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

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: In Today, we're going to be talking about choices and preferences,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to start off by looking at what

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Speaker 1: I think is one of the most commonly misunderstood poems

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Speaker 1: in English literature. It's a classic most Americans already know.

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Speaker 1: You probably read it at some point in high school

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Speaker 1: or even earlier. But it's an interesting poem because I

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Speaker 1: think it usually gets interpreted to mean the exact opposite

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Speaker 1: of what it actually means. All right, so this is

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Speaker 1: the road not taken by Robert Frost. Are you ready

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Speaker 1: to hear it again? Yeah? Yeah. This is always a

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Speaker 1: pleasure to to hear or to read, even though it's

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Speaker 1: one that I think we're all hit with le probably

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Speaker 1: at the elementary school level. You know. I feel like

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Speaker 1: I came to a greater appreciation of just the music

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Speaker 1: of Robert Frost's poems as an adult than than I

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Speaker 1: had for them when I was in school. So I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure exactly what changed there. Maybe I became grumpier

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Speaker 1: and he was quite a grump himself. But but here

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Speaker 1: we go. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and

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Speaker 1: sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler.

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Speaker 1: Long I stood and looked down one as far as

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Speaker 1: I could to where it bent in the undergrowth, then

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Speaker 1: took the other, as just as fair and having perhaps

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Speaker 1: the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted, where

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Speaker 1: though as for that, the passing there had warned them

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Speaker 1: really about the same, And both that morning equally lay

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Speaker 1: in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept

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Speaker 1: the first for another day, yet, knowing how way leads

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Speaker 1: onto way, I doubted if I should ever come back,

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Speaker 1: I shall be telling this with a sigh. Somewhere ages

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Speaker 1: and ages. Hence, two roads diverged in a wood, and

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Speaker 1: I I took the one less traveled by, and that

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Speaker 1: has made all the difference. It's a beautiful bomb, it

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Speaker 1: really is. But one of the things that that is

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Speaker 1: really funny is that I think people usually interpret this

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Speaker 1: poem as a sort of celebration of unique individuality and

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Speaker 1: a celebration of going your own way. It's it's about

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Speaker 1: how if you go boldly where others have not gone before,

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Speaker 1: if you remain your unique, authentic self and choose the

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Speaker 1: stranger path, you'll be rewarded with a life of unique meaning.

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Speaker 1: But if you read it closely, I think the poem

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Speaker 1: is meant to be a quite ironic sort of perry

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Speaker 1: against exactly that way of thinking, because what happens in it, well,

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Speaker 1: the speaker comes to a fork in the road. The

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Speaker 1: speaker evaluates the for each path for a bit, at

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Speaker 1: first thinks one is more traveled than the other, but

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Speaker 1: then ultimately realize is that they're about the same. Then

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Speaker 1: takes one road rather than the other for no major reason,

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Speaker 1: they are in reality pretty much indistinguishable. Then thinks about

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Speaker 1: how later in life he'll be claiming that he took

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Speaker 1: the bold, untraveled path and that it changed his life,

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Speaker 1: even though that wasn't true. Yeah, I feel like that's

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Speaker 1: something that a lot of people miss out on in

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Speaker 1: the poem, and I think a lot of it sometimes

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Speaker 1: comes down to um the discussions about what is he

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Speaker 1: actually talking about, And people get very wrapped up in that,

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Speaker 1: like what was the choice? No, no, no, not the

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Speaker 1: walk in the woods? What were you actually talking about? Frost,

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Speaker 1: And then you you kind of end up ignoring the

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Speaker 1: mechanics of it that you're talking about here, Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I think this is in a way a sort

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Speaker 1: of an image poem that can be applied to many

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Speaker 1: different types of choices one makes in life. Though I

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Speaker 1: think it was literally inspired by him walking in the

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Speaker 1: woods in New England. I'm not positive about that, but

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Speaker 1: I think I've read that before. But yeah, So it's

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Speaker 1: essentially a poem about a person who show was at

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Speaker 1: random between two at the time pretty much indistinguishable options,

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Speaker 1: and then comes up later with an ex post facto

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Speaker 1: justification for his choice that it was the one made

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Speaker 1: you made out of daring an authentic principle, and that

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Speaker 1: it was deeply meaningful. And I really like this ironic

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Speaker 1: interpretation because it raises a number of really interesting questions

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Speaker 1: about human nature. So, first of all, isn't so much

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Speaker 1: of life like this. We do make life changing decisions

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Speaker 1: without knowing what the outcome will be. That the options

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Speaker 1: in front of us might look indistinguishable. At the time

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Speaker 1: you choose between two job opportunities, you can't really tell

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Speaker 1: that one is necessarily better than the other. But then

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Speaker 1: later you you will have had much of your life

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Speaker 1: developed on the basis of whichever choice you made, and

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Speaker 1: you have to come up with a narrative of your

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Speaker 1: life story that makes sense of that choice in light

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Speaker 1: of its later unpredictable significance. And I've viously, when you

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Speaker 1: do this a lot of times you're gonna end up

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Speaker 1: remembering the choice differently than it was in your mind

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Speaker 1: when you made it. But then it also raises an

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Speaker 1: interesting question about decision making. In the moment. When there

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Speaker 1: are two options that are pretty much the same, we

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Speaker 1: we often have to form a preference for one or

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Speaker 1: the other. Now, there are plenty of cases where you

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Speaker 1: can quite clearly see why you'd prefer one option over another.

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Speaker 1: But in cases where that's not true, in the absence

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Speaker 1: of the obvious superiority of one option over another, where

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Speaker 1: do our preferences arise from? Why do we decide we

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Speaker 1: like the left path rather than the right path if

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Speaker 1: they look about the same. And for the purpose of

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Speaker 1: today's episode, I want to expand beyond thinking about paths

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Speaker 1: in the woods or big life decisions when it comes

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Speaker 1: to the formation of any preferences, even extremely minor ones.

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Speaker 1: You know you choose between two basically equivalent brands of

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Speaker 1: blender at the store, why do we like the things

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Speaker 1: that we like, Why do we have the preferences that

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Speaker 1: we have. I'm probably gonna refer back to the Black

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Speaker 1: Mirrorum episode the Black Mirror movie Band or Snatch a

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Speaker 1: lot in this one. We did an episode about it

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Speaker 1: last year, breaking down, you know, the nature of choice

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Speaker 1: and free will and all. But like I instantly think

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Speaker 1: about the early stages of Band or Snatch, where as

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Speaker 1: you do this choose your own adventure media, you have

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Speaker 1: to choose which cereal the main character is going to

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Speaker 1: have for breakfast, and you know, ultimately it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: matter in the context of that of that story. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And it's it's more about just teaching the mechanics of

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Speaker 1: choice within this um you know, computer narrative. But but

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that you still have to exert a certain

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Speaker 1: amount of mental energy to make that choice, to decide

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Speaker 1: this serial over that one. And it's interesting how and

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Speaker 1: this will tie into something we'll talk about in just

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Speaker 1: a minute here. It's interesting how, at least for me,

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Speaker 1: those early choices are kind of uncomfortable when you have

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Speaker 1: to pick the cereal or you have to pick the

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Speaker 1: record or some thing, and you don't have a natural

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Speaker 1: strong preference one way or another. You've got this kind

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Speaker 1: of weird anxiety that lingers after your choice, like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, did I pick the right one? Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: later on you can definitely make a call like Okay,

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Speaker 1: this is the more dramatic choice, or well, this is

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Speaker 1: the more this is the moral choice. But in choosing

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Speaker 1: the two cereals, aside from maybe health concerns about the

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Speaker 1: sugary cereal versus the other cereal, there's not as much

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Speaker 1: to go on, right. So one of the main things

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about in this episode today it

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Speaker 1: is a really interesting fact that's been observed in a

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Speaker 1: bunch of psychology studies over the years, and I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: look at an early one from the nineteen fifties in

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Speaker 1: just a minute. Here. We often assume that our preferences

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Speaker 1: are what determine our choices. I pick this option instead

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Speaker 1: of that because I like it better. But there is

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Speaker 1: also significant evidence here's your AUNTI Metaboli, that our choices

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Speaker 1: determine our preferences. I like this option because I picked it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And of the big early studies here, a classic study

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Speaker 1: that was in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty six by Jack W. Brim is called

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Speaker 1: post decision changes in the desirability of alternatives. So so again,

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Speaker 1: this is by the American psychologist Jack W. Brim. Brim

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Speaker 1: had been a student of the highly influential American social

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Speaker 1: psychologist Leon Festinger, who is probably best known for developing

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Speaker 1: the theory of cognitive dissonance. Now, this is a term

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Speaker 1: you've probably all heard before, but a lot of people

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Speaker 1: don't know the experimental history surrounding it. So the simple

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Speaker 1: version is that cognitive dissonance is the state of holding

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Speaker 1: contradictory beliefs or values, or contradictions between your beliefs and

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Speaker 1: your values and your actions, observing these contradictions within yourself simultaneously.

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Speaker 1: So one example that's very often sided is knowing that

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Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes is harmful to your health, but smoking them anyway.

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Speaker 1: But there there can be all kinds of cognitive dissonance.

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Speaker 1: Our life is just full of of of cognitive dissonance.

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Speaker 1: You know, you believe that your spouse is a good person,

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Speaker 1: but you also know that they did something wrong. You

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Speaker 1: know that they stole money out of the church collection

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Speaker 1: plate or something. I think one that's probably very common

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Speaker 1: appearances you love your child, but you really honestly don't

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Speaker 1: like something they did. You know, you hate the way

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Speaker 1: their crayon drawings look or something. Uh. And and when

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Speaker 1: you're faced with this kind of contradiction, and of course

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Speaker 1: we're faced with these kind of contradictions all the time, Uh,

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Speaker 1: there is a problem that arises. What Festinger argued was

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Speaker 1: that the state of cognitive dissonance is experienced internally as

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Speaker 1: a profound stress, and people will do almost anything to

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Speaker 1: alleviate that stress. And so this this remedial action to

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Speaker 1: to alleviate the stress can take many forms, but it's

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Speaker 1: just some finding some way to resolve the contradiction. Really,

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Speaker 1: anything that reduces the internal perception of a contradiction between

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Speaker 1: beliefs and values and actions. So if you're going back

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Speaker 1: to the classic example of a person who smokes cigarettes

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Speaker 1: but who is aware of the dangers of tobacco, they

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Speaker 1: have options including they could they could change their actions

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Speaker 1: so you can actually quit smoking. But of course that

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Speaker 1: one's really hard, so a lot of people would instead

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Speaker 1: go for one of the other options, which is change

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Speaker 1: explicit beliefs. You can say, uh, yeah, what are these

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Speaker 1: doctors know? You know, doctors are wrong about stuff all

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Speaker 1: the time. I don't know, nobody ever really proved that

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Speaker 1: smoking causes cancer. That's you know, the these studies are

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Speaker 1: Can you really trust these studies? And on and on?

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Speaker 1: You can you can just say no, I don't believe

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Speaker 1: that the risks are real, or you could change other

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Speaker 1: types of beliefs, such as changing underlying beliefs that are

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Speaker 1: going unspoken, because if there's an internal conflict, if there's

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Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance arising over smoking, it relies on the unspoken

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Speaker 1: premise that you want to live as long and be

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Speaker 1: as healthy as possible. So you could relieve cognitive dissonance

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Speaker 1: by explicitly rejecting that belief. And you've probably heard this

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Speaker 1: before from people who say like, yeah, I smoke, Yeah

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Speaker 1: it causes cancer, but hey, who wants to live forever.

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Speaker 1: That's also you know, a great example of of short

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Speaker 1: term versus long term thinking, right exactly. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think there are ways of looking at things like I mean,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, like you know, people are free to

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Speaker 1: to make the decisions about their own health as they choose,

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Speaker 1: But I think there is a legitimate school of thought

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Speaker 1: that would say that, uh, making statements like that is

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Speaker 1: basically a lack of compassion for your own future self. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but statements like that can help resolve the dissonance. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there there are other things people do to People can

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Speaker 1: think of compensatory reasons that they would keep smoking. So

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Speaker 1: they might say, Okay, I I accept the fact that

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Speaker 1: smoking is bad for health. I keep doing it, but

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Speaker 1: I've got some like compensatory justification in my brain. I

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Speaker 1: need to smoke in order to stay focused at work,

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Speaker 1: or like I need to smoke in order to stay thin,

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Speaker 1: or things like that. And so people have argued about

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Speaker 1: how best to interpret cognitive dissonance theory, and and they've

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Speaker 1: argued around the margins over the years. But it seems

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Speaker 1: to me like cognitive dissonance is is pretty robust and

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Speaker 1: a very lasting concept from from social psychology that explains

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Speaker 1: a lot of our behaviors and cognitive processes. There have

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Speaker 1: been a ton of different experiments that seem to support

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Speaker 1: the idea of cognitive dissonance reduction is a major pressure

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Speaker 1: driving our beliefs and behaviors. Just one I was reading

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Speaker 1: about as a study by Festinger and Carl Smith from

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine that works something like this. So you

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Speaker 1: have people perform something that they believe to be the

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Speaker 1: actual bulk of the experiment. It's this like long, repetitive,

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Speaker 1: extremely boring task. I don't remember exactly what it is.

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Speaker 1: Is like, you know, you put these pegs in holes

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Speaker 1: for an hour or something is mind numbingly boring, and

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Speaker 1: then you pay the subjects after they're done with the

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Speaker 1: experiment to tell the people who are going in to

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Speaker 1: do it next that it's really fun and interesting. Uh

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Speaker 1: so they're gonna be lying. They're gonna be openly saying

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Speaker 1: something that they know not to be true. And Festinger

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Speaker 1: and Carl Smith found something interesting, which is that if

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Speaker 1: you pay people a larger sum of money to tell

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Speaker 1: this lie, they will they will afterwards acknowledge it as

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Speaker 1: a lie. So, you know, you give me a hundred

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Speaker 1: bucks or whatever. I think it was twenty dollars in

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Speaker 1: the study, but that was nine fifties money. You give

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Speaker 1: me a hundred bucks or something. I say like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I I lied to the next guy. I

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Speaker 1: told him it was going to be really fun. If

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Speaker 1: you pay somebody a pittance sum to tell the lie,

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Speaker 1: you give them just a dollar, they are more likely

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Speaker 1: afterwards to report believing that what they said was true.

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Speaker 1: So you give somebody a hundred dollars to say this

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Speaker 1: is really putting the pegs in the holes is really one?

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Speaker 1: They say, yeah, I was lying, but hey, I gotta

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Speaker 1: pay day. You pay people a dollar to say it,

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Speaker 1: and they say, actually putting the pegs in the holes

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Speaker 1: was pretty fun. And the reasoning here is that in

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Speaker 1: the absence of a large sum of money to internally

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Speaker 1: justify the lie in order to basically relieve the cognitive dissonance,

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Speaker 1: give you a reason in your mind for having said it.

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Speaker 1: The easiest way for people to reduce cognitive dissonance is

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Speaker 1: to change their beliefs, change what they believe about what

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Speaker 1: they were doing, so that what they were saying actually

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Speaker 1: wasn't a lie. It was true. Yeah, but yeah the

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Speaker 1: pigs and the holes. It's great. Yeah, I um, I

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Speaker 1: agree with what you said said earlier. I think this

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Speaker 1: helps to explain a lot of what goes on in

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Speaker 1: our heads cognitive dissonance, both specifically as it applies to

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Speaker 1: contradictory opinions and beliefs that that we we hold at

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Speaker 1: once in our minds, as well as just more broadly,

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Speaker 1: getting it the lack of a congruent self you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I mean human life, you're you're just gonna be

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Speaker 1: full of contradictions. I mean, there is no way a

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Speaker 1: human can be consistent all the time. You're you're going

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Speaker 1: to have pressures that are acting on your mind and

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Speaker 1: going in multiple directions, and and most of the time

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Speaker 1: these contradictions can exist within you without you really being

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Speaker 1: aware of them. But once you become aware of them,

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Speaker 1: I am pretty convinced that, yeah, it does manifest is

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Speaker 1: this type of stress that you've got to do something about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like you often see people using sort of like self

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Speaker 1: defining mantras, you know, like I am this first, this second,

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Speaker 1: this third, or you know, I am this and this

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Speaker 1: and this or you know, you define yourself and your

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Speaker 1: your profile on social media as being as being this

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Speaker 1: or that or the other. But you know, ultimately, if

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Speaker 1: we're being honest, a lot of times it depends on

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Speaker 1: on what time of day it is, when we last

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Speaker 1: had a little boost of sugar caffeine, you know, how

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Speaker 1: tired we are, um, how much sunlight we've been exposed

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Speaker 1: to during the day, that sort of thing, how much

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Speaker 1: exercise we've had. Uh, those are some just some of

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Speaker 1: the factors that can influence the ranking of those little

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Speaker 1: um uh, those little phrases that we used to define ourselves,

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Speaker 1: and and and even incorporating different phrases that we might

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Speaker 1: not we not not have on the list, uh normally

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Speaker 1: or certainly when we're you know, outward facing and dealing

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Speaker 1: with other people. Yeah, a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 1: our lives are concerned with trying to create a consistent

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Speaker 1: narrative about ourselves, and in fact, ourselves are just not

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Speaker 1: that consistent. Yeah. And and really now, I mean, neither

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Speaker 1: is our understanding of the past or memory of the

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Speaker 1: past or anything. I mean, it it's just it's it's

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Speaker 1: so ridiculous the more you unravel it, Like, we were

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Speaker 1: so obsessed with our our personal narratives and where we

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Speaker 1: fit into it, when in reality, there is no past,

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Speaker 1: you know, we are we are creatures of the present,

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Speaker 1: traveling into the future. And uh, and yet we end up,

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Speaker 1: you know, spending all this time fretting about things that

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Speaker 1: are essentially fiction because all we have is just this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this copple together false memory of what we were. This

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Speaker 1: ties back to previous episodes that we've done on the

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Speaker 1: phenomenon of fundamental attribution error. The tendency for people to

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Speaker 1: overestimate the role of like internal agency and character and

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Speaker 1: underestimate the role of just external situations and forces in

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Speaker 1: guiding what human behavior is. It turns out people are

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Speaker 1: more malleable and more changeable based on situations than we

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Speaker 1: normally like to think. We like to think in terms

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Speaker 1: of like, you know, consistent solid psychological storytelling, where John

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Speaker 1: snow always stands for right and he just always does

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Speaker 1: what is perfectly consistent with his character, and it's explained

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Speaker 1: by who he is. But in fact, what we do

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Speaker 1: a lot of times it's just explained by what's going

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Speaker 1: on around us. But anyway, to come back to the

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Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance question, one implication of cognitive dissonance is that

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Speaker 1: in fact, our beliefs are quite malleable. When beliefs are

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Speaker 1: dissident with one another, it looks like, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: people don't want to think this about themselves, but it

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Speaker 1: seems to be true. We quite often and quite readily

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Speaker 1: just change one of our beliefs. We just believe something

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Speaker 1: different to get them in line. So anyway, the study

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Speaker 1: by Jack Brim looked at the question of whether cognitive

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Speaker 1: dissonance might be a motivator, even when people are evaluating

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Speaker 1: their own preferences, their own personal desires, just likes and dislikes,

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Speaker 1: even with regards to very minor things like do you

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Speaker 1: like this appliance or not? How much do you like it?

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Speaker 1: So the basics of the study, UH, you present people

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Speaker 1: with a selection of different household items and appliances ranging

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Speaker 1: in retail value for from fifteen dollars to thirty dollars

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Speaker 1: but that was at the time a teen fifties dollars um.

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Speaker 1: And then you ask the people to rate each of

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Speaker 1: these items in terms of desirability. How much would you

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Speaker 1: would you like to own this item on a scale

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Speaker 1: of one to ten, from extremely desirable to definitely not desirable,

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Speaker 1: all or sorry? I think I said one to ten.

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Speaker 1: It's one to eight, um, so you know you really

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Speaker 1: want the eights, you don't really care about the ones. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the items included things like an automatic coffee maker,

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Speaker 1: an electric sandwich grill, a silk screen reproduction and automatic toaster,

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Speaker 1: a fluorescent desk lamp, a book of art reproductions, a

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Speaker 1: stop watch, and a portable radio. And so, if I'm

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Speaker 1: subject in this experiment, I go down the list, I

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Speaker 1: do my ratings. I might rate the stop Watch at

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Speaker 1: a three out of ten, I don't really care about

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Speaker 1: that much. Maybe the sandwich grill at a five, the

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Speaker 1: coffee maker at a six, etcetera. And then after I'm

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Speaker 1: finished with my ratings and they're taken away, the experiment

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Speaker 1: er tells me that as part of my payment for participating,

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Speaker 1: I'll get to take home my choice of one of

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Speaker 1: two items from the list. But the experiment or picks

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Speaker 1: what the two are. So maybe he tells me that

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Speaker 1: I can take home either the toaster or the coffee maker,

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Speaker 1: which I rated equal, giving both a six, but I

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Speaker 1: have to pick one, So I picked the coffee maker

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Speaker 1: and I reject the toaster. Then some other conditions take place.

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Speaker 1: Uh that there were various other control conditions, but the

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Speaker 1: experiment ends at some point with me re rating the

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Speaker 1: original objects again for desirability without being able to refer

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Speaker 1: to the ratings I had already made. And what the

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Speaker 1: researchers found was, on average, if I was forced to

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Speaker 1: pick between two objects, my desirability rating for the object

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Speaker 1: I picked would go up, and my rating for the

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Speaker 1: object I rejected would go down. So maybe I initially

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Speaker 1: rated the toaster and the coffee maker both as a six.

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Speaker 1: But then if I'm forced to pick between them and

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Speaker 1: I picked the coffee maker, afterwards, I might rate the

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Speaker 1: coffee maker is a seven and the toaster is a

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Speaker 1: four or something like that. Now, why would that be? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is interesting because one of the one of the

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Speaker 1: possible examples that came to mind when I was thinking

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Speaker 1: about this was to go back to a previous episode

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Speaker 1: that we recorded, thinking about how you know, back when

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Speaker 1: when I was younger, you had, you know, like maybe

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Speaker 1: twenty bucks to blow on a CD during the course

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Speaker 1: of a month, and you made your pick, you bought it,

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Speaker 1: and then even if it wasn't that great, you kind

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Speaker 1: of found a reason to like that album as you

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Speaker 1: listen to it over and over again, you found at

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Speaker 1: least one song. But in those cases, you have sunk

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Speaker 1: cost in the situation, like I spent money on it

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Speaker 1: um in addition to time, whereas in this scenario, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's there. Their money is not the issue. There's like

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Speaker 1: I guess there's sort of a sunk cost in time,

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Speaker 1: but we don't have that that financial aspect of the scenario, right,

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Speaker 1: So the sunk cost fallacy does seem to be real,

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Speaker 1: Like we make choice supportive, biased judgments in favor of

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Speaker 1: stuff that we've already invested time and money and all

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Speaker 1: that into. But here it's just like, well, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: get one or the other, which one do you want?

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Speaker 1: And it seems like once you pick one out of

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Speaker 1: the two, the one you didn't pick look like junk,

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Speaker 1: and the one you did pick, oh, that's pretty great.

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Speaker 1: I do find this. I think there's just you know,

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Speaker 1: me thinking back on past experiences. But I feel like

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Speaker 1: this with ice creams sometimes, like ultimately, most of the

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Speaker 1: ice creams at then ice ice cream place, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna be great. I'm gonna enjoy them. They're just

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Speaker 1: gonna be varying degrees of sweetness and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: complex flavor, I guess. But I'll often find myself thinking, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, afterwards, if I'm there with my family, will all,

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Speaker 1: you know, sample each other's ice creams, and I'll generally go, yep,

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Speaker 1: I made the right choice. This is the ice cream

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Speaker 1: for me. Yep. Now there could be multiple reasons for that.

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Speaker 1: One reason is extremely straightforward. One reason is you just

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Speaker 1: picked the one you actually wanted most, you know what,

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Speaker 1: your preferences are and you acted them out. But there

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Speaker 1: could be good at this, Yeah, there could be other

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Speaker 1: things at work too, And so the underlying explanation based

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Speaker 1: on cognitive dissonance for what was observed in the study,

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Speaker 1: it goes something like this. When you evaluate how much

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Speaker 1: you want to potential possessions, you think in a general

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Speaker 1: way about the pros and cons of each, what do

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Speaker 1: you like about them, what do you dislike about them?

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Speaker 1: Then if you are forced to choose between two options

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Speaker 1: for which you see roughly similar amounts of pros and cons,

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Speaker 1: it creates one of these mildly stressful states of cognitive dissonance.

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Speaker 1: And again that sounds funny because like, how could that

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Speaker 1: be stressful? But it looks like this just does manifest

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Speaker 1: a stress in our brains, even though it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: make a lot of sense that it would. So you

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Speaker 1: didn't choose the toaster, even though there are things that

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Speaker 1: you like about the toaster, etcetera. And this uncomfortable state

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Speaker 1: of cognitive dissonance has a name actually, when it's applied

431
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: to expensive purchases, when you've spent money on it, it's

432
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,440
Speaker 1: known as buyer's remorse. Right, Okay, I need to buy

433
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: a lawnmower. But you know, what the hell do I

434
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: know about lawnmowers. I can't tell one from the other.

435
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: They cost a lot of money, but I need one,

436
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:52,679
Speaker 1: and I can't really tell them apart. So I'm just

437
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: gonna have to pick one of these here at the

438
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 1: store and buy it so I can cut the grass.

439
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: But after you've made a purchase like this, okay, big

440
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: dollar item, you've spent a lot on it, you you

441
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: just picked one, people often experience a sinking feeling, this

442
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,919
Speaker 1: form of stress and psychological discomfort. Did I buy the

443
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 1: right one? And you think about what might have been

444
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:15,680
Speaker 1: good about the ones you didn't buy, and you think

445
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: about what might be wrong with the one you did buy.

446
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,439
Speaker 1: So to eliminate the stress of this dissonance, the theory

447
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: goes that your brain simply changes your beliefs. You change

448
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 1: your beliefs about what you prefer and what you want,

449
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: emphasizing the pros and de emphasizing the cons of the

450
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: option you chose, and vice versa for the option you rejected.

451
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 1: And it makes sense in a weird way, right, I Mean,

452
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: we often think of that our beliefs should be these

453
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,479
Speaker 1: these core and just fixed things about ourselves, you know,

454
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 1: uh that you know, although the wind and the raging

455
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: of the world just move around, but uh, you know,

456
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 1: from from the mind standpoint, it's like, well, uh, this

457
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: is causing a problem. Let's let's change this circuit here,

458
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 1: because we're getting some some feedback that that is not

459
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: optimal for the system. Right. Um. Now. I will note that,

460
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: of course, as always, these these results apply on average,

461
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: and it's interesting to think about other ways that some

462
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: people might reduce cognitive dissonance in this kind of situation

463
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:19,440
Speaker 1: without changing their original preferences, without changing their opinions about

464
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:24,199
Speaker 1: what's desirable. I think one very common adaptive strategy is

465
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: the adaptive strategy of internally de emphasizing the importance of possessions, which,

466
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: in fact, in reality, which you know, moment to moment,

467
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: reduces the cognitive dissonance that arises from making choices about possessions. Yeah,

468
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: sort of realizing, well, a lawnlowers don't really matter. It

469
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,640
Speaker 1: doesn't it's just the thing, and I'm going to spend

470
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 1: a certain amount on it. It's just I'm gonna spend

471
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 1: what it costs. I'm gonna get whichever one is just easiest.

472
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: To obtain in the smoking example. I think this is

473
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: kind of the this is equivalent to the like who

474
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: wants to live forever? Option, but thinking about you know,

475
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: consumer items instead of your life, Like I'm not reckless

476
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:05,880
Speaker 1: with my health, I'm just very zen about this whole

477
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: smoking thing, right. I think it makes more sense to

478
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: try to do the zen path about the lawnmower material possessions.

479
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: But hey, I mean that's hard. I mean, we shouldn't

480
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: just like blithely say everybody should do that. But I

481
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: mean it's difficult to do that. People, you're spending your money,

482
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: that is your labor. You're you're thinking, oh God, did

483
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: I did I get it right? Um and and the

484
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: same even manifest when you're just making a decision about

485
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: what appliance you want to take home after spending an

486
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: afternoon doing an experiment. Um and And I should also

487
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:38,160
Speaker 1: note that there have been some competing explanations for this phenomenon,

488
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: but it seems like cognitive dissonance is favored by the

489
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:44,719
Speaker 1: experts and supported by a lot of other experiments. Um So,

490
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: I wanted to note in this experiment there were a

491
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: couple of interesting control conditions and additional hypotheses tested that

492
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: ended up not receiving support from the data, so I'm

493
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 1: not going to get into those, but I did want

494
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: to mention one control condition, the gift condition, and this

495
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: provides an interesting variation on what they found. So there

496
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 1: is some indication that owning something makes people see that

497
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: thing as more desirable. So what if it was the

498
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 1: effect of ownership of this appliance they received that made

499
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: the difference, rather than reduction of cognitive dissonance arising from

500
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: your choices. Well, to control for that, in this gift condition,

501
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: the subject did not get to choose which item they

502
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: would receive. It was just picked for them and given

503
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 1: as a gift by by the experimenter. And what Brim

504
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: found is that this control condition did not produce effects

505
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: to challenge the main finding. So it really did look like,

506
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 1: at least from this experiment, that people's ratings were actually

507
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: changed by the choices they made and not just by

508
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: feelings associated with ownership or feelings from what you're taking home.

509
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 1: It wasn't the fact that you have the coffee maker

510
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: that makes it seem better. It was the fact that

511
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: you chose it. You know, when this is this gets

512
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: more complicated and perhaps it's just looked at more in

513
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: the appropriate literature surrounding it. But I'm instantly reminded of

514
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: some of the advertising mechanics that I've encountered recently on YouTube,

515
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 1: where I'm watching a show that that I that we

516
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: regularly watch, and then I'll instead of just being served

517
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 1: an ad, I get served a little choice that says,

518
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: which of the following ads would you like to receive most?

519
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 1: I wonder if that is a mechanic that's playing into

520
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: some of this. Oh yes, so like if you choose it,

521
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: maybe the ideas you'll actually be uh less resentful of

522
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 1: the ad and more likely to pay attention to it

523
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: and listen all the way through. Yeah, I wonder, yeah, maybe,

524
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: because I know is the choice is never like um,

525
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:40,959
Speaker 1: it's never a wonderful like an easy choice. It's not

526
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: like do you want to see an ad for the

527
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: new Star Wars TV show? Or do you want to

528
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: watch an insurance commercial? Now, it's always like which insurance

529
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: commercial would you like to watch? Well, it's got to

530
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: be the one with that really nice lady. Was one

531
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: with a really nice lady who's always really nice? Oh? Yeah,

532
00:28:58,160 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: I guess I like the weird ones, give me the

533
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: give me the yeah, the gecko ones c g I

534
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: geck yeah, make me not realize it was for insurance

535
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: and and never think twice about what the product actually was. Okay, So,

536
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: just to read the top line from the conclusion of

537
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: brim study quote, the results supported the prediction that choosing

538
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: between alternatives would create dissonance and attempts to reduce it

539
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: by making the chosen alternative more desirable and the unchosen

540
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 1: alternative less desirable. Yeah. This reminds me of another paper,

541
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: Joe that I think you're familiar with, Love the one

542
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: You're with by Stephen Stills at All Yep, when you

543
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: know when you're down, when you're confused and you don't

544
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: remember how you rated the items originally now uh more. Seriously, though,

545
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this completely sticks, but I instantly

546
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: looking over all this, I started thinking about the still

547
00:29:55,440 --> 00:30:00,120
Speaker 1: relevant divide over gaming systems. So back when I was

548
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: a kid, Like the first major choice I think I

549
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: had to make because I was an ne Ne Ne s kid,

550
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: and then came the choice Super nes or Saga Genesis,

551
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: and then eventually later comes to PlayStation Xbox Divide, and

552
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: I think that's that's still very much alive today. But

553
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: but basically, you know, one often has to make a

554
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: choice which prices system they're going to invest in. And

555
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: this also impacts certain console exclusives, right Like, if you're

556
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,239
Speaker 1: a Nintendo White, then you're gonna get Mario and so

557
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: you can end up on Team Mario. If you're a Sagatarian,

558
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: then you're gonna you're gonna be a follower of Saints Sonic,

559
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: the Hedgehog and may you know, maybe Saint Altered Beast. Xbox.

560
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: You're gonna get Gears of War. In Halo PlayStation, you're

561
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: gonna get Gods of War and or God of War

562
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: whatever it was, and the Last Office. So um. You know,

563
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: on on one level, on like a very rational level,

564
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: you engage with in some decision making. You're like, well,

565
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: uh I know this franchise as a console exclusive, I'm

566
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: gonna go this direction. But in other cases, uh I

567
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 1: do looking back, I do find myself having engaged in

568
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: some of that. You know, like I didn't really have

569
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: a huge opinion on the whole Mario Sonic divide, and

570
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: yet I found at times someone like today will bring

571
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: up Mario and Sonic and be like oh, well, you know,

572
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: Mario was cool, but Sonic was a bit lame. Sonic

573
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: was a bit a bit of a pu Pucci, and

574
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: I realistically have to agree with them. But I have

575
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: this impulse to defend Sonic because I was a Saga player,

576
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: because I had the Saga Genesis, and even though I

577
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: didn't really love Sonic the Hedgehog like he was, still

578
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: I was still on that team, you know. So I'm

579
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: still reeling from Sonic being a Pucci, which I think

580
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 1: is highly accurate. I'm sorry it is. No, I I agree,

581
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: I rationally agree with you, but I have this irrational response,

582
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: this knee jerk reaction to defend him for some reason,

583
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: even though I never completed a Sonic game and ultimately

584
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: don't have a real strong opinion on Sonic versus Mario.

585
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 1: I didn't. I played both of them at some point

586
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: or another. Uh, and I didn't particularly, you know, I

587
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: don't really rationally love one more than the other. Yeah,

588
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I think ideas like which video game console

589
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 1: you buy that that goes in the same direction as

590
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: a lot of these sort of like consumer options that

591
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: people choose between, where I think clearly like both kinds

592
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: of considerations are going to be feeding in like there

593
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: are some just genuine preference differences, like you can look

594
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: at like which games you can get on each one

595
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: and have a genuine desire to play one more than

596
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: the other. But then there's also probably some choice supportive

597
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: bias kicking in and how you retrospectively think about making

598
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: the choice and which one you'd like better? And I

599
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: guess I should say that A less favored but also

600
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: possibly viable explanation for for this phenomenon um like observed

601
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: in Brim study is known as self perception theory. Basically,

602
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 1: this is an alternative to cognitive dissonance theory that comes

603
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: down to the principle that people form their internal perceptions

604
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: of the self by observing external action ends. So, how

605
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: do you decide what your preferences are? Will you actually

606
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: decide them by observing what you choose? And so if

607
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: this were the correct interpretation, this would also explain choice

608
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: induced preference change, which is what the phenomenon would come

609
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: to be known as choice induced preference change. You make

610
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: the choice and that changes retrospectively what you think your

611
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: preferences are. And Brim's results have been replicated many times

612
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: across many studies. Uh, there are, there are some disagreements,

613
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: but it appears to me to be a pretty solid

614
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: conclusion that not only do our preferences influence our choices,

615
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: but our choices really do influence our preferences. And this

616
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: probably happens in both positive and negative directions. So again,

617
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 1: just like in that first study, our preferences for options

618
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: that we choose increase, and our preferences for options that

619
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: we reject decrease. And I think the second condition is

620
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: especially interesting. It explains something that I've often observed, and

621
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: it totally that so many things in life are once

622
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: discarded despised. Almost as soon as you have committed to

623
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 1: rejecting an option, you can suddenly think of all kinds

624
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: of reasons why that option was bad anyway, The cons

625
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: just boil up into your brain. Yeah, this is interesting. Um.

626
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: I thought about this in terms of video games, but

627
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 1: then I think I thought of an even better example,

628
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:30,359
Speaker 1: and that is, um, the music of Metallica. So so

629
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: i'm i'm I. I always try to be a polite

630
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: person about things that I like and what things other

631
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: people like. So you know, if at any point someone

632
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: was to come up to me and be like, hey,

633
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about Metallica, or you know, I'm listening

634
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: to this old Metallic album. I'm trying to have this

635
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: new Metallic album. I would probably be like, oh, yeah, yeah,

636
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: Metallic is cool. But if I if I'm being if

637
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,319
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, like there was there was a time

638
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: in my life where I was super into Metallica. I

639
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:59,319
Speaker 1: was like, you know, discovering those those albums for the

640
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: first time, know uh, you know, you know, Ride the

641
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: Lightning and so forth for me. For me, that was

642
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:10,320
Speaker 1: like Metallica City. Yeah, yeah, it was. I think I

643
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: I was maybe just starting college or maybe it was

644
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: finishing high school when I really started getting into them.

645
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 1: But it was like, you know, everything from the Black

646
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:21,879
Speaker 1: album prior. I was like, this is amazing and um,

647
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: and then at some point I was like, uh, basically

648
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: I less. I stopped listening to them for a very

649
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:30,880
Speaker 1: long time, and then more recently I started listening to

650
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 1: them again. And and that's like the realistic read on it.

651
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: But on some level, I do feel like when I

652
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:40,240
Speaker 1: discarded Metallica, I was like, yeah, Metallica kind of sucks.

653
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: Like those guys are jerks. Uh, They're newer stuff is

654
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 1: not any good. You know, all these various things you

655
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: kind of heap onto the pile, which is ridiculous because hey,

656
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 1: I used to really like them, and then I would

657
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: have to like current me would have to point out

658
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: to then me, you're going to like them again. There's

659
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: gonna be a come of time in where you suddenly

660
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,799
Speaker 1: starts streaming a bunch of old Metaca albums again, and uh,

661
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 1: and it's not going to make sense with this current

662
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: rejection of them. Is A is A is A is

663
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: a musical entity. This is really funny because just this

664
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,720
Speaker 1: week I started listening to their first two albums again.

665
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,240
Speaker 1: I wonder why that happened. Is there something in common

666
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: that did this come up in a previous talk we had.

667
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: I don't think we've really talked about Metauica recently. I

668
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,760
Speaker 1: mean it comes up time to time. But metal serendipity,

669
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: I I find very interesting that I love the stupid

670
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: ideology of their early albums, which there is presumed to

671
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 1: be some kind of great conflict over the concept of metal.

672
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: And one of the things that's great about early early

673
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 1: albums within a genre is that they're often very much

674
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: about the genre. So like you know, like early rock

675
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: music is all about what rocking is and instructing you

676
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: to rock. Uh, They're like early rap songs that are

677
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: about rapping and about and telling people how to wrap.

678
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 1: And their early metal albums are vertty much all about metal,

679
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: and Metallica's early albums are are all about the concept

680
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 1: of metal and what it means to fight in the

681
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: metal wars. I love this, Yeah, I have a big

682
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 1: I really love house music as well, and of course

683
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: there's so many different types of house music to listen to,

684
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: but I still have a very warm place for house

685
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: music that informs you that this is house music. We

686
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: have a voice telling you you are listening to house music,

687
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's great. I don't get enough music

688
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: that is very explicit about the genre that I'm listening to.

689
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: That's excellent. I wonder what age a genre mostly stops

690
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: being about the concept of itself as a genre is

691
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 1: like metal today isn't usually very much about the concept

692
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: of metal, like early thresh metal was. Yeah, I don't know.

693
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: I guess it just evolves to a certain certain point. Um. Now,

694
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 1: of course, in all of this, you know, not to

695
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: get too far off the point here, I think also

696
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 1: you have that kind of like Evan flow of nostalgia, right,

697
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 1: So the thing you're into then you get out of,

698
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,399
Speaker 1: and then you can reach a point where you look

699
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 1: back on it only and get back into it at

700
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 1: least some degree. But it's funny because I went through

701
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: a cycle that exactly mirrors yours. Like I liked them

702
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 1: when I was younger, and then after once I stopped

703
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: listening to them. Wasn't a deliberate choice. I just kind

704
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:15,879
Speaker 1: of moved on to other things. And then I look

705
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: back on music that I used to listen to and

706
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 1: don't listen to anymore, and often feel this, uh, this,

707
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 1: this kind of sting this thing like Okay, I mean,

708
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: I guess what's probably very much going on is I

709
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 1: don't listen to it. I'm supporting that choice to not

710
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 1: listen to it by changing my beliefs about it and

711
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 1: deciding that it's dumb anyway than now. Following up from

712
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: Brim's original study in the fifties, like I said, there

713
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: have been a bunch of replications, but there have also

714
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: been some interesting questions. Like one study I was looking

715
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: at investigated something about the methodology of the test, so

716
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 1: it was it was trying to see if the results

717
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 1: stand up to challenges to brims original method. And the

718
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: paper I was looking at here was by Tally Shiro,

719
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: Christina M. Velasquez, and Raymond J. Dolan, published in Psychological

720
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: Science in two thousand ten, called do Decisions Shape Preference?

721
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 1: Evidence from blind Choice? Now that this was pretty interesting.

722
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: So the authors here begin by noting some papers all

723
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: the ones I saw, were associated with their researcher named

724
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: mk Chen that noticed a potential problem with Brem's method,

725
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,879
Speaker 1: such that it could be telling us something different than

726
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: what we think it does. And the critique goes like

727
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:37,280
Speaker 1: this in uh, in the author's hiro at all's words

728
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 1: here quote, people's preferences cannot be measured perfectly and are

729
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: subject to rating noise. Okay, true, as participants gain experience

730
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: with the rating scale, they will provide more accurate ratings,

731
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: such that post choice shifts in ratings simply reflect the

732
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: unmasking of the participants initial preferences, which can be predicted

733
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: by their choices, rather than reflecting any changes in preference

734
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: induced by the choice. Uh So does that make sense? Basically?

735
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,240
Speaker 1: I think what they're saying is that maybe when people

736
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: change their desirability ratings of two things that are initially

737
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: similar after being forced to pick one or the other.

738
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 1: What's happening is not an ex post facto reevaluation of

739
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: their preferences, but people are just getting better with successive

740
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: tries at expressing their genuine, pre existing preferences on the

741
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: rating scale used in the experiment. It seems like a

742
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: reasonable critique that that would be worth looking into. Yeah, yeah,

743
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: and I think we can all see examples of that

744
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: or find examples of that where you're just like, well,

745
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: I was trying out this one musical genre. It turns

746
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 1: out that just one my thing. Or like I think

747
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 1: back on video games and I'm like, yeah, I eventually

748
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:51,919
Speaker 1: realized I'm just not good at real time strategy games.

749
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: I just don't like them as much they don't. It's

750
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: just not my deal, right, So it would be that

751
00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: the actual preferences in the beginning were what was revealed

752
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: in the second rating, and you're just getting better at

753
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:07,240
Speaker 1: expressing them rather than changing them. Uh So, the authors

754
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: of this two thousands ten study tried to design an

755
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:13,399
Speaker 1: experiment that couldn't be subject to that problem, and what

756
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: they came up with was what they called a blind

757
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: choice model as opposed to a free choice model. So

758
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:21,439
Speaker 1: what's the difference. Well, in a free choice model, again,

759
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: remember you would rate a number of options according to

760
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: your preference. Then you'd be forced to choose between some

761
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 1: subset of them. Then later you rate the options again.

762
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 1: In this study, what was different was that people didn't

763
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: know what two options from the list they were choosing

764
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: between until they had made their choice. So you're given

765
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 1: a hypothetical list of vacation destinations and you rate them

766
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 1: in terms of how much you'd like to go there

767
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: for a vacation, so you know, Rome, Cairo, et cetera. Then,

768
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: after the initial rating task, you are asked to choose

769
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: blindly between a binary subset for a hypothetical vacation, but

770
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 1: you can't see what they are. Is you have option

771
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,720
Speaker 1: A and option B, but the actual locations are hidden,

772
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: and you choose one. Once you choose between them, the

773
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: options are then revealed, so it's like, oh, so it

774
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: seems you've picked Making instead of Tuscany or whatever. Uh,

775
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: And and then once it's all over, you will be

776
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: asked to rate the options again. So so does that

777
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 1: make sense that you can't see what the options are

778
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: you're just making a choice without any information at all,

779
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: just complete blind choice. And they also included a couple

780
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: of control conditions where a computer made the decision for people,

781
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: so you don't get to make a choice at all,

782
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: to see if the perception of personal agency was important

783
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: even though the choice was made blind. And it's not

784
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: just a case of like picking a door and then

785
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: what's behind door number three? Because at least in that

786
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 1: scenario you picked three. But in this there's like a

787
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: robot game show host that as you walk up and

788
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: then it just says you're getting a toaster, right, you

789
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: get what's behind door number three? That that's the difference there.

790
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:00,720
Speaker 1: And so what did the study find. Quote, We found

791
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: that preferences were altered after participants made a blind choice,

792
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: but not when a computer instructed the participants decision. The

793
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:15,280
Speaker 1: results suggests that just as preferences form choices, choices shape preferences.

794
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: So this is confirming to some degree Brem's original results.

795
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:21,879
Speaker 1: It looks like, yes, these studies have not merely been

796
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: tracking how people get better at assigning ratings to their

797
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 1: pre existing preferences. What people want and prefer really does

798
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: seem to change, So that it falls in line with

799
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: what they have already chosen. And this study also reveals

800
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 1: this very interesting wrinkle, choice induced preference change can happen

801
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: even when we are not making an informed choice but

802
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: just choosing randomly between two options that are temporarily hidden,

803
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: which which is very interesting. So there's some part of

804
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: us that, again, if the if the cognitive dissonance interpretation

805
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: of this phenomenon is correct, there's some part of us

806
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 1: that feels a kind of agency that needs to be

807
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: accounted for in what you chose, even if you didn't

808
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,280
Speaker 1: know what you were choosing, Even if you're just choosing

809
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: you know, hats and you can't see what's inside them,

810
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: or or yeah, door number three, you still feel like

811
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 1: I picked that and I need to justify that decision internally. Huh, Yeah,

812
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: that that is That is interesting. I'm surprised we we

813
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: don't see more of this utilized in online advertising, you know,

814
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: like maybe there's a version of that YouTube scenarios describing

815
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: earlier where instead of giving you a choice of specific as,

816
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: it says, what do you want ad number one or

817
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: add number two? And maybe it's a completely false choice.

818
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: You know you're always going to get the same ad,

819
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: but they are going to give you the provide this

820
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 1: illusion that you had to say. Well, this is interesting

821
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: because when people do not have the illusion that they

822
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 1: have a say, then apparently the effect does not hold

823
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: because again thing back to the computer condition. At least

824
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: in this study, choice induced preference change only seems to

825
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: apply if you think it's really you making the choice,

826
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,439
Speaker 1: not if some someone or something else chooses for you.

827
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: And this mirror is what brim found in the gift condition.

828
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: If you're given three options and then the computer says Okay,

829
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 1: of these three options, you get number three, it doesn't

830
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: have you don't change your evaluations afterwards. Now, to come

831
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 1: back to the black mirror, Bandersnatch episode, which again is

832
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: a choose your own adventure type episode where you make

833
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 1: choices when you watch it in Netflix. Um, I remember

834
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 1: when I rewatched it last year for our episode. I

835
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 1: ended up being really pleased with the way it came

836
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,839
Speaker 1: together based on my choices. But it was because what

837
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: was it? Because I actually hit on a good combo

838
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: of narrative branches and this choose your own adventure world?

839
00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:43,320
Speaker 1: Or or was it this? You know? Because to a

840
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 1: certain extent, there are aspects of of of all this,

841
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: and in the blind test, you know you don't necessarily

842
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:52,280
Speaker 1: know how the choices you make will impact the overall

843
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: shape of the narrative by the time you're done with it.

844
00:45:55,040 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: That's a really good comparison. I mean, I feel well,

845
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: I mean thinking about how I interacted with Bandersnatch or

846
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: with Choose your Own Adventure books when I was a kid.

847
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: It's funny how we feel some amount of angst and

848
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: personal accountability, or at least I did, for how the

849
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 1: Bandersnatch or that Choose your Own Adventure choices turn out,

850
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: even though there's usually no way you could have predicted

851
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:22,720
Speaker 1: the ways that they will actually play out in narrative.

852
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: Merely the suggestion that you're in control seems to be

853
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: enough to conjure the shadow of personal agency over the

854
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: direction of the narrative, and thus I think enough to

855
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: bring in the feeling of cognitive dissonance when you choose

856
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:38,800
Speaker 1: a path that goes somewhere you don't like or that

857
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:43,760
Speaker 1: feels bad or increases the tension. Yeah. So there's another study,

858
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:46,360
Speaker 1: and an older study that I wanted to mention briefly,

859
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 1: and this one is from the year two thousand ten

860
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: that looks at choice induced preference change in children and

861
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: non human animals. And I thought that this was very

862
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 1: interesting because this seems to get to because you could wonder, like,

863
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: ok so, it seems like this choice induced preference change thing,

864
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 1: it really does go on. But is this a function

865
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 1: of like like adult cognition, you know, adult pictures of

866
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: the self, or would this happen at a more primal

867
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,240
Speaker 1: level that you would see even in you know, uh,

868
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: even in four year old children and in monkeys and stuff.

869
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,280
Speaker 1: And and it looks like the answer is basically yes,

870
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: you do see this even in four year old children

871
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: and capuchin monkeys. Now you might wonder how you could

872
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 1: how you could create the test conditions there, because you

873
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 1: can't like ask them to to like rate a list

874
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: of appliances or something. Right, Um, so the study design

875
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: here for for human children. It's kind of complicated to explain,

876
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: but once I read it, I thought it was actually

877
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 1: very elegant and ingenious. So if you don't mind, I

878
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: just want to read their description of their experimental set

879
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 1: up here. Oh and sorry, I don't think I said

880
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: that this. Uh This paper is by Luisa see Egan

881
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: Paul Bloom and Laurie are Santos in the Journal of

882
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 1: Experimental Social Psychology in two thousand ten um so to

883
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: read from their their methodology. With the test condition involving

884
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:08,759
Speaker 1: human children, quote, the experiment or first displayed an opaque

885
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 1: gray stocking to the child and sequentially extracted three toys,

886
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:17,399
Speaker 1: described as some of the experimenter's favorite things, which were

887
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 1: really fun, but you have to be creative with them.

888
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:24,319
Speaker 1: The toys distended the stockings such that the contours of

889
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 1: each could be seen, but the color could not be discerned.

890
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 1: The experiment are extracted and displayed the three toys to

891
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: the child, described them as some of her favorite things,

892
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: then shuffled them as she lifted them behind an occluder

893
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: and announced that she would hide the toys. She removed

894
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: the occluder to display two stockings, one dotted and one argyle.

895
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: The experiment or pointed out that the outlines of two

896
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: toys were visible within one of the stockings, and that

897
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:55,239
Speaker 1: the outline of the third toy was visible in the

898
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: second stocking. In the choice condition, the experiment are held

899
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: up the stocking with two toys and asked the child

900
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: to reach in without peaking and choose a toy. In

901
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: the no choice condition, the experiment or reached into the

902
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:11,839
Speaker 1: stocking with two toys, pulled one closer to the mouth

903
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 1: of the stocking, held up the stocking, and asked the

904
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 1: child to remove the toy on top again without peaking.

905
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: In phase two, a second experiment or blind to which

906
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 1: stocking originally contained two toys, indicated the two stockings and

907
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:29,399
Speaker 1: asked the child to choose a toy to play with.

908
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: Children were instructed not to peek before making their selection.

909
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:37,840
Speaker 1: So what were the results here? Well, in the choice condition,

910
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:42,400
Speaker 1: children strongly preferred the toy in the second stocking, meaning

911
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 1: the toy that they had not had a chance to

912
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: reject from the first stocking. Uh and and they preferred

913
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 1: sixty six point seven percent of children in the choice

914
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: condition went for the new toy in the second stocking

915
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 1: instead of the one that they hadn't grabbed from from

916
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 1: the first stocking. But in the no choice condition, remember

917
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: this is the one where the experiment or picks for

918
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 1: the kid. The kid doesn't get to pick themselves, the

919
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: effect vanished. In fact, in the condition where the toy

920
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: was chosen for them, kids did the opposite with the

921
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 1: majority wanting to reach into the first stocking again and

922
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: get the other toy. And remember that this is despite

923
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 1: them fishing the toys out at random. Uh. And there

924
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:28,520
Speaker 1: was also a similar test on capuchin monkeys. I'm not

925
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 1: going to go into as much detail, and that one

926
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:33,319
Speaker 1: it involves skittles instead of toys, and it found the

927
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: same thing. When monkeys were tricked into believing that they

928
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 1: had a choice between two initial candies, and then they

929
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: were given the option to choose between the previously rejected

930
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: candy of the first two and a new third alternative.

931
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 1: They overwhelmingly preferred the new alternative instead of the one

932
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 1: that they had not chosen in the previous choice. So again,

933
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:59,279
Speaker 1: it looks kind of like once discarded, now despised. But

934
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 1: as with women children, this was only true if the

935
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: monkeys were made to think they had a free choice

936
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,840
Speaker 1: between the first two. If the choice was clearly made

937
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: for them and they didn't get to pick, they no

938
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: longer seemed to devalue the other option from the first

939
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: pair of candies. Uh. That that's very interesting to me.

940
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that if this manifests in children and monkeys,

941
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 1: it seems like choice induced preference change obviously doesn't depend

942
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: on any sort of like adult sense of self image

943
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 1: or sophisticated logical logical reasoning. Based on this study, if

944
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 1: if this holds up, it appears that our choices may

945
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: influence our preferences at a fairly primal level. And I

946
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: want to read from a section that from their conclusion

947
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: that picks up on one of the things I noted

948
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 1: about the children's no choice condition. So quote Curiously, we

949
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 1: observed a marginally significant effect in which children in the

950
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,839
Speaker 1: no choice condition. Remember that this one where they didn't

951
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 1: get to pick the experiment or picked for them out

952
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: of the first stock, they preferred the toy that the

953
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 1: experiment or did not give them. Although we had originally

954
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,440
Speaker 1: hypothesized that children would be at chance on this condition,

955
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: the observed pattern of performance hence that children's preferences may

956
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 1: change not merely because of their choices, but also because

957
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:21,320
Speaker 1: of their lack of choices. Consistent with Brims nineteen sixty

958
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:24,719
Speaker 1: six reactance theory and Brim and Wine Troubs research on

959
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:29,280
Speaker 1: reactants and two year olds, children's preferences may reflect psychological

960
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: reactants when choice freedom is denied. So and the possibility

961
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: uh here is that the effect is not only not

962
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: present when you perceive somebody else's denying you a free choice,

963
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: there could be a reverse effect. Once one of two

964
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 1: options is denied you by an outside force, the denied

965
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 1: option is not only not despised, it's coveted. You want

966
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 1: that thing that you were told you couldn't have, Yeah,

967
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 1: I imagine we can a lot of us can imagine

968
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: remember childhood examples of this, you know, like the the

969
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: toy you were not permitted to have, the the book

970
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:10,440
Speaker 1: that was denied to you, that sort of thing. Yeah. Now, now,

971
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:12,440
Speaker 1: of course, there are always gonna be reasons for this

972
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:14,399
Speaker 1: that make it makes sense in your brain, like they're

973
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:17,280
Speaker 1: intrinsic qualities to that toy or that book or something

974
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 1: that seemed like that's why I really wanted. But it

975
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:23,879
Speaker 1: seems like even among toys that are identical, there there

976
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: is this preference that arises from Uh. It seems like

977
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: if we have had the option to pick something and

978
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: we didn't pick it, afterwards, it's it becomes far less

979
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: interesting to us. We don't really want it at all.

980
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,240
Speaker 1: But if we were presented with something as a possible

981
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: option and we're not given the opportunity to get it,

982
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,920
Speaker 1: then we really wanted So anyway, I was looking around

983
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 1: for some challenges to the to the choice induce preference

984
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:52,400
Speaker 1: change phenomenon, and I was trying to find if there

985
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 1: are any studies that found the opposite. There are a few.

986
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 1: For example, I found this paper which criticizes the interpretation

987
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 1: of Brim's original findings and the replications um and it

988
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 1: attempts a modified replication of its own. So this was

989
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:11,720
Speaker 1: by Steiner Holden polition in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

990
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:15,759
Speaker 1: Do choices affect preferences? Some doubts and new evidence, And

991
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 1: the author here says quote, I find no evidence of

992
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:22,560
Speaker 1: choice induced changes in preferences after a choice between items

993
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 1: where one was viewed as more attractive than the other,

994
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:29,799
Speaker 1: but potentially some weak evidence of changes in preferences after

995
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: a choice between items viewed as equally attractive. So that's

996
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:37,080
Speaker 1: worth keeping in mind. There are some challenges to this phenomenon,

997
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:39,640
Speaker 1: and in its robustness that this does appear to be

998
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,280
Speaker 1: a minority finding, and in fact it doesn't fully contradict

999
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:46,520
Speaker 1: to the other results, it only partially contradicts them. But

1000
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:48,880
Speaker 1: then finally I wanted to get to one last study

1001
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:50,360
Speaker 1: I was reading this was actually the one I was

1002
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:52,320
Speaker 1: reading about that made me want to do this episode

1003
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: in the first place. It's a very recent study on

1004
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 1: choice induced preference change, this time in human babies in

1005
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: improve verbal human infants, published just this year. So this

1006
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 1: is by alex M. Silver, Amy, E. Stall Rita Loyaltial,

1007
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:13,240
Speaker 1: Alexis S. Smith Flores, and Lisa Feigenson. When not choosing

1008
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: leads to not liking Choice induced preference in Infancy, published

1009
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:20,080
Speaker 1: in Psychological Science this year. Some of the authors were

1010
00:55:20,120 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 1: affiliated with JOHNS. Hopkins University, the University of Pittsburgh, and

1011
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: the College of New Jersey. And again they tested for

1012
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:31,400
Speaker 1: choice induced preference change in pre verbal infants across seven

1013
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:35,920
Speaker 1: studies with a methodology that's uh somewhat similar to one

1014
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: of the ones we looked at earlier, with the ones

1015
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:42,160
Speaker 1: testing with four year olds and capuchin monkeys and UH

1016
00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: from from their conclusion and discussion, they say, quote, our

1017
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:48,800
Speaker 1: findings suggests that choice induced preference change does not require

1018
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: extensive experience making choices, nor does it rely on advanced

1019
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:57,640
Speaker 1: metacognitive ability or developed sense of self. Because they found

1020
00:55:57,680 --> 00:56:01,399
Speaker 1: this in pre verbal infants. If pre verbal infants are

1021
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 1: changing their their preferences based on what they've chosen. It

1022
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 1: seems like it really would not require any of those things.

1023
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: It's happening at some lower level in the brain. And

1024
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:16,720
Speaker 1: it also raises interesting questions about how preferences get formed

1025
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 1: very early in life, if they might stem from choices

1026
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 1: made at random in some sense when you're a baby. Uh,

1027
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:28,400
Speaker 1: like they say, quote, our findings add to our understanding

1028
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:31,240
Speaker 1: of the role of choice in infancy, showing that infants

1029
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:34,439
Speaker 1: use their own choices to shape their preferences. This work

1030
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,640
Speaker 1: raises the question of whether other aspects of the psychology

1031
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:41,879
Speaker 1: of decision making also have their roots in very early life. So, yeah,

1032
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 1: that doesn't make me wonder if, like, there are things

1033
00:56:44,200 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: that adults are still carrying trying to keep a consistent

1034
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:51,600
Speaker 1: narrative about their preferences, their likes and dislikes that may

1035
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 1: have their roots may have emerged at some point when

1036
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:58,800
Speaker 1: they made some basically random decision as a pre verbal infant.

1037
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 1: In't that weird? That is weird? Yeah, Yeah, it's like

1038
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:04,440
Speaker 1: you don't want to dwell on the past and to

1039
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:06,840
Speaker 1: think that you know choices in your past to find you.

1040
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:08,920
Speaker 1: But what if those are baby choices? What if it

1041
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:11,879
Speaker 1: all treads down to baby choices? Right? What if things

1042
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: that you think of as fundamental to your you know,

1043
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:19,040
Speaker 1: your own idiosyncrasies, your your view of yourself, are rooted

1044
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:22,680
Speaker 1: in you just trying to stay consistent with something that

1045
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 1: happened when you were two, yeah, or one, even? I

1046
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 1: mean you know, I picked I picked the yellow block

1047
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:34,120
Speaker 1: instead of the red block, and and ever since then,

1048
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 1: yellow has been my preferred color. Interesting, Um, I had

1049
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:42,360
Speaker 1: a I had a scenario in my head. I'm not

1050
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:46,840
Speaker 1: I don't think this one necessarily applies, but perhaps you have.

1051
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 1: You have an opinion on it based on what we've

1052
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 1: discussed so far. In the movie A Christmas Story, the

1053
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:57,040
Speaker 1: old man receives a major award, which of course turns

1054
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 1: out to be a lamp that looks like a woman's leg. Um,

1055
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:08,720
Speaker 1: how would you, um interpret his attachment to the major award? Well,

1056
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 1: clearly he he is suffering from a kind of preference

1057
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 1: bias about the major award. That's like a self flattering

1058
00:58:15,560 --> 00:58:17,480
Speaker 1: bias of some kind. I'm not sure best how to

1059
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 1: categorize it. I don't think it would be choice induced

1060
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: preference change because he didn't pick the leg lamp. It

1061
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: was picked for him, and the studies have showed that

1062
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 1: when things are picked for you, this effect does not manifest.

1063
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 1: But I think he's doing a different kind of thing,

1064
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 1: which is um, the leg lamp is a symbol of

1065
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:38,919
Speaker 1: his intellectual prowess and victory, and thus the leg lamp

1066
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: is itself beautiful and good. Yes, all right. And then

1067
00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:46,520
Speaker 1: of course there's the added wrinkle that his wife does

1068
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,000
Speaker 1: not like the award and does not think it should

1069
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 1: be in the front of the house, which he regards

1070
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 1: as a personal insult because he has so deeply associated

1071
00:58:54,880 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 1: this lamp with his with his personal intellectual abilities mind power. Uh.

1072
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:04,200
Speaker 1: This all also made me think of another great work,

1073
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:08,200
Speaker 1: um that would be a Paradise Lost by by Milton.

1074
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 1: We have that line from Satan, the mind is its

1075
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 1: own place and in itself can make a heaven of

1076
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 1: hell a hell of heaven. That's yeah, that's that's really

1077
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 1: good because I've never interpreted this line in that way

1078
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:26,439
Speaker 1: as like a reflection of an ex post facto justification

1079
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: to reduce cognitive dissonance. But you could absolutely read it

1080
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: that way. You can totally see it like that. I mean,

1081
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:36,920
Speaker 1: I've always interpreted it, I guess as um, you know,

1082
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:39,240
Speaker 1: just a statement about like, you know, the power to

1083
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:42,080
Speaker 1: like Satan is asserting that he can make what he

1084
00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:45,320
Speaker 1: will of any situation. But yeah, you could interpret that

1085
00:59:45,400 --> 00:59:50,360
Speaker 1: much more in a cognitive bias way, where he's saying like, well,

1086
00:59:50,400 --> 00:59:53,280
Speaker 1: you know, I made my decisions, and my decisions led

1087
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 1: me to hell, and thus I will engage in choice

1088
00:59:56,320 --> 00:59:59,520
Speaker 1: supportive biased reasoning that makes me think, actually, actually hell

1089
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:03,680
Speaker 1: is good. It's good, you know, you know, uh, and

1090
01:00:03,720 --> 01:00:08,680
Speaker 1: that reduces the cognitive dissonance within Satan's soul. What if

1091
01:00:08,720 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 1: you just had a vision of help where everybody's in

1092
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:13,320
Speaker 1: that where people are they're just all setting around, you know,

1093
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:16,080
Speaker 1: being tortured or torturing each other, and like this place

1094
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:22,720
Speaker 1: is great, this is great. I don't Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1095
01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 1: I think that's a fantastic image In with Yeah, we

1096
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 1: ended by justifying the ways of God demands, so it's

1097
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 1: generally what we seek to do in this uh this podcast. Wait, no,

1098
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:35,439
Speaker 1: aren't we justifying the ways of Satan demand? I think

1099
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 1: that's what we did. Oh yeah, I guess that's all

1100
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 1: what we're doing here. Yeah, even better, Yeah, a lesser go,

1101
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:44,920
Speaker 1: a lower goal. All right, Well, we'll go and close

1102
01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 1: this one out. I think this will be a fun

1103
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: one for listeners to reflect on, especially since I think

1104
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:51,760
Speaker 1: we actually had a stocking based experiment there. Maybe you

1105
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:55,280
Speaker 1: can reflect on on on on gift giving and stockings

1106
01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: and and so forth with the holiday season that we're

1107
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 1: passing through at the moment. Uh, certainly everybody can relate

1108
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 1: on some level to some of the mental mechanics that

1109
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 1: we're discussing here in this episode. In the meantime, if

1110
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 1: you would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff

1111
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:12,880
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you'll find them wherever you get

1112
01:01:12,880 --> 01:01:15,120
Speaker 1: your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. Just rate,

1113
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:17,320
Speaker 1: review and subscribe. That helps us out. If you want

1114
01:01:17,320 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: to go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,

1115
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: that will take you over to the I Heart listening

1116
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:23,120
Speaker 1: for this page, and there's a place you can click

1117
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:25,160
Speaker 1: on there for our store if you wanted to get

1118
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 1: a shirt or a stick or something with our logo

1119
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 1: or a monster on it. I believe by the time

1120
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:31,480
Speaker 1: you listen to this there should be a couple of

1121
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:34,720
Speaker 1: different user created designs that are pretty cool huge things.

1122
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:37,680
Speaker 1: As always to our excellent audio producers, Seth Nicholis Johnson.

1123
01:01:37,960 --> 01:01:39,480
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1124
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:41,840
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1125
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just say hi, you

1126
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: can email us at contact and Stuff to Blow your

1127
01:01:46,520 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

1128
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart

1129
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:02,280
Speaker 1: Radio because the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1130
01:02:02,320 --> 01:02:16,280
Speaker 1: you're listening to your favorite shows.