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.040 there you go. That was a little whiny. Give me 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:55.920 more anger, I want to go to Boston. A little 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.080 very good at it, I guess, let me give it 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.840 a try. I want to go to Austin. Still a 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.040 little whiny on my part though, I don't know. Well, 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.160 we'll have to work that out in the actors studio 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.120 later on. But but so what they did is that 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:14.200 they yeah, they unleashed the different rendition. Now they are. 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.080 One of the funny things was they didn't actually have 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.680 kids doing it, right, it was young adult whiners. And 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.920 they said, quote, experience tells us that whining speech like 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.520 attachment relations does not disappear with the onset of adolescence 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.480 in adulthood, but continues to be used with intimates at 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.480 any age. Yichh. So yeah, so they said that it's 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:38.680 employed in any attachment partner or two superior figures in 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.640 a power relation. That's taying into the superiority thing we 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.920 were talking about earlier. Winding goes up the chain. But anyway, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.000 they said adults were used because they could supply the 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.520 proper stimulus scripts better than children. So in each one 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.440 of these they also featured a stimulus sentence. So what 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.560 what is being said? What is happening that would it 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:01.880 elect this response? With its appropriate emotional flavoring UM and 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.840 then uh, the volunteers were asked to judge the similarity 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.600 of twenty two pairings UM again of the various the 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.960 various stimuli related to going to Boston, and sixty six 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:17.200 punt combinations of the twelve statements. So this at Following this, 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.760 there is a descriptive rating procedure in which the volunteers 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.440 had to rate the twelve statements in terms of various 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.960 qualities such as urgency, anger, loudness, etcetera. And then they 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.480 also took acoustic measurements of everything as well. And they 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.160 then they piled all this together into a three D 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.000 model of the resulting data UM. And this is what 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:44.800 they found that whining speech shared with Mothery's exaggerated pitch contours, 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:49.720 specifically of a rising pattern, increased pitch, and slowed production 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.400 in relation to adult directed or neutral speech. Okay, so 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.080 that sounds like it. It matches the main things we 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:00.400 observed earlier when talking about child directed speech. Yeah and interesting. 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.720 So in a way, Huh, I don't hear it in 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.400 my head, though I can see how it would be true, 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.080 I don't. I don't equate when an adult talks to 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.639 a child in child directed speech. That doesn't sound like 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.320 whining to me, but I can see how it shares uh, 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.800 how it shares physical similarities. Yeah, well, because the parent 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.600 typically has order and reason on their side and the 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:30.119 child almost exclusively does not. The child, the parent is saying, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.600 I need you to get dressed so we can go 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.240 to this thing that we go to every day at 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.159 the same time, and you inevitably have to go to 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.360 and the child is claiming, no, I want to eat 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.520 ice cream first before breakfast. The child is making the 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.800 particular statements, Yeah, it's fussing. Was whining about something that's 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.040 completely pointless and it has no reason or order on 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.160 the side of their argument. Now, one of the things 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:00.359 we talked about earlier was why it's it's hypoth decized 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.040 why mother mother ease or child directed speech sounds this way, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:08.480 And originally one idea was to accommodate the infants underdeveloped 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:13.320 auditory system. But they talk about how whining is directed 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.000 at adults with fully functioning hearing. You know, adults wine 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.679 at each other sometimes. So the authors speculate that if 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.119 we toss out this older hypothesis and just say that 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.800 both whining and mother's exploit inherent sensitivities in the human 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:31.000 nervous system. That might make sense. Yeah, that makes sense 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.440 to me. I mean it's it's about what what mode 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.120 of communication is going to elect the most response. Yeah, 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.760 and it's gonna in A whining child cannot be ignored. 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.400 Um or whining child can be ignored, but at great difficulty. Yes, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.959 it certainly cannot be ignored. I mean I have had 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.400 the experience being out in public and hearing somebody else's 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:57.680 child wine, and it's just uh, I mean, it's utterly 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.720 attention stealing. You can't think about an anything else while 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.320 it's happening, you know. And here's something interesting. It's easy again, 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:07.120 the parent is coming from a side of reason and order, 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.640 and the child is generally speaking on behalf of chaos 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:14.600 and uh and and just unreasonable nonsense. And yet, according 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.879 to a two thousand twelve Max Plaque Institute for Evolutionary 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:22.280 Anthropology study published in the American Psychological Association, children as 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.639 young as three can distinguish between pure whining and a 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.840 legitimate need for assistance and or sympathy. So they can 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.800 they can deduce whether somebody's whining is justified. Yeah, like 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.040 one kid is whining, the kids standing next to them 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.360 can probably tell that it's b S. How did how 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.600 did they test this? Okay? They took forty eight children, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.040 They split them easily between girls and boys from thirty 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.600 six to thirty nine months old, and then they recorded 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.959 reactions of each child as he or she witnessed an 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.000 adult acting upset in one of three contexts. When the 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.160 distress was justified, let's due to physical harm, material loss, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.280 or unfairness, when it was unjustified, and when the cause 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.920 of the distress was unknown. Okay, So they had something 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:10.200 like um, an adult getting an unfair distribution of toys 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:13.639 like marbles exactly, Yeah, or I liked this one. An 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.119 adult getting their drawing cut in half with scissors. They 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.320 drew something and somebody cuts it up. Or an adult 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.680 getting getting a toy chest lid knocked, getting knocked on 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:27.040 the hands with it. So getting injured or losing a 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.080 balloon was another one. Newly acquired healing balloon floats up 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.560 and it's gone. Okay, So those are the justified ones, 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.640 but there were also unjustified things where nothing really bad 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:41.359 happened to the adult, but the children could tell the difference. Yeah, 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.399 they could, They could level the the amount of character judgment, 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:49.199 threat assessment, emotional assessment, and empathy necessary to say, Hey, 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.600 you're getting upset over nothing, or yeah, that's awful, your 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.680 balloon just totally floated away. That's a bummer man. So 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:58.800 let's say you've got a child with two balloons and 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.760 an adult with one balloon, and the adult loses the balloon. 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.240 Does the child give one of the one of the 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:07.720 one of his or her balloons to the adult? Well, 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:12.360 that might depend on whether they saw the adult overreacting 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:16.120 to nothing earlier, or whining in response to something legitimately 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:18.800 unfair happening to him or her. Yeah, and then in 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.280 the case of balloon related stress, the child would offer 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.399 a balloon more quickly to the adult if the child 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.680 had previously seen that adult upset due to true harm 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.560 rather than a near inconvenience. That that's interesting that that 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.720 a child has that level of judgment. But also this 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:43.080 makes a distinction between legitimate whining and illegitimate whining. And 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:45.800 I wonder about that because a funny thing I discovered 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.640 when I was trying to find scientific research on whining 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.400 is that a lot of the journal articles you can 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.680 find about whining seemed to be coming from a business 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:59.000 management or business philosophy perspective. If you came across I did. 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.840 I certainly came across a lot of uses for the 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.320 word whining that we're not related to to childhood development, 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:09.520 as in meaning that whining is a non productive expression 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:14.040 of distress, and that sort of fits with how I 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.200 would use it colloquially. Colloquially like if I'm not talking 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.199 about the way a child develops, but if I'm just 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.800 talking about an adult whining, it's a it's a person 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:27.000 who's just they're not getting anywhere that they don't have 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.399 a legitimate complaint, they're just, you know, they're just being 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:34.960 distressed for no good reason. Obviously, we all agree that 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.960 that a person, an adult or child, can cry to 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:42.720 signal a meaningful deprivation or violation, something bad has happened, 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.040 that that actually matters, and they will cry about that. 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:48.879 But can a wine signal the same or as a 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:53.400 wine fundamentally inherently unjustified, and if they there's a good 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.879 cause for it, do we call the wine something else? Yeah? 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:02.680 I found myself thinking back on various outburst from my son, 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.400 trying to decide Okay, I remember him whining about this, 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.480 was that justified? And I'm really having a hard time 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.439 thinking of a case where the wine was justified. The 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:16.159 only possible example I can think of, and and not 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:20.520 specific example, but there may have been times where there's 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.399 been a slight to him by accidents, sort of like 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:26.800