Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and we're back with part two of our talk about
Speaker 1: queuing and waiting in line. We've got lots more stuff
Speaker 1: to get into today, a queuing psychology, the horror and
Speaker 1: the anguish of cutting in line. It's going to be
Speaker 1: a blast. But first we'd like to start with with
Speaker 1: really a proper look at the British queue. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is something that we even heard from listening, a listener
Speaker 1: by the name of the about saying, hey, how come
Speaker 1: you guys didn't talk more about about waiting in line
Speaker 1: in merry old England. And so let's get into that
Speaker 1: a bit. But before we do, I thought i'd just
Speaker 1: thrown a quick quote from William Shakespeare quote I am
Speaker 1: to wait, though waiting so be hell so be? Well,
Speaker 1: what's soll um? It's from one of his sonnets. The
Speaker 1: number is eluding me at the moment. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: son at fifty eight. Okay, let me suffer being at
Speaker 1: your back. This is the abject one. Now to be sure,
Speaker 1: he's not what he's not talking about waiting in line,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it could apply to the modern
Speaker 1: experience of waiting in line, because waiting in line so
Speaker 1: be hell as well unless you make waiting in line
Speaker 1: part of your identity, and then you can every time
Speaker 1: you have to do it, you can get real excited
Speaker 1: about how good at it you are. Yes, yes, uh,
Speaker 1: And perhaps this is this is getting into the British
Speaker 1: spirit of the thing. So in the previous episode I
Speaker 1: briefly mentioned British criticisms of queuing as socialism. So I
Speaker 1: thought I had to go and I thought I'd go
Speaker 1: into this a bit more. Uh. Is it regards the
Speaker 1: history of queuing in Britain, And I was looking at
Speaker 1: an article titled Queuing Up in Post War Britain by
Speaker 1: Joe Moran, published in twentieth Century British History, Volume sixteen
Speaker 1: that came out in the year two thousand and five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read a number of things about queuing where where
Speaker 1: this author, Joe Moran is cited, and he appears to
Speaker 1: be kind of a historian of everyday life, which is
Speaker 1: a field that I find a lot of interest in,
Speaker 1: like um studying, not just like you know, the big
Speaker 1: events of history, the wars and the political changes and
Speaker 1: all that. But but what people had to do in
Speaker 1: the little, less noted moments of day to day existence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of times one of the big stuff is
Speaker 1: going on, what are the little things? And oftentimes, and
Speaker 1: this comes out in in this particular paper, you see
Speaker 1: the larger events and the larger movements of the day,
Speaker 1: you see it all filtering down to to the day
Speaker 1: to day level, and in this case concerning waiting in
Speaker 1: lines for things. So in the immediate post war period,
Speaker 1: post World War Two, amid scarcity problems, you had queuing
Speaker 1: and there was a sense of queuing as an absolute good.
Speaker 1: It was the state. You know, you're you're doing your part.
Speaker 1: It's important that we wait in line. It's important that
Speaker 1: we work together and we socially organize in order to
Speaker 1: make sure that we get what we needed in the scarcity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean, I think it really became part
Speaker 1: of the British identity in the post World War two period.
Speaker 1: But it was also a big part of the of
Speaker 1: British sort of internal propaganda messaging during World War Two,
Speaker 1: because there was a time when you know, you were
Speaker 1: dealing with a lot of scarcity of goods within the
Speaker 1: country as well, and there was a kind of national
Speaker 1: messaging campaign that was like, hey, you know, do your part.
Speaker 1: Good British citizens, they do their duty, they wait their
Speaker 1: turn for things. You you display the British virtues of calmness, decency, fairness.
Speaker 1: This is the British way. Yeah, it's like mine, name
Speaker 1: the gap. It's just what you're supposed to do as
Speaker 1: a as a proper British person. And you had a
Speaker 1: number of authors of the day even commenting on this.
Speaker 1: Author George Orwell wrote that a foreign visitor to Britain
Speaker 1: would have been struck by the quote orderly behavior of
Speaker 1: English crowds, the lack of pushing and quarreling, the willingness
Speaker 1: to form cues. And then there's a famous George mis
Speaker 1: quote from quote an Englishman, even if he is alone,
Speaker 1: forms an orderly queue of one. Right, So sort of
Speaker 1: writing it into the political identity or the national character
Speaker 1: of of Great Britain. Right. So so for these authors
Speaker 1: and many other commentators, quing behavior was sub political and
Speaker 1: all about the greater good in a proper English fashion.
Speaker 1: But queuing had been seen in a in a very
Speaker 1: different light as well, not only as a sort of
Speaker 1: creeping socialism, but as a byproduct of wartime scarcity that
Speaker 1: damaged morale and impacted women more than men. Uh The
Speaker 1: idea here being that the women would be the ones
Speaker 1: going out during the day and waiting in lines for things.
Speaker 1: And there were there were various voices talking about well
Speaker 1: this this might be a detriment to their health as well,
Speaker 1: like these women should not be standing in line for
Speaker 1: long periods of time. Why do we have long lines?
Speaker 1: So Marn rights that these cues, we have all these
Speaker 1: other things going on to For instance, he writes that
Speaker 1: these these cues were also a hotbed of anti semitism,
Speaker 1: along with other resentments and accusations at other customers but
Speaker 1: also against shopkeepers. Uh So, queuing, despite it being tied
Speaker 1: in with these ideas of national pride and and necessity,
Speaker 1: it was also highly unpopular and therefore rife for politicization.
Speaker 1: So it became a divisive topic that politicians latched onto.
Speaker 1: And this is where you get into the whole creeping
Speaker 1: socialism thing. Yeah, it seems to me that queuing throughout
Speaker 1: its history has often gotten charged up with political, social,
Speaker 1: and moral baggage. Like people trying to use queuing or
Speaker 1: aspects of queuing to make a point about some pet
Speaker 1: issue they have. So you'll often see like politicians and
Speaker 1: cultural critics um attacking queuing as symbolic of something they
Speaker 1: believe to be nefarious. In some cases, like you could
Speaker 1: have conservative politicians saying that it's somehow, somehow emblematic of
Speaker 1: socialism or of government control. But there's another strain of
Speaker 1: a similar type of thinking that I know I've encountered before.
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of a really good specific
Speaker 1: example to point too, and I couldn't, But I know
Speaker 1: I've heard something like this from a general just kind
Speaker 1: of anti conformity rant. You hear people say like schools
Speaker 1: trying to teach you to conform. Man, they want to
Speaker 1: turn you into sheep so that you can't think for yourself.
Speaker 1: They want you to do what you're told and stand
Speaker 1: in line and wait your turn. And to me, this
Speaker 1: is such a tragic conflation of like unrelated issues. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you know it's good to think for yourself and have
Speaker 1: the courage to resist social pressure to conform to do
Speaker 1: something wrong or immoral, But there's like nothing intelligent or
Speaker 1: morally courageous about resisting waiting your turn for a service.
Speaker 1: That's just being a jerk. Yeah, I agree. I mean
Speaker 1: I don't think this is what um Pink Floyd's The
Speaker 1: Wall was about. UM. So, if anyone out there wants
Speaker 1: just a really nice kind of deep dive into all
Speaker 1: of this, I do suggest that mern article. He goes
Speaker 1: into wonderful detail, but ultimately he surmises that you see
Speaker 1: the shift over time from queuing and as an example
Speaker 1: of the best of proper Britishness, to a symbol of
Speaker 1: the British disease UH, and then ultimately to a less
Speaker 1: politicized reality that can be beneficial or harmful depending on
Speaker 1: the circumstance. UM. I want to read a quote from
Speaker 1: him that I think drives home this kind of dual
Speaker 1: nature quote. People have been complaining about UH, the disintegration
Speaker 1: of Q discipline for almost as long as they have
Speaker 1: been lauding the que as the essence of British decency,
Speaker 1: perhaps because the myth carries such symbolic weight that it
Speaker 1: cannot be sustained by the necessarily messier reality. The notion
Speaker 1: of cues as the embodiment of fairness and equality has
Speaker 1: also existed alongside other discourses which have seen them as tedious,
Speaker 1: unfair and inefficient. So yeah, it's it's like you said,
Speaker 1: the lines, the cues, they kind of become whatever you
Speaker 1: need them to be, depending on what your argument is
Speaker 1: and what the particular example is that was actually reading
Speaker 1: a BBC News article from a few years back that
Speaker 1: quoted uh this historian Joe Moran extensively uh in talking
Speaker 1: about these various ideas about ques over the years, and
Speaker 1: he brings up this very thing about how like some
Speaker 1: of the same types of figures that you would in
Speaker 1: previous decades have seen complaining about queuing as as a
Speaker 1: sign of something wrong with the national character, are now
Speaker 1: often seen complaining about the the decline of queuing discipline,
Speaker 1: saying like complaining about bus stops and people are so
Speaker 1: disorderly getting onto buses now. But I think in the
Speaker 1: article Moran makes the case that actually what's going on
Speaker 1: probably is the difference between queuing areas that have well
Speaker 1: organized infrastructure that allows people to know where and how
Speaker 1: to line up, versus queuing areas where people are forced
Speaker 1: to self organized without any clear organizing principle, like you know,
Speaker 1: stanchions to stand between or something. Yeah. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess a lot of it probably comes down to it,
Speaker 1: isn't there like a George Carlin debt about how fast
Speaker 1: you're driving, and you know, it's like you either think
Speaker 1: people are going too fast or too slow, but it's
Speaker 1: based on whatever you are doing. So a lot of
Speaker 1: this is going to come down to what is your
Speaker 1: experience right now? Standing in line? Is the line tedious?
Speaker 1: Is the line along well? And then perhaps you're inclined
Speaker 1: to apply that to queues and lines in general or
Speaker 1: order in general. You know, like I could see where
Speaker 1: one awful queuing experience could almost make you an anarchist
Speaker 1: at least for you know, a couple of hours before
Speaker 1: you calm down. But see, the funny thing is, I
Speaker 1: think an anarchist should be especially in love with queuing
Speaker 1: because queuing is a self organizing principle by which people
Speaker 1: order access to things. So if you're an anarchist, queuing
Speaker 1: should be like that. That should be like your go
Speaker 1: to example of like how how you get things done
Speaker 1: without top down control? Right? Yeah, yeah, unless you want
Speaker 1: to say they are making you stand in line. This
Speaker 1: is top down control. Uh, you know, in practice, because
Speaker 1: there's the sign telling you to do it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that's another very creation on what I was
Speaker 1: talking about a minute ago. That like attitude that like, oh,
Speaker 1: standing in line and waiting your turn is like that's
Speaker 1: a you know, wake up sheep all kind of thing.
Speaker 1: You're you're being a sheep by doing that. Um, that's
Speaker 1: just like confusing that because there is social pressure to
Speaker 1: do some things that are stupid and bad. Therefore anything
Speaker 1: there is social pressure to do is stupid and bad. Yeah, when,
Speaker 1: in fact, I just want to reiterate again, if you
Speaker 1: are being a jerk about the line, you're the problem.
Speaker 1: It's not everybody else. Now, one thing to keep in
Speaker 1: mind about queuing is that for many of us, this
Speaker 1: is just simply how we grew up. You know, we're
Speaker 1: taught very early on, often in school the importance of
Speaker 1: forming lines, Like that's how that's how you get your lunch. Well,
Speaker 1: at lunchtime, right, is you form up into a line,
Speaker 1: maybe two lines, You make your way down the hall
Speaker 1: and you you you go through the cafeteria and you
Speaker 1: collect your food, and there's an order to all of this.
Speaker 1: And and frankly, like I think back on it, and
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it going another way. Uh, but I
Speaker 1: haven't really thought about this before. But this is a
Speaker 1: you know, this is not going to be the case
Speaker 1: with everybody. You're not gonna necessarily have been indoctrinated into
Speaker 1: queuing and line forming early on in life. And I
Speaker 1: was reading about this in an interesting article by David
Speaker 1: Charosha title Teaching, Queuing Culture and Early Childhood from twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: dealing specifically with queuing in Indonesia. Basically, they write that
Speaker 1: while Indonesians are generally considered to be a very polite society,
Speaker 1: there generally isn't a queuing culture. Quote. Indonesians will only
Speaker 1: queue if they are forced into the system, for example,
Speaker 1: queuing at the bank with the ticketing system. And the
Speaker 1: author goes on to point out that early indoctrination into
Speaker 1: queuing culture is necessary for it to take hold, and
Speaker 1: it has to be passed down generation to generation. So um,
Speaker 1: I thought I thought it was interesting. I never I
Speaker 1: don't think I've really seen that pointed out so much
Speaker 1: to me, you know, I'm part of this just kind
Speaker 1: of like growing up in a in a queuing culture,
Speaker 1: you just kind of assume that this is this is
Speaker 1: the kind of of of order that is in stilled
Speaker 1: in in you at at an early age. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it'd be interesting to see what aspects in particular of
Speaker 1: queuing culture are the ones that you know, you gain
Speaker 1: that you learn in young childhood, and which are the
Speaker 1: ones that are dependent on the individual circumstances you come across.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I would guess that that there
Speaker 1: are certain kind of broad principles, like say, the incorporation
Speaker 1: of the first and first out principle um that probably
Speaker 1: depend on early learning and uh, and that there are
Speaker 1: other things such as like how lines are physically organized,
Speaker 1: or like how exceptions to the rule are handled that
Speaker 1: might be more dependent on individual local circumstances. If that
Speaker 1: makes any sense. Yeah, Like, wouldn't it be interesting if
Speaker 1: we if we went really went elementary school and all
Speaker 1: of our self organizing lines and we all put ourselves
Speaker 1: in alphabetical order whenever we're you know, trying to get
Speaker 1: that you know, croissant sandwich or whatever in line, then
Speaker 1: there just be a rush everybody to name their children
Speaker 1: things that start with like four a's. Yeah, well we're
Speaker 1: gonna go by last name. What elementary school did you
Speaker 1: go to? Oh? Well, then that just establishes like a
Speaker 1: generational aristocracy of the people at the top of the alphabet. Now, um.
Speaker 1: One thing to keep in mind about this, uh, this
Speaker 1: example from Indonesia and this this author's work, is that
Speaker 1: you know, when when we're talking about this, we're generally
Speaker 1: dealing in in you know, generalities, we're dealing and if
Speaker 1: you say, like, how how are English people at standing
Speaker 1: in line? Well, you know that's a very broad statement
Speaker 1: to make. But there's there's still some interesting insight to
Speaker 1: be had from looking at some of these generalities that
Speaker 1: have been pointed out by authors, um about queuing cultures
Speaker 1: or the lack of a queuing culture. And I was
Speaker 1: looking at one titled A Global Guide to Queuing Philosophies
Speaker 1: from Wimbledon to Salpallo uh. And this was on Courts
Speaker 1: by an author by the name of Rosie Spinks, with
Speaker 1: the tidbits about the various cultures are added by different
Speaker 1: reporters who have experience with the sighted countries. So I
Speaker 1: recommend reading the whole article. And I assume again these
Speaker 1: are all generalities and subject to the problems of being
Speaker 1: very general about queuing cultures. But I thought I might
Speaker 1: run through them and just give you like the quick
Speaker 1: just couple of words summarizations on them. So let's start
Speaker 1: with England. England good at queuing, okay, not not really
Speaker 1: a surprise. Germany, the article says, not as good as
Speaker 1: you might expect. Mexico, this was interesting, good, but you
Speaker 1: have this added element of heat. A lot of the times,
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with really intense son they say that
Speaker 1: you're gonna end up with special rules and expectations coming
Speaker 1: into play, like did you bring a fan to the line?
Speaker 1: That sort of thing, and are you the only one
Speaker 1: in the line with a fan? So that's interesting you
Speaker 1: think about environment and all of this. Now with mainland China,
Speaker 1: they point out that their start generational differences. For older generations,
Speaker 1: it works in spirit, but reality favors the bold. So um,
Speaker 1: if there's a chance to cut line, perhaps someone will,
Speaker 1: but younger generations will be more likely to cue and
Speaker 1: are not concerned about being quote last in line. I've
Speaker 1: actually read that in the past couple of decades there
Speaker 1: have been like a lot of public messaging campaigns in
Speaker 1: China having to do with queuing as like a sort
Speaker 1: of part of your civic duty. Specifically, I remember reading
Speaker 1: about some of these campaigns in the lead up to
Speaker 1: the Beijing Olympics in two thousand eight. Yeah. Now I
Speaker 1: should also point out, um, you know there there you
Speaker 1: also have areas like Hong Kong where there is a
Speaker 1: strong queuing culture, and perhaps part of that is the
Speaker 1: British influence. Um, India, there's a queuing culture, but according
Speaker 1: to this article, it's it tends to be a compact
Speaker 1: queuing culture. So uh and maybe that's just has to
Speaker 1: do with with major centers of population and the necessity
Speaker 1: of forming lines that are going to be maybe you know,
Speaker 1: have a little less space in them. America, the United States,
Speaker 1: they say queuing is everywhere, but the exact rule rules
Speaker 1: vary depending on where you are, which I think that
Speaker 1: you know, vaguely matches up with my experience. Yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: say so. Yeah. Malaysia cues form but easily break into disarray.
Speaker 1: Poland they say there is a queuing culture with older
Speaker 1: generations having lived in a time of long lines, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna have, you know, varying attitudes towards what lines
Speaker 1: are and what they mean. Italy, the author points, I
Speaker 1: had never heard this before, but they this. The author
Speaker 1: says that Italians sometimes talk about being bad at queuing,
Speaker 1: but they're actually not that bad at queuing. I cannot
Speaker 1: speak to this. I've never been to Italy, uh. But
Speaker 1: with all of these I'd love to hear from anyone
Speaker 1: out there who has direct connections, uh to to any
Speaker 1: of these cultures or has traveled there. Perhaps you can
Speaker 1: shed a little more light on some of these ideas.
Speaker 1: UM Brazil pretty solid queueing culture in major cities. South Africa,
Speaker 1: strong queuing culture. This was an interesting Thailand strong queuing culture,
Speaker 1: but with some interesting extra rules. So they UM an
Speaker 1: author by the name of Adam Passik who shares a
Speaker 1: photo of people who have deposited their shoes and books
Speaker 1: on on the floor to signify their place in line
Speaker 1: while they wait for an office to open. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of it is. It is very smart. It gives
Speaker 1: you a chance to sit down, but you just place
Speaker 1: your shoes or I think in one case it looks
Speaker 1: like a book or a folder. Uh, yeah, it's mostly
Speaker 1: shoes in this photo, because if I remember correctly, there
Speaker 1: are some taboos in Thailand against the placing of books
Speaker 1: on the ground, So I'm not even sure that's a
Speaker 1: book in that photo. But anyway, it's mostly shoes. But
Speaker 1: it also kind of looks like the people that were
Speaker 1: in line have evaporated and vanished and left only their
Speaker 1: shoes behind. That's the rapture at the Bangkok DMV. Yeah
Speaker 1: kind of uh. In this article they say that in
Speaker 1: the Philippines it seems like queuing culture is highly influenced
Speaker 1: by social standing. And in Nigeria you have a queuing culture,
Speaker 1: but some people may choose to sit or hang out nearby,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of standing in line the whole time,
Speaker 1: and have someone who is standing in line, uh, physically
Speaker 1: to hold their spot for them. So lines can be
Speaker 1: deceiving when you first arrived, do you find out who
Speaker 1: all is actually waiting? In a way, this makes sense
Speaker 1: right if you have, especially say the line is is
Speaker 1: out in the sign or something, and you have, you know,
Speaker 1: an elderly person that doesn't want to stand in the
Speaker 1: whole time, you get somebody to hold their place, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Sure. Yeah, this raises a question of, um,
Speaker 1: what do you consider, like what counts as strict adherents
Speaker 1: to queuing culture. Does it count as strict adherence to
Speaker 1: queuing culture if you're just doing it in the abstract
Speaker 1: meaning there's strong enforcement of an organized first and first
Speaker 1: out principle, or does it also entail physical ordering of
Speaker 1: your of your body in terms of the first and
Speaker 1: first out principle? You know what I mean? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: For example, another type of very ation on this one
Speaker 1: that sounds like it adheres to the first in, first
Speaker 1: outqueuing principle in the abstract of like how the waiting
Speaker 1: system functions but doesn't take the form of a single
Speaker 1: file line. Uh. This example is that. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: was reading about this in an article for the BBC
Speaker 1: by David Robson about how in Spain and in some
Speaker 1: Spanish speaking countries, a common alternative to physically standing in
Speaker 1: line is the kines ultimo principle, so that that you
Speaker 1: would go into say a cafe, where various people are
Speaker 1: waiting for service, and instead of standing in line, you
Speaker 1: ask kins ultimo, who is last, and then that person indicates, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm the last person in line, and so you know
Speaker 1: that that person is now the person who you go after,
Speaker 1: and they know the person ahead of them, and the
Speaker 1: person ahead of them knows the person ahead of them,
Speaker 1: and so everybody will still go in order, being just
Speaker 1: kind of hang out and wait for the person you
Speaker 1: know who is ahead of you to get their service
Speaker 1: and then you're next. So interesting to me and that
Speaker 1: it's still functionally a single file, first in, first out queue,
Speaker 1: but without the physical line, kind of like what you
Speaker 1: were describing people might do in Nigeria. Yeah, I will
Speaker 1: say from my own experience, I find it particularly confusing
Speaker 1: when you have two different queuing systems going on at
Speaker 1: the same time. I don't know if you've ever had
Speaker 1: this experience, Like if you you show up somewhere and
Speaker 1: there is some sort of there they're they're doing both
Speaker 1: pre arranged appointments and walk in at the same time.
Speaker 1: Because then it creates confusion. It's like, well, who is next?
Speaker 1: Is that the person who is scheduled for this time
Speaker 1: or the person who is ahead of me in the
Speaker 1: physical line? You know, it creates this ambiguity, uh that
Speaker 1: it does not seem good for the whole waiting experience. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny that you bring up ambiguity, because I wanted
Speaker 1: to get into the concept of the dangers of ambiguity
Speaker 1: with reference to cutting in line. So are you ready
Speaker 1: to talk about cutting in line? Rob Let's talk about cutting?
Speaker 1: So I started off by thinking about the question, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you actually do if somebody cuts in front
Speaker 1: of you in line? And in thinking about this, I
Speaker 1: was struck by how rarely that has actually happened in
Speaker 1: my life, Like, it is such a rare occurrence that
Speaker 1: I struggle to think of specific examples that that come
Speaker 1: to mind. I guess when it has happened, it hasn't
Speaker 1: registered as something immensely important to me, um but it.
Speaker 1: But it's also just so rare uh. And I think
Speaker 1: in my experience what it is is that it's very
Speaker 1: rare for someone to blatantly cut in front of me
Speaker 1: in a situation where the rules of the line are clear.
Speaker 1: I think the issue with perceived line cutting arises much
Speaker 1: more often in situations where there's some kind of ambiguity
Speaker 1: in the system of ordering access. And here's my example. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're at a restaurant and there's a long wait and
Speaker 1: so be uh. You and the person you're there with
Speaker 1: you decide you want to try to get a seat
Speaker 1: at the bar because the bar is first come, first serve.
Speaker 1: And you see there's another couple that's sitting at the
Speaker 1: bar and they're about to get up and leave, so
Speaker 1: you position yourself to grab their seats when when they
Speaker 1: get up and you're standing there waiting and waiting and waiting,
Speaker 1: and then finally they get up, but then somebody jumps
Speaker 1: in right in front of you and grabs the chairs.
Speaker 1: What do you do? Like this is difficult because the
Speaker 1: rules are ambiguous, Like you could go and try to
Speaker 1: protest and say, hey, actually we were already waiting on
Speaker 1: those seats and you just got here, but that person
Speaker 1: could say, well, I didn't see you, and I got
Speaker 1: the seats first and their first come, first serve, and
Speaker 1: and in a situation like this, there's no clear way
Speaker 1: of resolving it, like you can't appeal to a rule book.
Speaker 1: So usually what it just means is the seats go
Speaker 1: to whoever is more selfish, unreasonable and willing to make
Speaker 1: a scene. Yeah, this is true, and but I totally
Speaker 1: agree with you. Like the moments where I have seen
Speaker 1: something like line kind occurring, they tend to be situations
Speaker 1: where there is this ambiguity, like it line formation, Like
Speaker 1: to say, a bunch of people showing up to say, well,
Speaker 1: I think an example that that I think that I
Speaker 1: can easily draw on was going to a mass vaccination site,
Speaker 1: um where you had a really well maintained line system
Speaker 1: and queuing system. But what do you do when you
Speaker 1: haven't arrived at the queue yet? And uh, and what
Speaker 1: do you see when you you see other people going
Speaker 1: towards that spot? You know, I like, I know that
Speaker 1: I'm walking at a you know, click faster than a
Speaker 1: lot of people. I'm just gonna get there first. You know.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that I'm cutting in front of them likewise,
Speaker 1: but I could see where people might think that it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he's really making a bee line to get in line there.
Speaker 1: But we're talking about just starts with the crowd assembling
Speaker 1: and in forming the line right when it's not clear
Speaker 1: what the boundaries of the line are yet, Like is
Speaker 1: this the line now or does it only count as
Speaker 1: the line once we get over there? Right? Another case
Speaker 1: would be really long lines that they kind of break
Speaker 1: down at places, like maybe there's a period in the
Speaker 1: line where things move really fastly, really really swiftly, and
Speaker 1: not everybody's moving at the same speed. I've seen that
Speaker 1: create a situation well where some people just walk faster
Speaker 1: and they're going to be ahead. But is it cutting?
Speaker 1: Is it not it gets up kind of being this
Speaker 1: gray area, or it can be depending on how the
Speaker 1: queue is maintained. I think another big example of this
Speaker 1: kind of ambiguous space with with access to things comes
Speaker 1: with like parking spaces. Uh, you know somebody, somebody cuts
Speaker 1: in front of you to get a parking space that
Speaker 1: you're waiting to turn into, but you know you were
Speaker 1: blocked because the person was backing out of it or something,
Speaker 1: and and in those cases people can get really mad.
Speaker 1: But I guess you do have to admit, well, there's
Speaker 1: just like there's not an established rule book here, and
Speaker 1: especially if like a person didn't see you waiting, I
Speaker 1: don't know what can you do? Well, here's one okay,
Speaker 1: when someone is holding a place in line for someone else,
Speaker 1: I find I sometimes like to to to think, like, well,
Speaker 1: what is the cut off line for not offending somebody?
Speaker 1: Because I would offer be the case where like I'll
Speaker 1: hold a place in line while my wife and my
Speaker 1: son go and do something else, you know, because a
Speaker 1: little kid's not gonna want to stand in line, so
Speaker 1: maybe they'll go look at a fountain or something, and
Speaker 1: then they come back. And so people might think, oh,
Speaker 1: I just thought I had one person ahead of me.
Speaker 1: I thought one order of ice cream was ahead of
Speaker 1: even know, but it's three orders. So at what point
Speaker 1: does it become just too much like you have, say
Speaker 1: three family members come back, four, five, seven? Or is it?
Speaker 1: Or if it? What if it's clear that it's not
Speaker 1: family members but just friends, then does it become potentially irritating?
Speaker 1: Or what if it what if it appears to be
Speaker 1: people who who know each other but we did not
Speaker 1: arrive there together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Um So, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's obvious that a lot of conflict about
Speaker 1: line cutting arises in situations where there's a lack of
Speaker 1: clarity about the norms for organizing access or when there's
Speaker 1: a lack of clarity about how to handle exceptions. Um So,
Speaker 1: I mean this lee to me to believe that if
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you're designing some kind of system
Speaker 1: and you want people to have the most satisfaction with
Speaker 1: their line waiting process, I would say tend tend towards
Speaker 1: really clear rules for how the line works. Is people
Speaker 1: really do get get mad in these ambiguous situations when
Speaker 1: they don't go their way. But anyway, coming back to
Speaker 1: the idea of cutting, Okay, So all of these ambiguities aside.
Speaker 1: What if somebody just actually cut right in front of
Speaker 1: you in a normally organized line, just clear and blatantly,
Speaker 1: they just get in front of you. What would you do.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in your answer, But maybe first we should
Speaker 1: look at a look at a study about this and
Speaker 1: then come back to it. So the famous American psychologist
Speaker 1: Stanley Milgram, you know, he's best known for his controversial
Speaker 1: experiments in the nineteen sixties on the suspension of personal
Speaker 1: morality and obedience to authority. You know, his uh, his
Speaker 1: famous experiments where he would have experiment ers uh pretend
Speaker 1: to be receiving electric shocks from the test subject in
Speaker 1: response to like failed answers on a on a quiz
Speaker 1: or something, uh, and have an authoritative guy there in
Speaker 1: a lab code telling them to keep doing it even
Speaker 1: though the person complained that they were in pain and
Speaker 1: all that. Um. And so that that's his most famous
Speaker 1: work and most controversial. There are a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about what kind of conclusions people should actually draw from
Speaker 1: those studies and the ethics of them and so forth.
Speaker 1: But later in his career, in the nineteen eighties, Milgram
Speaker 1: actually carried out experiments to test people's reactions to line
Speaker 1: cutting scenarios, which seems somehow suitably perverse, sort of like
Speaker 1: in line with the previous experiments, right. Uh So these
Speaker 1: were published in UH in an article called Response to
Speaker 1: Intrusion into Waiting Lines in the Journal of Personality and
Speaker 1: Social Psychology in nineteen eighty six, and it was by Milgram,
Speaker 1: Hillary J. Liberty, Raymond Toledo, and Joyce Wackenhut and uh.
Speaker 1: In this article, they quote explored the relationship between the
Speaker 1: spatial can figuration of the queue, which is viewed as
Speaker 1: a social system susceptible to experimental analysis, and the means
Speaker 1: by which its integrity is defended. Confederates intruded themselves into
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty nine naturally occurring waiting lines, and
Speaker 1: the defensive reactions of the queers were noted. Wait, so
Speaker 1: he just he just sent people out to mess with
Speaker 1: folks waiting in line to cut in line. Yeah, he said, Well,
Speaker 1: there were multiple So sometimes there would be multiple confederates,
Speaker 1: there were different experimental set up. Sometimes some of the
Speaker 1: experimenters were actually in the line, sometimes they weren't. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they just have one cut in a line. I'll describe
Speaker 1: a few of the specifics here, but the general idea
Speaker 1: here is that Milgram sent out the experimenters into various
Speaker 1: natural queuing areas in New York, for example, lines in
Speaker 1: train stations, and I think also in betting parlors, which
Speaker 1: sounds especially um And then they would just have them
Speaker 1: cut right into the line. They would cut in after
Speaker 1: the third person in line and before the fourth without
Speaker 1: giving an excuse. I think sometimes they would just say, quote,
Speaker 1: excuse me, I would like to get in here. And
Speaker 1: people did not like this at all. They recorded all
Speaker 1: kinds of reactions. There were hostile glares, shouting telling people
Speaker 1: to get to the back. About ten percent of the time,
Speaker 1: other people in line physically reacted like pulling or shoving
Speaker 1: the violator out of the line. Uh, it's about one
Speaker 1: in ten cases. Uh. And yet also a substantial number
Speaker 1: of the line cutters got away with it. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the number on that was overall, but it
Speaker 1: was like it wasn't a tiny minority like it may
Speaker 1: have even been in a majority of cases the person
Speaker 1: cut in and just got to stay there. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like there's so many things to
Speaker 1: take into account if this were to happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: on one level, I have to think about with what
Speaker 1: confidence they're doing it right. And you know, since you
Speaker 1: have a system in place, then if someone is treating
Speaker 1: themselves like an exception, I feel like for my part
Speaker 1: of one of the things I might consider is, well,
Speaker 1: maybe they're supposed to cut in line, you know, like
Speaker 1: maybe they have a reason, maybe they work here and
Speaker 1: they need to just check with the teller real quick.
Speaker 1: Or perhaps they're and a thought like maybe they're undercover
Speaker 1: cop or something, and they're just like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is maybe not related to the rest of the clientele.
Speaker 1: This is really important. I want to come back to
Speaker 1: that in just a minute, because I think you're onto something.
Speaker 1: But then the other thing, and this is you know,
Speaker 1: brought up you brought up the physical um interaction, the
Speaker 1: idea of someone grabbing them and pulling them back like
Speaker 1: that's that feels like a huge step to take because
Speaker 1: you're you're laying hands on somebody, You're you're bringing its
Speaker 1: escalating to a level that could have dire consequences for
Speaker 1: for numerous people in the scenario. And so you know,
Speaker 1: if even if I realize that the person who just
Speaker 1: intentionally cut in line in front of me, you know,
Speaker 1: has no rightful excuse to do it. I would have
Speaker 1: to think, well, do I want to get involved with
Speaker 1: this any further, Like, it sucks that they cut in
Speaker 1: front of me, but it would suck more if I
Speaker 1: got into an argument or even a physical confrontation with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny how the norms go both ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say, do not ever just cut
Speaker 1: in line. That is unbelievably rude. But if somebody cuts
Speaker 1: in line in front of you, you do not need
Speaker 1: to escalate this to the level of violence. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't put your hands on them. You also don't
Speaker 1: need to call the cops. I mean you might if
Speaker 1: it's a really important situation, you might try to get
Speaker 1: the stores manager or whatever it is. But this is
Speaker 1: not a situation that merits escalation to a physical altercation. Plus,
Speaker 1: I'm not the kind of person who just breaks into
Speaker 1: conversation with strangers anyway. And if I do, I need
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea that this is going to be pleasant, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're wearing a T shirt with a band I like
Speaker 1: or a movie I like on it. This is a
Speaker 1: good sign that we have. We can have a pleasant
Speaker 1: interaction for a few seconds. But if if the whole
Speaker 1: relationship has been has started with them cutting in line
Speaker 1: in front of me and seeming to do so intentionally,
Speaker 1: then this, this relationship is going nowhere. Oh. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's another thing is you might assume that like if
Speaker 1: someone were too cut in front of you accidentally and
Speaker 1: you think, oh, this person might be totally reasonable if
Speaker 1: you just let them know, hey, actually the line starts
Speaker 1: back there. That would be a different thing than somebody
Speaker 1: blatantly just jumping in in front of the fourth person
Speaker 1: in line and saying I need to get in here.
Speaker 1: At that point, I think, okay, this person there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with them. This person is very unreasonable, and you
Speaker 1: probably just don't want to get into it with them.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, if they seem to have
Speaker 1: done it accidentally, they are a couple of ways that
Speaker 1: could play too, because it might be well, maybe this
Speaker 1: person is I don't know, less aware of their surroundings.
Speaker 1: There could be some underlying circumstance, or they're just having
Speaker 1: an extremely distracting day, uh you know who knows. And
Speaker 1: then and then also I mean, maybe maybe they need
Speaker 1: this win maybe they I don't want to be the
Speaker 1: person to to break it to them that actually the
Speaker 1: line starts back there, because now we're having a negative interaction, right,
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people in the scenario
Speaker 1: actually behaved just like we're talking about. Like, like I said,
Speaker 1: a lot of people gave sort of hostile looks, but
Speaker 1: ultimately didn't do anything, like didn't try to shout at
Speaker 1: the person or remove them from the line physically. Part
Speaker 1: of it also may come down to the bystander effect.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing where there are multiple people behind you, somebody
Speaker 1: needs to to boo this man for cutting, But I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be the one to boo him. Surely
Speaker 1: one of these people behind me will be the booer.
Speaker 1: So one of the findings of this experiment was that people,
Speaker 1: due to some extent, look to other people in line
Speaker 1: for queues as to whether and how the rules of
Speaker 1: the line should be enforced. That was discovered by they
Speaker 1: found that if they put experiment ers in the line,
Speaker 1: So now the actors in this experiment or not just
Speaker 1: the line cutter, but also some other people who have
Speaker 1: just been following the rules and waiting in line ahead
Speaker 1: of time. Uh, and they have, those people do nothing
Speaker 1: in response to an intrusion in the line. Other line
Speaker 1: standards are more likely to just let the cutter skate
Speaker 1: by and do nothing. Also that so that they were
Speaker 1: showing to some extent, if there are other people around
Speaker 1: and they don't react, you're less likely to react. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that necessarily counts as exactly the bystander effect.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's clearly I think there's some overlap with
Speaker 1: the bystander effect, but that people don't always know intuitively
Speaker 1: or don't trust their own instincts about how norms should
Speaker 1: be enforced. And so when you see somebody do something
Speaker 1: that looks like a violation of norms, probably the first
Speaker 1: thing you do is look around and see how other
Speaker 1: people are reacting, Like are they starting to yell at
Speaker 1: this guy? And if they do, then you might join in,
Speaker 1: But if not, you might just assume like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, I don't know what's going on. Well,
Speaker 1: we're talking about like public outreach and public campaigns, So
Speaker 1: you can imagine one that is, you know, like mine
Speaker 1: the gap, you know, wait in line and honor the
Speaker 1: cue or whatever it happens to be. But unless you
Speaker 1: have a specific bit of propaganda that's saying like if
Speaker 1: you see somebody cutting in line, boo that man ruin
Speaker 1: in a chorus of booze, and you know, and unless
Speaker 1: there's some sort of messaging like that, you just don't
Speaker 1: know how to respond, right, So clearly, clearly we have
Speaker 1: a strong inclination to take our cues from other people
Speaker 1: in a in an informal uh system of social norms,
Speaker 1: like a self organized line. But then there's some other
Speaker 1: things they found too in the Milgram experiment. Perhaps no
Speaker 1: surprise here, but people behind the point of intrusion were
Speaker 1: much more likely to put up some kind of resistance
Speaker 1: than people ahead of the point of intrusion. So clearly
Speaker 1: there is some element of self interest at work. The
Speaker 1: people ahead of the intrusion were more likely to you know,
Speaker 1: just feeling maybe that's maybe none of my business. Also,
Speaker 1: perhaps not surprising, resistance was greater when there were two
Speaker 1: line cutters than when there was one. So if two
Speaker 1: people are kitten in there after the third person, you're
Speaker 1: really more likely to get people yelling at you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know what you're talking about two people that
Speaker 1: are together or two people just independently. Actually, I don't
Speaker 1: know what all the permutations they did on on that
Speaker 1: part where I mean, I think what it was was
Speaker 1: the two were entering the line at the same time. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean I could see it would I could see
Speaker 1: where I would escalate things either way because either these
Speaker 1: two people were cutting in front of front of me
Speaker 1: and they're together and they're like working together to corrupt
Speaker 1: the line system, or if it's just two random people,
Speaker 1: it's like, what are we doing here? We suddenly there's
Speaker 1: just there's just people showing up and just jumping in line,
Speaker 1: cats and dogs, you know. Yeah, um, I want to
Speaker 1: read another thing from their findings, Milgram at all right.
Speaker 1: Quote results suggested that the underlying structure of the queue
Speaker 1: is composed of replicated segments, and the defense of the
Speaker 1: queue is local rather than systemic. And I like that
Speaker 1: because they essentially found that, you know, sort of parts
Speaker 1: of the line each have their own local militia to
Speaker 1: defend that part of the line. You may be less
Speaker 1: concerned about violations to the order of the line that
Speaker 1: happened farther away from where you are in it. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're the back of the line and it's a
Speaker 1: fairly long line, you really don't have much for room
Speaker 1: complain about people cutting at the very front. Perhaps no, maybe,
Speaker 1: Now there's a follow up in nine by Schmidt at All.
Speaker 1: It was a paper called Intrusions into Waiting Lines? Does
Speaker 1: the Q constitute a social system? This was also in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ninety two by
Speaker 1: Burned H. Schmidt, Laurette Dubai, and uh France la Clerk,
Speaker 1: and they tested quote whether a waiting line should be
Speaker 1: viewed as a social system with norms, roles, and obligations
Speaker 1: for cures, or whether behavior in a queue can be
Speaker 1: explained solely by individuals personal interest and cost versus benefit calculations.
Speaker 1: So does that question make sense? Is a line just
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who are each trying to get
Speaker 1: as little waiting time for themselves as possible, or is
Speaker 1: it more like a society that has some like understood
Speaker 1: rules that people will try to enforce. However, however it
Speaker 1: affects their own personal waiting time. Yeah, that that that
Speaker 1: makes sense. And what the authors here found is they said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really looks like like lines are more like social
Speaker 1: systems with norms and rules, more like a sort of
Speaker 1: mini society than just a you know, a pure like
Speaker 1: efficiency maximizing game where people are trying to get out
Speaker 1: on their own as fast as possible. And one example
Speaker 1: they gave of this is that people in line will
Speaker 1: will quite significantly make a distinction between a quote legitimate
Speaker 1: intrusion into the order of the line and an illegitimate one,
Speaker 1: even if the weight is the same length. So if
Speaker 1: you have somebody coming in who gives some explanation, that's like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're a service provider and they have to
Speaker 1: get in in front of you in line to do
Speaker 1: something here in the line. People understand these exceptions and
Speaker 1: incorporate them just fine, even if it means waiting an
Speaker 1: additional amount, uh the same amount that they would wait
Speaker 1: if somebody made some kind of illegitimate intrusion into the
Speaker 1: order of the line. So people are like understanding reasons
Speaker 1: for things, and they're acting out norms based on those
Speaker 1: reasons rather than just trying to get out as fast
Speaker 1: as they can no matter what. How is this not
Speaker 1: like a nineteen eighties Stephen King short story, because I
Speaker 1: can think of multiple works that he did, where be
Speaker 1: it like The Mist or The Dome where you have
Speaker 1: a system where people are put into a certain situation,
Speaker 1: and then like a social order, he emerges out of
Speaker 1: the that predicament. I could see an entire at least
Speaker 1: a short story, really bad one though usually it's a
Speaker 1: bad one. But but yeah, just waiting in line, especially
Speaker 1: if you there's some mystery as to what you're waiting
Speaker 1: in line for. And that's that's perfect stuff for for
Speaker 1: some sort of especially in nineteen eighties theres Kings short
Speaker 1: story You can't have a healthy line without a Mrs
Speaker 1: Carmody inciting the line against cure number four. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: but oh another thing that I thought was interesting, So
Speaker 1: as to the rules that people play within a line.
Speaker 1: You might think, okay, a line is homogeneous. Everybody in
Speaker 1: the line is basically waiting, you know, they're all doing
Speaker 1: the same thing, but they're actually In this study, they
Speaker 1: found there seems to be an implicit special role for
Speaker 1: the person directly following the intruder in dictating the overall
Speaker 1: response of people in line. Quote, the cure right behind
Speaker 1: the intrusion point has a special obligation to respond to
Speaker 1: the intrusion. Is this ring true to you? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I guess. So it kind of comes down to
Speaker 1: the individual versus the group, Like if the individual is
Speaker 1: not offended, then it's then perhaps the group has less
Speaker 1: room to be offended. Maybe, I mean I would think
Speaker 1: that Again, it probably comes down to people looking for cues.
Speaker 1: People don't know how to react to something, and they're
Speaker 1: looking for cueues to get from other people. And it
Speaker 1: seems like the most natural place they would look for
Speaker 1: that queue is what is the person right behind the
Speaker 1: intrusion doing, and that that person would have a lot
Speaker 1: of influence socially over your idea of what the correct
Speaker 1: kind of response is. Yeah, I mean also depending in
Speaker 1: the queuing culture, perhaps that person who just joined the line,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they were taking a bathroom break or something,
Speaker 1: or maybe you know, they were they were holding a
Speaker 1: spot for them, or maybe there were shoes on the
Speaker 1: ground and I just didn't notice it, you know anything.
Speaker 1: These things could be Uh, it could be part of
Speaker 1: the equation. Yeah, I think that makes sense too, because
Speaker 1: you might assume that the person right there in the
Speaker 1: line has some kind of information that you don't. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: maybe they're together. Maybe maybe maybe it's two people that
Speaker 1: are going to see the movie together and one just
Speaker 1: had to go buy some popcorn. Or something. How offended
Speaker 1: can I be that now they're there are two people
Speaker 1: where there was one before. But this does bring me
Speaker 1: back to the question of what counts as a legitimate
Speaker 1: excuse in cutting in line? Right, Like, if so you're
Speaker 1: waiting in line of the grocery store or you know whatever,
Speaker 1: a service point. You know, you're trying to check out
Speaker 1: at a store, and somebody comes up to you and says, hey,
Speaker 1: can I get in front of you in line? Because
Speaker 1: and you know, they say something, what kinds of excuse
Speaker 1: is are legitimate to you? And would make you say
Speaker 1: like yeah, okay, And what are the other mitigating circumstances
Speaker 1: that would affect that well? I I think of lines
Speaker 1: that have formed to use a toilet as being a
Speaker 1: great example of this, because there there's a biological um
Speaker 1: factor here that cannot be ignored, and you're going to
Speaker 1: have room for age also to play into it. So
Speaker 1: if it's like a young child that's doing the PP dance,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna nobody wants to be responsible for
Speaker 1: a child paying their pants, So you would say, yes,
Speaker 1: please go go ahead of me, take both of you,
Speaker 1: take this child ahead of me, and go use the facilities,
Speaker 1: or if somebody were to explain it to themselves to
Speaker 1: to to you and be like, hey, I am about
Speaker 1: to just have a terrible incident occur. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: spare us both this if you just let me in
Speaker 1: front of you, then you would be like, yes, by
Speaker 1: all means, I am not having an emergency. If you're
Speaker 1: having an emergency, you should definitely go ahead of me. Yes.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I was just thinking about how my
Speaker 1: reaction to somebody asking to get in front of me
Speaker 1: on line in line might actually have more to do
Speaker 1: with what's going on with me than what's going on
Speaker 1: with them. Like I, I would tend to think I
Speaker 1: would be happy to let people in front of me
Speaker 1: for something basically, no matter what their excuses in most cases,
Speaker 1: if I'm not in some kind of dire situation myself.
Speaker 1: But if I'm in some kind of dire situation where
Speaker 1: like I've got to get out of here right now,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got to get this done, and that
Speaker 1: that would be the thing that would make me reject them,
Speaker 1: not the question of what their actual excuses, because in
Speaker 1: most cases, if I'm checking out at a store or something,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, if fine, I don't care. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: more I think about it, though, I think that something
Speaker 1: like explosive diarrhea is always an excuse to get to
Speaker 1: the front of the line. I'm having trouble coming up
Speaker 1: with a single case where someone would say, excuse me,
Speaker 1: can I cut in front of you? I'm about to
Speaker 1: have explosive diarrhea a case where I would say, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. But if it's like a mine for the
Speaker 1: hot dog stand, well then they need to they need
Speaker 1: to pick up lunch. But then they need to go
Speaker 1: somewhere else. Yeah, okay, But I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: in some cases I might be like, look, i'll talk
Speaker 1: to the line, Um, you go use the bathroom. We
Speaker 1: will find a space for you. Um when you get back.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I guess that's a situation
Speaker 1: where the social order of the line has to provide
Speaker 1: thank thank you, thank you. So concerning the idea of
Speaker 1: a legitimate excuse for line cutting, I wanted to refer
Speaker 1: to a classic study in the social psychology of queuing.
Speaker 1: This widely cited and pretty interesting. Uh this one this
Speaker 1: time is from the Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer. It was
Speaker 1: actually by Langer, Blank and Channawitz, published in nineteen eight
Speaker 1: called the Mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action the Role of
Speaker 1: placebic information and Interpersonal Interaction. Again, this was in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. And I found a
Speaker 1: good summary of of this whole study in another paper
Speaker 1: by A. Kleinberg at All in two thousand eighteen, and
Speaker 1: so this is the Kleinberg at All summary of the
Speaker 1: study here. Langer at All in nineteen seventy eight asked
Speaker 1: subjects in their study to make some copies. Just as
Speaker 1: they were about to do so, a confederate asked to
Speaker 1: jump in front of them. In some cases, the confederate
Speaker 1: gave no reason at all, quote excuse me, I have
Speaker 1: five pages? May I use the xerox machine? In others,
Speaker 1: a reason was given, quote excuse me, I have five pages.
Speaker 1: May I use the xerox machine because I'm in a rush.
Speaker 1: The third condition had the veneer of a reason, but
Speaker 1: it actually had no informational content. Quote excuse me, I
Speaker 1: have five pages. May I use the xerox machine because
Speaker 1: I have to make copies. People complied at similar rates
Speaker 1: to both the actual reason and the pseudo reason percent
Speaker 1: and ninety three percent, respectively. For six with no reason.
Speaker 1: What explains this finding? People see a situation they have
Speaker 1: seen before and their automatic response kicks in to avoid
Speaker 1: the effort of processing the rest of this setting. Consistent
Speaker 1: with this view, when the costs of complying go up
Speaker 1: when the Confederate wants to copy twenty pages, not just five,
Speaker 1: compliance to the pseudo reason is similar to what it
Speaker 1: is in the no reason condition. Um So, I thought
Speaker 1: this was really funny when I first read it, that
Speaker 1: that people are just as likely. I mean, it's equal
Speaker 1: numbers to let you cut in front of them as
Speaker 1: long as you say because something, even if the because
Speaker 1: statement is utterly inane, I may I use the xerox
Speaker 1: machine because I have to make copies, right, unless you
Speaker 1: have a stronger because yeah, then we know, what's the point,
Speaker 1: You're just gonna be like, oh okay, yeah, you have
Speaker 1: an exception you should go first. So I guess this
Speaker 1: is this one is actually a little bit less about
Speaker 1: queuing and more about how we uh whether and how
Speaker 1: we incorporate information in making decisions at the spur of
Speaker 1: the moment. But I like how when you think about this,
Speaker 1: this could I think be applied to other scenarios. Where
Speaker 1: where people have some excuse they want to get ahead,
Speaker 1: and as long as they appear to have an excuse,
Speaker 1: even if it's not really an excuse at all, you'd
Speaker 1: just be like, yeah, okay, what I don't care, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think something. I was thinking about this. Thinking about
Speaker 1: it in relation to traffic, It's kind of like if
Speaker 1: you're in the fast lane and you were going let's
Speaker 1: say you're already going five to ten miles over the
Speaker 1: speed limit anyway, Okay, you're pretty going, going pretty fast,
Speaker 1: you qualify as fast, but then somebody comes up behind
Speaker 1: you and they're going really fast. Now, sometimes this will
Speaker 1: um inflate the ego a bit, and you may think
Speaker 1: I am already going fast enough. I will not get
Speaker 1: into the slow lane because then I will be stuck
Speaker 1: behind the tractor trailer rig for the next mile or two. No,
Speaker 1: I am staying here. And you may ride behind me
Speaker 1: and um and ride you know, dangerously close to my
Speaker 1: bumper and uh occasionally flash your lights, but I will
Speaker 1: not move. Uh. That's one way to go about it.
Speaker 1: But then for my part, and sometimes my mind entertains
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But other times I'll read more
Speaker 1: reasonably think this person is driving maybe a little dangerously,
Speaker 1: and I would rather that person be in front of
Speaker 1: me than behind me, and I should just let them go,
Speaker 1: even if it is going to inconvenience me a little bit.
Speaker 1: When I'm stuck behind a tractor trailer rig and I
Speaker 1: kind of feel like that would be the case with
Speaker 1: somebody who really wanted to get in front of me
Speaker 1: at say the Xerox machine. Do I really want that
Speaker 1: person behind me looking over my shoulder, like waiting on me,
Speaker 1: like that's gonna especially if I don't really know how
Speaker 1: to use the machine and go. I want to I
Speaker 1: want to have a calmer experience with a Xerox machine. Right.
Speaker 1: The awkwardness of having this person looking over your shoulder
Speaker 1: and and trying to get out behind you maybe like
Speaker 1: factored in at a higher cost in your brain than
Speaker 1: the time cost of just letting them go. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's just five copies, So what's the harm? Right now?
Speaker 1: All of this this is partially because I just watched this,
Speaker 1: and I think you just watched this as well, But
Speaker 1: the the the excellent sketch comedy series. You should leave
Speaker 1: with Tim Robinson. I think you should leave. I think
Speaker 1: you should leave. Yes, I think you should leave with
Speaker 1: Tim Robinson. Um. So many of those sketches are situations
Speaker 1: where there's some sort of like a weird, awkward social
Speaker 1: interaction and one side or the other is vastly overreacting
Speaker 1: to what's occurring. And I feel like you could you
Speaker 1: could basically adapt this Xerox machine sketch uh without even
Speaker 1: altering it much into a very entertaining Tim Robinson sketch
Speaker 1: because I have to make copies. Yeah, I didn't think
Speaker 1: about this, but so many of the Tim Robinson sketches
Speaker 1: are about situations where there's some kind of ambiguity in
Speaker 1: the rules and someone exploits that ambiguity to a ludicrous
Speaker 1: degree and then has a monstress overreaction to people's reaction
Speaker 1: to their exploitation. Uh, Like the nachos scene from the
Speaker 1: first season where she has did you come over here?
Speaker 1: And and to tell him to ask me not to
Speaker 1: eat the fully loaded nachos and he's just saying as yeah.
Speaker 1: Or there's a there's a second season sketch where the
Speaker 1: professor that the three four students are having dinner with uh,
Speaker 1: he wants to eat what the other person ordered. So
Speaker 1: you know, there's this whole this pushing of the boundaries,
Speaker 1: like it's joking. Yeah, I'm just joking. And then ultimately
Speaker 1: can I have a bite of that? And he has
Speaker 1: a bite it, and then he's like, I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: I'm gonna eat. I'm just joking. Though he eats it,
Speaker 1: but he was just joking. Oh that's good stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: I will advise you know, the Tim Robinson Um comedy series,
Speaker 1: I think you should leave. It is not for for everyone,
Speaker 1: it is not for all ages, and it is sketch
Speaker 1: comedy in general, I guess is you can be wildly uneven. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I definitely find that show to be wildly uneven. Um.
Speaker 1: It's like some sketches are are ingenious in their stupidity,
Speaker 1: and some I just I feel like I just to
Speaker 1: just totally blow past me and I don't understand what
Speaker 1: the point was. Um, But you know, again, that's part
Speaker 1: of sketch. I think in the first season some sketches
Speaker 1: that just totally blew past me the first time really
Speaker 1: grew on me in subsequent viewings. That's yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of a masterpiece of well. Yeah, sometimes like
Speaker 1: the non like something that's really nonsensical if it's repeated enough,
Speaker 1: it takes on an order and since uh and so
Speaker 1: there are certainly examples of that in the show where yeah,
Speaker 1: you tell one bad joke or or one weird but
Speaker 1: maybe not particularly funny joke, Well, okay, then nobody laughs.
Speaker 1: But if you keep doing it, if you just keep
Speaker 1: doing it, and you just ramp up the intensity, then
Speaker 1: you can get somewhere and uh and it can work brilliantly.
Speaker 1: It's definitely one of the greatest original to Netflix things
Speaker 1: up there. The Dark Crystal. For me, I'm sad we're
Speaker 1: never going to get more of but glad we got
Speaker 1: there and there might be more of it. Um. Oh really,
Speaker 1: I thought that they had said that there was going
Speaker 1: to be no more. Well, there's not gonna be any
Speaker 1: more of it on Netflix, but I think that the
Speaker 1: Giminson Company has has has or is looking into ways
Speaker 1: to continue the story. So who knows what will that be? Wonderful?
Speaker 1: I believe I have not been, but I believe the
Speaker 1: Atlanta's own Center for Puptry Arts currently has an exhibit,
Speaker 1: an updated Dark Crystal exhibit using pieces from the TV series.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'm gonna check that out. I'd seen their
Speaker 1: other Dark Crystal exhibit, which was which is great. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a part two of that nice
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we've we've we've drifted away from the
Speaker 1: topic at hand here, but we're going to return to
Speaker 1: the line in a third episode. We have more stuff
Speaker 1: to talk about, uh, not only waiting in line, but
Speaker 1: just sort of waiting in general, like how does it,
Speaker 1: how does it affect us? How does it affect our
Speaker 1: moods and our perception of time. We're gonna get into
Speaker 1: that and more in the next step episode of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. In the meantime, would of course
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there, and we've been
Speaker 1: hearing some great stuff from folks about waiting in line.
Speaker 1: So keep it coming. And if you want to listen
Speaker 1: to our show, you can find core episodes on Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast
Speaker 1: feed artifacts usually come out on Wednesday's Listener Mail on
Speaker 1: Monday's Weird House Cineam on Friday, that's our time to
Speaker 1: set aside most of the science and just talk about
Speaker 1: a weird film, and then we have a rerun on
Speaker 1: the weekend. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just
Speaker 1: to say hello, you can email us at contact at
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: The point four point four