WEBVTT - The Toaster Not Taken 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:14.080 My Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.280 your Mind. My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.200 In Today, we're going to be talking about choices and preferences, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.279 and I wanted to start off by looking at what 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.760 I think is one of the most commonly misunderstood poems 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.040 in English literature. It's a classic most Americans already know. 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:34.360 You probably read it at some point in high school 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.000 or even earlier. But it's an interesting poem because I 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.080 think it usually gets interpreted to mean the exact opposite 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.159 of what it actually means. All right, so this is 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.720 the road not taken by Robert Frost. Are you ready 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.199 to hear it again? Yeah? Yeah. This is always a 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.959 pleasure to to hear or to read, even though it's 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:57.160 one that I think we're all hit with le probably 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.920 at the elementary school level. You know. I feel like 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.920 I came to a greater appreciation of just the music 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.240 of Robert Frost's poems as an adult than than I 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.720 had for them when I was in school. So I'm 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.280 not sure exactly what changed there. Maybe I became grumpier 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:16.039 and he was quite a grump himself. But but here 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.680 we go. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.000 sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler. 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.160 Long I stood and looked down one as far as 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.759 I could to where it bent in the undergrowth, then 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.319 took the other, as just as fair and having perhaps 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.320 the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted, where 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.959 though as for that, the passing there had warned them 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:44.200 really about the same, And both that morning equally lay 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.080 in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.600 the first for another day, yet, knowing how way leads 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:54.320 onto way, I doubted if I should ever come back, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.280 I shall be telling this with a sigh. Somewhere ages 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:02.040 and ages. Hence, two roads diverged in a wood, and 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.440 I I took the one less traveled by, and that 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.240 has made all the difference. It's a beautiful bomb, it 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:11.920 really is. But one of the things that that is 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:17.560 really funny is that I think people usually interpret this 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:23.680 poem as a sort of celebration of unique individuality and 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.240 a celebration of going your own way. It's it's about 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.600 how if you go boldly where others have not gone before, 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.760 if you remain your unique, authentic self and choose the 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:39.040 stranger path, you'll be rewarded with a life of unique meaning. 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.080 But if you read it closely, I think the poem 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.960 is meant to be a quite ironic sort of perry 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:49.760 against exactly that way of thinking, because what happens in it, well, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.240 the speaker comes to a fork in the road. The 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:56.240 speaker evaluates the for each path for a bit, at 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.720 first thinks one is more traveled than the other, but 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.079 then ultimately realize is that they're about the same. Then 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:06.000 takes one road rather than the other for no major reason, 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.040 they are in reality pretty much indistinguishable. Then thinks about 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.519 how later in life he'll be claiming that he took 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.959 the bold, untraveled path and that it changed his life, 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.000 even though that wasn't true. Yeah, I feel like that's 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.480 something that a lot of people miss out on in 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.120 the poem, and I think a lot of it sometimes 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:28.080 comes down to um the discussions about what is he 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.440 actually talking about, And people get very wrapped up in that, 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:32.320 like what was the choice? No, no, no, not the 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:34.840 walk in the woods? What were you actually talking about? Frost, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.720 And then you you kind of end up ignoring the 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.280 mechanics of it that you're talking about here, Well, yeah, 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.520 because I think this is in a way a sort 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.520 of an image poem that can be applied to many 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.840 different types of choices one makes in life. Though I 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.480 think it was literally inspired by him walking in the 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.920 woods in New England. I'm not positive about that, but 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.760 I think I've read that before. But yeah, So it's 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.400 essentially a poem about a person who show was at 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:05.800 random between two at the time pretty much indistinguishable options, 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.360 and then comes up later with an ex post facto 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:13.120 justification for his choice that it was the one made 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.599 you made out of daring an authentic principle, and that 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.000 it was deeply meaningful. And I really like this ironic 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.880 interpretation because it raises a number of really interesting questions 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:27.120 about human nature. So, first of all, isn't so much 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:31.120 of life like this. We do make life changing decisions 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.800 without knowing what the outcome will be. That the options 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.760 in front of us might look indistinguishable. At the time 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.200 you choose between two job opportunities, you can't really tell 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.440 that one is necessarily better than the other. But then 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.080 later you you will have had much of your life 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.560 developed on the basis of whichever choice you made, and 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:53.360 you have to come up with a narrative of your 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.680 life story that makes sense of that choice in light 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.640 of its later unpredictable significance. And I've viously, when you 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:02.720 do this a lot of times you're gonna end up 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.159 remembering the choice differently than it was in your mind 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.040 when you made it. But then it also raises an 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.800 interesting question about decision making. In the moment. When there 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.880 are two options that are pretty much the same, we 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.520 we often have to form a preference for one or 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.840 the other. Now, there are plenty of cases where you 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.560 can quite clearly see why you'd prefer one option over another. 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.120 But in cases where that's not true, in the absence 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:33.240 of the obvious superiority of one option over another, where 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.640 do our preferences arise from? Why do we decide we 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.320 like the left path rather than the right path if 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.400 they look about the same. And for the purpose of 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.520 today's episode, I want to expand beyond thinking about paths 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.840 in the woods or big life decisions when it comes 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.440 to the formation of any preferences, even extremely minor ones. 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.800 You know you choose between two basically equivalent brands of 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.599 blender at the store, why do we like the things 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.440 that we like, Why do we have the preferences that 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.000 we have. I'm probably gonna refer back to the Black 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.400 Mirrorum episode the Black Mirror movie Band or Snatch a 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:11.680 lot in this one. We did an episode about it 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.039 last year, breaking down, you know, the nature of choice 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.000 and free will and all. But like I instantly think 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.039 about the early stages of Band or Snatch, where as 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.919 you do this choose your own adventure media, you have 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.880 to choose which cereal the main character is going to 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.080 have for breakfast, and you know, ultimately it doesn't really 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.719 matter in the context of that of that story. Uh, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.240 And it's it's more about just teaching the mechanics of 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:42.240 choice within this um you know, computer narrative. But but 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.760 it's interesting that you still have to exert a certain 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.120 amount of mental energy to make that choice, to decide 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.760 this serial over that one. And it's interesting how and 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.400 this will tie into something we'll talk about in just 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.280 a minute here. It's interesting how, at least for me, 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.360 those early choices are kind of uncomfortable when you have 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.279 to pick the cereal or you have to pick the 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.960 record or some thing, and you don't have a natural 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.120 strong preference one way or another. You've got this kind 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:09.120 of weird anxiety that lingers after your choice, like, I 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.640 don't know, did I pick the right one? Yeah, because 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.960 later on you can definitely make a call like Okay, 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:16.600 this is the more dramatic choice, or well, this is 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.280 the more this is the moral choice. But in choosing 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.200 the two cereals, aside from maybe health concerns about the 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.880 sugary cereal versus the other cereal, there's not as much 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.560 to go on, right. So one of the main things 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.080 I want to talk about in this episode today it 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.920 is a really interesting fact that's been observed in a 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.240 bunch of psychology studies over the years, and I'm gonna 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:39.640 look at an early one from the nineteen fifties in 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.040 just a minute. Here. We often assume that our preferences 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.960 are what determine our choices. I pick this option instead 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.720 of that because I like it better. But there is 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.000 also significant evidence here's your AUNTI Metaboli, that our choices 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:59.680 determine our preferences. I like this option because I picked it. Uh. 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.280 And of the big early studies here, a classic study 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.200 that was in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.840 in nineteen fifty six by Jack W. Brim is called 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:14.640 post decision changes in the desirability of alternatives. So so again, 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.160 this is by the American psychologist Jack W. Brim. Brim 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:22.120 had been a student of the highly influential American social 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.640 psychologist Leon Festinger, who is probably best known for developing 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.280 the theory of cognitive dissonance. Now, this is a term 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.720 you've probably all heard before, but a lot of people 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.679 don't know the experimental history surrounding it. So the simple 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.360 version is that cognitive dissonance is the state of holding 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:46.880 contradictory beliefs or values, or contradictions between your beliefs and 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:52.960 your values and your actions, observing these contradictions within yourself simultaneously. 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.920 So one example that's very often sided is knowing that 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.560 smoking cigarettes is harmful to your health, but smoking them anyway. 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.440 But there there can be all kinds of cognitive dissonance. 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.480 Our life is just full of of of cognitive dissonance. 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.800 You know, you believe that your spouse is a good person, 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.679 but you also know that they did something wrong. You 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.240 know that they stole money out of the church collection 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.920 plate or something. I think one that's probably very common 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.000 appearances you love your child, but you really honestly don't 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.280 like something they did. You know, you hate the way 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.080 their crayon drawings look or something. Uh. And and when 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.640 you're faced with this kind of contradiction, and of course 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.679 we're faced with these kind of contradictions all the time, Uh, 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.040 there is a problem that arises. What Festinger argued was 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:43.760 that the state of cognitive dissonance is experienced internally as 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.720 a profound stress, and people will do almost anything to 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.440 alleviate that stress. And so this this remedial action to 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.400 to alleviate the stress can take many forms, but it's 0:09:55.480 --> 0:10:00.280 just some finding some way to resolve the contradiction. Really, 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:05.040 anything that reduces the internal perception of a contradiction between 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.439 beliefs and values and actions. So if you're going back 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.080 to the classic example of a person who smokes cigarettes 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.440 but who is aware of the dangers of tobacco, they 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.719 have options including they could they could change their actions 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.400 so you can actually quit smoking. But of course that 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.320 one's really hard, so a lot of people would instead 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.080 go for one of the other options, which is change 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.040 explicit beliefs. You can say, uh, yeah, what are these 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.560 doctors know? You know, doctors are wrong about stuff all 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.840 the time. I don't know, nobody ever really proved that 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.640 smoking causes cancer. That's you know, the these studies are 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.280 Can you really trust these studies? And on and on? 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.280 You can you can just say no, I don't believe 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.560 that the risks are real, or you could change other 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.120 types of beliefs, such as changing underlying beliefs that are 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:58.000 going unspoken, because if there's an internal conflict, if there's 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.800 cognitive dissonance arising over smoking, it relies on the unspoken 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.520 premise that you want to live as long and be 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.280 as healthy as possible. So you could relieve cognitive dissonance 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.400 by explicitly rejecting that belief. And you've probably heard this 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.280 before from people who say like, yeah, I smoke, Yeah 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.720 it causes cancer, but hey, who wants to live forever. 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.480 That's also you know, a great example of of short 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.360 term versus long term thinking, right exactly. I mean, I 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.520 think there are ways of looking at things like I mean, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.760 on one hand, like you know, people are free to 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.560 to make the decisions about their own health as they choose, 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.120 But I think there is a legitimate school of thought 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.120 that would say that, uh, making statements like that is 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.880 basically a lack of compassion for your own future self. Yeah, 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.720 but statements like that can help resolve the dissonance. Uh, 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.440 there there are other things people do to People can 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:53.040 think of compensatory reasons that they would keep smoking. So 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.520 they might say, Okay, I I accept the fact that 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.120 smoking is bad for health. I keep doing it, but 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:02.319 I've got some like compensatory justification in my brain. I 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.760 need to smoke in order to stay focused at work, 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.080 or like I need to smoke in order to stay thin, 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.800 or things like that. And so people have argued about 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.760 how best to interpret cognitive dissonance theory, and and they've 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:18.960 argued around the margins over the years. But it seems 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.840 to me like cognitive dissonance is is pretty robust and 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:26.600 a very lasting concept from from social psychology that explains 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.000 a lot of our behaviors and cognitive processes. There have 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.679 been a ton of different experiments that seem to support 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.840 the idea of cognitive dissonance reduction is a major pressure 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.520 driving our beliefs and behaviors. Just one I was reading 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.160 about as a study by Festinger and Carl Smith from 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.000 nineteen fifty nine that works something like this. So you 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.600 have people perform something that they believe to be the 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.800 actual bulk of the experiment. It's this like long, repetitive, 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.640 extremely boring task. I don't remember exactly what it is. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:12:59.880 Is like, you know, you put these pegs in holes 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:04.480 for an hour or something is mind numbingly boring, and 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:08.240 then you pay the subjects after they're done with the 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.160 experiment to tell the people who are going in to 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:15.080 do it next that it's really fun and interesting. Uh 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.400 so they're gonna be lying. They're gonna be openly saying 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.480 something that they know not to be true. And Festinger 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.240 and Carl Smith found something interesting, which is that if 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.200 you pay people a larger sum of money to tell 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.960 this lie, they will they will afterwards acknowledge it as 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:32.840 a lie. So, you know, you give me a hundred 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:34.640 bucks or whatever. I think it was twenty dollars in 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.959 the study, but that was nine fifties money. You give 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.560 me a hundred bucks or something. I say like, yeah, 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.960 you know, I I lied to the next guy. I 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.120 told him it was going to be really fun. If 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.959 you pay somebody a pittance sum to tell the lie, 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.560 you give them just a dollar, they are more likely 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.840 afterwards to report believing that what they said was true. 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.760 So you give somebody a hundred dollars to say this 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.360 is really putting the pegs in the holes is really one? 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.040 They say, yeah, I was lying, but hey, I gotta 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.880 pay day. You pay people a dollar to say it, 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.079 and they say, actually putting the pegs in the holes 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:12.560 was pretty fun. And the reasoning here is that in 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.520 the absence of a large sum of money to internally 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.560 justify the lie in order to basically relieve the cognitive dissonance, 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:21.920 give you a reason in your mind for having said it. 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.120 The easiest way for people to reduce cognitive dissonance is 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.480 to change their beliefs, change what they believe about what 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:30.880 they were doing, so that what they were saying actually 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.920 wasn't a lie. It was true. Yeah, but yeah the 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.640 pigs and the holes. It's great. Yeah, I um, I 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.320 agree with what you said said earlier. I think this 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:41.120 helps to explain a lot of what goes on in 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.720 our heads cognitive dissonance, both specifically as it applies to 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.360 contradictory opinions and beliefs that that we we hold at 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.520 once in our minds, as well as just more broadly, 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.400 getting it the lack of a congruent self you know, yeah, 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.160 because I mean human life, you're you're just gonna be 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.080 full of contradictions. I mean, there is no way a 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.840 human can be consistent all the time. You're you're going 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:05.920 to have pressures that are acting on your mind and 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.000 going in multiple directions, and and most of the time 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.080 these contradictions can exist within you without you really being 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.560 aware of them. But once you become aware of them, 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.040 I am pretty convinced that, yeah, it does manifest is 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.600 this type of stress that you've got to do something about. Yeah, 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.120 Like you often see people using sort of like self 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:29.160 defining mantras, you know, like I am this first, this second, 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.560 this third, or you know, I am this and this 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:33.400 and this or you know, you define yourself and your 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.560 your profile on social media as being as being this 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.960 or that or the other. But you know, ultimately, if 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.960 we're being honest, a lot of times it depends on 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.720 on what time of day it is, when we last 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.800 had a little boost of sugar caffeine, you know, how 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.160 tired we are, um, how much sunlight we've been exposed 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:53.720 to during the day, that sort of thing, how much 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.840 exercise we've had. Uh, those are some just some of 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.640 the factors that can influence the ranking of those little 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.120 um uh, those little phrases that we used to define ourselves, 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.960 and and and even incorporating different phrases that we might 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.160 not we not not have on the list, uh normally 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.320 or certainly when we're you know, outward facing and dealing 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.840 with other people. Yeah, a lot of a lot of 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.040 our lives are concerned with trying to create a consistent 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.440 narrative about ourselves, and in fact, ourselves are just not 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.600 that consistent. Yeah. And and really now, I mean, neither 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:28.960 is our understanding of the past or memory of the 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.080 past or anything. I mean, it it's just it's it's 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.480 so ridiculous the more you unravel it, Like, we were 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.120 so obsessed with our our personal narratives and where we 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.240 fit into it, when in reality, there is no past, 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.520 you know, we are we are creatures of the present, 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.360 traveling into the future. And uh, and yet we end up, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:51.080 you know, spending all this time fretting about things that 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.720 are essentially fiction because all we have is just this, uh, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:59.400 this copple together false memory of what we were. This 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.720 ties back to previous episodes that we've done on the 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.720 phenomenon of fundamental attribution error. The tendency for people to 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.960 overestimate the role of like internal agency and character and 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.239 underestimate the role of just external situations and forces in 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.040 guiding what human behavior is. It turns out people are 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.399 more malleable and more changeable based on situations than we 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.920 normally like to think. We like to think in terms 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.200 of like, you know, consistent solid psychological storytelling, where John 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.480 snow always stands for right and he just always does 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.919 what is perfectly consistent with his character, and it's explained 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.320 by who he is. But in fact, what we do 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:39.520 a lot of times it's just explained by what's going 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:48.800 on around us. But anyway, to come back to the 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.040 cognitive dissonance question, one implication of cognitive dissonance is that 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.520 in fact, our beliefs are quite malleable. When beliefs are 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.600 dissident with one another, it looks like, you know, it's 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.080 people don't want to think this about themselves, but it 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.400 seems to be true. We quite often and quite readily 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.399 just change one of our beliefs. We just believe something 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.240 different to get them in line. So anyway, the study 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.919 by Jack Brim looked at the question of whether cognitive 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.560 dissonance might be a motivator, even when people are evaluating 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:24.959 their own preferences, their own personal desires, just likes and dislikes, 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.919 even with regards to very minor things like do you 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.880 like this appliance or not? How much do you like it? 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.840 So the basics of the study, UH, you present people 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.359 with a selection of different household items and appliances ranging 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.159 in retail value for from fifteen dollars to thirty dollars 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.000 but that was at the time a teen fifties dollars um. 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.639 And then you ask the people to rate each of 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.639 these items in terms of desirability. How much would you 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:55.679 would you like to own this item on a scale 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.879 of one to ten, from extremely desirable to definitely not desirable, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.639 all or sorry? I think I said one to ten. 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.960 It's one to eight, um, so you know you really 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.800 want the eights, you don't really care about the ones. Uh. 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:12.240 And the items included things like an automatic coffee maker, 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:17.240 an electric sandwich grill, a silk screen reproduction and automatic toaster, 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.919 a fluorescent desk lamp, a book of art reproductions, a 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.840 stop watch, and a portable radio. And so, if I'm 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.560 subject in this experiment, I go down the list, I 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.720 do my ratings. I might rate the stop Watch at 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.880 a three out of ten, I don't really care about 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.240 that much. Maybe the sandwich grill at a five, the 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.400 coffee maker at a six, etcetera. And then after I'm 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.879 finished with my ratings and they're taken away, the experiment 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.800 er tells me that as part of my payment for participating, 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.480 I'll get to take home my choice of one of 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.520 two items from the list. But the experiment or picks 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.800 what the two are. So maybe he tells me that 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.200 I can take home either the toaster or the coffee maker, 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:02.159 which I rated equal, giving both a six, but I 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.680 have to pick one, So I picked the coffee maker 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.240 and I reject the toaster. Then some other conditions take place. 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.240 Uh that there were various other control conditions, but the 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:15.040 experiment ends at some point with me re rating the 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.960 original objects again for desirability without being able to refer 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.800 to the ratings I had already made. And what the 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.520 researchers found was, on average, if I was forced to 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.800 pick between two objects, my desirability rating for the object 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.879 I picked would go up, and my rating for the 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.360 object I rejected would go down. So maybe I initially 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.080 rated the toaster and the coffee maker both as a six. 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:43.919 But then if I'm forced to pick between them and 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.800 I picked the coffee maker, afterwards, I might rate the 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.280 coffee maker is a seven and the toaster is a 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:53.200 four or something like that. Now, why would that be? Yeah, 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.400 this is interesting because one of the one of the 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:58.440 possible examples that came to mind when I was thinking 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.880 about this was to go back to a previous episode 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.760 that we recorded, thinking about how you know, back when 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:06.800 when I was younger, you had, you know, like maybe 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.800 twenty bucks to blow on a CD during the course 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.199 of a month, and you made your pick, you bought it, 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:14.880 and then even if it wasn't that great, you kind 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.560 of found a reason to like that album as you 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:19.000 listen to it over and over again, you found at 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:23.320 least one song. But in those cases, you have sunk 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.000 cost in the situation, like I spent money on it 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:31.400 um in addition to time, whereas in this scenario, uh, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.040 it's there. Their money is not the issue. There's like 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.120 I guess there's sort of a sunk cost in time, 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:42.240 but we don't have that that financial aspect of the scenario, right, 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.560 So the sunk cost fallacy does seem to be real, 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.240 Like we make choice supportive, biased judgments in favor of 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.120 stuff that we've already invested time and money and all 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.200 that into. But here it's just like, well, you're gonna 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.200 get one or the other, which one do you want? 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.560 And it seems like once you pick one out of 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.960 the two, the one you didn't pick look like junk, 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.520 and the one you did pick, oh, that's pretty great. 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.280 I do find this. I think there's just you know, 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:08.639