WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Toaster Not Taken 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.200 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:12.320 Robert Land and I'm Joe McCormick in. Today's episode is 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:17.000 from the Vault. This one originally published on December and 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.239 it is called The Toaster Not Taken. This one is 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.040 about a classic finding in psychology that I remember getting 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.320 really obsessed with at this time, about how our choices 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.280 can later determine our actual preferences. So yeah, this one 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.239 was a lot of fun. I remember we ended up 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.960 talking a good bit about Metallica for some reason. Yes 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.720 we did. Yes, all right, Well let's let's let's dive 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:44.800 in Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:53.600 My Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.200 your Mind. My name is Robert Land and I'm Joe 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.720 McCormick in. Today we're gonna be talking about choices and offerences, 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.760 and I wanted to start off by looking at what 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.280 I think is one of the most commonly misunderstood poems 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.560 in English literature. It's a classic most Americans already know. 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:13.880 You probably read it at some point in high school 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.520 or even earlier. But it's an interesting poem because I 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.600 think it usually gets interpreted to mean the exact opposite 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.119 of what it actually means. So this is the road 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.480 not taken by Robert Frost. Are you ready to hear 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.480 it again? Yeah? Yeah, This is always a pleasure to 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:32.800 to hear or to read, even though it's one that 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.880 I think we're all hit with a lead, probably at 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.480 the elementary school level, you know. I I feel like 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.440 I came to a greater appreciation of just the music 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.720 of Robert Frost's poems as an adult than than I 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.240 had for them when I was in school. So I'm 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.800 not sure exactly what changed there. Maybe I became grumpier, 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.520 and he was quite a grump himself. But but here 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.160 we go. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.160 sorry I would not travel both and be one traveler long. 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.760 I stood and looked down one as far as I 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.600 could to where it bent in the undergrowth, then took 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.960 the other, as just as fair and having perhaps the 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.720 better claim, because it was grassy and wanted, where though 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.880 as for that, the passing there had warned them really 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.840 about the same, and both that morning equally lay in 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.720 leaves no step had trodden black. Oh. I kept the 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:32.000 first for another day, yet, knowing how way leads onto way, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.040 I doubted. If I should ever come back, I shall 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.360 be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages. 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.440 Hence two roads diverged in a wood, and I I 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.560 took the one less traveled by, and that has made 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.360 all the difference. It's a beautiful bomb, it really is. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.640 But one of the things that that is really funny 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:58.200 is that I think people usually interpret this poem as 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:04.080 a sort of sellabration of unique individuality and a celebration 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.200 of going your own way. It's about how if you 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.880 go boldly where others have not gone before, if you 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:15.240 remain your unique, authentic self and choose the stranger path, 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.760 you'll be rewarded with a life of unique meaning. But 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.840 if you read it closely, I think the poem is 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.040 meant to be a quite ironic sort of perry against 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.280 exactly that way of thinking, because what happens in it, well, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:31.760 the speaker comes to a fork in the road. The 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.760 speaker evaluates the for each path for a bit, at 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.240 first thinks one is more traveled than the other, but 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.120 then ultimately realizes that they're about the same, then takes 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.520 one road rather than the other for no major reason. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.480 They are in reality pretty much indistinguishable, then thinks about 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.000 how later in life he'll be claiming that he took 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.520 the bold, untraveled path and that it changed his life, 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.520 even though that wasn't true. Yeah, I feel like that's 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.000 something that a lot of people miss out on in 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:03.680 the poem, and I think a lot of it sometimes 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.600 comes down to um the discussions about what is he 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.920 actually talking about, and people get very wrapped up in that, 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.840 like what was the choice? No, no, no, not the 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:13.920 walk in the woods? What were you actually talking about? 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.920 Frost and and then you you kind of end up 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.760 ignoring the mechanics of it that you're talking about here. Well, yeah, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.039 because I think this is in a way a sort 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.040 of an image poem that can be applied to many 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.320 different types of choices one makes in life. Though I 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.000 think it was literally inspired by him walking in the 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.440 woods in New England. I'm not positive about that, but 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.280 I think I've read that before. But yeah, So it's 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.960 essentially a poem about a person who chose at random 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.960 between two at the time pretty much indistinguishable options, and 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.800 then comes up later with an ex post facto justification 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.000 for his choice that it was the one made you know, 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.280 made out of daring an authentic principle and that it 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.919 was deeply meaningful. And I really like this ironic interpret 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.400 station because it raises a number of really interesting questions 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.600 about human nature. So, first of all, isn't so much 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.640 of life like this? We do make life changing decisions 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.320 without knowing what the outcome will be. That the options 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.279 in front of us might look indistinguishable. At the time 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.719 you choose between two job opportunities, you can't really tell 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.960 that one is necessarily better than the other. But then 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.599 later you you will have had much of your life 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.040 developed on the basis of whichever choice you made, and 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:32.880 you have to come up with a narrative of your 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.200 life story that makes sense of that choice in light 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.360 of its later unpredictable significance. And obviously, when you do 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.919 this a lot of times you're gonna end up remembering 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.880 the choice differently than it was in your mind when 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.960 you made it. But then it also raises an interesting 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.400 question about decision making. In the moment. When there are 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.479 two options that are pretty much the same, we we 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.400 often have to form a preference for one or the other. Now, 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.600 there are plenty of cases where you can quite clearly 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.520 see why you'd prefer one option over another. But in 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.960 cases where that's not true, in the absence of the 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:13.120 obvious superiority of one option over another, where do our 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.599 preferences arise from? Why do we decide we like the 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.200 left path rather than the right path if they look 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.680 about the same. And for the purpose of today's episode, 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.240 I want to expand beyond thinking about paths in the 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.640 woods or big life decisions when it comes to the 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:32.200 formation of any preferences, even extremely minor ones. You know, 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:36.560 you choose between two basically equivalent brands of blender at 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.720 the store. Why do we like the things that we like? 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.240 Why do we have the preferences that we have. I'm 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.120 probably gonna refer back to the Black Mirrorum episode the 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.800 Black Mirror movie Band or Snatch a lot in this one. 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.559 We did an episode about it last year, breaking down 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.839 you know, the nature of choice and free will and all. 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.040 But like I instantly think about the early stages of 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.560 Band or Snatch. Where as you do this choose your 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.560 own adventure media, you have to choose which cereal the 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.120 main character is going to have for breakfast, and you know, 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.520 ultimately it doesn't really matter in the context of that 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.400 of that story. Uh, And it's it's more about just 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.000 teaching the mechanics of choice within this um you know, 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.960 computer narrative. But but it's interesting that you still have 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.240 to exert a certain amount of mental energy to make 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.200 that choice, to decide this serial over that one. And 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.360 it's interesting how and this will tie into something we'll 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.120 talk about in just a minute here. It's interesting how, 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.440 at least for me, those early choices are kind of uncomfortable. 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.320 When you have to pick the cereal or you have 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.760 to pick the record or something, and you don't have 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.360 a natural strong preference one way or another. You've got 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.920 this kind of weird anxiety that lingers after your choice, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.720 like I don't know that I pick the right one. Yeah, 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.480 because later on you can definitely make a call like okay, 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.120 this is the more dramatic choice, or well this is 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.800 the more this is the moral choice. But in choosing 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.720 the two cereals, aside from maybe health concerns about the 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.400 sugary cereal versus the other cereal, there's not as much 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:08.080 to go on, right. So one of the main things 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.840 I want to talk about in this episode today is 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.760 a really interesting fact that's been observed in a bunch 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.920 of psychology studies over the years, and I'm gonna look 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.280 at an early one from the nineteen fifties in just 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.000 a minute. Here, we often assume that our preferences are 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.600 what determine our choices. I pick this option instead of 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.520 that because I like it better. But there is also 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:34.360 significant evidence here's your AUNTI metaboli, that our choices determine 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:39.200 our preferences. I like this option because I picked it. Uh. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.400 And one of the big early studies here, a classic 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.120 study that was in the Journal of Abnormal and Social 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:48.000 Psychology in nineteen fifty six by Jack W. Brim is 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:53.800 called post decision changes in the Desirability of Alternatives. So 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.199 so again, this is by the American psychologist Jack W. Brim. 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.199 Brim had been a student of the highly influential American 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.440 social psychologist Leon Festinger, who is probably best known for 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.480 developing the theory of cognitive dissonance. Now, this is a 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:11.920 term you've probably all heard before, but a lot of 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.880 people don't know the experimental history surrounding it. So the 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:19.360 simple version is that cognitive dissonance is the state of 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:26.199 holding contradictory beliefs or values, or contradictions between your beliefs 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.640 and your values and your actions observing these contradictions within 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:35.440 yourself simultaneously. So one example that's very often sided is 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.200 knowing that smoking cigarettes is harmful to your health, but 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.839 smoking them anyway. But there there can be all kinds 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.720 of cognitive dissonance. Our life is just full of of 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.319 of cognitive dissonance. You know, you believe that your spouse 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.199 is a good person, but you also know that they 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.880 did something wrong. You know that they stole money out 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.439 of the church collection plate or something. I think one 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.920 that's probably very common appearances. You love your child, but 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.120 you really honestly don't like something they did. You know, 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.720 you hate the way their crayon drawings look or something. Uh. 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.680 And and when you're faced with this kind of contradiction, 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.000 and of course we're faced with these kind of contradictions 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.120 all the time, Uh, there is a problem that arises. 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.800 What Festinger argued was that the state of cognitive dissonance 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:25.920 is experienced internally as a profound stress, and people will 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.320 do almost anything to alleviate that stress. And so this 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.640 this remedial action to to alleviate the stress can take 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.400 many forms, but it's just some finding some way to 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:42.760 resolve the contradiction. Really anything that reduces the internal perception 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:47.079 of a contradiction between beliefs and values and actions. So 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.200 if you're going back to the classic example of a 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.000 person who smokes cigarettes but who is aware of the 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.840 dangers of tobacco, they have options including they could they 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.120 could change their actions so you can actually quit smoking. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.000 But of course that one is really hard, so a 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.680 lot of people would instead go for one of the 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:10.080 other options, which is change explicit beliefs. You can say, uh, yeah, 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.360 what are these doctors know? You know, doctors are wrong 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.240 about stuff all the time. I don't know, nobody ever 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.280 really proved that smoking causes cancer. That's you know, the 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.120 these studies are Can you really trust these studies? And 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.520 on and on you you can you can just say no, 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:29.160 I don't believe that the risks are real, or you 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.880 could change other types of beliefs, such as changing underlying 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:37.080 beliefs that are going unspoken, because if there's an internal conflict, 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.440 if there's cognitive dissonance arising over smoking, it relies on 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.680 the unspoken premise that you want to live as long 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.760 and be as healthy as possible. So you could relieve 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.640 cognitive dissonance by explicitly rejecting that belief. And you've probably 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.480 heard this before from people who say, like, yeah, I smoke, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.240 Yeah it causes cancer, but hey, who wants to live forever? 0:11:57.760 --> 0:11:59.960 That's also you know, a great example of of short 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.840 term versus long term thinking, right exactly. I mean, I 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.040 think there are ways of looking at things like. I mean, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.280 on one hand, like you know, people are free to 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.080 to make the decisions about their own health as they choose. 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.640 But I think there is a legitimate school of thought 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.640 that would say that, uh, making statements like that is 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:21.400 basically a lack of compassion for your own future self. Yeah, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.240 but statements like that can help resolve the dissonance. Uh. 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:27.960 There there are other things people do to People can 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.520 think of compensatory reasons that they would keep smoking. So 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.040 they might say, Okay, I I accept the fact that 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.640 smoking is bad for health. I keep doing it, but 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.800 I've got some like compensatory justification in my brain. I 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.280 need to smoke in order to stay focused at work, 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.600 or like I need to smoke in order to stay thin, 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.000 or or things like that. And so people have argued 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.000 about how best to interpret cognitive dissonance theory and and 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.160 they've argued around the margins over the years, but it 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.360 seems to me like cognitive dissonance is pretty robust and 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:06.120 a very lasting concept from from social psychology that explains 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.679 a lot of our behaviors and cognitive processes. There's been 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:12.320 a ton of different experiments that seem to support the 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:17.000 idea of cognitive dissonance reduction is a major pressure driving 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.240 our beliefs and behaviors. Just one I was reading about 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.160 as a study by Festinger and Carl Smith from nineteen 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.719 fifty nine that works something like this. So you have 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.600 people perform something that they believe to be the actual 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:34.920 bulk of the experiment. It's this like long, repetitive, extremely 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:37.440 boring task I don't remember exactly what it is. Is like, 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.760 you know, you put these pegs in holes for an 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:45.120 hour or something is mind numbingly boring, and then you 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.720 pay the subjects after they're done with the experiment to 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.000 tell the people who are going in to do it 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.960 next that it's really fun and interesting. Uh so they're 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.360 gonna be lying, They're gonna be openly saying something that 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.400 they know not to be true. And Festinger and Carl 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.080 Smith found something interesting which is that if you pay 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.280 people a larger sum of money to tell this lie, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.080 they will they will afterwards acknowledge it as a lie. So, 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:12.920 you know, you give me a hundred bucks or whatever. 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:14.680 I think it was twenty dollars in the study, but 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.080 that was nineteen fifties money. You give me a hundred 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.920 bucks or something. I say like, yeah, you know, I 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:21.960 I lied to the next guy. I told him it 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.480 was going to be really fun. If you pay somebody 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.040 a pittance sum to tell the lie, you give them 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:31.560 just a dollar, they are more likely afterwards to report 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.320 believing that what they said was true. So you give 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.080 somebody a hundred dollars to say this is really putting 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.120 the pegs in the holes is really fun. They say, yeah, 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.600 I was lying, but hey, I gotta pay day. You 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.000 pay people a dollar to say it, and they say, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.560 actually putting the pegs in the holes was pretty fun. 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.000 And the reasoning here is that, in the absence of 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.280 a large sum of money to internally justify the lie 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.440 in order to basically relieve the cognitive dissonance, give you 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:01.440 a reason and in your mind for having said it. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.640 The easiest way for people to reduce cognitive dissonance is 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.000 to change their beliefs, change what they believe about what 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.400 they were doing, so that what they were saying actually 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.440 wasn't a lie, it was true. Yeah. But yeah, the 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.160 pigs and the holes. It's great. Yeah, I um, I 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:18.840 agree with what you said said earlier. I think this 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:20.600 helps to explain a lot of what goes on in 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.240 our heads, cognitive dissonance, both specifically as it applies to 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.880 contradictory opinions and beliefs that that we we hold at 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.040 once in our minds, as well as just more broadly 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.920 getting it the lack of a congruent self. You know, Yeah, 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.680 because I mean human life, You're you're just gonna be 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.520 full of contradictions. I mean, there is no way a 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.200 human can be consistent all the time. Uh, You're you're 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.320 going to have pressures that are acting on your mind 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.240 and going in multiple directions and and most of the 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.320 time these contradictions can exist within you without you really 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.080 being aware of them. But once you become aware of them, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.560 I am pretty convinced that, Yeah, it does manifest as 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.600 this type of stress that you've got to do something 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.000 about it. Yeah, Like you often see people using sort 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.560 of like self defining mantras, you know, like I am 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.320 this first, this second, this third, or you know I 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:11.920 am this and this and this or you know, you 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.720 define yourself and your your profile on social media as 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.640 being as being this or that or the other. But 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.200 you know, ultimately, if we're being honest, a lot of 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.200 times it depends on on what time of day it is, 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.840 when we last had a little boost of sugar caffeine. 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.920 You know, how tired we are, um, how much sunlight 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:32.840 we've been exposed to during the day, that's sort of thing, 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:37.080 how much exercise we've had. Uh, those are some just 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.520 some of the factors that can influence the ranking of 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.680 those little um uh, those little phrases that we used 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.040 to define ourselves and and and even incorporating different phrases 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.720 that we might not we not not have on the list, 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.440 uh normally or certainly when we're you know, outward facing 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.080 and dealing with other people. Yeah, a lot of a 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.760 lot of our lives are concerned with trying to create 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:02.640 a consistent narrative about ourselves, and in fact ourselves they're 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.920 just not that consistent. Yeah, and been really now, I mean, 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.359 neither is our understanding of the past, our memory of 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.360 the past or anything. I mean, it it's just it's 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.800 it's so ridiculous the more you unravel it, Like, we 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:16.600 were so obsessed with our our personal narratives and where 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.760 we fit into it, when in reality, there is no past, 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.040 you know, we are we are creatures of the present, 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.879 traveling into the future. And uh and yet we end up, 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.600 you know, spending all this time fretting about things that 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.120 are essentially fiction because all we have is just this, uh, 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.760 this cople together false memory of what we were. Uh. 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.080 This ties back to previous episodes that we've done on 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:45.080 the phenomenon of fundamental attribution error, the tendency for people 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:50.240 to overestimate the role of like internal agency and character 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.560 and underestimate the role of just external situations and forces 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.359 in guiding what human behavior is. It turns out people 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.760 are more malleable and more changeable based on situations than 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.119 we normally like to think. We like to think in 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.240 terms of like, you know, consistent solid psychological storytelling where 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.760 John snow always stands for right and he just always 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.400 does what is perfectly consistent with his character and it's 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.639 explained by who he is. But in fact, what we 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.800 do a lot of times is just explained by what's 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:28.199 going on around us. But anyway, to come back to 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:32.560 the cognitive dissonance question, one implication of cognitive dissonance is that, 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.040 in fact, our beliefs are quite malleable. When beliefs are 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.120 dissonant with one another, it looks like, you know, it's 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.560 people don't want to think this about themselves, but it 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.880 seems to be true. We quite often and quite readily 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.919 just change one of our beliefs. We just believe something 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.760 different to get him in line. So anyway, the study 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.439 by Jack Brim looked at the question of whether cognitive 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.080 dissonance might be a motivator even when people are evaluating 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:04.480 their own preferences, their own personal desires, just likes and dislikes, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.439 even with regards to very minor things like do you 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.400 like this appliance or not? How much do you like it? 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.879 So the basics of the study, you present people with 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.920 a selection of different household items and appliances ranging in 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.760 retail value for from fifteen dollars to thirty dollars, but 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.520 that was at the time that teen fifties dollars um 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.159 And then you asked the people to rate each of 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.159 these items in terms of desirability, how much would you 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.160 would you like to own this item on a scale 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.760 of one to ten, from extremely desirable to definitely not 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.840 desirable at all or sorry, I think I said one 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.879 to tend it's one to eight, um, so you know 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.120 you really want the eights, you don't really care about 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.399 the ones. Uh. And the items included things like an 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.560 automatic coffee maker and electric sandwich grill, a silk screen 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.080 reproduction and automatic toaster, a fluorescent desk lamp, a book 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.760 of art reproduction, a stop watch, and a portable radio. 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.320 And so, if I'm subject in this experiment, I go 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.800 down the list, I do my ratings. I might rate 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.480 the stop watch at a three out of ten, I 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.000 don't really care about that much, maybe the sandwich grill 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.600 at a five, the coffee maker at a six, etcetera. 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.520 And then after I'm finished with my ratings and they're 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:22.760 taken away, the experiment er tells me that as part 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.119 of my payment for participating, I'll get to take home 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.440 my choice of one of two items from the list. 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.800 But the experiment or picks what the two are. So 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.639 maybe he tells me that I can take home either 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.520 the toaster or the coffee maker, which I rated equally, 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.360 giving both a six. But I have to pick one, 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.439 so I picked the coffee maker and I reject the toaster. 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.320 Then some other conditions take place. Uh, there were various 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.640 other control conditions, but the experiment ends at some point 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:57.440 with ME re rating the original objects again for desirability 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:00.520 without being able to refer to the things I had 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.640 already made. And what the researchers found was, on average, 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:08.399 if I was forced to pick between two objects, my 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.880 desirability rating for the object I picked would go up, 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.879 and my rating for the object I rejected would go down. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.320 So maybe I initially rated the toaster and the coffee 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.159 maker both as a six. But then if I'm forced 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.639 to pick between them and I picked the coffee maker, afterwards, 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:27.879 I might rate the coffee maker is a seven and 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.200 the toaster is a four or something like that. Now 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.400 why would that be? Yeah, this is interesting because one 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.400 of one of the possible examples that came to mind 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:39.120 when I was thinking about this was to go back 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.639 to a previous episode that we recorded, thinking about how, 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.400 you know, back when when I was younger, you had, 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:47.639 you know, like maybe twenty bucks to blow on a 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:50.720 CD during the course of a month, and you made 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.399 your pick, you bought it, and then even if it 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.679 wasn't that great, you kind of found found a reason 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:57.639 to like that album as you listen to it over 0:21:57.680 --> 0:21:59.800 and over again, you found at least one song. But 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:04.000 in those cases, you have sunk cost in the situation, 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.439 like I spent money on it um in addition to time, 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.480 whereas in this scenario, uh, it's there. Their money is 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:14.359 not the issue. There's like I guess there's sort of 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.400 a sunk cost in time, but we don't have that 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.400