Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and hey, Robert jam band trivia
Speaker 1: for you. Do you know where the name of the
Speaker 1: Grateful Dead comes from? Oh? Man, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: a huge dead head. I really love that that track
Speaker 1: Dark Star, But yeah, I I never really gave it
Speaker 1: a lot of thought. I know they have the like
Speaker 1: a sort of a mascot of like this medieval looking
Speaker 1: skeleton with the hair and and all, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a cool name, but I actually never gave it a
Speaker 1: lot of thought. I didn't know until just recently I
Speaker 1: found out the answer. The name of the band comes
Speaker 1: from when a member I think it was Jerry Garcia,
Speaker 1: it might have been another member. Somebody found in an
Speaker 1: encyclopedia an entry for a thing that was that was
Speaker 1: already an existing phrase called the Grateful Dead. So what
Speaker 1: is that? Well, it turns out that the Grateful Dead
Speaker 1: is an archetypal folk tale motif that appears in lots
Speaker 1: of cultures around the world, usually not as a story
Speaker 1: on its own, but as like a piece of a story,
Speaker 1: a sort of like scene in a story that shows
Speaker 1: up in tons of different folk tale cycles. According to
Speaker 1: the late Great American folklore scholar Stith Thompson, versions of
Speaker 1: this tailor found especially in European and Asian lore, though
Speaker 1: I think you might find it elsewhere too. But to
Speaker 1: read from Thompson's description quote, in all these tales, we
Speaker 1: learn of a hero who finds that creditors are refusing
Speaker 1: to permit the burial of a corpse until the dead
Speaker 1: man's debts have been paid. The hero spends his last
Speaker 1: penny to ransom the dead man's body and to secure
Speaker 1: his burial. Later, in the course of his adventures, the
Speaker 1: hero is joined by a mysterious stranger who agrees to
Speaker 1: help him in all his endeavors. The stranger is the
Speaker 1: grateful dead Man. The only condition which the dead man
Speaker 1: makes when he agrees to help the hero is that
Speaker 1: all winnings which the latter makes shall be equally divided.
Speaker 1: In all the stories, the hero eventually wins a wife,
Speaker 1: and the helper demands his half. Usually, the dead man
Speaker 1: interferes in time to prevent the actual cutting. In two
Speaker 1: of the woman, so multiple strange elements there. Number one,
Speaker 1: of course, it reminds me of the like King Solomon
Speaker 1: and the Baby story, but it also reminds me of
Speaker 1: other I mean, I think it's extremely common to have
Speaker 1: what would you call this dynamic folk tale motifs where
Speaker 1: someone is asked to make a promise about what they
Speaker 1: will do with some kind of future reward or something,
Speaker 1: but then the reward they receive is not compatible with
Speaker 1: the promise they made. I think of the examples in
Speaker 1: like Sir Gawain and the Green Night, where uh the
Speaker 1: Sir Gawain in some versions of the story, I think
Speaker 1: Sir Gawain stays with the host, who they say each
Speaker 1: day they will they will share what they have one
Speaker 1: in the day with the other one. So the one guy,
Speaker 1: the host, goes out hunting and he comes back and
Speaker 1: he shares like the boar that he caught with Sir Gawain.
Speaker 1: But Sir Gawain instead receives a kiss from the man's wife,
Speaker 1: and so to share it he has to kiss the man.
Speaker 1: But of course, the final element here is that it's
Speaker 1: ultimately a story about a kindness being repaid. It's a
Speaker 1: story about gratitude from a ghost that somebody does a
Speaker 1: kindness that he could not possibly expect to be repaid,
Speaker 1: and yet in some strange and supernatural fashion, he ends
Speaker 1: up surprised because his kindness is repaid against everything you
Speaker 1: would expect. And in this we get into the topic
Speaker 1: of gratitude of of thankfulness, which of course seems an
Speaker 1: obvious thing to tackle on Thanksgiving. Uh, And that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons we chose it. But also it is
Speaker 1: it is an important topic. It is an important part
Speaker 1: of the human experience and human culture, and so there's
Speaker 1: actually a lot here to unpack. Absolutely. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would say this is not the only folk tale motif
Speaker 1: to heavily involved gratitude. Gratitude shows up all throughout full stories. Uh.
Speaker 1: Like the ungrateful receiver is a big archetype, somebody who
Speaker 1: is ungrateful for what has been done for them, and they,
Speaker 1: you know, are punished or learn a lesson. And the
Speaker 1: other side is, yes, somehow seeing gratefulness turning out for
Speaker 1: the best, You do somebody a favor and then you
Speaker 1: are repaid and their gratitude, Uh, is it unveils like
Speaker 1: secret benefits that you couldn't have expected. Yes, Sometimes the
Speaker 1: stranger that you are favorable to turns out to be
Speaker 1: a divine being of some sort. Uh. There are also
Speaker 1: tons of tales in which if if one is punished
Speaker 1: or rewarded for either uh you know, not respecting elders
Speaker 1: or respecting elders, being rewarded for the respect. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the gratitude is an important part of of
Speaker 1: global myth making and then just continuing early a part
Speaker 1: of our storytelling. So let's come back to American Thanksgiving though,
Speaker 1: because um, all of this isn't necessarily obvious as we
Speaker 1: go through, uh just our day to day experience of
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving here in America, because it can often feel like
Speaker 1: a very complicated holiday. For instance, let me just roll
Speaker 1: through a few of the several reasons to hate on Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and I'm I am guilty of some of these, if
Speaker 1: not all. You've clearly got to love hate relationship because
Speaker 1: you you keep wanting to talk about Thanksgiving even though
Speaker 1: you hate it. Yeah, well, I mean I have I
Speaker 1: feel like if I am resistant to something like Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: then I should probably explore how I feel about it more,
Speaker 1: you know, and also perhaps feel explore the things that
Speaker 1: I feel good about. So, on one hand, thanksgiving us
Speaker 1: what you get when Halloween is over? Bummer, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's all that transition away from ghosts and ghouls and
Speaker 1: Dracula's and Frankenstein's and uh, you know, and the other
Speaker 1: properly named literary figures that we refer to in the
Speaker 1: general sense, and then suddenly it's just pilgrims and turkeys
Speaker 1: and whatnot. Not everybody to your monster freaks like us.
Speaker 1: Though true, true, some may see it as a relief. Now.
Speaker 1: Another thing is that, as is often pointed out in comedy,
Speaker 1: it is a you know, it's a post election obligation
Speaker 1: to hang out with family members who you may very
Speaker 1: well not see eye to eye on when it comes
Speaker 1: to politics. Can make things a little awkward, uh you know,
Speaker 1: and if you're lucky, it can make things awkward. Of course,
Speaker 1: can be worse than that. Also, it is a feast,
Speaker 1: and while feasts are a major part of seasonal celebrations
Speaker 1: around the world, it can feel a bit excessive in
Speaker 1: the modern age. It can bring up mixed feelings about, say,
Speaker 1: the amount of food that you are consuming and perhaps
Speaker 1: the amount of food waste you might be producing. Also,
Speaker 1: if you've lost loved ones of individuals are missing from
Speaker 1: the proceedings for various reasons, you know, living or dead,
Speaker 1: or if you yourself cannot be part of such celebrations
Speaker 1: with family for a variety of reasons. The holiday can
Speaker 1: be bitter, sweet, or downright depressing. Uh And and in
Speaker 1: this it's like other holidays. This is absolutly true. And
Speaker 1: I think this this contributed to the widely circulated but
Speaker 1: false fact that suicide skyrocket around uh, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Speaker 1: We looked into that on an episode one time and
Speaker 1: found that it was not in fact true, that they
Speaker 1: were not highest around the winter months. I think they
Speaker 1: were actually highest somewhere in the spring. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember that. Another thing about Thanksgiving in America is that
Speaker 1: the Pilgrim and Native American aspects of the holidays, trappings
Speaker 1: and sometimes decorations which many of us grew up with,
Speaker 1: they can feel rather off putting. The more you realize
Speaker 1: about the exploitation of First Nations people and or the
Speaker 1: religious views of the Pilgrims one of those the more
Speaker 1: you know, the more uh you know at least awkward
Speaker 1: it can feel. And then, of course the Thanksgiving parade
Speaker 1: is not quite as fun as it seemed when you
Speaker 1: were seven, it never seemed fun. You never got into
Speaker 1: that at all. No, I like big balloons, but the
Speaker 1: parade aspect seemed it seemed over long and tedious. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. But I was down for just watching
Speaker 1: any television at that age. So okay, Now, I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to rain on your your parade, literally no, no.
Speaker 1: Because now I don't watch it nowadays, I'm really not
Speaker 1: even tempted to. But when I was a child, at
Speaker 1: one point, it was big fun. On the positive side, though,
Speaker 1: depending on your own personal experience in situation, perhaps you
Speaker 1: can attest to finding some or all of the following
Speaker 1: aspects of American Thanksgiving fulfilling. First of all, American football.
Speaker 1: It's not my thing, but I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people love it, and Thanksgiving is a time to watch
Speaker 1: it obsessively. Somebody's thing, now something it is my thing.
Speaker 1: The Mystery Science Theater, three thousand Turkey Day Marathon. Hey
Speaker 1: now we're cooking? Yeah, that that was and still is
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. It doesn't feel like Thanksgiving unless
Speaker 1: I'm watching some sort of a rift movie. Generally it's
Speaker 1: Jack Frost. That's a really good one. That's the one
Speaker 1: with the like the Russian fairy tale and I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're they're actually some perhaps some examples of gratitude
Speaker 1: playing into the the traditional folk tale alls that are
Speaker 1: brought to cinematic life in that film. Oh yeah, early
Speaker 1: on then the story isn't Jack or not Jack? The
Speaker 1: boy in the story, he's he's quite ungrateful. I'm titled right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And then he's taught a lesson by father mushroom. Let's
Speaker 1: see other other things. Perhaps they're positive aspects of family gatherings.
Speaker 1: A family gathering is a family gathering, um, and it
Speaker 1: can be quite joyful. There's nostalgia wound up in the
Speaker 1: practice as well. Of course, also, perhaps you really do
Speaker 1: enjoy the food. I mean, people are gonna vary on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving food, but get a little jab in there for
Speaker 1: people who hate food. Well, no, I don't hate food,
Speaker 1: but Thanksgiving dishes are usually not my absolute favorite dishes. Oh,
Speaker 1: I see the style of Thanksgiving food as traditionally prepared. Yet,
Speaker 1: but some people that might be your thing, and if so,
Speaker 1: you know, go for it. You know, I am firmly
Speaker 1: of the opinion that people should not feel compelled to
Speaker 1: eat certain foods because it is a certain holiday. If
Speaker 1: it's the fourth of July and you're hanging out by
Speaker 1: the water, but you don't want to eat burgers and
Speaker 1: hot dogs and barbecue, don't eat burgers. How do you
Speaker 1: eat whatever you want to eat on Thanksgiving? I am
Speaker 1: I strongly believe people should have kim che centric feasts
Speaker 1: and and really that's that gets to my next point
Speaker 1: is that you may look forward to Thanksgiving because you've
Speaker 1: created your own ritual. You have created something new, something fresh,
Speaker 1: that you share with family and or friends, that that
Speaker 1: means something more to you than some of these more
Speaker 1: you know, traditional tropes of the season. But I think
Speaker 1: that the vast majority of us, wherever you fall in
Speaker 1: on these various points, you can probably agree on one thing. Surely,
Speaker 1: thankfulness itself. Gratitude itself is a useful exercise. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people might agree on that
Speaker 1: in principle, but then not really agree on it in practice. Well. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it's one thing to think it one thing to
Speaker 1: another to act on it. Uh, you know, the the
Speaker 1: act or even thought of being thankful though for what
Speaker 1: you have in life, no matter how small, no matter
Speaker 1: how cruel fate may seem at times, there is I
Speaker 1: think generally an idea that this is good, this is beneficial,
Speaker 1: and if somebody is arguing something contrary to that, they're
Speaker 1: probably doing it to get a rise out of you.
Speaker 1: With you know, some exceptions, I'm sure. So we're actually
Speaker 1: going to be talking about gratitude and thankfulness today, right.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how okay this subject might at
Speaker 1: first glance, seemed kind of quaint compared to like the
Speaker 1: grotesque evolutionary realities and strange frontiers of understanding that we
Speaker 1: often like to explore on the show. But I think
Speaker 1: this kind of research, by which I mean investigation of
Speaker 1: like fundamental positive emotional states, is extremely important. It's actually
Speaker 1: highly relevant as a scientific frontier because whatever you may
Speaker 1: think you know, or whatever you think is obvious about
Speaker 1: how to live a good life, just look at the
Speaker 1: ways we actually live and in practice humans are clearly
Speaker 1: not in agreement about how to live a good life,
Speaker 1: and like, what are the correct emotional states to seek
Speaker 1: and how to seek them? In practice, we don't always
Speaker 1: have reliable ways of orienting our mental and emotional lives
Speaker 1: to the maximum benefit of ourselves and others. So I
Speaker 1: think this kind of thing, the study of positive emotions
Speaker 1: and positive social interactions, is actually a crucial socially relevant
Speaker 1: psychological frontier and a workshop for the tools for a
Speaker 1: better life. Absolutely, I would agree. And another thing I
Speaker 1: think is that it's important to look at the science
Speaker 1: about on subjects like this, because I would say, this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff is usually the domain of things like
Speaker 1: religion and common sense, you know, positive interactions and positive emotions,
Speaker 1: and that's all well and good to deal with it
Speaker 1: and in a religious way or just kind of deal
Speaker 1: with it at a you know, gut feeling way, but
Speaker 1: it's worth bringing a critical scientific lens to figure out
Speaker 1: what's actually going on with these emotions, what are their
Speaker 1: biological roots, Uh, what are the best ways to trigger
Speaker 1: and sustain, like, how do they fit into our lives,
Speaker 1: and how can we drive them to the benefit of humanity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and hopefully all of this will be just a
Speaker 1: good exercise for everyone in general, because I know from
Speaker 1: from personal experience it's entirely possible to go through an
Speaker 1: entire Thanksgiving holiday without actually engaging in the experience of
Speaker 1: gratitude and thoughts or acts of gratitude. So maybe this
Speaker 1: will force all of us to to rethink what gratitude
Speaker 1: is and why we seemingly have a holiday that's all
Speaker 1: about reminding us to be thankful, even if we don't
Speaker 1: always actually act on that. So first of all, let's
Speaker 1: just start with under the origins of gratitude, getting down
Speaker 1: to the you know, the brass tacks of the matter.
Speaker 1: We'll start with the old old Webster's definition gratitude is
Speaker 1: a state of being grateful. That's not very helpful, all right,
Speaker 1: We'll go deeper, and to be grateful is to be
Speaker 1: appreciative of benefits received, expressing gratitude affording pleasure or contentment
Speaker 1: or pleasing by reason of comfort supplied or discomfort alleviate
Speaker 1: did so, it is being aware of your blessings, being
Speaker 1: aware of benefits received, and more than just acknowledging that
Speaker 1: they exist, being appreciative of them. So there's like a
Speaker 1: positive emotion that coincides with acknowledging what has gone well
Speaker 1: right now and considering all of this, and certainly more
Speaker 1: so if you were already bringing in religious connotations, we
Speaker 1: touched on the fact that sometimes gratitude is shall we say,
Speaker 1: more cosmic. For instance, I can truly say that I'm
Speaker 1: thankful to have been born in a time of such
Speaker 1: scientific advancements, uh, you know, such relative global peace and
Speaker 1: personal freedom. And I often come back to the old
Speaker 1: phil Oaks folk song there but for Fortune that talks
Speaker 1: about all these terrible things and saying, well they're but
Speaker 1: for fortune, go you or I. Yeah. And And as
Speaker 1: much as there, of course still is always lots of
Speaker 1: things wrong in the world, you can appreciate the things
Speaker 1: that have gone right. I mean, like whatever else bad
Speaker 1: is going on, you can say, wow, I was able
Speaker 1: to receive vaccines, you know, exactly. But a lot of
Speaker 1: these are sort of by luck of the universe. I
Speaker 1: exist at all, am conscious of my existence so at all,
Speaker 1: or you know, despite a fair amount of nitpicking and
Speaker 1: even some you know, major issues with the state of
Speaker 1: world or even reality itself, we can say, well, I
Speaker 1: am fortunate. So that's that's very you know, cosmic gratitude.
Speaker 1: But then there's the idea of being grateful to someone
Speaker 1: or to something, and and this is important as well,
Speaker 1: and it can take many forms. Perhaps you are grateful
Speaker 1: to your partner for all they do and for their love.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you are grateful to your parents for their love
Speaker 1: and support. Perhaps you're grateful to a friend or even
Speaker 1: a stranger who did you a favor. Perhaps you're grateful
Speaker 1: to an authority figure in your life, a boss, a
Speaker 1: public figure who help you in some way, an artist
Speaker 1: who created something that gave you joy, or a king
Speaker 1: um you know. And indeed, perhaps you're you're grateful to
Speaker 1: a deity for their perceived role in any of these
Speaker 1: everyday blessings or the larger cosmic blessings we mentioned already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting distinction. Uh, maybe looking at social
Speaker 1: gratitude versus what you're calling like cosmic gratitude, because I
Speaker 1: believe the biological function of gratitude as an emotion in
Speaker 1: the primate brain is probably primarily social. Right, it's a
Speaker 1: motivating emotion that encourages bonding and reciprocal cooperation between animals.
Speaker 1: But in humans, it's clear that that it can escape
Speaker 1: the bonds of its original social context and exist without
Speaker 1: an object. Right, you can be grateful but not to
Speaker 1: any person in particular, like you're talking about with this
Speaker 1: cosmic gratefulness, or exist in relationship to things. Maybe there
Speaker 1: is an object you're grateful to, but it's not another
Speaker 1: animal or another person. It can just be a situation.
Speaker 1: I find that really interesting. Uh, And I think there
Speaker 1: are plenty of parallels with other emotions that have escaped
Speaker 1: their original social significance in an animal context. You might
Speaker 1: think of resentment in the negative side. Resentment, I think
Speaker 1: also is primarily a social emotion as biological functions in
Speaker 1: you know, regulating social groups and group dynamics. But it's
Speaker 1: also possible for people to feel resentment towards no one
Speaker 1: in particular, just sort of rather toward life for toward
Speaker 1: general situations. Right Like, So, for instance, if if I
Speaker 1: have back pain, I can resent my job and or
Speaker 1: indoor my boss, because you know, if that job somehow
Speaker 1: played into me injuring my back. If I believe in
Speaker 1: a deity, I can resent my deity or you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: the or the devil or whoever, for their role in
Speaker 1: making my back hurt or allowing it to hurt in
Speaker 1: the first place. Or I can for instance, be resentful
Speaker 1: at natural selection in the state of human biology that
Speaker 1: that frequently enables back pain to exist at all. You
Speaker 1: can just have resentfulness without an object like and nobody
Speaker 1: to be mad at here. But I'm so resentful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the same is clearly true of gratitude.
Speaker 1: I entirely agree with this idea of this cosmic feeling
Speaker 1: of gratitude. And it's funny how that kind of thing
Speaker 1: complicates our picture of of gratitude far beyond even the
Speaker 1: kind you see like in the in the folk tales,
Speaker 1: where most often gratitude manifests as like, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a sort of a debt ode to someone. Someone has
Speaker 1: done something nice for you, and you're going to find
Speaker 1: a way to pay them back. Yeah, that's right, because
Speaker 1: if there is an other involved in your gratitude, be
Speaker 1: it an actual human person or a perceived deity, then
Speaker 1: there may be well, this feeling of indebtedness. There is
Speaker 1: a bond, there is something that needs to be repaid
Speaker 1: in one form or another. And then there's clearly overlap
Speaker 1: here between indebtedness and gratitude. Uh. And it really depends
Speaker 1: on who you talk to who's doing the arguing. Some
Speaker 1: say that they are essentially equivalent. Others, however, argue that
Speaker 1: we're talking about two distinct emotional states. I was looking
Speaker 1: at some various sources on this in the Debt of Gratitude,
Speaker 1: disassociating gratitude and indebtedness by Watkins at All, published in
Speaker 1: Cognition and Emotion in two thousand and six. The researchers
Speaker 1: carried out a pair of exers. Ez Is insurmised that quote,
Speaker 1: the debt of gratitude is internally generated and is not
Speaker 1: analogous to an economic form of indebtedness. Okay, so they
Speaker 1: come down on the side of it, these two things
Speaker 1: being not equivalent. Another study I was looking at for
Speaker 1: this one from Matthews and green Um looking at Me
Speaker 1: Appreciating You. Self focused attention distinguishes between gratitude and indebtedness.
Speaker 1: This was also an Incognition and Emotion but from two
Speaker 1: thousand eight. In this the research has found that quote,
Speaker 1: highly self focused individuals recalled increased indebtedness, but not gratitude
Speaker 1: towards a benefactor relative to those in the control condition.
Speaker 1: Self focused individuals also felt less commitment and closeness to
Speaker 1: the benefactor. So if I'm understanding this correctly, Um and indeed,
Speaker 1: these are all just arguments on the backup two experiments.
Speaker 1: They're not gospel. Uh. Concerning gratitude, indebtedness comes down comes
Speaker 1: into play more when we're considering ourselves as players within
Speaker 1: a social system. Well, yeah, I mean, I can imagine,
Speaker 1: for example, it seems perfectly plausible that you could have
Speaker 1: person a Bob who is really into paying back what
Speaker 1: he owes people. He borrows five dollars, He's going to
Speaker 1: pay you back five dollars, right exactly. He always pays
Speaker 1: his debts. But he might not be a person in
Speaker 1: which you recognize much of this emotion that we call gratitude. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you could have person b You could have Jeff over here,
Speaker 1: who maybe is kind of flaky about paying back debt's
Speaker 1: ode and doesn't keep a very clean ledger. That way
Speaker 1: doesn't settle all these debts, but shows more of the
Speaker 1: emotion we think of his gratitude. That that makes sense
Speaker 1: to me, and I can very easily see those things
Speaker 1: being disconnected from one another in social scenarios. Now here's
Speaker 1: another paper. I was looking at a two thousand seven
Speaker 1: paper in Motivation and Emotion from Joe N. Saying titled
Speaker 1: the Effects of helper Intention on Gratitude and Indebtedness. And
Speaker 1: this also experimented with the distinction and explore the effects
Speaker 1: of helper intention on reactions to a favor. And basically
Speaker 1: the subjects were asked to think about times they did
Speaker 1: something nice, either within an ulterior motive or as an
Speaker 1: act of just pure benevolence, and quote, participants felt significantly
Speaker 1: more grateful when the helper had benevolent intentions. So a
Speaker 1: lot of it would seem to come down to either
Speaker 1: the express nature of the act and or the individual's
Speaker 1: perception of it. So you could have people who feel
Speaker 1: thankful because you know, the stranger gave me a cold
Speaker 1: water bottle just out of kindness or uh, you know um.
Speaker 1: Or they could say, oh, the bellman was so nice
Speaker 1: to bring my luggage to my hotel room. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they're grateful, not realizing they were supposed to tip that individual. Right.
Speaker 1: It's all about you know, your perception. You know. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you could feel indebted because your friend helped you move
Speaker 1: and you know that they are going to move next week,
Speaker 1: or you know, you could be something like, oh, that
Speaker 1: stranger gave me a bottle of water, probably because they're
Speaker 1: going to try to sell me something. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to stand here and listen to them, you know, or
Speaker 1: something like that. So you could you could read or
Speaker 1: potentially misread any situation and lean more towards gratitude or indebtedness. Okay,
Speaker 1: we totally know if you've watched a mob movie or
Speaker 1: The Sopranos, that there are gifts that are purely menacing,
Speaker 1: that that you can, like give somebody a gift or
Speaker 1: give somebody cash or something like that, and the goal
Speaker 1: is not to do something nice for them. It is
Speaker 1: to to scare them, to signal to them that they
Speaker 1: are indebted to you, and they can't you know, they
Speaker 1: can't turn this down. It's more of a kind of
Speaker 1: dominance move. When someone in a position of power um
Speaker 1: asked for a favor, that sort of thing. It's entirely
Speaker 1: different situation than if a normal person just asks, you know,
Speaker 1: a friend or a family member for a favor. Well,
Speaker 1: but but in this case, what I was talking about
Speaker 1: is if a person in power does you a favor,
Speaker 1: but you know, you're not going to feel gratitude if
Speaker 1: you don't think that the favor was actually done out
Speaker 1: of kindness, if you think the favor was done in
Speaker 1: some way to try to dominate you or make a
Speaker 1: point to you. Yes. Now, both of these ideas, though
Speaker 1: no matter how connected they are, touch on two things
Speaker 1: that are typically stressed in human culture. You should repay
Speaker 1: your debts and you should show gratitude either in general
Speaker 1: to a deity or deities and or two individuals. All right,
Speaker 1: it's time to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: right back to discuss some research on gratitude. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So in considering, you know, cultural attitudes towards gratitude and
Speaker 1: who should show gratitude towards, one of the big ones is,
Speaker 1: of course, gratitude towards parents and family members. That kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense. I mean, the entire act of raising
Speaker 1: a child is doing a lot of favors that are
Speaker 1: not immediately repaid, right, and and also you engage in
Speaker 1: them generally because you don't expect them to be repaid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but this is important business in human culture. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in various cultures we see different models of it.
Speaker 1: For instance, in Chinese traditions, there's the concept of filial
Speaker 1: piety or shall and it is enormously important and in
Speaker 1: many Eastern cultus as well. It's a concept grounded in
Speaker 1: Daoist philosophy Confucian family values, and it concerns the undying
Speaker 1: nature of the human soul, the dead live on in
Speaker 1: the afterlife. It also entails continue efforts to not only
Speaker 1: honor to see his family members, but to care for them,
Speaker 1: to tend to their desires and even uh in some
Speaker 1: models curry favor in order to avoid catastrophe, to maintain
Speaker 1: balance and happiness for the living and for the dead. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a continued spirit lineage for a given family.
Speaker 1: But we also see the basic form of this elsewhere
Speaker 1: as well. A certain amount of respect and devotion is
Speaker 1: old to elders, particularly one's own elders, and we see
Speaker 1: shades of this and other cultures. The Greeks and Romans
Speaker 1: put a great deal of emphasis on gratefulness to one's
Speaker 1: parents and failure to honor. This was considered not mere ingratitude,
Speaker 1: but impeity. Uh So we're talking, you know, the dire
Speaker 1: breach of a bond that is often attributed to that
Speaker 1: between a mortal and a god. And of course one
Speaker 1: is reminded of the line from King lear right, how
Speaker 1: sharper it is than a urban's tooth to have an
Speaker 1: ungrateful child. I mean, the serpent's tooth doesn't make noise. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean that is like, what why is it? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just like our personal pet peeves
Speaker 1: like it is a widely recognized thing that one of
Speaker 1: the most disgusting things to witnesses, like a particularly entitled
Speaker 1: and ungrateful child. Well that's fine, Willy Wonka and the
Speaker 1: chocolate factory. We see I think several generations of this, right,
Speaker 1: the ungrateful child. I guess FRUA's fru cassalt one of
Speaker 1: the ungrateful children. I don't know. I'm not a Willie
Speaker 1: Wanka expert here now, I'm trying to at least one
Speaker 1: of them is definitely positioned as an ungrateful child, and
Speaker 1: and a lot of I want it's and no thank you's.
Speaker 1: Right now. Of course, we realistically have to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: relationships between children and parents is is often more complicated
Speaker 1: than this, but still the trope, the idea of the
Speaker 1: cultural emphasis remains. But in general, Judaism, chris Janity, and
Speaker 1: Islam all stressed gratitude is being part of a good life.
Speaker 1: It's also stressed in Hinduism and Buddhism and other major
Speaker 1: faiths as well, and and often there's an emphasis put
Speaker 1: on gratitude as expressed in prayer, absolutely, I think, and
Speaker 1: as we get into the studies about the psychological benefits
Speaker 1: of actively practicing gratitude. I think this is one of
Speaker 1: the many arguments you could make that there are secular
Speaker 1: psychological benefits to what you would normally see as prayer behaviors,
Speaker 1: right right. And we see various philosophers and thinkers throughout
Speaker 1: time chiming in on gratitude as well, generally in favor
Speaker 1: of it. Um. So, just a taste of some of these, um,
Speaker 1: and maybe we can go back and forth on these,
Speaker 1: uh these, Joe, if you want to take the first one. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: So Epicurus said, do not spoil what you have by
Speaker 1: desiring what you have. Not remember that what you now
Speaker 1: have was once among the things you only hoped for,
Speaker 1: all right. And then Cicero once said gratitude is not
Speaker 1: only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
Speaker 1: I think he's close. I think the parent of all
Speaker 1: others is probably honesty, but gratitude right up there, somewhere
Speaker 1: right below. I think gratitude fits in pretty well with
Speaker 1: with the Stoic philosophy and you and you can see
Speaker 1: this in the writings of Marcus Aurelius, where he said,
Speaker 1: take full account of what excellencies you possess and ingratitude.
Speaker 1: Remember how you would hanker after them if you had
Speaker 1: them not Now, I was of course curious what Aristotle
Speaker 1: had to say, and because he's always wrong. Well, and
Speaker 1: you might not be surprised here, depending on how you
Speaker 1: look at it. Uh So I've read different things about
Speaker 1: Aristotle's approach to gratitude. On one hand, is pointed out
Speaker 1: by Jacquelein of Pifer Merrill in Philanthropy Daily the Virtue
Speaker 1: of Gratitude as the name of her piece, Aristotle did
Speaker 1: not list gratitude as a virtue and actually listed several
Speaker 1: traits that run opposite to the idea, such as having
Speaker 1: a quote proper pride wasn't Aristotle also against mercy? He
Speaker 1: didn't really like it. Yeah. On the other hand, the
Speaker 1: Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy points out that gratitude quote fits nicely
Speaker 1: into Aristotle's picture of virtue as a mean between an
Speaker 1: excess and a deficiency, with gratitude being a mean between
Speaker 1: the vices of arrogant, prideful and envious ingratitude on one hand,
Speaker 1: and the obsequiousness or servility of over gratitude on the other. Still,
Speaker 1: I would say Aristotle not coming off as like the
Speaker 1: the real poster child for gratitude. Well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think Aristotle was very much one day, he was kind
Speaker 1: of obsessed with like with like justice and the ledger
Speaker 1: being evenly settled in things, so like, you know, I
Speaker 1: think he was against the idea of mercy or compassion
Speaker 1: towards people who were receiving deserved or just suffering. And
Speaker 1: I think he would probably likely hear be against um
Speaker 1: feelings of gratitude that are disproport sin it to the
Speaker 1: benefits received. All right, let's fast forward a bit to
Speaker 1: some more recent thinkers. Okay, it looks like we got
Speaker 1: Voltaire here, who said appreciation is a wonderful thing. It
Speaker 1: makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
Speaker 1: I really like that one. Uh. And then here's one
Speaker 1: from C. S. Lewis. This is from the screw type letters. Uh.
Speaker 1: And off hand, I don't remember if this is these
Speaker 1: are the words of a demon or not, but quote
Speaker 1: gratitude looks to the past, and love to the present.
Speaker 1: Fear averaice, lust, and ambition look ahead. So to take
Speaker 1: that for what it's worth. Now, now to come back
Speaker 1: to the idea of a you know, sort of terrestrial
Speaker 1: and cosmic gratitude, uh secular and religious thankfulness. There's a
Speaker 1: wonderful two thousand fourteen Atlantic article titled Gratitude without God
Speaker 1: that asks ask us, what do we to make of
Speaker 1: gratitude when we remove the spiritual elements so key to
Speaker 1: it in religious modes of life? And in this you
Speaker 1: see Davis psychologist at Robert Emmons is quoted in the article,
Speaker 1: and I think he sums it up rather nicely. Quote
Speaker 1: we all begin life dependent on others, and most of
Speaker 1: us in life dependent on others. If we are lucky
Speaker 1: in between, we have roughly sixty years or so of
Speaker 1: unacknowledged dependency. The human condition is such that throughout life,
Speaker 1: not just at the beginning and end, we are profoundly
Speaker 1: dependent on other people. Gratitude is the truest approach to life.
Speaker 1: We did not create or fashion ourselves. We did not
Speaker 1: birth ourselves. Life is about giving, receiving, and repaying. We
Speaker 1: are receptive beings dependent on the help of others, on
Speaker 1: their gifts and their kindness. I think that's lovely and
Speaker 1: extremely true. Robert Emmons, of course, is a psychologist who's
Speaker 1: deeply involved in research on gratitude. You see him all
Speaker 1: over like the the UC Berkeley Greater Good Thing, which
Speaker 1: studies a lot of like, you know, positive emotions and
Speaker 1: things like that. He's all over that. So he does
Speaker 1: a lot with UH emotions like gratitude. But I I
Speaker 1: agree here, I mean I gratitude is fundamentally an emotional
Speaker 1: state of honesty and realism, whereas a roughly converse emotion
Speaker 1: like pride more often reflects delusion and self deception. Essentially,
Speaker 1: none of the things about your life that you enjoy
Speaker 1: could exist without the free gifts given by others in
Speaker 1: the past and present. You're you know, the society you
Speaker 1: live in, your education that made you the person you
Speaker 1: are today, all the technology that you benefit from, the
Speaker 1: culture that you love it, everything, everything there is a
Speaker 1: gift from others in the past and in the present
Speaker 1: to you. And to try to ignore this is just
Speaker 1: factually deceptive, you know, to think like I deserve everything
Speaker 1: good that I get and and it's all because of me.
Speaker 1: I think exactly the same way that it feels good
Speaker 1: to tell the truth instead of lying. It feels good
Speaker 1: to be grateful for everything that's good. Yes, I would agree. Now,
Speaker 1: Also interesting in this UH, this article um that I
Speaker 1: that I quoted here the Gratitude without God from the
Speaker 1: Atlantic In Uh, they they cite Michael McCulloch, a psychologist
Speaker 1: at the University of Miami, who makes a case that
Speaker 1: it may also be just hardwired into us social apes,
Speaker 1: that we are traits for gratitude might be enforced through
Speaker 1: natural selection. And McCulloch has has research gratitude before before
Speaker 1: of you know, finding that the doing nice things for
Speaker 1: people unexpectedly produces gratitude and then it's more likely that
Speaker 1: we will respond in kind. Yeah. Uh yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think there's been a lot of research on the dynamics
Speaker 1: of of like social altruism and reciprocal behavior among social
Speaker 1: species like like primates like us. How do you form
Speaker 1: stable social groups of complex animals like us. One pretty
Speaker 1: simple way to do it is to operate on the
Speaker 1: basis not it's not perfectly represented like this, but the
Speaker 1: basis of roughly reciprocal behavior. When somebody does something nice
Speaker 1: for you, you do something nice for them back. And
Speaker 1: if animals with traits for this evolved, they can have
Speaker 1: stable social groups. Yeah, I think I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And again we are coming back to the fact that
Speaker 1: we are these social beings, and we depend so heavily
Speaker 1: on on these social connections, though sometimes pride does at
Speaker 1: least partially convinces that we that we were immune from
Speaker 1: all of this. So indeed, there has been quite a
Speaker 1: bit of research into gratitude and and so we're not
Speaker 1: gonna attempt to include everything here, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: start with just a few examples of recent studies from
Speaker 1: the past few years before looking at more of like
Speaker 1: a meta analysis of you know what in general we
Speaker 1: know about gratitude. So there is a two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: University of Oregon study that found that journaling, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: taking your thoughts, putting them onto paper, forcing them into
Speaker 1: written language inspired altruism through an exercise of gratitude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be one thing that figures big into
Speaker 1: scientific research on gratitude. You've got to find a way
Speaker 1: to make it happen in the sort of lab conditions
Speaker 1: or controlled conditions. And there are a couple of things
Speaker 1: that are very common there that are referred to as
Speaker 1: gratitude interventions. One big one is getting people to like
Speaker 1: journal to write out their blessings and just like mentally
Speaker 1: acknowledge them. Going through the list and being thankful, and
Speaker 1: that appears to work pretty well. And another one is
Speaker 1: getting somebody to acknowledge a person directly, like writing a
Speaker 1: letter of gratitude to someone. Yes. Uh. And these of
Speaker 1: these things don't work equally for everyone. Some people have
Speaker 1: a disposition that's more toward gratitude to begin with, but
Speaker 1: they do appear to be generally effective at triggering gratitude
Speaker 1: and its subsequent benefits. It's something you can do that
Speaker 1: will very likely change your emotional state, just to literally
Speaker 1: sit down and think about your blessings. It looks like
Speaker 1: it mostly works. Uh. Here's another one in two thou eighteen,
Speaker 1: University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Because of course
Speaker 1: gratitude is in every aspect of life, and of course
Speaker 1: in the business sphere as well. How can you use
Speaker 1: gratitude to extract money from other people? Well, this is
Speaker 1: interesting that it ties into that, I think, the everyday experience,
Speaker 1: because he said that they found that people tend to
Speaker 1: underestimate the power of, say, a letter of gratitude. They also,
Speaker 1: you know, commented that despite all the research and the
Speaker 1: media coverage, and it is the you know, the popular
Speaker 1: notion that gratitude is good. The public, you know, tends
Speaker 1: do not exercise these exercises of gratitude enough through expressions
Speaker 1: like this, through through like just a note of thank you.
Speaker 1: That's what I was getting at earlier. I mean, on
Speaker 1: one hand, it's it's not very surprising to say that, yes,
Speaker 1: gratitude has strong psychological benefits. Practicing gratitude is really good,
Speaker 1: and you should do it. That might be the conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom anyway, But people don't. We don't act as if
Speaker 1: it is. And and I kind of get from this
Speaker 1: the fact that it's such a you know, it's a
Speaker 1: business school of business paper. I'm getting like even from
Speaker 1: like a macke Valiant sort of standpoint. They're not. It's
Speaker 1: like you're not manipulating gratitude enough. But that kind of
Speaker 1: like ties into our overall, you know, perhaps an overall
Speaker 1: lack of gratitude. Maybe we're being ungrateful to our friends
Speaker 1: in the business world. They're not always There might be
Speaker 1: little elements of that. Here's another one. Two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: researchers from Peking University used neuroimaging to demonstrate a possible
Speaker 1: brain network involved in the translation of altruism into feelings
Speaker 1: of thankfulness. So I mean, basically, we're setting on two
Speaker 1: decades a plus of work that supports the long standing
Speaker 1: idea that gratitude is a worthwhile virtue with positive effects
Speaker 1: on health, happiness, and relationships and also tends to lessen uh,
Speaker 1: negative emotional states like in the and materialism. So indeed,
Speaker 1: there's a great deal of research out there about gratitude,
Speaker 1: and I was, I was looking through a lot of it,
Speaker 1: and I found a really good two thousand seventeen paper
Speaker 1: by Laos at all and pls one and uh and
Speaker 1: this did a lot of sort of meta analysis, sort
Speaker 1: of catching us up on on what has occurred in
Speaker 1: previous decades in the researching of gratitude and and a
Speaker 1: lot of these do come down to these experiments that
Speaker 1: you described already Joe, about you know, asking someone to
Speaker 1: recount their blessings before you know it as part of
Speaker 1: the experiment, or asking them to write a letter of gratitude.
Speaker 1: So this paper, is the title indicates, was largely focused
Speaker 1: on looking at the quote complex constellation of social emotions
Speaker 1: people experience after practicing gratitude. But in doing so they
Speaker 1: do a wonderful meta analysis of prior gratitude research, and
Speaker 1: this is basically this is the short version of what
Speaker 1: they lay out. So, first of all, numerous past studies
Speaker 1: have proven that there are tangible positive benefits to gratitude.
Speaker 1: I've listed some of these already, health, happiness, relationships, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And then following up on these, additional studies looked to
Speaker 1: ways to induce these feelings in experiments through gratitude exercises.
Speaker 1: So there's about a decade that and then uh, there
Speaker 1: are papers such as this one. They look more at
Speaker 1: exactly what might be going on and how it factors,
Speaker 1: you know, into the human experience, and uh, through their
Speaker 1: own studies. In this paper, the researchers found that gratitude
Speaker 1: exercises feel pleasant and mildly unpleasant at the same time,
Speaker 1: which I think was is really insightful. This is something
Speaker 1: that I I didn't even really think about, but then
Speaker 1: after I read it, I'm like, well, that's that's exactly right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if when I'm when I'm engaging in an exercise of gratitude,
Speaker 1: which you know it might be in the prayer. I've
Speaker 1: gone to yoga classes where they do uh gratitude exercise
Speaker 1: as well. Uh, they can feel a little bitter sweet,
Speaker 1: because in contemplating what you have there and and what
Speaker 1: has you know, the various aids that have been present
Speaker 1: to help you get where you are in your life,
Speaker 1: as well as the cosmic things in place. You know, you,
Speaker 1: you end up at least partially contemplating uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the situation of others and uh and indeed getting into
Speaker 1: that there but for fortune kind of zone that we
Speaker 1: discussed earlier. Yeah, I think there there are multiple reasons
Speaker 1: that practicing gratitude, while very psychologically beneficial overall, it can
Speaker 1: be bitter sweet. And of course one of the reasons
Speaker 1: is acknowledging the misfortune of others while you acknowledge your
Speaker 1: own fortune. I mean that that, of course, it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel good to contemplate the fact that you have what
Speaker 1: others do not have. But then also there's another thing,
Speaker 1: which is just like, there's a certain part of you that,
Speaker 1: even when you're trying to practice gratitude probably always wants
Speaker 1: to be a bit narcissistic and entitled and think that well,
Speaker 1: I you know, I just get what's coming to me,
Speaker 1: all the good things coming my way, or because I
Speaker 1: deserve them, and I'm so great and I've earned everything
Speaker 1: I have. You know, people sometimes like to think that way,
Speaker 1: and it's weird that So I think the research is
Speaker 1: absolutely clear that actively practicing gratitude and acknowledging all of
Speaker 1: the blessings that have come your way, being thankful for
Speaker 1: what other people have done for you and for your
Speaker 1: good fortune and luck, that has positive benefits and it
Speaker 1: feels good. But if you are encouraged to do that,
Speaker 1: if certain especially certain people with a kind of disposition
Speaker 1: against gratitude, are encouraged to do things like that using
Speaker 1: the wrong language or the wrong tone of voice, they
Speaker 1: can often become incredibly defensive and defiant, like the suggestion
Speaker 1: that they have benefited from privileges and blessings and stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? Oh, absolutely, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: you know, obviously there's a lot of talk and culture
Speaker 1: today about about the various privileges that we have and
Speaker 1: checking your privilege, acknowledging your privilege, and and and and
Speaker 1: factoring that into how you relate to others, how you
Speaker 1: empathize with other people, which which is I think a
Speaker 1: very important exercise and essential exercise. But yeah, at the
Speaker 1: same time, like that's a way to really raise somebody's defenses. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I could be wrong, but what
Speaker 1: I tend to imagine is going on there that even
Speaker 1: though I think most people would acknowledge that it is
Speaker 1: good to understand and think about the blessings you've received,
Speaker 1: you know, the honored privileges that that you benefit from.
Speaker 1: That if you are encouraged to do so by someone
Speaker 1: that you don't see as sympathetic to you, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're encouraged to do that by somebody you see
Speaker 1: as maybe a potential enemy or stranger outsider, you get
Speaker 1: kind of you just like put the walls up and
Speaker 1: you're like, no, it feels like an attack. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I wonder if part of this, getting back to this
Speaker 1: bittersweet aspect of of gratitude, is that it is placing
Speaker 1: yourself into a state of vulnerability, which which is generally
Speaker 1: something that's the kind of thing that is necessary for change,
Speaker 1: that's necessary for uh, for for a lot of like
Speaker 1: positive movements of of the of of of the mind
Speaker 1: and the and our sense of identity, but it can
Speaker 1: also be frightening. Also in this paper, they speculated that
Speaker 1: this mixed emotional experience is perhaps more motivating than like
Speaker 1: a purely positive of emotional experience would be uh. They write, quote, indeed,
Speaker 1: it maybe this bittersweet state and the behaviors it elicits
Speaker 1: that explain why gratitude exercises lead to downstream positive outcomes
Speaker 1: pro sociality, health promoting behavior, etcetera, lending support to the
Speaker 1: age old wisdom that gratitude is indeed a virtue. Right,
Speaker 1: so it's not just like an emotion or an emotional state,
Speaker 1: but it is actually motivating. Uh. We already talked about
Speaker 1: the idea that gratitude is an emotion that maybe in
Speaker 1: an evolutionary sense, promotes pro social behavior, promotes like in
Speaker 1: group cooperation, reciprocal altruism with people you know, doing a
Speaker 1: nice thing for people who you imagine would do a
Speaker 1: nice thing for you, or have done a nice thing
Speaker 1: for you. That of course is very important social behavior.
Speaker 1: But health promoting behavior. That that's another really interesting one.
Speaker 1: It does show up a lot in the research that
Speaker 1: you practice gratitude, you're less likely to abuse your own
Speaker 1: body in various ways. It's hard to imagine exactly what
Speaker 1: the mechanism is there, but I can see it have
Speaker 1: something to do with the kind of uh, the kind
Speaker 1: of bittersweet self reflection brought on by understanding the things
Speaker 1: you benefit from. Yeah, and I also I also think
Speaker 1: there's probably a connection there to the I mean there
Speaker 1: there is a connection between gratitude and altruism, and you
Speaker 1: know some of them. We discussed some of that connection already,
Speaker 1: but you can see where you could you could be
Speaker 1: asked to feel the gratitude you're so you're you're thankful
Speaker 1: for the food you have. You have enough food to
Speaker 1: feed your family, right, and then you realize in doing
Speaker 1: that that a lot of people cannot make this statement,
Speaker 1: and then that may lead to them to the action,
Speaker 1: to actually doing something like signing up for a meal
Speaker 1: delivery program, participating in a canned food drive, or or
Speaker 1: other acts of altruism. Yeah, I think that's entirely plausible. Now,
Speaker 1: focusing just on the immediate psychological benefits of of of
Speaker 1: practicing gratitude. I was watching a short talk by the U. C.
Speaker 1: Davis psychologist Robert A. Emmons, who is deeply involved in
Speaker 1: a lot of this gratitude research. I think we already
Speaker 1: mentioned him earlier. So yeah, we read a quote from yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: and he he just makes a number of points memerizing
Speaker 1: some of the big takeaways from gratitude research and its
Speaker 1: emotional benefits. One of the things he mentions that I
Speaker 1: think is interesting is that under natural circumstances, states of
Speaker 1: positive emotion quickly wear off. You know, like you you
Speaker 1: you're happy because something good happened. You know, that can
Speaker 1: be anything from you know, I loved one did something
Speaker 1: nice for you, or you've got to raise at work
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. You know, that leads to this
Speaker 1: feeling of like, oh wow, you know the things are great.
Speaker 1: Those emotional states wear off really fast. We're we're prone
Speaker 1: to sort of like go back to baseline or or
Speaker 1: pay attention to the new stimulus. But research indicates that
Speaker 1: actively practicing gratitude sort of has the power to prolong
Speaker 1: and sustain states of positive emotion. It prevents that wearing
Speaker 1: off effect and and positive emotional states being supplanted by
Speaker 1: novelty and your experience. Uh. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward effect, right, just like just like thinking about
Speaker 1: your blessings allows you to enjoy them more. Another thing
Speaker 1: he points out is that gratitude actively suppresses some negative
Speaker 1: emotions and emotional states, not all, but some. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the negative emotional states that he flags as as being
Speaker 1: sort of blocked by practicing gratitude are envy, resentment, regret,
Speaker 1: and depression. Another thing he mentions is that gratitude encourages
Speaker 1: psychological resilience. That just means it that like dispositional gratitude,
Speaker 1: if you if you train yourself to become a gratitude
Speaker 1: disposed kind of person, it makes it easier to recover
Speaker 1: when bad things happen to you and when you enter
Speaker 1: negative emotional states. Uh. And then finally, of course that
Speaker 1: this goes more to what we were talking about just
Speaker 1: a minute ago. Gratitude strengthened social bonding and increases our
Speaker 1: feeling of self worth. Uh. And I think the self
Speaker 1: worth thing is very interesting because there's some kind of
Speaker 1: perhaps ironic or or seemingly on its face self contradictory
Speaker 1: thing going on with gratitude. It seems like gratitude simultane
Speaker 1: enviously causes us to, you know, like be less self
Speaker 1: focused and less narcissistic and less uh, less likely to
Speaker 1: believe that, you know, we just deserve everything good that's
Speaker 1: come our way, we earned it all. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, it does somehow make people feel more worthy.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it is because on some level, like
Speaker 1: our our most pronounced version of the egoic self, you know,
Speaker 1: the most inflated version, which is going to vary from
Speaker 1: individual to the individual. But that that that edifice that
Speaker 1: we put out, you know that it is on some level,
Speaker 1: even as we're saying it, we know that it is
Speaker 1: an inflation, and acts of gratitude forced us to withdraw
Speaker 1: that that that self balloon to to a more reasonable level.
Speaker 1: That then we can feel a lot better about Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true like that. You might feel better thinking about
Speaker 1: your own accomplishments if you're more humble and considering what
Speaker 1: they are, right, because you've come down from I am
Speaker 1: a golden God too, I'm an okay person, and and
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, I can stand behind that that statement.
Speaker 1: I'm my hands aren't shaking when I say it. But
Speaker 1: I've got another possible theory. This isn't something that that
Speaker 1: I've read asserted elsewhere, but it sort of ties into
Speaker 1: what we were just thinking about. And I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: there's a tie in to an extrapolated version of something
Speaker 1: known as the Ben Franklin effect. I think maybe we
Speaker 1: should take a break and then we can come back
Speaker 1: and talk about this, all right, we'll do it. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, And I have to admit I kind of
Speaker 1: feel like I want to ring a bell or have
Speaker 1: a sound effect anytime Ben Franklin shows up in either
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind or invention, because it does
Speaker 1: seem like he'll pop in like a special guest star,
Speaker 1: like a frequent special guest star in a sitcom, like
Speaker 1: suddenly he's here. What's he gonna do? Is he gonna
Speaker 1: experiment with something? Is he going to, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: share some wisdom? What's his role? Franklin effect? Well, I
Speaker 1: kind of can't you know. I don't love all the
Speaker 1: so called founding fathers equally, but I think maybe I'm
Speaker 1: sort of a you might call a Franco file. I like.
Speaker 1: I like Franklin. All right, Well, how does he tie
Speaker 1: into gratitude? All right? So this is a principle known
Speaker 1: as the Ben Franklin effect Franklin Franklin effect. And here's
Speaker 1: a very simple version of it. You're more likely to
Speaker 1: do a favor for me if you've already done me
Speaker 1: a favor in the past. It's named after a story
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin tells in his autobiography about how when he
Speaker 1: was serving as a clerk in the Pennsylvania General Assembly,
Speaker 1: and this was before the American Revolution, this would be
Speaker 1: in the colonial administration of the mid seventeen thirties. Uh.
Speaker 1: Franklin tells how one year a new member of the
Speaker 1: Assembly shows up and makes this long speech against Franklin's
Speaker 1: candidacy for reappointment to the clerkship. So we've got like
Speaker 1: an anti Franklin it in the Assembly who's up there
Speaker 1: railing against Franklin. And Franklin evaluates this guy, and he
Speaker 1: judges that actually, this guy would make a good ally
Speaker 1: in the future because, uh, he he's likely to have
Speaker 1: a lot of influence, he's wealthy, he's well educated, and
Speaker 1: he's got a lot of political talents. So Franklin wants
Speaker 1: to turn this enemy into a friend. But he also
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do anything humiliating or pay any quote,
Speaker 1: pay any servile respect to him, which, you know, I
Speaker 1: admire Franklin for admitting that like petty resistance. Right. So
Speaker 1: he comes up with a plan to ingratiate himself to
Speaker 1: this guy, and he writes describing it here quote having
Speaker 1: heard that he had in his library a certain very
Speaker 1: scarce and curious book. I wrote a note to him
Speaker 1: expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he
Speaker 1: would do me the favor of lending it to me
Speaker 1: for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I
Speaker 1: returned it in about a week with another note expressing
Speaker 1: strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met
Speaker 1: in the house, he spoke to me, which he had
Speaker 1: never done before, and with great civility, And he ever
Speaker 1: after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions,
Speaker 1: so that we became great friends. Our friendship continued to
Speaker 1: his death. This is another instance of the truth of
Speaker 1: an old maxim I had learned, which says, he that
Speaker 1: has once done you a kindness will be more ready
Speaker 1: to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.
Speaker 1: And it shows how much more profitable it is to
Speaker 1: prudently remove than to resent return and continue inimical proceedings.
Speaker 1: And that, of course, that's that's certain, very scarce and
Speaker 1: curious book was, of course the necronomic. I think so
Speaker 1: it's it's how Franklin learned the electrostatic secrets of azzof
Speaker 1: so Franklin's observation can be generalized if you want to
Speaker 1: make somebody like you, to make them treat you better,
Speaker 1: get them to do you a small favor. After somebody
Speaker 1: does you a small favor, their feelings about you become
Speaker 1: more amicable and they become more likely to treat you
Speaker 1: better in other ways in Franklin effect. So a couple
Speaker 1: of questions that this is just a historical anecdote. First
Speaker 1: of all, is this effect generally real? Can it be
Speaker 1: empirically confirmed? And if so, how does this tie back
Speaker 1: into gratitude as we were talking about earlier. So the
Speaker 1: first question is their empirical evidence for the Ben Franklin effect.
Speaker 1: I think the scientific evidence is not overwhelming, but there
Speaker 1: are a few studies and they do seem to support
Speaker 1: the effect. One famous one was from the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: I think it's from sixty nine in the journal Human
Speaker 1: Relations by Jekker and Landy called liking a person as
Speaker 1: a function of doing him a favor. And the authors
Speaker 1: here did this complicated procedure with a with with having
Speaker 1: participants go into a sham experiment that involved payouts of
Speaker 1: small payouts of money at the end of the experiment
Speaker 1: uh and they had different conditions where experiment ers or
Speaker 1: somebody acting on behalf of the experiment, or would ask
Speaker 1: participants to do favors for them, including returning the small
Speaker 1: amounts of money that they had won for participation in
Speaker 1: the experiment, Like there was a ruse where they'd say,
Speaker 1: actually funding his run out and and this is your payment.
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm having to fund these experiments out of
Speaker 1: my own pocket, so I would really appreciate if you
Speaker 1: would return the money. And then they also tried asking
Speaker 1: for this favor through an intermediary like a department secretary,
Speaker 1: and the authors did indeed find that after doing somebody
Speaker 1: a favor, participants, on average reported liking that person more
Speaker 1: than they did before, more than they did if they
Speaker 1: didn't do the person a favor. The Ben Franklin effect
Speaker 1: was supported by the experiment, but there are some interesting nuggets.
Speaker 1: First of all, it did not help for a person
Speaker 1: to ask for a favor through an intermediary or have
Speaker 1: somebody else asked for a favor on your behalf. Only
Speaker 1: asking directly seemed to create the effect here. Well that
Speaker 1: that would make sense, like that is the formation of
Speaker 1: the social bond, must be a person to person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that sort of makes sense. Uh. The Experimenters
Speaker 1: also manipulated the magnitude of the favor to see if
Speaker 1: this made a difference. Does doing somebody a bigger favor
Speaker 1: make you like them more than doing them a smaller favor.
Speaker 1: They called this the magnitude of concession hypothesis, and they
Speaker 1: expected it to be the case, but they were wrong.
Speaker 1: It appears that if I ask you for a favor
Speaker 1: and you do it for me, you will probably like
Speaker 1: me more than you did before. But there is no
Speaker 1: evidence that doing me a bigger favor makes you like
Speaker 1: me more than doing a smaller favor would. So, based
Speaker 1: on the study, I think it makes sense if you're
Speaker 1: trying to get somebody to like you ask them to
Speaker 1: do you a small favor. Of course, in this I
Speaker 1: know everybody is now thinking back to times that friends
Speaker 1: and co workers asked small favors, and your your second
Speaker 1: guessing and wondering if they were gaming you. Were they
Speaker 1: gaming you? Yes, they've gotten me. They didn't want to
Speaker 1: read that book, They just wanted to mess with me.
Speaker 1: Uh so, interesting question like this does appear to be
Speaker 1: empirically true. If it is in fact a robust effect
Speaker 1: and generalizable, what explains it? Why are we like this.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of main explanations that have been floated.
Speaker 1: One is just sort of like a social effect that
Speaker 1: the act of requesting a favor humanizes you in the
Speaker 1: eyes of a person to whom you made the request,
Speaker 1: Like it makes you just appear more sympathetic if you
Speaker 1: come asking for something. This This makes perfect sense because
Speaker 1: I feel like when we dislike someone, we tend to
Speaker 1: formulate a very simple model of who they are and
Speaker 1: what they're about, and generally it will boil down to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, a few impulses or ideas regarding their personality
Speaker 1: or character. And this add adds a a mundane element
Speaker 1: into the mix. That is, it's perhaps is like adding
Speaker 1: adding water to a strong beverage dilutes the uh, the
Speaker 1: poison a bit. Yeah. I think that's a good way
Speaker 1: of explaining it, and I think this explanation is somewhat
Speaker 1: supported by by some of the research, but not all
Speaker 1: of it. There's another explanation, which is the cognitive dissonance explanation. Basically,
Speaker 1: the idea here is that it's hard to mentally reconcile
Speaker 1: having done something nice for somebody youth think you don't like,
Speaker 1: so the brain resolves this incongruity by updating its opinion
Speaker 1: of the recipient in a positive way. That makes sense. Now,
Speaker 1: we'll come back to these explanations in a minute. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to look real quickly at another study that
Speaker 1: investigated the ben Franklin effect. This was by you Nia
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Social Psychology in twenty sixteen. Does
Speaker 1: a favor request increase liking towards the requester? Uh? And
Speaker 1: this found more evidence of the ben Franklin effect. Quote.
Speaker 1: In an experiment, both Japanese and American participants who were
Speaker 1: asked for help from a confederate increase their liking of
Speaker 1: the confederate relative to the baseline. Social impression of the
Speaker 1: confederate and perceived closeness of the relationship also increased relative
Speaker 1: to baseline. However, there was an interesting twist. There was
Speaker 1: no measurable increase when you do a favor for somebody
Speaker 1: without them asking, So it seemed like at least in
Speaker 1: this experiment, again might not be generalizable, but in this
Speaker 1: study it was the act of asking for the favor
Speaker 1: that was crucially important in securing the change of attitude.
Speaker 1: If you just do somebody a favor without them asking,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to change anything alright, So, so it's not.
Speaker 1: For instance, if you come up to your boss and
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, here's here's a good book. You should
Speaker 1: read this, you should borrow it. Yeah, I'm gonna lend
Speaker 1: it to you. Not gonna have the same effect if
Speaker 1: the boss came to you and said, hey, can I
Speaker 1: buy that book? Right? If this one is the more
Speaker 1: generalizable effect, it would be that you're you're more likely
Speaker 1: to like the boss more if they ask you. Um. So,
Speaker 1: these effects would seem to support the humanization explanation rather
Speaker 1: than the cognitive dissonance reduction explanation. But there's other research
Speaker 1: in favor of the general idea behind the cognitive dissonance
Speaker 1: reduction interpretation, showing that we tend to form our opinions
Speaker 1: of people in ways that justify the ways we have
Speaker 1: already treated them. For example, there are studies showing that
Speaker 1: if you force people by experimental conditions to insult and
Speaker 1: say mean things to a person's face, you will subsequently
Speaker 1: find that the people who were forced to say the
Speaker 1: mean thing is like the people they insulted, less than
Speaker 1: they did before, less than they would on average otherwise. Um,
Speaker 1: and so I think this fits pretty well with everyday experience,
Speaker 1: like how often have you noticed Bob do something thoughtlessly
Speaker 1: harmful to Jeff and then afterwards, when forced to think
Speaker 1: about the fact that he did something harmful to Jeff,
Speaker 1: subsequently like start coming up with reasons why Jeff is
Speaker 1: trash and he deserved it. And I feel like I've
Speaker 1: I've read examples of this in workplace scenarios as well,
Speaker 1: like what happens when employers are, you know, forced to
Speaker 1: some degree to employe harsher measures on employees, such as
Speaker 1: head count reductions or you know, the removal of benefits
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and then like there's this sometimes
Speaker 1: there's this justification process that moves in. It's exactly like this, right,
Speaker 1: you justify your maltreatment by revising your opinions of these
Speaker 1: people and making them seem worse in your own mind.
Speaker 1: And that would fit with the cognitive dissonance reduction model.
Speaker 1: And if that model of the Ben Franklin effect has
Speaker 1: any truth to it, I think it would seem to
Speaker 1: fit with models of the self similar to like Michael
Speaker 1: Kazaniga and Joseph Ladue's left brain interpreter theory. The idea
Speaker 1: that our self comes from a part of the brain
Speaker 1: in the left hemisphere that observes our behavior and then
Speaker 1: tells itself a story to try to make sense of it.
Speaker 1: In other words, you don't cause your actions, your body acts,
Speaker 1: and then you tell yourself a narrative to make sense
Speaker 1: of it. Wow. You know this is one of those
Speaker 1: things where you you you can apply this to the
Speaker 1: mistreatment of of any group of people throughout history, and
Speaker 1: you can see this kind of how this kind of
Speaker 1: feedback effect works. Oh yeah, I think that this absolutely
Speaker 1: has broad like social and political ramifications. You can see
Speaker 1: it happening when when when one group inflicts pain on
Speaker 1: another group, there's often an accompanying dehumanization of the group
Speaker 1: that's getting the pain inflicted on them. And I think
Speaker 1: that's that's probably a cognitive dissonance reduction thing. It's coming
Speaker 1: up with narratives that just by the bad behavior. And
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, when when your actions and your feelings
Speaker 1: about a person don't match up, one solution under this
Speaker 1: theory to reduce this friction in your brain is just
Speaker 1: to update your feelings about the person. So if you
Speaker 1: treated somebody nice, you start to like them more. If
Speaker 1: you treated somebody bad, you start to like them less. Now,
Speaker 1: bringing it all back to the to the subject matter
Speaker 1: at hand, why did I bring this up in the
Speaker 1: context of discussing gratitude. It's simply because I was wondering
Speaker 1: if practicing gratitude interventions generalizes the Ben Franklin effect by
Speaker 1: turning it inward, if by like observing the ways that
Speaker 1: the world has treated you nicely, that it can have
Speaker 1: positive psychological effects by sort of like self been franklin
Speaker 1: ing and seeing yourself as well, maybe there are ways
Speaker 1: in which I'm worthy of good fortune. Al Right, so
Speaker 1: instead of suddenly changing your opinion I've been Franklin, who
Speaker 1: who asked for this the lending of this book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you feel better about the world, about individuals, about uh,
Speaker 1: you know, these various mundane and cosmic forces that we
Speaker 1: contemplate when we exercise gratitude. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that that's what's operative here, but I wonder about that,
Speaker 1: and I would be interested if somebody could could find
Speaker 1: ways to like test this explanation hypothesis sort of is
Speaker 1: practicing gratitude does it lead to cognitive dissonance reduction strategies
Speaker 1: in the brain that resolve toward an updated view of
Speaker 1: self worth and and uh you know, and and fitting
Speaker 1: in with the cosmic order and with your friends and
Speaker 1: family and all everything else around you. But then again,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is we already mentioned this,
Speaker 1: but it's complicated by the fact that, at the same
Speaker 1: time that gratitude seems to increase feelings of self worth,
Speaker 1: it like specifically also asks you to not feel like
Speaker 1: you deserve everything good that's ever happened you and you
Speaker 1: know you just earned it all on your own. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think it's that tension that makes gratitude such
Speaker 1: an interesting emotion. Yeah, yeah, And you know, I know
Speaker 1: that some people listening this might think, all right, now
Speaker 1: I have all these selfish reasons to engage in gratitude.
Speaker 1: But on one hand, that's fine, because we were talking
Speaker 1: about with this feedback between you know, between between action
Speaker 1: and thought and uh and so forth, It's like, even
Speaker 1: if your initial motivation is self selfish, it feels as
Speaker 1: if the uh you know, the complex interplay here will
Speaker 1: take over. Um, you may enter into it selfishly, but
Speaker 1: then you know, assuming you know, there's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: typical neurological conditions here, the gratitude will take over. Like
Speaker 1: the the the effects seems to be potent enough. Uh
Speaker 1: and and part of the human experience in a broad sense,
Speaker 1: so that you uh, you know, for whatever reason you
Speaker 1: say yes to it. Uh, it will do its thing
Speaker 1: once you let it into you totally gratitude, humility, fake
Speaker 1: it till you make it. Yeah. Yeah. Well of course.
Speaker 1: The other thing too, is that we speak of gratitude exercises,
Speaker 1: and I think you can think of them like exercise.
Speaker 1: You don't want to run on a treadmill once a
Speaker 1: year at the end of Thanksgiving, right you? You? And likewise,
Speaker 1: you don't want to just exercise gratitude once a year
Speaker 1: or twice or a year or whatever. Like most of
Speaker 1: the research seems to say that it didn't. It needs
Speaker 1: to be something that is engaged with on a regular basis. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's to sort of refresh the psyche. I
Speaker 1: will say this is one where the overall gist of
Speaker 1: the research fits very much with my own anecdotal experience.
Speaker 1: I I try whenever I remember, and I just succeed
Speaker 1: pretty often to actively practice gratitude. Uh. And I guess
Speaker 1: this won't be unusual to a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have like religious practices right regularly, you know, like pray
Speaker 1: and thank God for their blessings or some equivalent of that. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I I do a secular kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I like to just when I can remember to write
Speaker 1: down or say out loud nice things that I have
Speaker 1: benefited from and recognize them and take stock. And I
Speaker 1: will say it is a in my experience, an extremely
Speaker 1: useful psychologically cleansing exercise. Yeah. And in our household, we
Speaker 1: regularly have family meetings where each of we go around
Speaker 1: and you have to say hi, you have to say,
Speaker 1: you know, what was the highlight of your day, what
Speaker 1: was the challenge of your day? And also what are
Speaker 1: you looking forward to? And what are you thankful for?
Speaker 1: And uh, And I think that's a go good way
Speaker 1: to go about it, particularly if you you have a
Speaker 1: you know, family scenario and you know, perhaps a small child.
Speaker 1: Like that's a level of of thankfulness exercise that I
Speaker 1: think is very achievable. I think that's probably I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a child psychologist or anything, but I think
Speaker 1: that's got to be incredibly important for a child to
Speaker 1: see that kind of behavior modeled and to participate in it.
Speaker 1: I mean as we were saying earlier, like, there's nothing
Speaker 1: more disgusting than seeing a really ungrateful child, Like even
Speaker 1: though you know, we were all like that where we
Speaker 1: had those If you observe a child at some point
Speaker 1: or another, you will they're of an ungrateful child because
Speaker 1: they are they are learning all of this social complexity.
Speaker 1: It's a natural tendency, but it's one of the gratefulness
Speaker 1: I think is one of the most important things for
Speaker 1: children to be socialized into as early as possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna go and close it up there.
Speaker 1: But you know, obviously this is an episode that everyone
Speaker 1: is going to have some feedback on, so we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone else about your relationship with
Speaker 1: gratitude you think about it, uh, your relationship with Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: even you know, hopefully we've provided some you know, from
Speaker 1: food for thought as you engage in this year's feast.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head, don't over
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where
Speaker 1: we'll find them all. You also find them wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be just
Speaker 1: make sure you subscribe to ensure you get future episodes,
Speaker 1: and also leave us a nice review if you like that.
Speaker 1: That helps us out. Um all, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: check out our other show, Invention, uh, that's an Invention
Speaker 1: pod dot com And indeed Benjamin Franklin I think has
Speaker 1: shown up in some epis, so it's there as well.
Speaker 1: And if you want a little uh sci fi horror
Speaker 1: for your holiday listening, uh, the second oil age. All
Speaker 1: the episodes are out, so you can binge that puppy now. Oh.
Speaker 1: In shirts, I should also mention, uh, if you go
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, you'll find
Speaker 1: a tab for our merch store, and indeed there are
Speaker 1: shirts there with things like squirrels and basilists and our logo.
Speaker 1: And there's a new shirt as well as kind of
Speaker 1: a treasure map kind of scenario. I think I think
Speaker 1: it was from our Sea Monster Sea Monster Sea Monster shirt,
Speaker 1: So a new one of those to check out. And
Speaker 1: I believe there are some Thanksgiving Black Friday deals in
Speaker 1: play as well, so now's a good time to pick
Speaker 1: something up. If you are so inclined, absolutely dive into
Speaker 1: the merch pit and mash as hard as you can.
Speaker 1: And of course one more thing, since we were talking
Speaker 1: about gratitude, really have to express our gratitude to you,
Speaker 1: the listeners, because without you, none of this is really possible.
Speaker 1: It's true though, UH and I as always express my
Speaker 1: great gratitude, our great gratitude to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson, who makes it all possible absolutely. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.