Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we
Speaker 1: are going down down into the vault to revisit an
Speaker 1: episode from Days of Old. That's right, this uh, this week,
Speaker 1: we have an episode that originally published July two thousand
Speaker 1: and fifteen, and it has to do a little bit
Speaker 1: with old P. T. Barnum, who's in the well sort
Speaker 1: of in the news again because there's a movie out
Speaker 1: about his life. Right. Oh, I didn't even know that.
Speaker 1: What's the movie? The Greatest Showman? The Greatest Showman, The
Speaker 1: Greatest Showman that's in the greatest show on Earth but
Speaker 1: making it Showman? Who's in it? Hugh Jackman, Old Wolverine himself,
Speaker 1: Nice Barnum with claws. I have no idea. It's a musical,
Speaker 1: so I probably will never see it. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: his name is back in the ether again, so we
Speaker 1: thought it a good opportunity to bust this episode out again.
Speaker 1: What do you think about all you're singing? Oh, I
Speaker 1: think he's fine. It's not necessarily my thing. Did you
Speaker 1: see him in Lama's Rob No, No, you didn't see it. No,
Speaker 1: I've only heard like clips of him singing. I generally
Speaker 1: prefer him to you know, to be killing people with
Speaker 1: claws or or bawling, uh, you know, emotionally. Yeah, he's okay,
Speaker 1: he's okay singing anyway. Uh So I had no idea
Speaker 1: about that. But there's your tie in. That's why this
Speaker 1: is airing now. So I hope you enjoyed this episode
Speaker 1: on the horror Effect. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. In. Today we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about the science of personality assessments. Uh and full disclosure.
Speaker 1: We wanted to let you know that the reason we
Speaker 1: thought to do this topic today was that How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works actually hired an audience research firm to study our
Speaker 1: podcast audiences through surveys and statistical filing. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: took that survey that we put up on Facebook. That's
Speaker 1: what that was all about. Yeah, unless you think that
Speaker 1: this was just out of curiosity, you should always keep
Speaker 1: in mind that marketers and advertisers want to know everything
Speaker 1: about you, not because you're so interesting, but because it
Speaker 1: helps them sell you snack boxes and underwear. Yes, but anyway,
Speaker 1: they offered a personalized psychometric inventory for each of the
Speaker 1: individual podcast audiences, so each podcast got their own and
Speaker 1: it was based on a test originally compiled by the
Speaker 1: Society for Personality and Social Psychology subdivision of the A
Speaker 1: p A. And I thought this was really cool, Like
Speaker 1: they came up with a psychological profile was basically a
Speaker 1: personality sketch that listed key personality traits that were characteristics
Speaker 1: unique to each podcast audience. And so I picked like
Speaker 1: five of the traits they listed as unique to the
Speaker 1: archetypical stuff to blow your mind listener. So I thought
Speaker 1: you guys might be interested in this. Yeah, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: roll these out and then as we do, you can
Speaker 1: just think, well, to think to yourself, does that jive
Speaker 1: with my outlook on life and how I view myself? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so here we go. Number One, you tend to be
Speaker 1: independent thinkers, hesitant to accept the statements of others without
Speaker 1: adequate proof. Number two, you prefer a certain amount of
Speaker 1: change and variety and become dissatisfied when himmed in by
Speaker 1: restrictions and limitations. Three. At times, you experience varying degrees
Speaker 1: of social anxiety. Number four, you were motivated by a
Speaker 1: strong desire for fairness and reciprocity in social situations. Five.
Speaker 1: At times, you have serious doubts as to whether you've
Speaker 1: made the right decision or done the right thing. So,
Speaker 1: before we get into the meat of today's episode, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to mention that if you're a regular listener
Speaker 1: and you want to let us know how accurately this
Speaker 1: profile describes you, you can email us at blow the
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com and give us
Speaker 1: feedback on on the sketch. And unfortunately, everything I just
Speaker 1: said was made up. Yes, yes, this is a little
Speaker 1: slice of fiction, a slice of necessary fiction to get
Speaker 1: into our topic today. Yeah. So there was no audience survey,
Speaker 1: no survey data. We just threw together that sketch from
Speaker 1: a few pre existing generic descriptions. Hopefully nobody's upset about it,
Speaker 1: but if you are, you can contact how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: chief legal consultant, Richard W. Glazer. That's right. Uh, but
Speaker 1: be honest, now, were you thinking for a second, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like me, I have to admit, when I've
Speaker 1: read through them, even knowing that that we had just
Speaker 1: made this up, I was thinking, Yeah, that's how I
Speaker 1: view it. As a co host of the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am completely susceptible to this effect we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about today. I think if I had been in
Speaker 1: the audience's position here, I would have been like, Yep,
Speaker 1: that describes me. I think, at least in the kind
Speaker 1: of egotistical, self absorbed, self congratulatory way we sometimes all
Speaker 1: tend to be. I'm sure that I tend to be
Speaker 1: on the inside. Uh. If you weren't convinced, congratulations for
Speaker 1: being a skeptical no at all. But if you work
Speaker 1: and vinced, don't feel ashamed because you just displayed susceptibility
Speaker 1: to an effect that shows up in most humans, no
Speaker 1: matter how smart we are. And this is known as
Speaker 1: the former effect fo r e er or the Barnum effect.
Speaker 1: Both names refer to the exact same thing, and we'll
Speaker 1: probably use the terms interchangeably today, but mainly we're gonna
Speaker 1: use Barnum effect in the podcast because that's easier to
Speaker 1: say out loud. So the Barnum version of the name
Speaker 1: comes from the circus kingpin P. T. Barnum, and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking it could be ascribed to two different quotes attributed
Speaker 1: to Barnum either that there's a sucker born every minute,
Speaker 1: which apparently he did not actually say, or that Barnum
Speaker 1: had something for everybody. And I think that latter one
Speaker 1: might be what's key here. And if he didn't have
Speaker 1: something for everybody, he wanted to sell a product, right,
Speaker 1: the circus product is intended for a wide audience, and
Speaker 1: he wants to draw in as many people's poss Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got a he's got to push those jugglers, you know.
Speaker 1: But the former title comes from the American psychologist Bertram R. Forwer,
Speaker 1: and he noticed this effect in a classic paper he
Speaker 1: published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine, and this paper was called the Fallacy
Speaker 1: of Personal Validation, A classroom demonstration of gullibility. Now to
Speaker 1: give you a little background on four Bertram R. Four
Speaker 1: He was born in nineteen fourteen died in two thousand.
Speaker 1: American psychologist, again famous for this ninety personality test and
Speaker 1: his students. But he served as a psychologist and administrator
Speaker 1: in a military hospital in France during the Second World War,
Speaker 1: and then he worked in l a at a veteran's
Speaker 1: mental clinic. And also he had a private practice in Malibu. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what did forwer test with his students. Fourer had
Speaker 1: previously discussed with his students a sort of proto personality
Speaker 1: quiz called the diagnot a stick interest blank, or d
Speaker 1: I B, and this was a qualitatively evaluated test that
Speaker 1: he explained in the following language. He said quote. The
Speaker 1: d IB consists of a list of hobbies, reading materials,
Speaker 1: personal characteristics, job duties, and secret hopes and ambitions of
Speaker 1: one's ideal person. The test is interpreted qualitatively and personality
Speaker 1: dynamics are inferred along line similar to projective tests. So
Speaker 1: this is a it's supposed to be qualitatively evaluated by
Speaker 1: a perceptive and trained professional, somebody who knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And some of his students, when they heard about the test,
Speaker 1: asked to take it. They wanted to take the d
Speaker 1: IB and received these tailored personality evaluations because you know,
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to take a personality quiz and learn
Speaker 1: a little bit about themselves? Right? I mean, that's it
Speaker 1: just speaks to our egos as well as you know,
Speaker 1: most people's desires for self improvement. You know, we want
Speaker 1: to we want we want to fill out that Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dagens character sheet with our own attributes and figure
Speaker 1: out what we need. A tweak with a magical ring
Speaker 1: or two? Right, I am chaotic neutral for real. So
Speaker 1: four acquiesced to their desire, and a group of thirty
Speaker 1: nine students all took the test and handed in their papers.
Speaker 1: And then one week later Fourer met with the students
Speaker 1: again for class and he handed back the individually tailored
Speaker 1: personality vignettes, and each one was a list of thirteen
Speaker 1: perceived personality attributes under the student's name, and the students
Speaker 1: were instructed to keep the results private. That part was
Speaker 1: important because, in fact, thirteen personality features listed on each
Speaker 1: student's paper had nothing to do with what the students
Speaker 1: wrote on their test. Uh In fact, they were all
Speaker 1: exactly the same for each one of the thirty nine students.
Speaker 1: So there were thirteen statements listed on each of these
Speaker 1: thirty nine identical personality sketches, and we're gonna read through
Speaker 1: them real quick. Number one, you have a great need
Speaker 1: for other people to like and admire you. You have
Speaker 1: a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a
Speaker 1: great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned
Speaker 1: your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you were
Speaker 1: generally able to compensate for them. Your sexual adjustment has
Speaker 1: presented problems for you. Disciplined and self controlled outside, you
Speaker 1: tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you
Speaker 1: have serious doubts as to whether you've made the right
Speaker 1: decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain
Speaker 1: amount of change and variety, and become dissatisfied when himmed
Speaker 1: in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an
Speaker 1: independent thinker and do not accept other statements without satisfactory proof.
Speaker 1: You have found it unwise to be too frank in
Speaker 1: revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable,
Speaker 1: while at other times you were introverted, wary, reserved. Some
Speaker 1: of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is
Speaker 1: one of your major goals in life. So the brilliance
Speaker 1: of these is that like just going through them there
Speaker 1: knowing a and these are false, that these are just
Speaker 1: you know, could be thrown out to anybody. I found
Speaker 1: myself nodding my head and saying, yeah, I can, definitely
Speaker 1: I can. If I don't buy that statement, outright, I
Speaker 1: can at least pick some data from my own personal
Speaker 1: history that could support that theory. Yeah, and that is
Speaker 1: exactly what the test ends up relying on. So for
Speaker 1: reveals in a footnote of his paper that quote these
Speaker 1: statements came largely from a new stand astrology book, So
Speaker 1: he just found a horoscope and and picked out random
Speaker 1: statements that could apply to a Capricorn, a sagittarius, whoever
Speaker 1: it is. And students were then asked to rate, on
Speaker 1: a scale of zero to five, with zero being poor
Speaker 1: and five being perfect, the accuracy of the d I
Speaker 1: B as a test, and then the accuracy of their
Speaker 1: own individual sketch as a portrayal of their personality. And
Speaker 1: then he also asked the students to go down the
Speaker 1: list and mark each of the thirteen statements as true, false,
Speaker 1: or a question mark. Here were the results, as rated
Speaker 1: by the students. The d I B got only one three,
Speaker 1: it got twenty five fours, and it got thirteen fives.
Speaker 1: So thirteen students thought it was perfect, thought it was
Speaker 1: really good, and one thought it was okay. So all
Speaker 1: of the students but one gave the test a four
Speaker 1: or five for accuracy, and then When it came to
Speaker 1: the individual sketches, all but five students rated their sketch
Speaker 1: of four or a five, So the students overwhelmingly thought
Speaker 1: the test was pretty good, too perfect, And an interesting
Speaker 1: thing for Or points out when comparing the student ratings
Speaker 1: of the test and the sketch against their item by
Speaker 1: item breakdown, is this quote. For some individuals, the presence
Speaker 1: of eight true statements among the thirteen was considered sufficient
Speaker 1: evidence for acceptance of the sketch as perfect. M Let
Speaker 1: that sink in for a second, eight out of thirteen
Speaker 1: is sixty two per cent. So for some students, even
Speaker 1: with these extremely vague statements, just getting sixty two percent
Speaker 1: right about them was enough for the test to count
Speaker 1: as a perfect hit. Yeah, how does that does that work?
Speaker 1: What's your definition of perfect in this? I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it comes down to something four explains in
Speaker 1: his paper later about the discrepancy between our sort of
Speaker 1: like qualitative or quantitative analysis of the results and then
Speaker 1: the amount of confidence we're willing to attribute to a
Speaker 1: diagnostic tool as a whole. But what happened here? I mean,
Speaker 1: subsequent studies have repeatedly demonstrated the Barnum effect under various circumstances,
Speaker 1: so it's pretty safe to assume that for students weren't
Speaker 1: just particularly gullible. In Art Carroll's entry in the Skeptics Dictionary,
Speaker 1: he claims, quote, the test has been repeated hundreds of
Speaker 1: times with psychology students, and the average is still around
Speaker 1: four point two out of five or eight accurate. So
Speaker 1: why are we so eager to gobble up worthless effectively
Speaker 1: random assessments of ourselves? Well as as we'll discuss the
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the answer lies in the presentation.
Speaker 1: You know, where this test was was taken and who
Speaker 1: was given it to them, and then the the language
Speaker 1: in which it was administered. Right, it's a psychology professor,
Speaker 1: it's a you know, an authority figure administering this test
Speaker 1: to the students in a classroom in a center of learning. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's wrapped in the expected psychological lingo. Yes, but
Speaker 1: there's an even deeper issue going on with the nature
Speaker 1: of these evaluations that makes them work. And it's based
Speaker 1: on the interplay between two principles that four points out
Speaker 1: in his paper. And uh he four is referring to
Speaker 1: certain types of people like crystal gazers as one term
Speaker 1: he uses. I think that means like somebody looking into
Speaker 1: a crystal ball, he's arning about the psychics of his day,
Speaker 1: and and things like that. He says, they might even
Speaker 1: unwittingly make use of these principles, but they are making
Speaker 1: use of them. And the principles are universal validity and
Speaker 1: personal validation. That his term is personal validation. But today
Speaker 1: we might know this as subjective validation. And the idea
Speaker 1: of universal validity is that pretty much every single psychological
Speaker 1: trait can be observed in some degree in everybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: think about it like if I say, at times you
Speaker 1: experience varying degrees of social anxiety. Yeah, that's that's everybody. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: with it with a few just complete space aliens, you know,
Speaker 1: eliminated from the mix. Everybody deals with some level of anxiety. Right.
Speaker 1: So another way of thinking about this is casting a
Speaker 1: wide net. And you can see a very similar parallel
Speaker 1: practice if you watch a psychic front of a group
Speaker 1: of people doing a cold reading on a crowd. So
Speaker 1: the psychic might stand up in front of a crowd
Speaker 1: and say, okay, I'm getting something from a spirit, a
Speaker 1: spirit of someone known to someone in the room, it's
Speaker 1: an older person, an older person named John or Jack.
Speaker 1: Does that mean anything to anyone? Something something starting with
Speaker 1: John or Jack, something starting with the letter J. And
Speaker 1: then one hand goes an uncle named Jefferson exactly, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh man, my uncle Jehosaphat. And then uh. And then
Speaker 1: the psychic says, yes, that's right, Jehosaphat or Jefferson is
Speaker 1: here with us, and and now we can talk to
Speaker 1: Jeffer Josaphat. And then the client later says, wow, the
Speaker 1: psychic somehow knew something about Jehosaphen, when in fact the
Speaker 1: client has supplied the relevant specifics themselves. The psychic was
Speaker 1: just trawling with a very large net. It would be
Speaker 1: extremely weird if nobody in the room knew of a
Speaker 1: deceased family member whose name started with J. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: the odds are with you that you're going to catch
Speaker 1: somebody with that very vague, very general bit of bait. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then the other principle is this principle of personal
Speaker 1: or subjective validation. So how do you test the validity
Speaker 1: of a diagnostic instrument, whether it's a horoscope or a
Speaker 1: psychic or a supposedly professional and valid psychological personality. Test.
Speaker 1: You probably don't want to test it by using it
Speaker 1: on somebody and then saying how accurately did this describe you?
Speaker 1: Because this is subject to what for would call the
Speaker 1: fallacy of personal validation. Because you are you, and because
Speaker 1: you know the story of your own life so well,
Speaker 1: you can always find autobiographical hooks to hang almost any
Speaker 1: statement on, especially vague and general statements. So we mentioned
Speaker 1: the example a minute ago of social anxiety. Can you
Speaker 1: ever think of an instance where social anxiety had a
Speaker 1: meaningful role in your life? Yeah? Of course, yeah, every day.
Speaker 1: Even somebody who's not particularly anxious, who doesn't have many
Speaker 1: problems with social anxiety, can think of an instance that
Speaker 1: was meaningful to them. Yeah. At the very least, they
Speaker 1: were once children, and there had to have been some
Speaker 1: point in their life where they felt a little awkward. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so, simply put, subjective validation is when you find
Speaker 1: personal and unique accuracy in statements that could apply to
Speaker 1: many or all people. Yeah. And part of this just
Speaker 1: gets into our our enormous capacity, uh to place ourselves
Speaker 1: in any story too, just the fact that we are
Speaker 1: empathic organisms. Yeah yeah, Um, we're always seeking meaning that
Speaker 1: relates to us. This sort of ties into something we
Speaker 1: talked about a while back in the Science of Coincidence episode,
Speaker 1: where you know, we're pattern seeking creatures and we're constantly
Speaker 1: trying to find the pattern that means something to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you're talking about our ability to even essentially
Speaker 1: put ourselves in the shoes of extreme cases. Um. You
Speaker 1: know this this immediately makes me think of the popularity
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, any kind of fiction that deals
Speaker 1: with individuals with mental illness or in extreme cases, um,
Speaker 1: serial murderers. You know, because if you have a well
Speaker 1: executed serial killer story, um, you can still you still
Speaker 1: end up investing yourself in that person on some level.
Speaker 1: You end up empathizing with at least some aspect of
Speaker 1: their you know, ultimately broken psyche. Right. Yeah, so if
Speaker 1: you if you can connect with the serial killers relationship
Speaker 1: with his mother or something like that, you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: is this really the story of me? Yeah? Or like, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm obviously thinking of Hannibal. Yeah, Hannibal actually came up
Speaker 1: a couple of times in my mind looking through the
Speaker 1: research here. Um, I think it was Joyce Carol Oates
Speaker 1: has a book called Zombie that's essentially a retelling of
Speaker 1: of the Jeffrey dalmer Um case, but with a fictionalized account,
Speaker 1: and so even in this year, you're reading in it
Speaker 1: and you can't actually empathize with the murderous aspects of
Speaker 1: the main character. But ultimately it's about a guy who
Speaker 1: feels lost in life and doesn't exactly know where he fits.
Speaker 1: And you know who can't empathize on some level at
Speaker 1: some point in their their timeline with an example like that, Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way, we're all that cannibal. Yeah. It makes
Speaker 1: me wonder if you if you administered a test like
Speaker 1: Forest Test and you had all of the personality statements
Speaker 1: leaning more towards the darker and the insane, like, what
Speaker 1: the acceptance level would be. Well, there actually is some
Speaker 1: commentary on that in the literature, and we can get
Speaker 1: to that in a bit. What are some other studies
Speaker 1: that What have other studies revealed about this, uh, this property? Well,
Speaker 1: there have been number one, It's just been reproduced many
Speaker 1: many times. And the strength of the effect varies when
Speaker 1: you change some of the test conditions, and we can
Speaker 1: talk about that later, but there's pretty consistent result that
Speaker 1: the subjects of personality assessments tend to rate assessments as
Speaker 1: highly accurate in a way that's unique to them, even
Speaker 1: though the statements within the assessment are vague in general,
Speaker 1: and sometimes even when many of the individual statements in
Speaker 1: the list are subjectively perceived as wrong by the client.
Speaker 1: Remember when we talked about the people who got eight
Speaker 1: out of thirteen right, said that the test described them perfectly.
Speaker 1: So what's the impact of this in practice. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the things that Forror was personally worried about was
Speaker 1: that this could be used to validate or prop up
Speaker 1: the accuracy of very bad tools. So let's say you're
Speaker 1: an unscrupulous psychic or an unscrupulous psychotherapist. You can potentially
Speaker 1: use a combination of subjective validation and universal validity to
Speaker 1: get a very unhealthy amount of leverage over another person's
Speaker 1: common sense. And the exchange might go something like this.
Speaker 1: The psychic or unscrupulous psychologist makes a diagnosis of a
Speaker 1: person's personality, taking advantage of these, you know, very vague
Speaker 1: general traits, and then leaning on the client's tendency towards
Speaker 1: subjective validation of the test. The client reads these things
Speaker 1: like in the test we talked about and says, yep,
Speaker 1: that's me, and then assumes that the psychic or the
Speaker 1: unscrupulous psychologist has access to powerful and accurate skills or
Speaker 1: diagnostic tools. Then the psychic or unscrupulous psychologist makes bolder,
Speaker 1: more specific, less credible diagnoses or or predictions that might
Speaker 1: not have been accepted on the first go around. But
Speaker 1: at this point the client thinks, well, he knew what
Speaker 1: he was talking about the last time, so he must
Speaker 1: know this time. I'm going to listen to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of a confidence trick, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a it's it's a matter of producing this sort
Speaker 1: of magical trick, this illusion that proves to the patient
Speaker 1: or the the mark or however you want to want
Speaker 1: to look at them, the customer, proves to them that
Speaker 1: you have insight into who they are and what they're
Speaker 1: all about. And then when they start making comments that
Speaker 1: that don't jive as well, we just attribute it to
Speaker 1: their they know more about us than we know about us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember when I was right last time. It's also
Speaker 1: very similar to the con maneuver. If you're trying to
Speaker 1: con somebody out of a large amount of money, say like, hey,
Speaker 1: invest in my pyramid scheme, it'll you know, I can
Speaker 1: give give you a million dollars. First you ask for
Speaker 1: a very small investment, and then you pay out what
Speaker 1: you promised on that small investment, and then they say, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: well it seems to work. And so then when you
Speaker 1: ask for a bigger investment, you can fly off to
Speaker 1: Hawaii with the money. You probably wouldn't fly to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Where would you fly to? Cayman Islands? Yeah? Or the
Speaker 1: Far East I'm thinking? Or the halls of Deacon Yeah,
Speaker 1: always a good place that it's tough to get the
Speaker 1: currency exchanged properly there, but but still still a good place.
Speaker 1: A lot of kind and hanging out in the tests, right,
Speaker 1: And this can be applied to more different types of
Speaker 1: diagnostic tools and instruments than you might think. I mean,
Speaker 1: so the obvious ones we've talked about are like the
Speaker 1: personal powers of a person who claims to be a psychic,
Speaker 1: or a certain type of psychological test, any one of
Speaker 1: these personality tests you can take. But other things might
Speaker 1: be methods of discerning personalities like graphology. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard about graphology? Not until preparing this episode, now yes,
Speaker 1: So so four claimed that he was prompted to perform
Speaker 1: this experiment after he was accosted in a nightclub by
Speaker 1: a graphologist. And a graphologist as a person who believes
Speaker 1: they can tell you all about your personality by looking
Speaker 1: at your handwriting. You know, this makes me think that
Speaker 1: this nightclub was either really cool are are really lame?
Speaker 1: Like there's no in between there. If it involves being
Speaker 1: approached by a grapholow, it sounds pretty cool to me.
Speaker 1: I never get approached by graphologists when I'm out having
Speaker 1: a you know, at a bar or somewhere. I wish
Speaker 1: I would be, because that would be really interesting. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so graphology is widely considered a baseless pseudoscience, though I'm
Speaker 1: sure some people still believe in it, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of scary. But four wanted to demonstrate that he could,
Speaker 1: with deliberately faulty techniques produce assessments that clients would find
Speaker 1: just as accurate as those provided by a professional graphologist.
Speaker 1: So repeat the same pattern I talked about a minute
Speaker 1: ago with the with the psychic or the unscrupulous psychologist,
Speaker 1: where they proved themselves and the and the accuracy of
Speaker 1: their diagnostic tools with some very general vague statements just
Speaker 1: relying on the fact that you're going to go, Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like me and Bam, Now grophology works and
Speaker 1: I can get you to give me all your money.
Speaker 1: Now you don't have to go to a graphologist or
Speaker 1: you know, or even listen to the intro to this
Speaker 1: podcast to to have some introduction to the power of
Speaker 1: the four effect um. And as we were chatting about this,
Speaker 1: we kind of looked at at four different levels, like
Speaker 1: at the very bottom level, you have essentially horoscopes and
Speaker 1: fortune cookies. And it's worth noting on fortune cookies that
Speaker 1: every time, even though we know those are just coming
Speaker 1: from a crate in the back of the Chinese restaurant,
Speaker 1: even though we really don't attribute any literal significance to
Speaker 1: what's coming out of the cookie, they still resonate with
Speaker 1: us because we still, at least for a second, we
Speaker 1: just we suspend this belief just enough to engage in
Speaker 1: a worldview where the future is more than mystery and chance. Right, absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to ask, what's your favorite fortune cookie you've
Speaker 1: ever gotten? Um, Years and years and years ago, I
Speaker 1: got one that was said one day you'll write a book.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that's great, that's what I want
Speaker 1: to do anyway. So, um, so I kept that on.
Speaker 1: It's like, now they predicted the age of self publishing
Speaker 1: and then they were going to be right about no
Speaker 1: matter who opened that cookie, that's true, but uh, you
Speaker 1: know it, um it was you know, even though I
Speaker 1: knew it was a vague statement, it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: on some level, I took it as encouragement, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh I'm if I had gotten a fortune cookie that
Speaker 1: said you will write a book, I would still have
Speaker 1: that in my wallet and be like, yep, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a writer someday, that's how important I am.
Speaker 1: Uh No, my favorite fortune cookie I ever got was
Speaker 1: the one that said constant grinding will wear the iron
Speaker 1: rod down to a needle. Huh what does it mean?
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure. Like it's telling you not to
Speaker 1: file yourself with the file you wear a mouth card
Speaker 1: at night. Because if I if I had gotten that one,
Speaker 1: I would think, oh, well that was clearly forecasting that
Speaker 1: I grind my teeth and would need to wear a
Speaker 1: night card. Yeah well it could have been that, but
Speaker 1: look to it. Take that fortune if you still have
Speaker 1: it to your dentist and say look into it, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, my dentist is moderately humorless. But okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you have you have fortune cookies, which, like you
Speaker 1: point out, they're especially funny because we give them the
Speaker 1: significance even though, like let's say you're a person who
Speaker 1: believes in astrology, the fortune cookie doesn't even aspire to
Speaker 1: the astrology level because you know, they're all just pre
Speaker 1: printed ahead of time and they're they're in a box. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so at least the horoscope is the is the higher
Speaker 1: end of this level because it's at least rooted in
Speaker 1: this system. It's a system that doesn't have any validity
Speaker 1: to it. But if you suspend disbelief or engage in
Speaker 1: a little magical thinking, you can buy into the system
Speaker 1: and then buy into the results of the system. But
Speaker 1: that was the first level. What's the next level? Then
Speaker 1: the next level we think, uh? Then the next level
Speaker 1: we think is, uh, the which X men character are you?
Speaker 1: And and not necessarily just the wich X men character,
Speaker 1: but any of these various pseudo personality quizzes based in
Speaker 1: fiction U that end up. You know, it seems like
Speaker 1: for a while they were always rolling out on Facebook.
Speaker 1: It is like every day it was a new one
Speaker 1: and you take this little, generally poorly x acuted quiz
Speaker 1: and generally with very leading questions to determine which X
Speaker 1: Men character, which Twilight character are you? Which which house
Speaker 1: and Harry Potter would you be in? That's right? I
Speaker 1: am gambit, yeah, yeah, And they would have questions like
Speaker 1: what would be your preferred weapon in a fight at
Speaker 1: amantium clause or exploding playing cards, And that's just cheating
Speaker 1: because then the person is basically choosing which X Men
Speaker 1: character they want to be and just picking Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think one of the problems was there ended up being
Speaker 1: websites where you could build your own, so people would
Speaker 1: just build them without any any thought into what makes
Speaker 1: you know, makes it seem like they work. The better ones,
Speaker 1: and I think the ones that were not user generated
Speaker 1: tended to feel a little more like a personality test
Speaker 1: and it should be a surprise when it tells you
Speaker 1: that you are joke or not. And from from there
Speaker 1: we get into the next level, which, of course site
Speaker 1: involves psychic readings cold readings, where there's an actual intellect
Speaker 1: on the other side of the test drawing you in,
Speaker 1: conning you with that, you know, with that with that
Speaker 1: little bit of generally appliable uh data and then making
Speaker 1: more specific hum revelations visible about your your personal history
Speaker 1: and your future and uh your departed loved ones in
Speaker 1: the afterlife. Yeah. There, it's interactive and it's smart. The
Speaker 1: person knows what they're doing and they're working you. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just like a kind of blank dumb statement
Speaker 1: that you have to read into. They're helping you read
Speaker 1: into it actively. And then, of course, in the level
Speaker 1: beyond that, you have the quote professional personality test. This is,
Speaker 1: of course, like Myers Briggs, the kind of test that
Speaker 1: a professional might come into your workplace and actually administer
Speaker 1: the test to everyone. Yeah, and we're certainly not saying
Speaker 1: that all professionally administered psychological tests are bunk. That that's
Speaker 1: not the case. What we are saying is that it's
Speaker 1: very possible for a psychologist to design a personality assessment
Speaker 1: that is bunk, and you might very well not know
Speaker 1: it right. And you know, I would go even even
Speaker 1: further and say that I believe that people can use
Speaker 1: the cold reading techniques and psychic reading techniques for an
Speaker 1: overall positive experience with a person. But it kind of
Speaker 1: comes down to that the question you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: if you let somebody go through the drawers in your house,
Speaker 1: are you going to trust them not to steal your silver?
Speaker 1: Were right? So I'm positive they are individuals. I know
Speaker 1: their individuals who have had the experience with psychics and
Speaker 1: UH and cold readers, and individuals using this technique where
Speaker 1: they at least feel that there is some sort of temporary,
Speaker 1: at least positive result from the experience. Oh yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier in this episode, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of it and I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: be cautious about it, I think I'm very susceptible to this.
Speaker 1: I think I could easily naturally be the kind of
Speaker 1: person that falls for it. If you tell me, at
Speaker 1: times you experience social anxiety, but also you're an independent thinker,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know that is me. So
Speaker 1: here's a big here's a big question that emerges. Are
Speaker 1: there ways to make generic assessments feel more accurate to
Speaker 1: people to make sure that they're not instantly being called
Speaker 1: out for for the kind of generalities that that are
Speaker 1: that are hallmark of this kind of manipulation. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the first number one key principle is keep the
Speaker 1: descriptions as vague and generally applicable as possible without it
Speaker 1: being too obvious that they're meaningless. And this is a
Speaker 1: fine line that that you have to walk with language
Speaker 1: if you're going to try to be a deceptive no
Speaker 1: good diagnostician. Um, so you wouldn't say, for example, you
Speaker 1: are an extrovert or an introvert. I mean, obviously you're
Speaker 1: one of the two, right, But you can say that
Speaker 1: without it being so clear. I think it needs a
Speaker 1: little careful use of language. So you would try something
Speaker 1: like you're often able to find fulfillment in social events
Speaker 1: and relationships, but at times you feel like you need
Speaker 1: to be by yourself. Now, another possibility here comes to
Speaker 1: mind with the with the psychic, we're talking like if
Speaker 1: a psychic were to say there's somebody in the room
Speaker 1: here who knew an old person who died, like that
Speaker 1: sounds just really fake. But if you were to phrase
Speaker 1: it more like somebody here lost an individual, they were
Speaker 1: really just a strong presence in their life. They were
Speaker 1: a real you know, a personal hero, a kind of
Speaker 1: a mentor a rock for you. Yeah, like you you
Speaker 1: change the way you're describing, you change the language of
Speaker 1: it and uh, and then you might think, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, my uncle Ben was kind of like that
Speaker 1: without it just being like, who's an old person I
Speaker 1: know that died. Oh, I can choose from six, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's still general enough that you could you could
Speaker 1: just throw that out there and see what you catch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're creating the illusion that you're narrowing the scope
Speaker 1: without really narrowing it by much. So choose your words carefully.
Speaker 1: In fact, I wanted to highlight it's in the spirit
Speaker 1: of one of my favorite quotes from Calvin and Hobbes,
Speaker 1: which is when Calvin's he's talking about how he used
Speaker 1: to hate writing assignments for school, but then he decides
Speaker 1: he loves them because he says, quote, the purpose of
Speaker 1: writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and
Speaker 1: inhibit clarity. That's kind of true. So there are some
Speaker 1: specific words that will be very useful to you, useful
Speaker 1: modifiers like some. Isn't that a great word because some
Speaker 1: could mean anything from one percent to it includes all
Speaker 1: options except none or all. Yeah, it's like saying if
Speaker 1: you were to say you're a real dirt bag, and
Speaker 1: you're like I don't know if the psychic really knows me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're a real dirt bag, and then you have
Speaker 1: to think, well, maybe I am, you know, whether you're
Speaker 1: mostly a dirt bag or only occasionally a dirt bag.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, there's got to be at least some
Speaker 1: moment in your personal history where you're like I was
Speaker 1: kind of sliding towards the dirt bag level of the one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that sometimes some and then at times that's a
Speaker 1: great one because at times that that sounds like psychological
Speaker 1: test language. At the same time, you want to convince
Speaker 1: the mark here that the Barnum profile is unique, right, uh.
Speaker 1: And this was key and for his experiment, um uh.
Speaker 1: And he actually described the following scene after he had
Speaker 1: collected feedback on the test. He said he was going
Speaker 1: to read a list of selected traits out loud, and
Speaker 1: if the students had the trade on their profile, they
Speaker 1: needed to raise their hand. After four read the first trade,
Speaker 1: every hand in the room went up and then the
Speaker 1: students burst out laughing. The moment the students realized their
Speaker 1: profiles were not unique, that's when they instantly knew the
Speaker 1: personality sketch was bunk. So in this we get into
Speaker 1: the whole fortune cookie scenario, Like, if you know all
Speaker 1: the fortune cookies are the same, the only way you're
Speaker 1: gonna get into it is if you suspend disbelief or
Speaker 1: even just you know, it's hard to even have the
Speaker 1: magical thinking cranked up high enough to buy a fortune cookie.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how much that works. I mean, even knowing
Speaker 1: what we know about fortune co he's not thinking they're magical.
Speaker 1: Imagine if you were sitting at a table and everybody
Speaker 1: opened their fortune cookie at the Chinese restaurant and they
Speaker 1: all had the same fortune on them, Like it wouldn't
Speaker 1: even feel as significant to you as it normally does
Speaker 1: when you normally know it's not significant, right, But if
Speaker 1: you have the at least the illusion that has been
Speaker 1: personally prepared for you, like nobody does this. But what
Speaker 1: if the fortune cookie chef came to your table as
Speaker 1: if they were going to you know, customer poportulary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, did some sort of you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, some sort of ritual right, or you know,
Speaker 1: did something scanned you with some sort of device and
Speaker 1: then read it out on a meter and then wrote
Speaker 1: it down. If you had table preparation side fortune cookie preparation.
Speaker 1: This could be big. This would allow you to to
Speaker 1: perceive it as an individualized exercise, and then you would say,
Speaker 1: of course you would buy it, even if it's like
Speaker 1: one of those really horrible fortune cookies that just throws
Speaker 1: out some little adage rather than even attempting to forecast
Speaker 1: your future. Yeah, so here's another one. Be flattering, flatter
Speaker 1: the person. One of the findings of a nineteen literature
Speaker 1: review by Dixon and Kelly was that there's some evidence
Speaker 1: that positive or favorable assessments are more readily accepted as accurate.
Speaker 1: So if you're reading a list of traits that are
Speaker 1: your feedback from the personality test you took, if they're
Speaker 1: mostly negative, you're less likely to say this is very accurate.
Speaker 1: Then if they're mostly positive, and it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: mean that they're all positive. In fact, I would think
Speaker 1: that might not work if they're all just glowing reviews
Speaker 1: of you. So what I would do if I was
Speaker 1: designing one of these is make it eighty to nine
Speaker 1: deep percent really nice things about you and then a
Speaker 1: couple of harmless criticisms. Yeah, you want to have it,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like buying a character in fiction, right,
Speaker 1: they need to have some flaws, they need to have
Speaker 1: some some some strengths. You need to be able to
Speaker 1: get behind the the idea that is the real person.
Speaker 1: But they have to be overall likable or nobody's going
Speaker 1: to buy them as the protagonist. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true for fiction, because well, who doesn't love
Speaker 1: Snake Pliskin. He has positive attributes. You know, he's he
Speaker 1: stands up for what he believes in. He's true to himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know he's uh, he's he's also true to
Speaker 1: his crew. That's important too. You know, like when he
Speaker 1: gets out and he finally talks to the president, you know,
Speaker 1: the first thing he says is, like, these people, well
Speaker 1: some of these people died for you. You know, you
Speaker 1: gotta gotta stand by them. And the president's too busy prepping,
Speaker 1: and that's what he decides to tear up the tape.
Speaker 1: So but but yeah, when a character is just too
Speaker 1: unlikable instantly comes to mind that show Last Minute on Earth.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you watched this Will Forte in
Speaker 1: the League playing the this uh, this man who survived
Speaker 1: after the apocalypse, and it's and then he starts encountering
Speaker 1: random survivors, but he's the center of it and it's
Speaker 1: a good show. But the character is so unlikable that
Speaker 1: I ended up one of the last episode I watched.
Speaker 1: I think I spent the whole thing just hoping Cannibal
Speaker 1: while drors would show up and eat him, because it's like,
Speaker 1: I can't really get behind him because he's so despicable.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I think of this because just a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, on July four, we in our house
Speaker 1: watched Jaws, which we do everywhere on July four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but have you ever read the book? No, I haven't.
Speaker 1: Every single character is detestable there. There's not a single
Speaker 1: even remotely likable character that I don't know. I have
Speaker 1: no idea whether that was intentional or not. But you
Speaker 1: just want the shark to eat them all weird, and
Speaker 1: they had to change it for the movie. It's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine that now with as like lovable as Quint
Speaker 1: is in the movie. Yeah, that's weird. No I read.
Speaker 1: I read Peter Benchley's Beast about the Giant Squid, But
Speaker 1: that's the only Benchley book I've ever read. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: never ventured into the Benchley deep cuts. That's that's that's
Speaker 1: the only cut I've listened to. But it was fun
Speaker 1: in the day. Somebody fights a giant scud of the chainsaw. Right,
Speaker 1: oh wait, let's get back. Yes, yeah, we have one more,
Speaker 1: and this one is pretty simple. Project high status and
Speaker 1: scientific authority. It kind of like if you put this
Speaker 1: in the guise of the psychic reader or the magician,
Speaker 1: like we're a fancy cloak, have a cool beard, right, Like,
Speaker 1: drape yourself in the authority of the station you're in.
Speaker 1: And if you're trying to, uh to to pull this off,
Speaker 1: it's like a personality assessment thing, like, have some sort
Speaker 1: of scientific authority to you throw out some scientific lingo,
Speaker 1: have some sort of gadget that you will whip out
Speaker 1: at your table side fortune cookie preparation, right. I. I
Speaker 1: actually tried to incorporate this into the little deception I
Speaker 1: used at the beginning of the episode when I said
Speaker 1: that the test we used was a survey created by
Speaker 1: the Society for Personality and Social Psychology subdivision of the
Speaker 1: A p A, which is a real subdivision. Don't know
Speaker 1: if they've ever created a test, but yeah, it sounded
Speaker 1: accurate because you're throwing out some some some jargon, throwing
Speaker 1: out the name of an organization, and your mind kind
Speaker 1: of stops listening and just sort of checks it off, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds that sounds accurate. Yeah. Now, there of course
Speaker 1: a number of positives here. As we was, we touched
Speaker 1: on you know, you can have fun with a fortune cookie,
Speaker 1: you can enjoy your horoscope, you can people love these
Speaker 1: online personality quizzes. Yeah, you can appreciate the you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of personal satisfaction in finding out that you're
Speaker 1: Wolverine um. And in some cases I maintain you can
Speaker 1: you know, and the right kind of psychic can can
Speaker 1: get inside your head a little bit and have a
Speaker 1: positive effect on you. I mean you could argue that
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, therapists you're using the same the
Speaker 1: same devices, they're just using it with some sort of
Speaker 1: ethical um structure in place. Oh yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: thing that is I've read pointed out about some psychics before,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't have to be true that they have
Speaker 1: psychic powers, like the paranormal doesn't have to exist for
Speaker 1: them to perhaps have insights that are useful to you.
Speaker 1: So there's an actually a really good article on this
Speaker 1: and I'll link to this in the landing page of
Speaker 1: this episode. Susan Krauss of Whitburn's when it comes to
Speaker 1: personality test, a dose of skepticism is a good thing.
Speaker 1: And this is from Psychology Today, and she presents first
Speaker 1: of all, the dark side of the for effect um
Speaker 1: as as really coming down to key three key things. One,
Speaker 1: it allows others to scam you out of money, right
Speaker 1: because because of the thing for mentioned where if if
Speaker 1: it works on you once, now you have logged in
Speaker 1: your brain. Okay, this device is worth trusting. And that
Speaker 1: device could be a particular test, could be apology, could
Speaker 1: be a psychic on TV, could be an advertising UM slogan,
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh, they really kind of got into
Speaker 1: who I am. They know who I am. I should
Speaker 1: buy their shampoo. Um. Number two, it makes you more
Speaker 1: susceptible to bad advice. You kind of touched them that already,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they're they're they're in your head. You're you're
Speaker 1: trusting them, and now they can start telling you all
Speaker 1: sorts of horrible things. And then number three, it makes
Speaker 1: you less susceptible to good advice that isn't as lubricated.
Speaker 1: Oh man, So if somebody. So let's say you take
Speaker 1: a very well designed psychology test that gives you a
Speaker 1: good profile of your personality that has all kinds of
Speaker 1: specifics that aren't as packaged as these vague generalities. You
Speaker 1: would get another test, you might actually not trust the
Speaker 1: good feedback. Yeah, Or imagine the pyramid scheme guy, you know,
Speaker 1: like he's coming up, he's buying your drinks, he's really
Speaker 1: laying it on thick. You're really buying into what he's
Speaker 1: selling because he's selling it so well, and he's he's
Speaker 1: already gained your trust. Meanwhile, your actual accountant is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you really need to be careful about these investments. But
Speaker 1: your actual accountants kind of boring and make yourself and
Speaker 1: he doesn't. His information isn't as well lubricated as that
Speaker 1: of the charlatan. So she has four key recommendations to
Speaker 1: avoid the pitfalls, just to you know, just to keep
Speaker 1: it in your mind as you're moving through life. Number one,
Speaker 1: No a fortune cookie when you see one. Obviously, that's
Speaker 1: that's my summation of this particular one. But yeah, like
Speaker 1: you know what you're dealing with. Yeah, beyond the lookout
Speaker 1: for statements that are universally valid and recognize them as such. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the second way you look for evidence of validity.
Speaker 1: Read between the lines, look for that ambiguity we've been
Speaker 1: talking thinking about is this a statement that could apply
Speaker 1: to anyone? And I'm just grabbing onto the bait and
Speaker 1: then finally trust actual professionals as opposed to advertisements and
Speaker 1: TV psychics. No, no, no, wait no, maybe you haven't
Speaker 1: encountered my favorite TV psychic. Uh, doctor You're so great? Now,
Speaker 1: Doctor you're so great? Has some really interesting things to
Speaker 1: say about how smart I am. Yeah, dr You're so Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well they can they can be very convincing. I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't watch as much TV these days, and not
Speaker 1: like you know in the old days, you turn on
Speaker 1: the TV and you just had to absorb what it
Speaker 1: gave you. So I don't even know what's out there.
Speaker 1: Are there other YouTube psychics the way there used to
Speaker 1: be TV psychics? I would hope so. But like there
Speaker 1: was the guy with the gray plastic hair. Do you
Speaker 1: remember him? No? What is that? Oh goodness, I should
Speaker 1: have I should have thought to look him up before
Speaker 1: the podcast episode, but he had it was like this
Speaker 1: just normal looking, kind of Doughey dude, and he had
Speaker 1: hair that was seemingly made out of plastic. I just
Speaker 1: googled psychic gray plastic hare and the first result is
Speaker 1: Dorian Gray syndrome. M Well, now I'm even more intrigued
Speaker 1: that he may have this man they have suffered from
Speaker 1: some sort of disorder that involved in aging painting. But
Speaker 1: but certainly there was just a whole world's gallery of
Speaker 1: TV psychics back in the day. Certainly, but you know
Speaker 1: they're each unique one and all. Yeah, but again there's
Speaker 1: still the other positive side to this is that allows
Speaker 1: us to really get into our music, right, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. We were talking about this the other day
Speaker 1: with the the general lyrical themes of pop music, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this in contrast to the way
Speaker 1: you handle specificity versus generality and fiction. If you're writing
Speaker 1: a short story or a novel or something like that,
Speaker 1: you don't want to sketch characters in a general way.
Speaker 1: You want to sketch them in a specific way, to
Speaker 1: have interesting, unique details that make them who they are.
Speaker 1: For some reason, in fiction we connect better with specifically
Speaker 1: drawn characters. But in pop music, very often, if you
Speaker 1: look at the lyrics, they are utterly devoid of specifics.
Speaker 1: They are they're they're doing this game where you paint
Speaker 1: in extremely vague generalities that could apply to almost any
Speaker 1: person at any time, and people do seem to respond
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, because often the generalities are you know,
Speaker 1: kind of mantras that you can get behind, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: statements of power, like like I remember, like when I
Speaker 1: would listen to like nine h Nails in high school,
Speaker 1: there would be you know, it seems like in more
Speaker 1: than one song he would throw in that line nothing
Speaker 1: could stop me now, you know, and you know kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, a dark gothy nine inch Nails la.
Speaker 1: But you listen to you like, yeah, nothing could stop
Speaker 1: me now you kind of pumping yourself up with it.
Speaker 1: This is about my life, yeah, because I am facing
Speaker 1: a challenge that I should not be stopped from. How
Speaker 1: did he know so much about me? Trend just knows Trent.
Speaker 1: Trent is a man of insight. Um. Likewise, another one
Speaker 1: for me several years back, like a definite pop example,
Speaker 1: the band Larou had to track Bulletproof, where the chorus
Speaker 1: next time, baby, I'll be bulletproof and I don't know
Speaker 1: what's even possibly it was specifically about but even you know,
Speaker 1: I would listen to and it was a catchy tune
Speaker 1: and I would think, yeah, I'm gonna be bulletproof, you
Speaker 1: can't stop me. Yeah, the same kind of it's the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's the trend principle, the tread principle. How about yourself,
Speaker 1: any pop songs that resonate with you? Yeah, just looking
Speaker 1: back in my history in my music player app, I
Speaker 1: think it's funny looking at the contrast between different types
Speaker 1: of lyrics. Like one of the things I see is
Speaker 1: Lauretta Lens Don't come Home and drinking with Loving on
Speaker 1: your Mind, which I mean that's pretty specific song, like
Speaker 1: that tells a specific story. On the other hand, You've
Speaker 1: got don't stop thinking about Tomorrow. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: how much more general could it be? You could be like, wow,
Speaker 1: they really, they really got me because I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: the weekend or that you know, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: something done tomorrow. The MAC knows, the mac knows how
Speaker 1: we think, right, and of course that that that does
Speaker 1: underligne like the two big trends in song, right, you
Speaker 1: have those those ultras cific songs or even narrative songs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking like Gordon Lightfoot type of vibe where
Speaker 1: you're telling a very definite story about a particular scenario
Speaker 1: and with its own ups and downs, and then on
Speaker 1: the other side, don't stop thinking about tomorrow. The generic
Speaker 1: anthems that you can just copy and paste your life onto. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the classification of anthems is key, al right, so that
Speaker 1: you have it, the for effect, the Barnum effect, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. It's all around us. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's in our it's in our religious lives, it's in
Speaker 1: our secular lives. It's in our advertising, it's in UH,
Speaker 1: it's in our our culinary taste. So we know that
Speaker 1: everyone has has something to share on this particular topic.
Speaker 1: So we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: check out Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That
Speaker 1: is the mothership. That's where you will find all the episodes.
Speaker 1: You'll find blog post videos, you'll find links out to
Speaker 1: our social media account. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler.
Speaker 1: And if you want to let us know how you
Speaker 1: reacted initially to our story about the audience surveyor or
Speaker 1: if you want to tell us a story you have
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