WEBVTT - The Seven Deadlies: Green With Envy 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.560 Works dot Com. Yeah, hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.120 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.960 And in this podcast, we are continuing our journey through 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:23.520 the Seven Deadly Sins. Uh Yes. To what extent are 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.400 they sins? What extent are they detrimental to our lives? 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.880 To what extent are they evolutionary necessities. We're going to 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.760 continue to discuss all of this. So last time we 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.440 talked about pride. This time we're talking about envy, which 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.720 lines up nicely because in Dante's Purgatory, Dante has to 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.800 ascend this mountain of purgatory that connects Earth to the sky, 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.640 Earth to the heavens. At the top of this mountain 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:52.400 is the earthly paradise, and individuals that are going through 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.280 purgatory they have to work off each layer of sin 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.400 before they're to enter into the higher realms. So the 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:02.760 first level you end up going through a terrace on 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.920 this mountain. The first terrace deals with pride, and the 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.600 second Terrorists deals with invY. And it's interesting when one 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:14.360 travels to this imagined room, you find the envious shades 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.280 to these individuals who were who were very envious in life, 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.640 and they're gonna have to work this junk off before 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.400 they can they can rise higher. They're all leaning against 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:24.959 each other again and against boulders. They're all sort of 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:30.200 huddled around like beggars. As Dante comes closer, he finds 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.200 that their eyelids are sown shut with wire. Okay, yeah, 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:37.800 that seems reasonable because in the especially you know, are 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.480 under our are sort of figurative understanding of it. It's 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.720 all about the eyes, you know, green eyed envy. It's 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:47.200 about it's about looking at other things and covening. Um. 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.240 And so these individuals coveted in their lives, they looked 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.720 with with these envious eyes. And now all these envious 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.360 eyes are shut. See. I think that is the sort 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.080 of attention that envy should get, because it is it's 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.640 actually pretty important. And we I was, we were researching this. 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.040 I thought, this is really very interesting stuff. Um, and 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.040 you think it's exactly the kind of attention and we 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:08.840 should get. Well no, no, no, I don't actually have 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.560 their eyelids shown the sun shut. No, especially not with 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.280 wire thread. That's just that's just cruel. Well I was 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.839 really interesting enough side. Uh no, but apparently they would 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.640 take hawks and they would part of the training of 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.840 a hawk would be too so it's eyes shut with 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.919 with laces of gut like you know, tennis string or something, 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:29.720 and that was just part of training the hawk to 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.360 accept food from a human master. In all this so 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.280 right that it is not like the hawk was coveting 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.119 other hawks, right right. But it's interesting that that's where 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.320 that came from. It wasn't just Dante being morbid. And 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.000 I mean he's being a little more bid. He's Dante, 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:44.240 but but he he got the idea from the way 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.400 people trained at hawks. Well. But again, I think that 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.000 this is the sort of import that MV has. New 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.960 York Times writer John Turney actually was talking about it 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.560 being one of the seven sins and being kind of boring. 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.120 He said, at first, you know, for him, it was 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.480 the most useless of the deadly sins, excruciating to experience, 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.720 shameful to admit, bereft of immediate pleasure or long term benefits. 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.079 To an evolutionary psychologist, there's a certain logic to seducing 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.760 thy neighbor's wife or stealing his goods. But what's the 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.040 point of merely covering them. Yeah. Yeah, it was an 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.160 interesting point you made, because it is. It is not 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.480 a fun sin when you hear people talk about it. 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.360 I'm gonna go out and say, you know, we're like 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.560 a carnival type deal where it's like I've got to 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.440 start being good tomorrow, but tonight I'm just gonna covet 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.799 my face off. Like nobody says that, you know, it's 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.480 all about the other vices. No one's like, Oh, I'm 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.760 gonna so the envious of bread pet tonight, it's gonna 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.640 be great right in front of you and I'm going 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:46.680 to cover you all up. Uh, but let's talk about 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:48.640 a belt's started to get into meat up in the 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.440 meat of it because some people think of it as jealousy, 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.480 but it actually is not jealousy. Um. Envy is more 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.480 of a longing for what you don't have, whereas jealousy 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.040 is more provoked by losing something that might have had 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.400 to someone else, Like like two people are competing for 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.440 a job and one gets it over the other, and 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.680 then the person who didn't get the job to be jealous. 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.640 And actually, envy comes from the Latin word in the invidiary, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.560 which means to look at with malice or cast an 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.160 evil eye, which is sort of interesting when you were 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.440 talking about the sewing shuts of the eye. Again, it's 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.800 all relating back to that consumption. Um. And is there 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.640 an upside to this? It's kind of funny all the 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.279 other since there's a bit of an upside, but this one, 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:32.800 I have to say, this is a bit of a 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.880 dark side. And yes, there's an upside in the sense 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.880 that you can use envy along um. Let's say, if 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.320 you use the prism of admiration alongside with it, um, 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.919 you could be more likely to closely note how someone 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.920 behaves or has attained his or her success and then 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.920 try to emulate that and create these conditions for yourself. Yeah, 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:53.760 you end up with the with these two different versions 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:55.599 of envy. You have a benign envying, you have a 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.960 malicious on the benign and v I just for consistency sake, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.640 I looked up in the Ascetaic Bible to see what 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:03.640 Anton LaVey had to say about Of course, yeah, he's 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:05.440 you know, it was very much making kind of a 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:10.360 new age argument for for these various sins and against 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.719 organized religion and and uh. He said that envy needs 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:15.880 to look with favor upon the positions of others, and 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.800 to be desirous of desirous of obtaining similar things for oneself. 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.360 And if he and greed are the motivating forces of ambition, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.960 and without ambition, very little of any importance would be accomplished. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.680 And that's a valid goat hats aside, that's a that's 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.599 a valid argument, you know, because because you think of 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.080 the people in life that you look at our heroes 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.840 and uh, and there's a certain amount of envy there. 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:40.840 You're like, man that you know that dude is an 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.400 awesome writer. I wish I had had skills like that. 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:45.840 But but in many cases it takes on that that 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.240 form of I'm gonna really look at what this guy's doing. 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.560 I'm going to try and emulate how he approaches his art, 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.279 and then I'm going to be better for it, you know. Yeah, 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.680 And that's what I think. It's interesting about envyous So 0:05:57.839 --> 0:05:59.920 much of it is predicated on your ability to him 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:05.520 imagine your life, a future life for yourself. And again 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.520 that's where the benign comes in. If you could look 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.080 at someone and say, I feel motivated by this person. Uh, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.200 there are things that this person has that I want 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.560 that that fit along with what makes sense in my 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.600 life or what's really important to me. Obviously, the malicious 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:24.720 part comes uh into play when you pay attention to 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.280 people who you feel like are superior to you too, 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:31.400 to the point where, uh you wish that things would 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.440 happen to these people, Um that you began to resent people. 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.760 You spend way too much mental energy on obsessing about something, 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.480 and that obsession is really at the core of this. Yes, 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.839 a malicious envy becomes. It's it's not as much a 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.040 I really admire that person I want to be like them. 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.000 It's more like I really admire that person or not 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:52.960 as much I admire them, and like that person has 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.400 things I wish I had. I can't have them, but 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.000 stabbing them would still would still feel pretty good. If 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.280 I can't, If I can't achieve that level aim, I 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.600 could at least take that level of fame from them, 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.160 which on the surface sounds just insane, but as well, 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:08.719 as we'll discuss if if you kind of break it 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:13.320 down you can you can find some potential evolutionary advantages 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.440 in that as well. Right well, I mean, what you're 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.200 trying to do is find their weakness so that you 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.920 can bring them back down to your your level, right, 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.800 so in essential leveling the playing field. Right, It's kind 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.240 of like, all that person is an awesome runner. My 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.600 benign envy says I can train up and become as 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.360 good a runner as they are and maybe, you know, 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:34.240 get a little faster and beat them. The other one 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:35.800 is like, I will never be as good a runner 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.680 as they are, but I bet if I cut their 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.640 tendons with a knife then I could easily outrun them. 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.240 Either way, each scenario ends with me winning the race. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.400 It's kind of the Tanya Harding effect, right, like, Wow, 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.560 you're such a great skater, I'm just gonna hit you 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:56.120 in the in the knees and break your knees. Um. So, yeah, 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.240 there's malicious, there's benign. And it turns out that in 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.960 memories to auties, this sort of envy really plays into 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.200 our ability to remember details about people. Um. There have 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.800 been experiments with envy a students at Texas Christian University 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.760 and Fort Worth and the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.520 and researchers bore out the conclusion that students who read 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.320 stories about envy inducing characters had far better recall than 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:26.080 non envy inducing characters. Again, here's your mind really dwelling 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.320 on this person and what they have or what they 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.120 don't have, what you don't have. And it also turns 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.080 out that, um, there's a bit of ego depletion involved 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.120 in this. So it ends up actually wearing down your 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.560 mental faculties. Yeah, and we talked about this, We talked 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.079 about ego depletion. Is is um, one of the things 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.680 that happens when decision fatigue. You have to make up 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.800 all these decisions about what goes on my sandwich, whatever 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.960 music I'm gonna listen to, you know how, I'm gonna 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.000 get to work, and by the end of the day, 0:08:56.040 --> 0:09:01.160 I'm not able to really tackle difficult cognitive problems exactly 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.480 because you you're suffering from ego depletion. So another study 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.320 this is this the same group of researchers. They had 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.360 students contemplating a wealthy, attractive peer, and then students were 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.880 asked to work on puzzles and compared with the control group, 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.839 they gave up much sooner, which is the same thing 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.840 that we saw with the decision fatigue and the people 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.880 that had to make up all those decisions or make 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.160 all those decisions, and then we're later given a self 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.360 control test and those people I remember this is something 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.160 like they had to put their hands in ice water, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.280 and those people had were able to put their hands 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.600 in ice water for half the time than the control groups. 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.520 So again you're seeing parallels here with the eroding of 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:45.560 of um, your mental faculties, of which honestly, we only 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.440 have a finite amount of mental energy per day, right, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:49.960 so it's how are you going to spend it? Are 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:54.000 you're gonna waste it sort of dreamily staring at this 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.319 other person's life or worth stabbing them in your imagination? 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:02.000 And and the thing is they whole, They're just all 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:03.480 you have to do is go through the checkoutline at 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.080 the grocery store, and and whole industries thrive on on 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.000 injy um. I mean, all these tabloids about what's the 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.760 celebrity doing, what's this celebrity buying, what's the celebrity's of 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.120 personal life consists of? And mean you walk by it 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.080 and you're just like, what how do people fill their 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.280 days with this? You just just gaze into this, Uh, 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.360 the celebrity of this. There's one magazine that the I 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.960 don't know if it's us or something. But I remember 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.000 flipping through it once and they have a section called 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.320 celebrities they're just like us, And it just completely cracked 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.240 me up because it was like, this person wears a 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.719 sweatshirt when they're going to the store, too, and so 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.640 it reminded me of this this idea that's not quite 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.240 schaden freud. Yeah, but it's sort of like, well, they 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.840 look kind of schleppy sometimes too. That makes me feel 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.920 a lot better. Yeah, well, yeah, it's not quite personally, Yeah, 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:53.520 but no, I understand what you're saying. It's not they're 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.959 not it's not quite I hate this person. I want 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:57.760 to see him stabbed. It's like I'm taking comfort in 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.680 the fact that this person is mortal as well, and 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.160 uh and and is open to the same flaws and 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.880 normalities that I am. Well, and it turns out that 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.559 envy and chitten freud are actually linked, researchers think, and 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.679 we'll talk about that in one minute when we come back. 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:23.160 All right, we're back, um, which is an interesting concept 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.960 and one that you actually find some theologians discussing Thomas 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:33.720 aquinas Um in uh Suma Theologica said, wherefore, in order 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.480 that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.960 to them, and they may render more copious thanks to 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.240 God for it. Uh, they are allowed to see perfectly 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.000 the sufferings of the damned. So we're talking about saints 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.440 being able to see people's torments in hell. And then 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.040 there was I ran across another example where Jonathan Edwards, 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.320 the author of Center in the Hands of an angry God, 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.280 he was making pretty much the same argument. The view 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.880 of the misery of the dam will double the ardor 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.160 of the love and gratitude of the saints in heaven. Forth, 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.160 the sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.440 the saints forever. It will not only make them more 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.640 sensible of the greatness and the freeness of the grace 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.120 of God and their happiness, but it will really make 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.840 their happiness the greater, as it will make them more 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.880 sensible of their own happiness, which sounds kind of nuts, yeah, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:25.280 kind yeah, yeah, but yeah, I mean there's this idea 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:30.040 of Schipenfreud of um sort of lowering the veil of perfection, right, 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.640 And uh, if if it's someone you emvvery they seem 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:35.960 like they're just bulletproof. And then all of a sudden 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:37.679 you see that they've got a chink in their armor, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.240 and it's it's the tabloid thing again. It's like, let 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.160 me see my heroes in unflattering swimsuits, let me see 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.320 them making mistakes, let me see them growing older. And 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.720 I always find a morbid fascination in the phrasing of that, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.920 because it's, uh, if if it's somebody that the reader 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.719 of the tabloid is meant to like, it is, it's 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:03.200 always like so and so's brave last days, Like like 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.680 I think Elizabeth Taylor was having brave last Days for 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.840 like half a decade. But then other people, it's just 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.880 the language is always far worse, like oh, they're just 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.000 they're just on the verge of death, you know. And 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.400 and and people eat it up because it's they're getting 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.240 to see their their heroes fall there, their gods are 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.680 are brought down to their level. And then, well, isn't 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.920 it the whole problem? I guess you could say the 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.520 problem of our existence is at our our consciousness and 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:31.760 the sense that we know we're all going to die 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.120 some days. So yeah, at a very basic level, it's like, hey, 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.880 this is happening. I know, what's gonna happen for me 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.600 is gonna it's happened to this person, but birthday candles 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:42.920 to bring it back to that, what's going to happen 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.000 when we reached the point where the first celebrity that 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.000 everyone hates is like, and guess what, guys, I'm living forever? 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:53.199 And then I mean I think rise up among the 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.920 tabloid readers will just be immense. I think our example 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.800 for that episode was Charlie Sheen. Yeah, I don't think 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.440 my just changed since we recorded that. Um if there's 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.640 anybody else that could replace them. But I want to 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.800 tell you about a study about envy and schaden freud 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.840 and um it has a great title. Actually, it's called 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:12.880 when your gain is my pain and your pain is 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:17.160 my gain Neural correlates correlates of envy and schaden freud. 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.280 And this is a study by Haidahiko Takahishi, which we 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:23.360 talked about him in the Pride episode. UM So he 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.160 and some other researchers set out to to research this 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.200 and this was there um part of their in their 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.600 abstract that said, we often evaluate the self and others 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.600 from social comparisons. We feel emvy when the target person 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.720 has superior and self relevant characteristics. Schanden Freud occurs when 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.560 envied persons fall from grace and they go on a 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.560 bit and then they say, are finding document mechanisms of 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:52.440 painful emotion and the rewarding reaction shaden Freud. It's really 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.320 fascinating what they did here, And if you guys can 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:56.040 just kind of bear with me as I talk a 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.560 bit about the details. UM, because they did two different 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.920 studies that relate together. They had nineteen subjects that were 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.680 asked to visualize being a protagonist in scenarios that college 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.280 students might faceball undergoing UM an m R I. So 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.520 they have these scenarios that they're they're inserting themselves into 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:17.040 as the protagonist and UH. For example, UM, the following scenario, 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:19.960 a male subject was asked to imagine himself as a protagonist. 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.600 Student A, this is the person that they're invying, did 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.480 well in his final examinations, but the protagonist did not. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.880 Student A is talented in baseball, but the protagonist is not. 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.400 Student A is popular among girls and has a beautiful 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.560 and intelligent girlfriend, but protagonist is not popular and does 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.000 not have a steady girlfriend. So they go on to 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.000 say student A successful in a job interview and getting 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.400 along really well the company he wants to join. The 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.760 protagonist is not. The salary is great for Student A. 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.160 He has a luxury condominium downtown. Okay, it just gets 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.160 worse and worse for for protagonist. Takahashi had the subject 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.400 imagine as schaden Freud evoking scenario then in which the 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.000 protagonist is then doing much better than Student A, and 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.320 the scenarios are were varied to include the gender of 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.840 the subject UM and other students might be assigned the 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.480 same gender as the subject to help them relate right um. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.680 And also details were changed so that there would be 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.200 a degree of similarity between the imagined student A and 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:26.520 the protagonist. So analysis of the resulting brain scans compared 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:30.240 the activation in different brain regions under envy invoking and 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.840 then Schadenfreud evoking and then neutral scenarios, so they could 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.680 test this out and controlled type situation. UM, and then 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.200 the subjects were asked to rate their relative feelings of envy. 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.040 And they're gloating in the scenario, so this is okay, 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.040 this is all okay, Yeah, yeah, I get it. They're 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.760 they're really trying to set this up. Um, This is 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.040 where it gets interesting. The envy producing scenario showed activation 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.680 in the anterior singulate cortex, and that's the place in 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.320 the brain that's associated with error detection or conflict, which 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.400 was also activated by pain. Said. The conclusion here is 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.639 that people experiencing envy, which is associated with shame, or 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:10.680 feeling emotional pain or the pain of social exclusion, which 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.680 I found fascinating because here's just part of your brain 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.639 that that is really sis to perceive physical pain. But 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.920 if you are envying someone, you're actually feeling some sort 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.159 of emotional pain from your envy. And we have to 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.960 think back to the purpose of pain itself as the 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.440 my my body is feeling pain, therefore something is wrong 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.520 and must be addressed or avoided. Like there's a stick 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.920 jabbing into my thigh, I should remove said stick. My 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.040 stomach is hurting. Whatever I ate is bad and I 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.159 should probably not eat it again. So we have to 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.560 take that and extrapolate it into the into social dynamics. 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.680 You're feeling this emotional pain. I am not as good 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.760 as they are. I'm not feeling that my self worth 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.919 is really taken a hit here. I should become as 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:01.280 good as them. I should I should rise above them, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:05.640 I should stab them in the thigh. You know, well, 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.240 I mean it's the stabbing is the purest form of 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.960 malicious envy, I think. Well, okay, so this is the 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.359 other interesting part of this is that when they had 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:18.879 the downfall of student A, they saw activation in the 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:24.159 ventral striatom, which is as associated with rewarding stimuli, and 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.159 so Takahashi interpret the activation with schadenfreud as a feeling 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.639 of pleasure, which makes sense, right, um, So they feel 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.159 like there are correlates here. You know that m vy 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.080 and Schenfreud go hand in hand. The other thing that 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.200 correlated with this is that if the student or the 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.480 person in this um, I should say that the protagonist, 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:48.879 the person in the study, if they did not feel 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.960 any sort of kinship with this person, did not feel 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.840 that they were at all on the same level and 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.920 that they couldn't imagine themselves in habiting this person's world. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.119 They did not feel any envy, They did not have 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:07.560 any activation in the interior singulate cortex or in the 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.680 ventral striatom when they were when they had the shade 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:12.520 fraud scenario. So you have to be able to put 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.200 yourself in their shoes to some extent to actually take 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:17.960 pleasure in their downfall. You have to imagine this life 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:21.560 for yourself because even though there might be some great 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.760 object that someone has in their possession, if you don't 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.159 somehow connect with that person, to relate with that person, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.800 then it doesn't matter to you. So you you know what, 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.119 that could be a myriad things, right, It could be um, 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.240 they have socio economic background. Um, it could be the 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:39.960 kind of music they listened to. Um. But it makes 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.400 sense that in a workplace scenario, why there might be 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.760 more instances of envy because in a workplace scenario, you're 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.879 more likely to connect or not necessarily connect, but to um, Well, 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.000 they're in your world. They're they're in your world. That's 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.720 right there. They're on your playing field. So that was 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:03.199 really fascinating about this study. But not only that, there's neuroscientists. Um. 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.920 They're taking the findings of the activation of the anterior 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.720 singulate cortex. Again, this is where the pain physical pain 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.120 would usually light up activation of the brain, and they're 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.400 saying that it's an indication of development of complex emotions, 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:21.960 piggybacking off the primal brain system. So that's the rat 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.800 like hind brain. Yes, yeah, yeah, So what they're saying 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.080 is that that that this could point to um, not 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.159 us developing more complex systems in order to deal with 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:34.200 more complex feelings, but really piggybacking off these primal feelings. 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.439 It's the it's the brain is an ice cream scoop again, 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.240 you know the idea that that it's just one more 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.920 scoop added to the brain evolves. Yeah, not not an 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:49.200 overall rehall of the system. It's not a banana split. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.119 It's an ice cream cone. Yet, you know double degger. Well, 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.199 I can't speak for most work places, but we do 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:59.640 have relatively few stabbings here at the Work's true. Yeah, um, 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.040 there's no a lot of meaning going on here. Um. 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:03.879 And I'm going to say that's I'm going to go 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:05.960 out on a limb here and say that's probably because 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.280 there are not a whole lot of people, as far 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:13.199 as I know, that are morally disengaged. And when I 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.800 say morally disengaged, I don't need to say like cool, 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.640 they're you know, good or bad people. I'm talking about 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.200 it more in the sense of UM. A study that 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.679 was called the social context model and being social undermining, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:29.479 and it was in the Academy of Management journal, and 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.359