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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb,

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and hey, Robert jam band trivia

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Speaker 1: for you. Do you know where the name of the

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Speaker 1: Grateful Dead comes from? Oh? Man, you know, I'm not

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Speaker 1: a huge dead head. I really love that that track

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Speaker 1: Dark Star, But yeah, I I never really gave it

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Speaker 1: a lot of thought. I know they have the like

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Speaker 1: a sort of a mascot of like this medieval looking

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Speaker 1: skeleton with the hair and and all, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: a cool name, but I actually never gave it a

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Speaker 1: lot of thought. I didn't know until just recently I

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Speaker 1: found out the answer. The name of the band comes

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Speaker 1: from when a member I think it was Jerry Garcia,

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Speaker 1: it might have been another member. Somebody found in an

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Speaker 1: encyclopedia an entry for a thing that was that was

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Speaker 1: already an existing phrase called the Grateful Dead. So what

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Speaker 1: is that? Well, it turns out that the Grateful Dead

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Speaker 1: is an archetypal folk tale motif that appears in lots

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Speaker 1: of cultures around the world, usually not as a story

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Speaker 1: on its own, but as like a piece of a story,

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Speaker 1: a sort of like scene in a story that shows

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Speaker 1: up in tons of different folk tale cycles. According to

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Speaker 1: the late Great American folklore scholar Stith Thompson, versions of

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Speaker 1: this tailor found especially in European and Asian lore, though

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Speaker 1: I think you might find it elsewhere too. But to

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Speaker 1: read from Thompson's description quote, in all these tales, we

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Speaker 1: learn of a hero who finds that creditors are refusing

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Speaker 1: to permit the burial of a corpse until the dead

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Speaker 1: man's debts have been paid. The hero spends his last

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Speaker 1: penny to ransom the dead man's body and to secure

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Speaker 1: his burial. Later, in the course of his adventures, the

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Speaker 1: hero is joined by a mysterious stranger who agrees to

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Speaker 1: help him in all his endeavors. The stranger is the

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Speaker 1: grateful dead Man. The only condition which the dead man

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Speaker 1: makes when he agrees to help the hero is that

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Speaker 1: all winnings which the latter makes shall be equally divided.

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Speaker 1: In all the stories, the hero eventually wins a wife,

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Speaker 1: and the helper demands his half. Usually, the dead man

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Speaker 1: interferes in time to prevent the actual cutting. In two

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Speaker 1: of the woman, so multiple strange elements there. Number one,

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Speaker 1: of course, it reminds me of the like King Solomon

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Speaker 1: and the Baby story, but it also reminds me of

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Speaker 1: other I mean, I think it's extremely common to have

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Speaker 1: what would you call this dynamic folk tale motifs where

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Speaker 1: someone is asked to make a promise about what they

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Speaker 1: will do with some kind of future reward or something,

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Speaker 1: but then the reward they receive is not compatible with

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Speaker 1: the promise they made. I think of the examples in

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Speaker 1: like Sir Gawain and the Green Night, where uh the

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Speaker 1: Sir Gawain in some versions of the story, I think

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Speaker 1: Sir Gawain stays with the host, who they say each

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Speaker 1: day they will they will share what they have one

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Speaker 1: in the day with the other one. So the one guy,

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Speaker 1: the host, goes out hunting and he comes back and

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Speaker 1: he shares like the boar that he caught with Sir Gawain.

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Speaker 1: But Sir Gawain instead receives a kiss from the man's wife,

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Speaker 1: and so to share it he has to kiss the man.

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Speaker 1: But of course, the final element here is that it's

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Speaker 1: ultimately a story about a kindness being repaid. It's a

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Speaker 1: story about gratitude from a ghost that somebody does a

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Speaker 1: kindness that he could not possibly expect to be repaid,

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Speaker 1: and yet in some strange and supernatural fashion, he ends

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Speaker 1: up surprised because his kindness is repaid against everything you

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Speaker 1: would expect. And in this we get into the topic

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Speaker 1: of gratitude of of thankfulness, which of course seems an

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Speaker 1: obvious thing to tackle on Thanksgiving. Uh, And that's one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons we chose it. But also it is

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Speaker 1: it is an important topic. It is an important part

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Speaker 1: of the human experience and human culture, and so there's

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Speaker 1: actually a lot here to unpack. Absolutely. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: would say this is not the only folk tale motif

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Speaker 1: to heavily involved gratitude. Gratitude shows up all throughout full stories. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Like the ungrateful receiver is a big archetype, somebody who

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Speaker 1: is ungrateful for what has been done for them, and they,

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Speaker 1: you know, are punished or learn a lesson. And the

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Speaker 1: other side is, yes, somehow seeing gratefulness turning out for

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Speaker 1: the best, You do somebody a favor and then you

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Speaker 1: are repaid and their gratitude, Uh, is it unveils like

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Speaker 1: secret benefits that you couldn't have expected. Yes, Sometimes the

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Speaker 1: stranger that you are favorable to turns out to be

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Speaker 1: a divine being of some sort. Uh. There are also

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Speaker 1: tons of tales in which if if one is punished

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Speaker 1: or rewarded for either uh you know, not respecting elders

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Speaker 1: or respecting elders, being rewarded for the respect. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is the gratitude is an important part of of

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Speaker 1: global myth making and then just continuing early a part

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Speaker 1: of our storytelling. So let's come back to American Thanksgiving though,

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Speaker 1: because um, all of this isn't necessarily obvious as we

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Speaker 1: go through, uh just our day to day experience of

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Speaker 1: Thanksgiving here in America, because it can often feel like

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Speaker 1: a very complicated holiday. For instance, let me just roll

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Speaker 1: through a few of the several reasons to hate on Thanksgiving,

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Speaker 1: and I'm I am guilty of some of these, if

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Speaker 1: not all. You've clearly got to love hate relationship because

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Speaker 1: you you keep wanting to talk about Thanksgiving even though

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Speaker 1: you hate it. Yeah, well, I mean I have I

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Speaker 1: feel like if I am resistant to something like Thanksgiving,

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Speaker 1: then I should probably explore how I feel about it more,

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Speaker 1: you know, and also perhaps feel explore the things that

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Speaker 1: I feel good about. So, on one hand, thanksgiving us

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Speaker 1: what you get when Halloween is over? Bummer, Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's all that transition away from ghosts and ghouls and

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Speaker 1: Dracula's and Frankenstein's and uh, you know, and the other

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Speaker 1: properly named literary figures that we refer to in the

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Speaker 1: general sense, and then suddenly it's just pilgrims and turkeys

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Speaker 1: and whatnot. Not everybody to your monster freaks like us.

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Speaker 1: Though true, true, some may see it as a relief. Now.

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Speaker 1: Another thing is that, as is often pointed out in comedy,

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Speaker 1: it is a you know, it's a post election obligation

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Speaker 1: to hang out with family members who you may very

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Speaker 1: well not see eye to eye on when it comes

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Speaker 1: to politics. Can make things a little awkward, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: and if you're lucky, it can make things awkward. Of course,

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Speaker 1: can be worse than that. Also, it is a feast,

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Speaker 1: and while feasts are a major part of seasonal celebrations

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Speaker 1: around the world, it can feel a bit excessive in

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Speaker 1: the modern age. It can bring up mixed feelings about, say,

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Speaker 1: the amount of food that you are consuming and perhaps

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Speaker 1: the amount of food waste you might be producing. Also,

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Speaker 1: if you've lost loved ones of individuals are missing from

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Speaker 1: the proceedings for various reasons, you know, living or dead,

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Speaker 1: or if you yourself cannot be part of such celebrations

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Speaker 1: with family for a variety of reasons. The holiday can

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Speaker 1: be bitter, sweet, or downright depressing. Uh And and in

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Speaker 1: this it's like other holidays. This is absolutly true. And

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Speaker 1: I think this this contributed to the widely circulated but

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Speaker 1: false fact that suicide skyrocket around uh, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

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Speaker 1: We looked into that on an episode one time and

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Speaker 1: found that it was not in fact true, that they

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Speaker 1: were not highest around the winter months. I think they

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Speaker 1: were actually highest somewhere in the spring. Yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: remember that. Another thing about Thanksgiving in America is that

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Speaker 1: the Pilgrim and Native American aspects of the holidays, trappings

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Speaker 1: and sometimes decorations which many of us grew up with,

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Speaker 1: they can feel rather off putting. The more you realize

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Speaker 1: about the exploitation of First Nations people and or the

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Speaker 1: religious views of the Pilgrims one of those the more

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Speaker 1: you know, the more uh you know at least awkward

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Speaker 1: it can feel. And then, of course the Thanksgiving parade

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Speaker 1: is not quite as fun as it seemed when you

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Speaker 1: were seven, it never seemed fun. You never got into

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Speaker 1: that at all. No, I like big balloons, but the

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Speaker 1: parade aspect seemed it seemed over long and tedious. Yeah yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess so. But I was down for just watching

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Speaker 1: any television at that age. So okay, Now, I didn't

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Speaker 1: mean to rain on your your parade, literally no, no.

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Speaker 1: Because now I don't watch it nowadays, I'm really not

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Speaker 1: even tempted to. But when I was a child, at

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Speaker 1: one point, it was big fun. On the positive side, though,

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Speaker 1: depending on your own personal experience in situation, perhaps you

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Speaker 1: can attest to finding some or all of the following

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Speaker 1: aspects of American Thanksgiving fulfilling. First of all, American football.

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Speaker 1: It's not my thing, but I know a lot of

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Speaker 1: people love it, and Thanksgiving is a time to watch

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Speaker 1: it obsessively. Somebody's thing, now something it is my thing.

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Speaker 1: The Mystery Science Theater, three thousand Turkey Day Marathon. Hey

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Speaker 1: now we're cooking? Yeah, that that was and still is

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Speaker 1: one of my favorites. It doesn't feel like Thanksgiving unless

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Speaker 1: I'm watching some sort of a rift movie. Generally it's

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Speaker 1: Jack Frost. That's a really good one. That's the one

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Speaker 1: with the like the Russian fairy tale and I guess yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they're they're actually some perhaps some examples of gratitude

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Speaker 1: playing into the the traditional folk tale alls that are

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Speaker 1: brought to cinematic life in that film. Oh yeah, early

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Speaker 1: on then the story isn't Jack or not Jack? The

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Speaker 1: boy in the story, he's he's quite ungrateful. I'm titled right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And then he's taught a lesson by father mushroom. Let's

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Speaker 1: see other other things. Perhaps they're positive aspects of family gatherings.

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Speaker 1: A family gathering is a family gathering, um, and it

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Speaker 1: can be quite joyful. There's nostalgia wound up in the

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Speaker 1: practice as well. Of course, also, perhaps you really do

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Speaker 1: enjoy the food. I mean, people are gonna vary on

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Speaker 1: Thanksgiving food, but get a little jab in there for

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Speaker 1: people who hate food. Well, no, I don't hate food,

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Speaker 1: but Thanksgiving dishes are usually not my absolute favorite dishes. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I see the style of Thanksgiving food as traditionally prepared. Yet,

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Speaker 1: but some people that might be your thing, and if so,

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Speaker 1: you know, go for it. You know, I am firmly

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Speaker 1: of the opinion that people should not feel compelled to

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Speaker 1: eat certain foods because it is a certain holiday. If

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Speaker 1: it's the fourth of July and you're hanging out by

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Speaker 1: the water, but you don't want to eat burgers and

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Speaker 1: hot dogs and barbecue, don't eat burgers. How do you

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Speaker 1: eat whatever you want to eat on Thanksgiving? I am

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Speaker 1: I strongly believe people should have kim che centric feasts

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Speaker 1: and and really that's that gets to my next point

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Speaker 1: is that you may look forward to Thanksgiving because you've

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Speaker 1: created your own ritual. You have created something new, something fresh,

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Speaker 1: that you share with family and or friends, that that

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Speaker 1: means something more to you than some of these more

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Speaker 1: you know, traditional tropes of the season. But I think

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Speaker 1: that the vast majority of us, wherever you fall in

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Speaker 1: on these various points, you can probably agree on one thing. Surely,

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Speaker 1: thankfulness itself. Gratitude itself is a useful exercise. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people might agree on that

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Speaker 1: in principle, but then not really agree on it in practice. Well. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so it's one thing to think it one thing to

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Speaker 1: another to act on it. Uh, you know, the the

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Speaker 1: act or even thought of being thankful though for what

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Speaker 1: you have in life, no matter how small, no matter

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Speaker 1: how cruel fate may seem at times, there is I

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Speaker 1: think generally an idea that this is good, this is beneficial,

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Speaker 1: and if somebody is arguing something contrary to that, they're

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Speaker 1: probably doing it to get a rise out of you.

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Speaker 1: With you know, some exceptions, I'm sure. So we're actually

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about gratitude and thankfulness today, right.

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Speaker 1: I was thinking about how okay this subject might at

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Speaker 1: first glance, seemed kind of quaint compared to like the

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Speaker 1: grotesque evolutionary realities and strange frontiers of understanding that we

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Speaker 1: often like to explore on the show. But I think

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Speaker 1: this kind of research, by which I mean investigation of

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Speaker 1: like fundamental positive emotional states, is extremely important. It's actually

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Speaker 1: highly relevant as a scientific frontier because whatever you may

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Speaker 1: think you know, or whatever you think is obvious about

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Speaker 1: how to live a good life, just look at the

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Speaker 1: ways we actually live and in practice humans are clearly

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Speaker 1: not in agreement about how to live a good life,

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Speaker 1: and like, what are the correct emotional states to seek

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Speaker 1: and how to seek them? In practice, we don't always

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Speaker 1: have reliable ways of orienting our mental and emotional lives

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Speaker 1: to the maximum benefit of ourselves and others. So I

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Speaker 1: think this kind of thing, the study of positive emotions

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Speaker 1: and positive social interactions, is actually a crucial socially relevant

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Speaker 1: psychological frontier and a workshop for the tools for a

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Speaker 1: better life. Absolutely, I would agree. And another thing I

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Speaker 1: think is that it's important to look at the science

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Speaker 1: about on subjects like this, because I would say, this

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff is usually the domain of things like

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Speaker 1: religion and common sense, you know, positive interactions and positive emotions,

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Speaker 1: and that's all well and good to deal with it

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Speaker 1: and in a religious way or just kind of deal

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Speaker 1: with it at a you know, gut feeling way, but

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Speaker 1: it's worth bringing a critical scientific lens to figure out

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Speaker 1: what's actually going on with these emotions, what are their

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Speaker 1: biological roots, Uh, what are the best ways to trigger

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Speaker 1: and sustain, like, how do they fit into our lives,

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Speaker 1: and how can we drive them to the benefit of humanity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and hopefully all of this will be just a

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Speaker 1: good exercise for everyone in general, because I know from

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Speaker 1: from personal experience it's entirely possible to go through an

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Speaker 1: entire Thanksgiving holiday without actually engaging in the experience of

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Speaker 1: gratitude and thoughts or acts of gratitude. So maybe this

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Speaker 1: will force all of us to to rethink what gratitude

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Speaker 1: is and why we seemingly have a holiday that's all

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Speaker 1: about reminding us to be thankful, even if we don't

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Speaker 1: always actually act on that. So first of all, let's

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Speaker 1: just start with under the origins of gratitude, getting down

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Speaker 1: to the you know, the brass tacks of the matter.

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Speaker 1: We'll start with the old old Webster's definition gratitude is

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Speaker 1: a state of being grateful. That's not very helpful, all right,

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Speaker 1: We'll go deeper, and to be grateful is to be

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Speaker 1: appreciative of benefits received, expressing gratitude affording pleasure or contentment

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Speaker 1: or pleasing by reason of comfort supplied or discomfort alleviate

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Speaker 1: did so, it is being aware of your blessings, being

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Speaker 1: aware of benefits received, and more than just acknowledging that

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Speaker 1: they exist, being appreciative of them. So there's like a

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Speaker 1: positive emotion that coincides with acknowledging what has gone well

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Speaker 1: right now and considering all of this, and certainly more

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Speaker 1: so if you were already bringing in religious connotations, we

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Speaker 1: touched on the fact that sometimes gratitude is shall we say,

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Speaker 1: more cosmic. For instance, I can truly say that I'm

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Speaker 1: thankful to have been born in a time of such

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Speaker 1: scientific advancements, uh, you know, such relative global peace and

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Speaker 1: personal freedom. And I often come back to the old

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Speaker 1: phil Oaks folk song there but for Fortune that talks

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Speaker 1: about all these terrible things and saying, well they're but

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Speaker 1: for fortune, go you or I. Yeah. And And as

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Speaker 1: much as there, of course still is always lots of

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Speaker 1: things wrong in the world, you can appreciate the things

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Speaker 1: that have gone right. I mean, like whatever else bad

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Speaker 1: is going on, you can say, wow, I was able

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Speaker 1: to receive vaccines, you know, exactly. But a lot of

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Speaker 1: these are sort of by luck of the universe. I

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Speaker 1: exist at all, am conscious of my existence so at all,

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Speaker 1: or you know, despite a fair amount of nitpicking and

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Speaker 1: even some you know, major issues with the state of

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Speaker 1: world or even reality itself, we can say, well, I

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Speaker 1: am fortunate. So that's that's very you know, cosmic gratitude.

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Speaker 1: But then there's the idea of being grateful to someone

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Speaker 1: or to something, and and this is important as well,

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Speaker 1: and it can take many forms. Perhaps you are grateful

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Speaker 1: to your partner for all they do and for their love.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you are grateful to your parents for their love

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Speaker 1: and support. Perhaps you're grateful to a friend or even

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Speaker 1: a stranger who did you a favor. Perhaps you're grateful

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Speaker 1: to an authority figure in your life, a boss, a

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Speaker 1: public figure who help you in some way, an artist

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Speaker 1: who created something that gave you joy, or a king

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Speaker 1: um you know. And indeed, perhaps you're you're grateful to

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Speaker 1: a deity for their perceived role in any of these

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Speaker 1: everyday blessings or the larger cosmic blessings we mentioned already. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is an interesting distinction. Uh, maybe looking at social

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Speaker 1: gratitude versus what you're calling like cosmic gratitude, because I

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Speaker 1: believe the biological function of gratitude as an emotion in

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Speaker 1: the primate brain is probably primarily social. Right, it's a

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Speaker 1: motivating emotion that encourages bonding and reciprocal cooperation between animals.

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Speaker 1: But in humans, it's clear that that it can escape

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Speaker 1: the bonds of its original social context and exist without

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Speaker 1: an object. Right, you can be grateful but not to

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Speaker 1: any person in particular, like you're talking about with this

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Speaker 1: cosmic gratefulness, or exist in relationship to things. Maybe there

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Speaker 1: is an object you're grateful to, but it's not another

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Speaker 1: animal or another person. It can just be a situation.

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Speaker 1: I find that really interesting. Uh, And I think there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of parallels with other emotions that have escaped

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Speaker 1: their original social significance in an animal context. You might

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Speaker 1: think of resentment in the negative side. Resentment, I think

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Speaker 1: also is primarily a social emotion as biological functions in

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Speaker 1: you know, regulating social groups and group dynamics. But it's

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Speaker 1: also possible for people to feel resentment towards no one

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Speaker 1: in particular, just sort of rather toward life for toward

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Speaker 1: general situations. Right Like, So, for instance, if if I

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Speaker 1: have back pain, I can resent my job and or

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Speaker 1: indoor my boss, because you know, if that job somehow

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Speaker 1: played into me injuring my back. If I believe in

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Speaker 1: a deity, I can resent my deity or you know, whatever,

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Speaker 1: the or the devil or whoever, for their role in

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Speaker 1: making my back hurt or allowing it to hurt in

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Speaker 1: the first place. Or I can for instance, be resentful

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Speaker 1: at natural selection in the state of human biology that

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Speaker 1: that frequently enables back pain to exist at all. You

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Speaker 1: can just have resentfulness without an object like and nobody

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Speaker 1: to be mad at here. But I'm so resentful. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I think the same is clearly true of gratitude.

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Speaker 1: I entirely agree with this idea of this cosmic feeling

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Speaker 1: of gratitude. And it's funny how that kind of thing

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Speaker 1: complicates our picture of of gratitude far beyond even the

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Speaker 1: kind you see like in the in the folk tales,

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Speaker 1: where most often gratitude manifests as like, Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: a sort of a debt ode to someone. Someone has

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Speaker 1: done something nice for you, and you're going to find

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Speaker 1: a way to pay them back. Yeah, that's right, because

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Speaker 1: if there is an other involved in your gratitude, be

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Speaker 1: it an actual human person or a perceived deity, then

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Speaker 1: there may be well, this feeling of indebtedness. There is

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Speaker 1: a bond, there is something that needs to be repaid

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Speaker 1: in one form or another. And then there's clearly overlap

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Speaker 1: here between indebtedness and gratitude. Uh. And it really depends

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Speaker 1: on who you talk to who's doing the arguing. Some

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Speaker 1: say that they are essentially equivalent. Others, however, argue that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about two distinct emotional states. I was looking

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Speaker 1: at some various sources on this in the Debt of Gratitude,

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Speaker 1: disassociating gratitude and indebtedness by Watkins at All, published in

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Speaker 1: Cognition and Emotion in two thousand and six. The researchers

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Speaker 1: carried out a pair of exers. Ez Is insurmised that quote,

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Speaker 1: the debt of gratitude is internally generated and is not

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Speaker 1: analogous to an economic form of indebtedness. Okay, so they

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Speaker 1: come down on the side of it, these two things

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Speaker 1: being not equivalent. Another study I was looking at for

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Speaker 1: this one from Matthews and green Um looking at Me

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Speaker 1: Appreciating You. Self focused attention distinguishes between gratitude and indebtedness.

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Speaker 1: This was also an Incognition and Emotion but from two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight. In this the research has found that quote,

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Speaker 1: highly self focused individuals recalled increased indebtedness, but not gratitude

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Speaker 1: towards a benefactor relative to those in the control condition.

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Speaker 1: Self focused individuals also felt less commitment and closeness to

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Speaker 1: the benefactor. So if I'm understanding this correctly, Um and indeed,

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Speaker 1: these are all just arguments on the backup two experiments.

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Speaker 1: They're not gospel. Uh. Concerning gratitude, indebtedness comes down comes

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Speaker 1: into play more when we're considering ourselves as players within

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Speaker 1: a social system. Well, yeah, I mean, I can imagine,

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Speaker 1: for example, it seems perfectly plausible that you could have

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Speaker 1: person a Bob who is really into paying back what

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Speaker 1: he owes people. He borrows five dollars, He's going to

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Speaker 1: pay you back five dollars, right exactly. He always pays

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Speaker 1: his debts. But he might not be a person in

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Speaker 1: which you recognize much of this emotion that we call gratitude. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: you could have person b You could have Jeff over here,

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Speaker 1: who maybe is kind of flaky about paying back debt's

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Speaker 1: ode and doesn't keep a very clean ledger. That way

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Speaker 1: doesn't settle all these debts, but shows more of the

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Speaker 1: emotion we think of his gratitude. That that makes sense

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Speaker 1: to me, and I can very easily see those things

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Speaker 1: being disconnected from one another in social scenarios. Now here's

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Speaker 1: another paper. I was looking at a two thousand seven

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Speaker 1: paper in Motivation and Emotion from Joe N. Saying titled

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Speaker 1: the Effects of helper Intention on Gratitude and Indebtedness. And

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Speaker 1: this also experimented with the distinction and explore the effects

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Speaker 1: of helper intention on reactions to a favor. And basically

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Speaker 1: the subjects were asked to think about times they did

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Speaker 1: something nice, either within an ulterior motive or as an

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Speaker 1: act of just pure benevolence, and quote, participants felt significantly

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Speaker 1: more grateful when the helper had benevolent intentions. So a

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Speaker 1: lot of it would seem to come down to either

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Speaker 1: the express nature of the act and or the individual's

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Speaker 1: perception of it. So you could have people who feel

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Speaker 1: thankful because you know, the stranger gave me a cold

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Speaker 1: water bottle just out of kindness or uh, you know um.

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Speaker 1: Or they could say, oh, the bellman was so nice

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Speaker 1: to bring my luggage to my hotel room. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: they're grateful, not realizing they were supposed to tip that individual. Right.

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Speaker 1: It's all about you know, your perception. You know. Likewise,

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Speaker 1: you could feel indebted because your friend helped you move

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Speaker 1: and you know that they are going to move next week,

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Speaker 1: or you know, you could be something like, oh, that

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Speaker 1: stranger gave me a bottle of water, probably because they're

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Speaker 1: going to try to sell me something. I'm gonna have

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Speaker 1: to stand here and listen to them, you know, or

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Speaker 1: something like that. So you could you could read or

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Speaker 1: potentially misread any situation and lean more towards gratitude or indebtedness. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we totally know if you've watched a mob movie or

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Speaker 1: The Sopranos, that there are gifts that are purely menacing,

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Speaker 1: that that you can, like give somebody a gift or

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Speaker 1: give somebody cash or something like that, and the goal

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Speaker 1: is not to do something nice for them. It is

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Speaker 1: to to scare them, to signal to them that they

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Speaker 1: are indebted to you, and they can't you know, they

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Speaker 1: can't turn this down. It's more of a kind of

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Speaker 1: dominance move. When someone in a position of power um

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Speaker 1: asked for a favor, that sort of thing. It's entirely

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Speaker 1: different situation than if a normal person just asks, you know,

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Speaker 1: a friend or a family member for a favor. Well,

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Speaker 1: but but in this case, what I was talking about

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Speaker 1: is if a person in power does you a favor,

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Speaker 1: but you know, you're not going to feel gratitude if

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Speaker 1: you don't think that the favor was actually done out

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Speaker 1: of kindness, if you think the favor was done in

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Speaker 1: some way to try to dominate you or make a

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Speaker 1: point to you. Yes. Now, both of these ideas, though

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Speaker 1: no matter how connected they are, touch on two things

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Speaker 1: that are typically stressed in human culture. You should repay

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Speaker 1: your debts and you should show gratitude either in general

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Speaker 1: to a deity or deities and or two individuals. All right,

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Speaker 1: it's time to take a quick break, but we'll be

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Speaker 1: right back to discuss some research on gratitude. Alright, we're back.

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Speaker 1: So in considering, you know, cultural attitudes towards gratitude and

429
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:24,480
Speaker 1: who should show gratitude towards, one of the big ones is,

430
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:28,199
Speaker 1: of course, gratitude towards parents and family members. That kind

431
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 1: of makes sense. I mean, the entire act of raising

432
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 1: a child is doing a lot of favors that are

433
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 1: not immediately repaid, right, and and also you engage in

434
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:42,640
Speaker 1: them generally because you don't expect them to be repaid. Yeah,

435
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,919
Speaker 1: but but this is important business in human culture. Uh.

436
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: And in various cultures we see different models of it.

437
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 1: For instance, in Chinese traditions, there's the concept of filial

438
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:59,159
Speaker 1: piety or shall and it is enormously important and in

439
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 1: many Eastern cultus as well. It's a concept grounded in

440
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:06,479
Speaker 1: Daoist philosophy Confucian family values, and it concerns the undying

441
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: nature of the human soul, the dead live on in

442
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: the afterlife. It also entails continue efforts to not only

443
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: honor to see his family members, but to care for them,

444
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 1: to tend to their desires and even uh in some

445
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: models curry favor in order to avoid catastrophe, to maintain

446
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 1: balance and happiness for the living and for the dead. Um,

447
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: you know, it's a continued spirit lineage for a given family.

448
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,160
Speaker 1: But we also see the basic form of this elsewhere

449
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 1: as well. A certain amount of respect and devotion is

450
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: old to elders, particularly one's own elders, and we see

451
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: shades of this and other cultures. The Greeks and Romans

452
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: put a great deal of emphasis on gratefulness to one's

453
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 1: parents and failure to honor. This was considered not mere ingratitude,

454
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: but impeity. Uh So we're talking, you know, the dire

455
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: breach of a bond that is often attributed to that

456
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 1: between a mortal and a god. And of course one

457
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 1: is reminded of the line from King lear right, how

458
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: sharper it is than a urban's tooth to have an

459
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: ungrateful child. I mean, the serpent's tooth doesn't make noise. Yeah, No,

460
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 1: I mean that is like, what why is it? I mean,

461
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just like our personal pet peeves

462
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 1: like it is a widely recognized thing that one of

463
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 1: the most disgusting things to witnesses, like a particularly entitled

464
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 1: and ungrateful child. Well that's fine, Willy Wonka and the

465
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 1: chocolate factory. We see I think several generations of this, right,

466
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: the ungrateful child. I guess FRUA's fru cassalt one of

467
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: the ungrateful children. I don't know. I'm not a Willie

468
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: Wanka expert here now, I'm trying to at least one

469
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: of them is definitely positioned as an ungrateful child, and

470
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:44,880
Speaker 1: and a lot of I want it's and no thank you's.

471
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 1: Right now. Of course, we realistically have to acknowledge that

472
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: relationships between children and parents is is often more complicated

473
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 1: than this, but still the trope, the idea of the

474
00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:00,679
Speaker 1: cultural emphasis remains. But in general, Judaism, chris Janity, and

475
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,679
Speaker 1: Islam all stressed gratitude is being part of a good life.

476
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: It's also stressed in Hinduism and Buddhism and other major

477
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,640
Speaker 1: faiths as well, and and often there's an emphasis put

478
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 1: on gratitude as expressed in prayer, absolutely, I think, and

479
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 1: as we get into the studies about the psychological benefits

480
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: of actively practicing gratitude. I think this is one of

481
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: the many arguments you could make that there are secular

482
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: psychological benefits to what you would normally see as prayer behaviors,

483
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: right right. And we see various philosophers and thinkers throughout

484
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 1: time chiming in on gratitude as well, generally in favor

485
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: of it. Um. So, just a taste of some of these, um,

486
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: and maybe we can go back and forth on these,

487
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,719
Speaker 1: uh these, Joe, if you want to take the first one. Oh, okay,

488
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: So Epicurus said, do not spoil what you have by

489
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: desiring what you have. Not remember that what you now

490
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: have was once among the things you only hoped for,

491
00:26:56,400 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: all right. And then Cicero once said gratitude is not

492
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,479
Speaker 1: only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

493
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:05,439
Speaker 1: I think he's close. I think the parent of all

494
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: others is probably honesty, but gratitude right up there, somewhere

495
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: right below. I think gratitude fits in pretty well with

496
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: with the Stoic philosophy and you and you can see

497
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,879
Speaker 1: this in the writings of Marcus Aurelius, where he said,

498
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: take full account of what excellencies you possess and ingratitude.

499
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 1: Remember how you would hanker after them if you had

500
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: them not Now, I was of course curious what Aristotle

501
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: had to say, and because he's always wrong. Well, and

502
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: you might not be surprised here, depending on how you

503
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: look at it. Uh So I've read different things about

504
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: Aristotle's approach to gratitude. On one hand, is pointed out

505
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: by Jacquelein of Pifer Merrill in Philanthropy Daily the Virtue

506
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: of Gratitude as the name of her piece, Aristotle did

507
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: not list gratitude as a virtue and actually listed several

508
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: traits that run opposite to the idea, such as having

509
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 1: a quote proper pride wasn't Aristotle also against mercy? He

510
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: didn't really like it. Yeah. On the other hand, the

511
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy points out that gratitude quote fits nicely

512
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: into Aristotle's picture of virtue as a mean between an

513
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 1: excess and a deficiency, with gratitude being a mean between

514
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: the vices of arrogant, prideful and envious ingratitude on one hand,

515
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: and the obsequiousness or servility of over gratitude on the other. Still,

516
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: I would say Aristotle not coming off as like the

517
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: the real poster child for gratitude. Well, I mean, I

518
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 1: think Aristotle was very much one day, he was kind

519
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: of obsessed with like with like justice and the ledger

520
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: being evenly settled in things, so like, you know, I

521
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: think he was against the idea of mercy or compassion

522
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: towards people who were receiving deserved or just suffering. And

523
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: I think he would probably likely hear be against um

524
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: feelings of gratitude that are disproport sin it to the

525
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: benefits received. All right, let's fast forward a bit to

526
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:05,719
Speaker 1: some more recent thinkers. Okay, it looks like we got

527
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: Voltaire here, who said appreciation is a wonderful thing. It

528
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

529
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: I really like that one. Uh. And then here's one

530
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: from C. S. Lewis. This is from the screw type letters. Uh.

531
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: And off hand, I don't remember if this is these

532
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: are the words of a demon or not, but quote

533
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: gratitude looks to the past, and love to the present.

534
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: Fear averaice, lust, and ambition look ahead. So to take

535
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: that for what it's worth. Now, now to come back

536
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: to the idea of a you know, sort of terrestrial

537
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: and cosmic gratitude, uh secular and religious thankfulness. There's a

538
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: wonderful two thousand fourteen Atlantic article titled Gratitude without God

539
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: that asks ask us, what do we to make of

540
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: gratitude when we remove the spiritual elements so key to

541
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: it in religious modes of life? And in this you

542
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: see Davis psychologist at Robert Emmons is quoted in the article,

543
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 1: and I think he sums it up rather nicely. Quote

544
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: we all begin life dependent on others, and most of

545
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: us in life dependent on others. If we are lucky

546
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,719
Speaker 1: in between, we have roughly sixty years or so of

547
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: unacknowledged dependency. The human condition is such that throughout life,

548
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: not just at the beginning and end, we are profoundly

549
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 1: dependent on other people. Gratitude is the truest approach to life.

550
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: We did not create or fashion ourselves. We did not

551
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: birth ourselves. Life is about giving, receiving, and repaying. We

552
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: are receptive beings dependent on the help of others, on

553
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: their gifts and their kindness. I think that's lovely and

554
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: extremely true. Robert Emmons, of course, is a psychologist who's

555
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 1: deeply involved in research on gratitude. You see him all

556
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: over like the the UC Berkeley Greater Good Thing, which

557
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: studies a lot of like, you know, positive emotions and

558
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: things like that. He's all over that. So he does

559
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: a lot with UH emotions like gratitude. But I I

560
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: agree here, I mean I gratitude is fundamentally an emotional

561
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: state of honesty and realism, whereas a roughly converse emotion

562
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: like pride more often reflects delusion and self deception. Essentially,

563
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,959
Speaker 1: none of the things about your life that you enjoy

564
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: could exist without the free gifts given by others in

565
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 1: the past and present. You're you know, the society you

566
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: live in, your education that made you the person you

567
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: are today, all the technology that you benefit from, the

568
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: culture that you love it, everything, everything there is a

569
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,719
Speaker 1: gift from others in the past and in the present

570
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: to you. And to try to ignore this is just

571
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: factually deceptive, you know, to think like I deserve everything

572
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: good that I get and and it's all because of me.

573
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: I think exactly the same way that it feels good

574
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: to tell the truth instead of lying. It feels good

575
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: to be grateful for everything that's good. Yes, I would agree. Now,

576
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: Also interesting in this UH, this article um that I

577
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: that I quoted here the Gratitude without God from the

578
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: Atlantic In Uh, they they cite Michael McCulloch, a psychologist

579
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: at the University of Miami, who makes a case that

580
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: it may also be just hardwired into us social apes,

581
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: that we are traits for gratitude might be enforced through

582
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: natural selection. And McCulloch has has research gratitude before before

583
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: of you know, finding that the doing nice things for

584
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: people unexpectedly produces gratitude and then it's more likely that

585
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: we will respond in kind. Yeah. Uh yeah, And I

586
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: think there's been a lot of research on the dynamics

587
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 1: of of like social altruism and reciprocal behavior among social

588
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: species like like primates like us. How do you form

589
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: stable social groups of complex animals like us. One pretty

590
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: simple way to do it is to operate on the

591
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: basis not it's not perfectly represented like this, but the

592
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: basis of roughly reciprocal behavior. When somebody does something nice

593
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: for you, you do something nice for them back. And

594
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: if animals with traits for this evolved, they can have

595
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: stable social groups. Yeah, I think I think that makes sense.

596
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: And again we are coming back to the fact that

597
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: we are these social beings, and we depend so heavily

598
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: on on these social connections, though sometimes pride does at

599
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: least partially convinces that we that we were immune from

600
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: all of this. So indeed, there has been quite a

601
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: bit of research into gratitude and and so we're not

602
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: gonna attempt to include everything here, but I wanted to

603
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: start with just a few examples of recent studies from

604
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: the past few years before looking at more of like

605
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: a meta analysis of you know what in general we

606
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: know about gratitude. So there is a two thousand seventeen

607
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: University of Oregon study that found that journaling, uh, you know,

608
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: taking your thoughts, putting them onto paper, forcing them into

609
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: written language inspired altruism through an exercise of gratitude. Yeah,

610
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be one thing that figures big into

611
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 1: scientific research on gratitude. You've got to find a way

612
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: to make it happen in the sort of lab conditions

613
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: or controlled conditions. And there are a couple of things

614
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 1: that are very common there that are referred to as

615
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: gratitude interventions. One big one is getting people to like

616
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: journal to write out their blessings and just like mentally

617
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: acknowledge them. Going through the list and being thankful, and

618
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 1: that appears to work pretty well. And another one is

619
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: getting somebody to acknowledge a person directly, like writing a

620
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: letter of gratitude to someone. Yes. Uh. And these of

621
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: these things don't work equally for everyone. Some people have

622
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: a disposition that's more toward gratitude to begin with, but

623
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: they do appear to be generally effective at triggering gratitude

624
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: and its subsequent benefits. It's something you can do that

625
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,800
Speaker 1: will very likely change your emotional state, just to literally

626
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: sit down and think about your blessings. It looks like

627
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: it mostly works. Uh. Here's another one in two thou eighteen,

628
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,439
Speaker 1: University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Because of course

629
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,439
Speaker 1: gratitude is in every aspect of life, and of course

630
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 1: in the business sphere as well. How can you use

631
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: gratitude to extract money from other people? Well, this is

632
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,240
Speaker 1: interesting that it ties into that, I think, the everyday experience,

633
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: because he said that they found that people tend to

634
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: underestimate the power of, say, a letter of gratitude. They also,

635
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: you know, commented that despite all the research and the

636
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: media coverage, and it is the you know, the popular

637
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 1: notion that gratitude is good. The public, you know, tends

638
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: do not exercise these exercises of gratitude enough through expressions

639
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: like this, through through like just a note of thank you.

640
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:38,879
Speaker 1: That's what I was getting at earlier. I mean, on

641
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,439
Speaker 1: one hand, it's it's not very surprising to say that, yes,

642
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: gratitude has strong psychological benefits. Practicing gratitude is really good,

643
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: and you should do it. That might be the conventional

644
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: wisdom anyway, But people don't. We don't act as if

645
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: it is. And and I kind of get from this

646
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: the fact that it's such a you know, it's a

647
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,359
Speaker 1: business school of business paper. I'm getting like even from

648
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 1: like a macke Valiant sort of standpoint. They're not. It's

649
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: like you're not manipulating gratitude enough. But that kind of

650
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: like ties into our overall, you know, perhaps an overall

651
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 1: lack of gratitude. Maybe we're being ungrateful to our friends

652
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: in the business world. They're not always There might be

653
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 1: little elements of that. Here's another one. Two thousand eighteen,

654
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: researchers from Peking University used neuroimaging to demonstrate a possible

655
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: brain network involved in the translation of altruism into feelings

656
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:32,240
Speaker 1: of thankfulness. So I mean, basically, we're setting on two

657
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: decades a plus of work that supports the long standing

658
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: idea that gratitude is a worthwhile virtue with positive effects

659
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: on health, happiness, and relationships and also tends to lessen uh,

660
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 1: negative emotional states like in the and materialism. So indeed,

661
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 1: there's a great deal of research out there about gratitude,

662
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: and I was, I was looking through a lot of it,

663
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: and I found a really good two thousand seventeen paper

664
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 1: by Laos at all and pls one and uh and

665
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:04,919
Speaker 1: this did a lot of sort of meta analysis, sort

666
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 1: of catching us up on on what has occurred in

667
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: previous decades in the researching of gratitude and and a

668
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: lot of these do come down to these experiments that

669
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 1: you described already Joe, about you know, asking someone to

670
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: recount their blessings before you know it as part of

671
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: the experiment, or asking them to write a letter of gratitude.

672
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 1: So this paper, is the title indicates, was largely focused

673
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: on looking at the quote complex constellation of social emotions

674
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: people experience after practicing gratitude. But in doing so they

675
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:36,879
Speaker 1: do a wonderful meta analysis of prior gratitude research, and

676
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 1: this is basically this is the short version of what

677
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 1: they lay out. So, first of all, numerous past studies

678
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: have proven that there are tangible positive benefits to gratitude.

679
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 1: I've listed some of these already, health, happiness, relationships, etcetera.

680
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: And then following up on these, additional studies looked to

681
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:58,800
Speaker 1: ways to induce these feelings in experiments through gratitude exercises.

682
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:02,359
Speaker 1: So there's about a decade that and then uh, there

683
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: are papers such as this one. They look more at

684
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,839
Speaker 1: exactly what might be going on and how it factors,

685
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: you know, into the human experience, and uh, through their

686
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:15,839
Speaker 1: own studies. In this paper, the researchers found that gratitude

687
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: exercises feel pleasant and mildly unpleasant at the same time,

688
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: which I think was is really insightful. This is something

689
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 1: that I I didn't even really think about, but then

690
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 1: after I read it, I'm like, well, that's that's exactly right. Yeah,

691
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: if when I'm when I'm engaging in an exercise of gratitude,

692
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: which you know it might be in the prayer. I've

693
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 1: gone to yoga classes where they do uh gratitude exercise

694
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: as well. Uh, they can feel a little bitter sweet,

695
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: because in contemplating what you have there and and what

696
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: has you know, the various aids that have been present

697
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,720
Speaker 1: to help you get where you are in your life,

698
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:55,280
Speaker 1: as well as the cosmic things in place. You know, you,

699
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: you end up at least partially contemplating uh, you know,

700
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,839
Speaker 1: the situation of others and uh and indeed getting into

701
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: that there but for fortune kind of zone that we

702
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: discussed earlier. Yeah, I think there there are multiple reasons

703
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: that practicing gratitude, while very psychologically beneficial overall, it can

704
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:15,720
Speaker 1: be bitter sweet. And of course one of the reasons

705
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: is acknowledging the misfortune of others while you acknowledge your

706
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: own fortune. I mean that that, of course, it doesn't

707
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: feel good to contemplate the fact that you have what

708
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: others do not have. But then also there's another thing,

709
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: which is just like, there's a certain part of you that,

710
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: even when you're trying to practice gratitude probably always wants

711
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:40,359
Speaker 1: to be a bit narcissistic and entitled and think that well,

712
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: I you know, I just get what's coming to me,

713
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 1: all the good things coming my way, or because I

714
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,400
Speaker 1: deserve them, and I'm so great and I've earned everything

715
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 1: I have. You know, people sometimes like to think that way,

716
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 1: and it's weird that So I think the research is

717
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: absolutely clear that actively practicing gratitude and acknowledging all of

718
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: the blessings that have come your way, being thankful for

719
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: what other people have done for you and for your

720
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 1: good fortune and luck, that has positive benefits and it

721
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: feels good. But if you are encouraged to do that,

722
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: if certain especially certain people with a kind of disposition

723
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 1: against gratitude, are encouraged to do things like that using

724
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: the wrong language or the wrong tone of voice, they

725
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: can often become incredibly defensive and defiant, like the suggestion

726
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: that they have benefited from privileges and blessings and stuff.

727
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? Oh, absolutely, Yeah, there's

728
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 1: you know, obviously there's a lot of talk and culture

729
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: today about about the various privileges that we have and

730
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: checking your privilege, acknowledging your privilege, and and and and

731
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 1: factoring that into how you relate to others, how you

732
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 1: empathize with other people, which which is I think a

733
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: very important exercise and essential exercise. But yeah, at the

734
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: same time, like that's a way to really raise somebody's defenses. Absolutely.

735
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I could be wrong, but what

736
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: I tend to imagine is going on there that even

737
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: though I think most people would acknowledge that it is

738
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: good to understand and think about the blessings you've received,

739
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,919
Speaker 1: you know, the honored privileges that that you benefit from.

740
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:13,240
Speaker 1: That if you are encouraged to do so by someone

741
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: that you don't see as sympathetic to you, you know,

742
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,840
Speaker 1: if you're encouraged to do that by somebody you see

743
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: as maybe a potential enemy or stranger outsider, you get

744
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 1: kind of you just like put the walls up and

745
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: you're like, no, it feels like an attack. Yeah, And

746
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:29,799
Speaker 1: I wonder if part of this, getting back to this

747
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: bittersweet aspect of of gratitude, is that it is placing

748
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:38,280
Speaker 1: yourself into a state of vulnerability, which which is generally

749
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: something that's the kind of thing that is necessary for change,

750
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 1: that's necessary for uh, for for a lot of like

751
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: positive movements of of the of of of the mind

752
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: and the and our sense of identity, but it can

753
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: also be frightening. Also in this paper, they speculated that

754
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: this mixed emotional experience is perhaps more motivating than like

755
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:04,360
Speaker 1: a purely positive of emotional experience would be uh. They write, quote, indeed,

756
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: it maybe this bittersweet state and the behaviors it elicits

757
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 1: that explain why gratitude exercises lead to downstream positive outcomes

758
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 1: pro sociality, health promoting behavior, etcetera, lending support to the

759
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: age old wisdom that gratitude is indeed a virtue. Right,

760
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 1: so it's not just like an emotion or an emotional state,

761
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,439
Speaker 1: but it is actually motivating. Uh. We already talked about

762
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: the idea that gratitude is an emotion that maybe in

763
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: an evolutionary sense, promotes pro social behavior, promotes like in

764
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: group cooperation, reciprocal altruism with people you know, doing a

765
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 1: nice thing for people who you imagine would do a

766
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:43,399
Speaker 1: nice thing for you, or have done a nice thing

767
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 1: for you. That of course is very important social behavior.

768
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,839
Speaker 1: But health promoting behavior. That that's another really interesting one.

769
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: It does show up a lot in the research that

770
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 1: you practice gratitude, you're less likely to abuse your own

771
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: body in various ways. It's hard to imagine exactly what

772
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,319
Speaker 1: the mechanism is there, but I can see it have

773
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 1: something to do with the kind of uh, the kind

774
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: of bittersweet self reflection brought on by understanding the things

775
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,839
Speaker 1: you benefit from. Yeah, and I also I also think

776
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 1: there's probably a connection there to the I mean there

777
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: there is a connection between gratitude and altruism, and you

778
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: know some of them. We discussed some of that connection already,

779
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 1: but you can see where you could you could be

780
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: asked to feel the gratitude you're so you're you're thankful

781
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: for the food you have. You have enough food to

782
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 1: feed your family, right, and then you realize in doing

783
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:27,240
Speaker 1: that that a lot of people cannot make this statement,

784
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:29,760
Speaker 1: and then that may lead to them to the action,

785
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 1: to actually doing something like signing up for a meal

786
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: delivery program, participating in a canned food drive, or or

787
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 1: other acts of altruism. Yeah, I think that's entirely plausible. Now,

788
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: focusing just on the immediate psychological benefits of of of

789
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: practicing gratitude. I was watching a short talk by the U. C.

790
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 1: Davis psychologist Robert A. Emmons, who is deeply involved in

791
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:54,480
Speaker 1: a lot of this gratitude research. I think we already

792
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: mentioned him earlier. So yeah, we read a quote from yeah, uh,

793
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: and he he just makes a number of points memerizing

794
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: some of the big takeaways from gratitude research and its

795
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,799
Speaker 1: emotional benefits. One of the things he mentions that I

796
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 1: think is interesting is that under natural circumstances, states of

797
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: positive emotion quickly wear off. You know, like you you

798
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: you're happy because something good happened. You know, that can

799
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: be anything from you know, I loved one did something

800
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: nice for you, or you've got to raise at work

801
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. You know, that leads to this

802
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: feeling of like, oh wow, you know the things are great.

803
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: Those emotional states wear off really fast. We're we're prone

804
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: to sort of like go back to baseline or or

805
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: pay attention to the new stimulus. But research indicates that

806
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 1: actively practicing gratitude sort of has the power to prolong

807
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: and sustain states of positive emotion. It prevents that wearing

808
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: off effect and and positive emotional states being supplanted by

809
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: novelty and your experience. Uh. And I think that's a

810
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward effect, right, just like just like thinking about

811
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: your blessings allows you to enjoy them more. Another thing

812
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: he points out is that gratitude actively suppresses some negative

813
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: emotions and emotional states, not all, but some. Uh. And

814
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 1: the negative emotional states that he flags as as being

815
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: sort of blocked by practicing gratitude are envy, resentment, regret,

816
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: and depression. Another thing he mentions is that gratitude encourages

817
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 1: psychological resilience. That just means it that like dispositional gratitude,

818
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 1: if you if you train yourself to become a gratitude

819
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,720
Speaker 1: disposed kind of person, it makes it easier to recover

820
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 1: when bad things happen to you and when you enter

821
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: negative emotional states. Uh. And then finally, of course that

822
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: this goes more to what we were talking about just

823
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: a minute ago. Gratitude strengthened social bonding and increases our

824
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 1: feeling of self worth. Uh. And I think the self

825
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 1: worth thing is very interesting because there's some kind of

826
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: perhaps ironic or or seemingly on its face self contradictory

827
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: thing going on with gratitude. It seems like gratitude simultane

828
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: enviously causes us to, you know, like be less self

829
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 1: focused and less narcissistic and less uh, less likely to

830
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: believe that, you know, we just deserve everything good that's

831
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: come our way, we earned it all. But on the

832
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 1: other hand, it does somehow make people feel more worthy.

833
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: I wonder if it is because on some level, like

834
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: our our most pronounced version of the egoic self, you know,

835
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: the most inflated version, which is going to vary from

836
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: individual to the individual. But that that that edifice that

837
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:34,839
Speaker 1: we put out, you know that it is on some level,

838
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 1: even as we're saying it, we know that it is

839
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 1: an inflation, and acts of gratitude forced us to withdraw

840
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:45,879
Speaker 1: that that that self balloon to to a more reasonable level.

841
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: That then we can feel a lot better about Yeah,

842
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: it's true like that. You might feel better thinking about

843
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: your own accomplishments if you're more humble and considering what

844
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: they are, right, because you've come down from I am

845
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: a golden God too, I'm an okay person, and and

846
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,280
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, I can stand behind that that statement.

847
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: I'm my hands aren't shaking when I say it. But

848
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:07,680
Speaker 1: I've got another possible theory. This isn't something that that

849
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 1: I've read asserted elsewhere, but it sort of ties into

850
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 1: what we were just thinking about. And I'm wondering if

851
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: there's a tie in to an extrapolated version of something

852
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: known as the Ben Franklin effect. I think maybe we

853
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 1: should take a break and then we can come back

854
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 1: and talk about this, all right, we'll do it. All right,

855
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: we're back, And I have to admit I kind of

856
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:30,799
Speaker 1: feel like I want to ring a bell or have

857
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: a sound effect anytime Ben Franklin shows up in either

858
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind or invention, because it does

859
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 1: seem like he'll pop in like a special guest star,

860
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 1: like a frequent special guest star in a sitcom, like

861
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: suddenly he's here. What's he gonna do? Is he gonna

862
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: experiment with something? Is he going to, uh, you know,

863
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: share some wisdom? What's his role? Franklin effect? Well, I

864
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: kind of can't you know. I don't love all the

865
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: so called founding fathers equally, but I think maybe I'm

866
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: sort of a you might call a Franco file. I like.

867
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 1: I like Franklin. All right, Well, how does he tie

868
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 1: into gratitude? All right? So this is a principle known

869
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: as the Ben Franklin effect Franklin Franklin effect. And here's

870
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 1: a very simple version of it. You're more likely to

871
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: do a favor for me if you've already done me

872
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 1: a favor in the past. It's named after a story

873
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin tells in his autobiography about how when he

874
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 1: was serving as a clerk in the Pennsylvania General Assembly,

875
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 1: and this was before the American Revolution, this would be

876
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: in the colonial administration of the mid seventeen thirties. Uh.

877
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 1: Franklin tells how one year a new member of the

878
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:44,400
Speaker 1: Assembly shows up and makes this long speech against Franklin's

879
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: candidacy for reappointment to the clerkship. So we've got like

880
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 1: an anti Franklin it in the Assembly who's up there

881
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 1: railing against Franklin. And Franklin evaluates this guy, and he

882
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:57,840
Speaker 1: judges that actually, this guy would make a good ally

883
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: in the future because, uh, he he's likely to have

884
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 1: a lot of influence, he's wealthy, he's well educated, and

885
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: he's got a lot of political talents. So Franklin wants

886
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: to turn this enemy into a friend. But he also

887
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do anything humiliating or pay any quote,

888
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: pay any servile respect to him, which, you know, I

889
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 1: admire Franklin for admitting that like petty resistance. Right. So

890
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 1: he comes up with a plan to ingratiate himself to

891
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: this guy, and he writes describing it here quote having

892
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: heard that he had in his library a certain very

893
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 1: scarce and curious book. I wrote a note to him

894
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he

895
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: would do me the favor of lending it to me

896
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I

897
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,840
Speaker 1: returned it in about a week with another note expressing

898
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met

899
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: in the house, he spoke to me, which he had

900
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: never done before, and with great civility, And he ever

901
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions,

902
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: so that we became great friends. Our friendship continued to

903
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,440
Speaker 1: his death. This is another instance of the truth of

904
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 1: an old maxim I had learned, which says, he that

905
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:09,520
Speaker 1: has once done you a kindness will be more ready

906
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.

907
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 1: And it shows how much more profitable it is to

908
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 1: prudently remove than to resent return and continue inimical proceedings.

909
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 1: And that, of course, that's that's certain, very scarce and

910
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: curious book was, of course the necronomic. I think so

911
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:31,719
Speaker 1: it's it's how Franklin learned the electrostatic secrets of azzof

912
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 1: so Franklin's observation can be generalized if you want to

913
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 1: make somebody like you, to make them treat you better,

914
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:42,880
Speaker 1: get them to do you a small favor. After somebody

915
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:46,360
Speaker 1: does you a small favor, their feelings about you become

916
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: more amicable and they become more likely to treat you

917
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: better in other ways in Franklin effect. So a couple

918
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: of questions that this is just a historical anecdote. First

919
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: of all, is this effect generally real? Can it be

920
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: empirically confirmed? And if so, how does this tie back

921
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: into gratitude as we were talking about earlier. So the

922
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 1: first question is their empirical evidence for the Ben Franklin effect.

923
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: I think the scientific evidence is not overwhelming, but there

924
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:17,400
Speaker 1: are a few studies and they do seem to support

925
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: the effect. One famous one was from the nineteen sixties,

926
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 1: I think it's from sixty nine in the journal Human

927
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 1: Relations by Jekker and Landy called liking a person as

928
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:29,840
Speaker 1: a function of doing him a favor. And the authors

929
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,399
Speaker 1: here did this complicated procedure with a with with having

930
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: participants go into a sham experiment that involved payouts of

931
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: small payouts of money at the end of the experiment

932
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 1: uh and they had different conditions where experiment ers or

933
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 1: somebody acting on behalf of the experiment, or would ask

934
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:51,800
Speaker 1: participants to do favors for them, including returning the small

935
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 1: amounts of money that they had won for participation in

936
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: the experiment, Like there was a ruse where they'd say,

937
00:51:57,000 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 1: actually funding his run out and and this is your payment.

938
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,880
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm having to fund these experiments out of

939
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: my own pocket, so I would really appreciate if you

940
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: would return the money. And then they also tried asking

941
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: for this favor through an intermediary like a department secretary,

942
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 1: and the authors did indeed find that after doing somebody

943
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: a favor, participants, on average reported liking that person more

944
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:23,359
Speaker 1: than they did before, more than they did if they

945
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 1: didn't do the person a favor. The Ben Franklin effect

946
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:29,800
Speaker 1: was supported by the experiment, but there are some interesting nuggets.

947
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 1: First of all, it did not help for a person

948
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 1: to ask for a favor through an intermediary or have

949
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 1: somebody else asked for a favor on your behalf. Only

950
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 1: asking directly seemed to create the effect here. Well that

951
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 1: that would make sense, like that is the formation of

952
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 1: the social bond, must be a person to person. Yeah,

953
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: I think that sort of makes sense. Uh. The Experimenters

954
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:55,359
Speaker 1: also manipulated the magnitude of the favor to see if

955
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:58,560
Speaker 1: this made a difference. Does doing somebody a bigger favor

956
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:02,200
Speaker 1: make you like them more than doing them a smaller favor.

957
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: They called this the magnitude of concession hypothesis, and they

958
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:08,000
Speaker 1: expected it to be the case, but they were wrong.

959
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:10,760
Speaker 1: It appears that if I ask you for a favor

960
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: and you do it for me, you will probably like

961
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 1: me more than you did before. But there is no

962
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 1: evidence that doing me a bigger favor makes you like

963
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 1: me more than doing a smaller favor would. So, based

964
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 1: on the study, I think it makes sense if you're

965
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 1: trying to get somebody to like you ask them to

966
00:53:24,520 --> 00:53:27,360
Speaker 1: do you a small favor. Of course, in this I

967
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 1: know everybody is now thinking back to times that friends

968
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 1: and co workers asked small favors, and your your second

969
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 1: guessing and wondering if they were gaming you. Were they

970
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 1: gaming you? Yes, they've gotten me. They didn't want to

971
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: read that book, They just wanted to mess with me.

972
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: Uh so, interesting question like this does appear to be

973
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 1: empirically true. If it is in fact a robust effect

974
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 1: and generalizable, what explains it? Why are we like this.

975
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 1: There are a couple of main explanations that have been floated.

976
00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: One is just sort of like a social effect that

977
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 1: the act of requesting a favor humanizes you in the

978
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: eyes of a person to whom you made the request,

979
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: Like it makes you just appear more sympathetic if you

980
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 1: come asking for something. This This makes perfect sense because

981
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 1: I feel like when we dislike someone, we tend to

982
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,359
Speaker 1: formulate a very simple model of who they are and

983
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 1: what they're about, and generally it will boil down to, like,

984
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: you know, a few impulses or ideas regarding their personality

985
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 1: or character. And this add adds a a mundane element

986
00:54:31,560 --> 00:54:34,280
Speaker 1: into the mix. That is, it's perhaps is like adding

987
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:39,400
Speaker 1: adding water to a strong beverage dilutes the uh, the

988
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:41,439
Speaker 1: poison a bit. Yeah. I think that's a good way

989
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:44,800
Speaker 1: of explaining it, and I think this explanation is somewhat

990
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 1: supported by by some of the research, but not all

991
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:53,320
Speaker 1: of it. There's another explanation, which is the cognitive dissonance explanation. Basically,

992
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:56,960
Speaker 1: the idea here is that it's hard to mentally reconcile

993
00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: having done something nice for somebody youth think you don't like,

994
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 1: so the brain resolves this incongruity by updating its opinion

995
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:09,799
Speaker 1: of the recipient in a positive way. That makes sense. Now,

996
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 1: we'll come back to these explanations in a minute. I

997
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 1: just wanted to look real quickly at another study that

998
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:19,280
Speaker 1: investigated the ben Franklin effect. This was by you Nia

999
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,520
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Social Psychology in twenty sixteen. Does

1000
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: a favor request increase liking towards the requester? Uh? And

1001
00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 1: this found more evidence of the ben Franklin effect. Quote.

1002
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 1: In an experiment, both Japanese and American participants who were

1003
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 1: asked for help from a confederate increase their liking of

1004
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:39,840
Speaker 1: the confederate relative to the baseline. Social impression of the

1005
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 1: confederate and perceived closeness of the relationship also increased relative

1006
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: to baseline. However, there was an interesting twist. There was

1007
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:51,320
Speaker 1: no measurable increase when you do a favor for somebody

1008
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 1: without them asking, So it seemed like at least in

1009
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 1: this experiment, again might not be generalizable, but in this

1010
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: study it was the act of asking for the favor

1011
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:04,160
Speaker 1: that was crucially important in securing the change of attitude.

1012
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 1: If you just do somebody a favor without them asking,

1013
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:09,840
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to change anything alright, So, so it's not.

1014
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 1: For instance, if you come up to your boss and

1015
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:14,439
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, here's here's a good book. You should

1016
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:16,480
Speaker 1: read this, you should borrow it. Yeah, I'm gonna lend

1017
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: it to you. Not gonna have the same effect if

1018
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:20,360
Speaker 1: the boss came to you and said, hey, can I

1019
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:22,879
Speaker 1: buy that book? Right? If this one is the more

1020
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 1: generalizable effect, it would be that you're you're more likely

1021
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:28,600
Speaker 1: to like the boss more if they ask you. Um. So,

1022
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 1: these effects would seem to support the humanization explanation rather

1023
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 1: than the cognitive dissonance reduction explanation. But there's other research

1024
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 1: in favor of the general idea behind the cognitive dissonance

1025
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:42,880
Speaker 1: reduction interpretation, showing that we tend to form our opinions

1026
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:45,880
Speaker 1: of people in ways that justify the ways we have

1027
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:50,080
Speaker 1: already treated them. For example, there are studies showing that

1028
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 1: if you force people by experimental conditions to insult and

1029
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: say mean things to a person's face, you will subsequently

1030
00:56:57,520 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: find that the people who were forced to say the

1031
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 1: mean thing is like the people they insulted, less than

1032
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:06,239
Speaker 1: they did before, less than they would on average otherwise. Um,

1033
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:10,400
Speaker 1: and so I think this fits pretty well with everyday experience,

1034
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 1: like how often have you noticed Bob do something thoughtlessly

1035
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:17,360
Speaker 1: harmful to Jeff and then afterwards, when forced to think

1036
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 1: about the fact that he did something harmful to Jeff,

1037
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: subsequently like start coming up with reasons why Jeff is

1038
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:25,959
Speaker 1: trash and he deserved it. And I feel like I've

1039
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: I've read examples of this in workplace scenarios as well,

1040
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 1: like what happens when employers are, you know, forced to

1041
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:38,520
Speaker 1: some degree to employe harsher measures on employees, such as

1042
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 1: head count reductions or you know, the removal of benefits

1043
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and then like there's this sometimes

1044
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:47,920
Speaker 1: there's this justification process that moves in. It's exactly like this, right,

1045
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 1: you justify your maltreatment by revising your opinions of these

1046
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: people and making them seem worse in your own mind.

1047
00:57:56,040 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: And that would fit with the cognitive dissonance reduction model.

1048
00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 1: And if that model of the Ben Franklin effect has

1049
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:03,160
Speaker 1: any truth to it, I think it would seem to

1050
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:06,120
Speaker 1: fit with models of the self similar to like Michael

1051
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: Kazaniga and Joseph Ladue's left brain interpreter theory. The idea

1052
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:13,160
Speaker 1: that our self comes from a part of the brain

1053
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 1: in the left hemisphere that observes our behavior and then

1054
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 1: tells itself a story to try to make sense of it.

1055
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: In other words, you don't cause your actions, your body acts,

1056
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:28,200
Speaker 1: and then you tell yourself a narrative to make sense

1057
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:29,840
Speaker 1: of it. Wow. You know this is one of those

1058
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: things where you you you can apply this to the

1059
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: mistreatment of of any group of people throughout history, and

1060
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:37,680
Speaker 1: you can see this kind of how this kind of

1061
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 1: feedback effect works. Oh yeah, I think that this absolutely

1062
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: has broad like social and political ramifications. You can see

1063
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: it happening when when when one group inflicts pain on

1064
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 1: another group, there's often an accompanying dehumanization of the group

1065
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 1: that's getting the pain inflicted on them. And I think

1066
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:58,360
Speaker 1: that's that's probably a cognitive dissonance reduction thing. It's coming

1067
00:58:58,440 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 1: up with narratives that just by the bad behavior. And

1068
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:05,400
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, when when your actions and your feelings

1069
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:08,960
Speaker 1: about a person don't match up, one solution under this

1070
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:12,160
Speaker 1: theory to reduce this friction in your brain is just

1071
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: to update your feelings about the person. So if you

1072
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 1: treated somebody nice, you start to like them more. If

1073
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: you treated somebody bad, you start to like them less. Now,

1074
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:23,280
Speaker 1: bringing it all back to the to the subject matter

1075
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:25,040
Speaker 1: at hand, why did I bring this up in the

1076
00:59:25,080 --> 00:59:29,200
Speaker 1: context of discussing gratitude. It's simply because I was wondering

1077
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 1: if practicing gratitude interventions generalizes the Ben Franklin effect by

1078
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 1: turning it inward, if by like observing the ways that

1079
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:44,840
Speaker 1: the world has treated you nicely, that it can have

1080
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: positive psychological effects by sort of like self been franklin

1081
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 1: ing and seeing yourself as well, maybe there are ways

1082
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:55,120
Speaker 1: in which I'm worthy of good fortune. Al Right, so

1083
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:59,520
Speaker 1: instead of suddenly changing your opinion I've been Franklin, who

1084
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 1: who asked for this the lending of this book. Yeah,

1085
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 1: you feel better about the world, about individuals, about uh,

1086
01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 1: you know, these various mundane and cosmic forces that we

1087
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 1: contemplate when we exercise gratitude. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not

1088
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:18,600
Speaker 1: sure that that's what's operative here, but I wonder about that,

1089
01:00:18,680 --> 01:00:21,920
Speaker 1: and I would be interested if somebody could could find

1090
01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: ways to like test this explanation hypothesis sort of is

1091
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:30,760
Speaker 1: practicing gratitude does it lead to cognitive dissonance reduction strategies

1092
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:35,040
Speaker 1: in the brain that resolve toward an updated view of

1093
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 1: self worth and and uh you know, and and fitting

1094
01:00:38,440 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 1: in with the cosmic order and with your friends and

1095
01:00:40,840 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 1: family and all everything else around you. But then again,

1096
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is we already mentioned this,

1097
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:50,280
Speaker 1: but it's complicated by the fact that, at the same

1098
01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:53,200
Speaker 1: time that gratitude seems to increase feelings of self worth,

1099
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:57,520
Speaker 1: it like specifically also asks you to not feel like

1100
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 1: you deserve everything good that's ever happened you and you

1101
01:01:00,640 --> 01:01:03,560
Speaker 1: know you just earned it all on your own. Uh.

1102
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 1: And I think it's that tension that makes gratitude such

1103
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: an interesting emotion. Yeah, yeah, And you know, I know

1104
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: that some people listening this might think, all right, now

1105
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:14,720
Speaker 1: I have all these selfish reasons to engage in gratitude.

1106
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 1: But on one hand, that's fine, because we were talking

1107
01:01:17,520 --> 01:01:21,160
Speaker 1: about with this feedback between you know, between between action

1108
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:24,439
Speaker 1: and thought and uh and so forth, It's like, even

1109
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 1: if your initial motivation is self selfish, it feels as

1110
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:32,680
Speaker 1: if the uh you know, the complex interplay here will

1111
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 1: take over. Um, you may enter into it selfishly, but

1112
01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:39,480
Speaker 1: then you know, assuming you know, there's uh, you know,

1113
01:01:39,600 --> 01:01:44,720
Speaker 1: typical neurological conditions here, the gratitude will take over. Like

1114
01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:48,520
Speaker 1: the the the effects seems to be potent enough. Uh

1115
01:01:48,560 --> 01:01:52,240
Speaker 1: and and part of the human experience in a broad sense,

1116
01:01:52,880 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 1: so that you uh, you know, for whatever reason you

1117
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:57,760
Speaker 1: say yes to it. Uh, it will do its thing

1118
01:01:57,800 --> 01:02:01,440
Speaker 1: once you let it into you totally gratitude, humility, fake

1119
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 1: it till you make it. Yeah. Yeah. Well of course.

1120
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:07,400
Speaker 1: The other thing too, is that we speak of gratitude exercises,

1121
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: and I think you can think of them like exercise.

1122
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 1: You don't want to run on a treadmill once a

1123
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:16,680
Speaker 1: year at the end of Thanksgiving, right you? You? And likewise,

1124
01:02:16,680 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: you don't want to just exercise gratitude once a year

1125
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:22,920
Speaker 1: or twice or a year or whatever. Like most of

1126
01:02:22,920 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 1: the research seems to say that it didn't. It needs

1127
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:28,360
Speaker 1: to be something that is engaged with on a regular basis. Uh,

1128
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:31,520
Speaker 1: you know, it's to sort of refresh the psyche. I

1129
01:02:31,520 --> 01:02:35,160
Speaker 1: will say this is one where the overall gist of

1130
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:38,560
Speaker 1: the research fits very much with my own anecdotal experience.

1131
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:41,720
Speaker 1: I I try whenever I remember, and I just succeed

1132
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:45,520
Speaker 1: pretty often to actively practice gratitude. Uh. And I guess

1133
01:02:45,520 --> 01:02:47,160
Speaker 1: this won't be unusual to a lot of people who

1134
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 1: have like religious practices right regularly, you know, like pray

1135
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 1: and thank God for their blessings or some equivalent of that. Uh.

1136
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:56,360
Speaker 1: You know, I I do a secular kind of thing.

1137
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:59,200
Speaker 1: I like to just when I can remember to write

1138
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 1: down or say out loud nice things that I have

1139
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:05,160
Speaker 1: benefited from and recognize them and take stock. And I

1140
01:03:05,160 --> 01:03:08,560
Speaker 1: will say it is a in my experience, an extremely

1141
01:03:08,680 --> 01:03:13,000
Speaker 1: useful psychologically cleansing exercise. Yeah. And in our household, we

1142
01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: regularly have family meetings where each of we go around

1143
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:17,520
Speaker 1: and you have to say hi, you have to say,

1144
01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: you know, what was the highlight of your day, what

1145
01:03:19,280 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 1: was the challenge of your day? And also what are

1146
01:03:21,880 --> 01:03:23,960
Speaker 1: you looking forward to? And what are you thankful for?

1147
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:26,360
Speaker 1: And uh, And I think that's a go good way

1148
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:28,120
Speaker 1: to go about it, particularly if you you have a

1149
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:32,200
Speaker 1: you know, family scenario and you know, perhaps a small child.

1150
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:36,160
Speaker 1: Like that's a level of of thankfulness exercise that I

1151
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:39,439
Speaker 1: think is very achievable. I think that's probably I mean,

1152
01:03:39,520 --> 01:03:41,800
Speaker 1: I'm not a child psychologist or anything, but I think

1153
01:03:41,840 --> 01:03:44,240
Speaker 1: that's got to be incredibly important for a child to

1154
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:46,920
Speaker 1: see that kind of behavior modeled and to participate in it.

1155
01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 1: I mean as we were saying earlier, like, there's nothing

1156
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:54,919
Speaker 1: more disgusting than seeing a really ungrateful child, Like even

1157
01:03:54,920 --> 01:03:56,880
Speaker 1: though you know, we were all like that where we

1158
01:03:56,960 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 1: had those If you observe a child at some point

1159
01:03:59,240 --> 01:04:01,360
Speaker 1: or another, you will they're of an ungrateful child because

1160
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:03,600
Speaker 1: they are they are learning all of this social complexity.

1161
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: It's a natural tendency, but it's one of the gratefulness

1162
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:08,120
Speaker 1: I think is one of the most important things for

1163
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:12,800
Speaker 1: children to be socialized into as early as possible. Yeah,

1164
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:15,560
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna go and close it up there.

1165
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:19,400
Speaker 1: But you know, obviously this is an episode that everyone

1166
01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:20,919
Speaker 1: is going to have some feedback on, so we would

1167
01:04:20,960 --> 01:04:23,280
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone else about your relationship with

1168
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:26,600
Speaker 1: gratitude you think about it, uh, your relationship with Thanksgiving

1169
01:04:26,680 --> 01:04:30,880
Speaker 1: even you know, hopefully we've provided some you know, from

1170
01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 1: food for thought as you engage in this year's feast.

1171
01:04:35,200 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out other

1172
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:39,040
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head, don't over

1173
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:40,560
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where

1174
01:04:40,600 --> 01:04:42,640
Speaker 1: we'll find them all. You also find them wherever you

1175
01:04:42,680 --> 01:04:45,720
Speaker 1: get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be just

1176
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:48,840
Speaker 1: make sure you subscribe to ensure you get future episodes,

1177
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 1: and also leave us a nice review if you like that.

1178
01:04:51,400 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 1: That helps us out. Um all, if you wanted to

1179
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:56,920
Speaker 1: check out our other show, Invention, uh, that's an Invention

1180
01:04:56,960 --> 01:04:59,160
Speaker 1: pod dot com And indeed Benjamin Franklin I think has

1181
01:04:59,200 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 1: shown up in some epis, so it's there as well.

1182
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: And if you want a little uh sci fi horror

1183
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:08,200
Speaker 1: for your holiday listening, uh, the second oil age. All

1184
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:10,880
Speaker 1: the episodes are out, so you can binge that puppy now. Oh.

1185
01:05:10,960 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 1: In shirts, I should also mention, uh, if you go

1186
01:05:13,360 --> 01:05:15,080
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, you'll find

1187
01:05:15,120 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: a tab for our merch store, and indeed there are

1188
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: shirts there with things like squirrels and basilists and our logo.

1189
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 1: And there's a new shirt as well as kind of

1190
01:05:25,120 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 1: a treasure map kind of scenario. I think I think

1191
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:31,840
Speaker 1: it was from our Sea Monster Sea Monster Sea Monster shirt,

1192
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:33,520
Speaker 1: So a new one of those to check out. And

1193
01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:36,440
Speaker 1: I believe there are some Thanksgiving Black Friday deals in

1194
01:05:36,560 --> 01:05:38,640
Speaker 1: play as well, so now's a good time to pick

1195
01:05:38,680 --> 01:05:41,560
Speaker 1: something up. If you are so inclined, absolutely dive into

1196
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:43,880
Speaker 1: the merch pit and mash as hard as you can.

1197
01:05:44,240 --> 01:05:46,080
Speaker 1: And of course one more thing, since we were talking

1198
01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:49,640
Speaker 1: about gratitude, really have to express our gratitude to you,

1199
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:54,080
Speaker 1: the listeners, because without you, none of this is really possible.

1200
01:05:54,760 --> 01:05:58,280
Speaker 1: It's true though, UH and I as always express my

1201
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:01,800
Speaker 1: great gratitude, our great gratitude to our excellent audio producer

1202
01:06:01,840 --> 01:06:05,040
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson, who makes it all possible absolutely. If

1203
01:06:05,080 --> 01:06:06,560
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1204
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:09,160
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1205
01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:11,440
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1206
01:06:11,480 --> 01:06:14,320
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1207
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:23,560
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a

1208
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:26,360
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For more podcasts

1209
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:28,280
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app,

1210
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:40,320
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.