Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey, they're welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast
Speaker 1: that looks at the future and says they're terribly, terribly,
Speaker 1: terribly moody of human behavior. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and today we are embarking on part two
Speaker 1: of a two part podcast. So if you have not
Speaker 1: heard Part one, the one that came out just previous
Speaker 1: to this one, you should probably go back and listen
Speaker 1: to that first, because that was part one of our
Speaker 1: podcast about mind control, right, and that one we really
Speaker 1: focused on propaganda and the way of presenting information, not
Speaker 1: just propaganda but also advertising, and how the presentation of
Speaker 1: information can help at least nudge behavior in the way
Speaker 1: that you might want it to go. Absolutely, although in
Speaker 1: the past all of that was done via traditional media
Speaker 1: as we would call it today, Uh, print and cartoons
Speaker 1: and movies and television stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: so it was it was true done by traditional media.
Speaker 1: It was also done i think a lot of times
Speaker 1: with a kind of more intuitive methodology, though you certainly
Speaker 1: had people like Edward Burnet's who we talked about in
Speaker 1: the last episode, who applied some kind of scientific ways
Speaker 1: of studying how to change people's minds on mass But
Speaker 1: today we want to talk about a more more modern,
Speaker 1: scientific technological approach to the ways different people are looking
Speaker 1: at changing human thought and behavior and whether that's ever
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, whether and to what extent
Speaker 1: it's possible to do. So, Yeah, what's going on today
Speaker 1: in the world of changing how people think and behave.
Speaker 1: And you know, there are a lot of different reasons
Speaker 1: you might want to to do this right, There might
Speaker 1: be reasons to try and you're trying to find the
Speaker 1: best way, to say, design a community so that people
Speaker 1: are generally happy there. It doesn't necessarily have to be
Speaker 1: anything kind of sinister going on, although that also is
Speaker 1: something we always have to keep in mind because you're
Speaker 1: talking about manipulating human behavior. And also it could easily
Speaker 1: be something that we seek out for ourselves, something that
Speaker 1: we want to change one of the behaviors we have,
Speaker 1: either enhance something that we already do or stop doing
Speaker 1: something that we don't want to do anymore. Uh, And
Speaker 1: then you wouldn't argue that it was sinister. It might
Speaker 1: be seen under the umbrella of self improvement, but those
Speaker 1: same principles might be applied to a more broad audience
Speaker 1: than just a one on one kind of thing. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a million different ways we try
Speaker 1: to influence the ways other people think and behave, and
Speaker 1: not all of them are bad, certainly, I mean you
Speaker 1: have advertiser and propagandas people trying to support their own
Speaker 1: interests by working on your brain. But then there's also,
Speaker 1: like I mean, just think about every relationship you have
Speaker 1: with people that you love and care about. You do
Speaker 1: in those relationships do some work trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that those people keep liking you well. Sure, even you know,
Speaker 1: displayed behaviors that are important to you, like uh, not
Speaker 1: hooking themselves on meth, or like actually doing the dishes
Speaker 1: or taking you out to dinner. Those are the three
Speaker 1: things that I look for in all of my relationships. Dinner,
Speaker 1: no meth. And I was gonna see, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say that at our at our old office location, I
Speaker 1: would occasionally walk across the street and purchase a dozen
Speaker 1: or so miniature cupcakes and then distributing about the office.
Speaker 1: Whenever I felt that public opinion of Jonathan Strickland was
Speaker 1: falling below the necessary threshold of a crude form of mind.
Speaker 1: If that was delicious propaganda problematic. Now that we have
Speaker 1: moved our office and we're no longer close to Highland
Speaker 1: Bakery grocery right across the grocery, it's on a bakery.
Speaker 1: They have to bakery in the grocery anyway. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so today I think we wanted to look at some
Speaker 1: of the modern methods. One of the first things that
Speaker 1: came up. I had never heard of this before we
Speaker 1: started doing research for this episode. But it's a concept
Speaker 1: known as persuasive technology. And that's the concept of using technology,
Speaker 1: be it be it traditional media or the internets or gadgets,
Speaker 1: or user experience within applications. Uh, and all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff too. And I quote here change users
Speaker 1: attitudes or behaviors through persuasion and social influence, but not
Speaker 1: through corrosion or deception. That is a quote from a
Speaker 1: call for papers from conference on Persuasive Technologies. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it's not trying to deceive you or or bully you
Speaker 1: or something like that, but methetically, but it is trying
Speaker 1: to use these methods to affect the way your brain works,
Speaker 1: change your habits or your opinions or your emotion and
Speaker 1: the study of computers specifically as persuasive technology was basically
Speaker 1: pioneered by one B. J. Fogg, And I love that
Speaker 1: Fogg is the last name of a dude who's clarifying
Speaker 1: things for all of us. So sure, sure, uh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's completely scientifically accurate. Yeah, it is Fog with two cheese,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying. Um. He in fact coined a
Speaker 1: term for the study of computers as persuasive technology, which
Speaker 1: is captology, and founded a persuasive Tech lab at Stanford
Speaker 1: way back and from the website of that lab, and
Speaker 1: this sounds like it could have come from one of
Speaker 1: the science fiction novels we talked about in our first
Speaker 1: episode on this subject. Uh that it says the best
Speaker 1: design solutions today change human behavior. Yet despite decades of research,
Speaker 1: challenges remain for people who designed to influence. And first
Speaker 1: persuasion seems a dirty word. It shouldn't be. We should
Speaker 1: now embrace that we're in the business of behavior change.
Speaker 1: Next problem, conceptual confusion. The landscape of persuasion can be disorienting,
Speaker 1: muddied by impractical theories and over hyped techniques. Are new
Speaker 1: work provides a clear view of behavior change, including language
Speaker 1: that is simple yet accurate. So uh again, like the
Speaker 1: messaging here seems like that kind of like you could
Speaker 1: easily apply kind of a sinister undertone, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not, because the word persuasion definitely has, you know,
Speaker 1: its own baggage that that we associate with that word.
Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, we're all trying to persuade in
Speaker 1: various ways all the time. Now I went ahead and
Speaker 1: search through this website and played around with stuff, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I think that the approach is kind of cool. They've
Speaker 1: identified sort of a streamlined way of identifying behaviors that
Speaker 1: either you want to encourage or discourage, and how to
Speaker 1: go about doing that, whether it is something you are
Speaker 1: trying to do on a personal goal level, like you know,
Speaker 1: the example they use often is exercise more, or if
Speaker 1: it's something that you want to do. When you are
Speaker 1: designing a product and you want people to use the
Speaker 1: product and to gain satisfaction from that product, you want
Speaker 1: to make sure you've designed it and marketed it properly
Speaker 1: so that people when they purchase it are happy with
Speaker 1: that because word of mouth is going to get you
Speaker 1: more sales, and also just generally like, if you have
Speaker 1: a goal that your product is supposed to do a thing,
Speaker 1: here are the steps you need to make sure you
Speaker 1: follow in order for it to actually do that thing.
Speaker 1: So I think in the terms of something like the
Speaker 1: we uh game console, that was one of those things
Speaker 1: that that took off really quickly, and I think part
Speaker 1: of it was that Nintendo had done such a great
Speaker 1: job of presenting it as an alternative to the consoles
Speaker 1: that were putting in a lot of uh focus on
Speaker 1: high end graphics and high and uh uh you know
Speaker 1: processing power. Yeah, those things were seen as sort of
Speaker 1: like the Hot Rods for gamers, whereas the WE became
Speaker 1: something for your family. Yeah, that was exactly how they
Speaker 1: positioned themselves, and it worked. Like Gangbusters. You couldn't find
Speaker 1: a WEE for the longest time. Now you could look
Speaker 1: at Nintendo and say, well, the WE eventually fell out
Speaker 1: a favor, but I would argue that was not because
Speaker 1: the way they positioned themselves, but rather that there was
Speaker 1: a lack of uh supportive games there that people wanted
Speaker 1: to continue playing, and that ultimately there weren't enough people
Speaker 1: who were leveraging the control system for the Wii from
Speaker 1: a developer standpoint, probably because it's pretty difficult to develop
Speaker 1: for that kind of thing. Uh. And that was the downfall,
Speaker 1: not the initial positioning, which worked great at any rate.
Speaker 1: The Persuasive Technologies Lab had created a roadmap called the
Speaker 1: Behavior Wizard. Yeah. I think of it kind of like
Speaker 1: those Microsoft wizards, Like I see here making a document. Uh,
Speaker 1: clipping would pop up, but don't know, it's not nearly No,
Speaker 1: clippy does not pop up. Wouldn't it be great if
Speaker 1: you had a clippy for your brain? Though? Look, I
Speaker 1: already hate myself enough, dude, like like a cortex like Cordy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I see that you're trying to change your behaviors. I
Speaker 1: think I would just I would just have a reptile
Speaker 1: brain pop up and say, um, at any rate, yes,
Speaker 1: it would definitely be up there. So here's how b J.
Speaker 1: Fogg says this persuasive technology, the captology, can be effective.
Speaker 1: How it actually works. Um. First, he says that you
Speaker 1: have to keep three things really in mind whenever you
Speaker 1: are trying to change behaviors. And the first is something
Speaker 1: I touched on in our previous episode. That simplicity is
Speaker 1: important when you design systems meant to change behavior because
Speaker 1: human beings are in general lazy. So you've got to
Speaker 1: make it easy to do if you if you don't
Speaker 1: make it, if it takes effort to do, the more
Speaker 1: effort it takes, the us likely that behavior is going
Speaker 1: to change. And this isn't like an insult to us.
Speaker 1: I mean, another way to phrase human beings are lazy
Speaker 1: would be to say you don't want to waste your time. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: like if you say, the harder something is, the more
Speaker 1: you have to invest in order to really change that behavior.
Speaker 1: So the goal is make it as easy as possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the easier you make it, the more likely change
Speaker 1: will actually happen. So that's another way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: But but they summoned up by saying you guys are lazy.
Speaker 1: The second thing to keep in mind is that you
Speaker 1: should employ triggers, which are prompts or cues or calls
Speaker 1: to action, that kind of thing. And Dr Fogg's behavior
Speaker 1: model identifies three types of triggers. You have facilitators, sparks,
Speaker 1: and signals, and the difference between the types fall. You
Speaker 1: are great, right, they fall. The differences fall on their
Speaker 1: scale of motivation. Versus ability. So motivation is the will
Speaker 1: to do something and ability is the skill to do
Speaker 1: that thing. Uh. And he also points out that daily
Speaker 1: habits are the most powerful of all behaviors and only
Speaker 1: by understanding those can you ever hope to change them
Speaker 1: because it requires a long term approach to behavioral change
Speaker 1: and a lot of different approaches to to get to
Speaker 1: to alter long term behaviors don't take that into account.
Speaker 1: So an example of this might be you want to
Speaker 1: stop smoking, and a lot of approaches may have it
Speaker 1: be kind of a uh, quit and you're done sort
Speaker 1: of thing, but that means you end up very often
Speaker 1: going back to that habit after some given amount of time,
Speaker 1: and that you really have to invest in this long
Speaker 1: term view if you want to change a daily habit. Okay,
Speaker 1: where does Clippy come in? Clippy does not come in
Speaker 1: at all. You spoke of the behavior wizards, yes, but
Speaker 1: Clippy is not a part of the behavior Wizard. Clippy
Speaker 1: is probably a great way of convincing you not to
Speaker 1: use that version of Microsoft Office. So that was the
Speaker 1: intended purpose then success, right, So the the behavior Wizard
Speaker 1: itself is map that guides you into ways to change behaviors.
Speaker 1: And I actually went ahead and walk through this once
Speaker 1: just to see how it would work out. And I
Speaker 1: used to an example of exercise for myself. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it gives you a very simple choice at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: which is do you want to stop or decrease a
Speaker 1: particular behavior or do you want to start or increase
Speaker 1: a behavior? And I said I wanted to start or
Speaker 1: increase because I want to exercise more and more frequently.
Speaker 1: So after choosing start, I'm given three options, which is
Speaker 1: to restart a familiar behavior, so something I used to
Speaker 1: do but no longer, do start a brand new behavior,
Speaker 1: or increase in existing behavior. So I'm already walking to work, uh,
Speaker 1: to and from work, that's about six miles every day,
Speaker 1: and I say I want to increase this behavior because
Speaker 1: while walking is good, I'm not really doing any other exercise. Uh. Next,
Speaker 1: it's asking me to define a time frame of how
Speaker 1: long I want this behavior to go on. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not I don't actually have to say what the behavior
Speaker 1: is at any point. By the way, you can just
Speaker 1: keep that in your mind whatever it may be. So
Speaker 1: in this case, I'm asked to define it as either
Speaker 1: a one time thing, so I need to do this
Speaker 1: the one and only time and then I'm done, or
Speaker 1: for a period of time, like you know, a certain
Speaker 1: set of months or years or whatever, working up to
Speaker 1: your wedding or swimsuit season or something right right where
Speaker 1: there is a definitive endpoint, or just from now on.
Speaker 1: Now I want to do from now on because I
Speaker 1: want to have a healthy lifestyle until I'm no longer living.
Speaker 1: So I was why I would choose that one. After
Speaker 1: you're no longer living, it's going to be freedo's and
Speaker 1: pig skins forever. I guess technically I could have said
Speaker 1: for a period of time, that time being when I'm
Speaker 1: no longer breathing, but you know whatever for now on.
Speaker 1: So next, that gives me a pathway to follow, and
Speaker 1: they color code their pathways. It put me on the
Speaker 1: purple path because I wish to create a long term
Speaker 1: increase in an existing behavior. So the other pathways included
Speaker 1: green which is to do a new behavior, Blue to
Speaker 1: do a familiar behavior that you have stopped doing, Gray
Speaker 1: path which was to decrease a behavior, or Black path
Speaker 1: which is to completely stop a behavior. And each path
Speaker 1: has its own requirements to achieve success. So the purple
Speaker 1: path requires me to change at least one element from
Speaker 1: the FOG behavioral model, and here are the three elements
Speaker 1: they list. Increase the number of triggers that lead to
Speaker 1: a desirable behavior. So, in whichever format of those triggers
Speaker 1: I would use, those two help encourage me to pursue
Speaker 1: this enhance my ability to perform that behavior. In other words,
Speaker 1: make it easier for me to do whatever that thing is.
Speaker 1: This might involve looking for a gym that's really close
Speaker 1: to my house, so it makes it a lot easier
Speaker 1: for me to get there and do this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Or amplify the motivation for doing the behavior with intrinsic
Speaker 1: and extrinsic motivators. So intrinsic obviously would be things within myself. Extrinsic,
Speaker 1: I'd be telling my friends, Hey, could you remind me
Speaker 1: to stop being such a you know, lazy fat I,
Speaker 1: And then that would help me motivate me to go
Speaker 1: and decrease my lazy fat kindness. For example, making a
Speaker 1: pact amongst your friends, like, hey, the next time that
Speaker 1: we get together and watch some movies, let's all bring
Speaker 1: vegetables instead of or even I have several friends we
Speaker 1: eat nothing the Sorry, it's fine, I've got I've got
Speaker 1: several friends who just uh this past weekend. No, they
Speaker 1: all participated in a color run, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: a fun group event where they're all exercising. I did
Speaker 1: not participate in this, although I did do quite a
Speaker 1: bit of walking this past weekend. But this would be
Speaker 1: an example of something that could be an extrinsic motivator.
Speaker 1: It's the participation of a social event that is completely
Speaker 1: centered around what I want to do, in this case exercise.
Speaker 1: So none of this is is sinister. This is all
Speaker 1: just the is the way kind of setting yourself up
Speaker 1: for success. Right. So, once upon a time, the Persuasive
Speaker 1: Technology Lab sold resource guides to help people follow those pathways.
Speaker 1: But as of now they say, well, the lab guides
Speaker 1: were created in and they weren't really there. They haven't
Speaker 1: been updated in a while, so we're no longer selling them.
Speaker 1: If you are interested in this, you can actually contact
Speaker 1: them and explain what the behavior is you're trying to
Speaker 1: either increase or decrease, or start or finish or whatever,
Speaker 1: and the Lab may be able to share with you
Speaker 1: one of the guides that would be applicable to that
Speaker 1: they might not, but they may. So this is interesting
Speaker 1: because this seems largely, as you've described it, a sort
Speaker 1: of a self applied and self motivated way of changing
Speaker 1: thoughts and behavior, changing behaviors. Um. And I wonder how
Speaker 1: well techniques like this, or even other techniques in the
Speaker 1: persuasive technology field could be applied to others, which is
Speaker 1: what we think of more often in the mind control domain.
Speaker 1: Well and even in this case, well, whereas I was
Speaker 1: using an example that was very much self Uh, if
Speaker 1: you were using the same general kind of approach while
Speaker 1: designing whatever it is you are creating in order to
Speaker 1: put it forth into the public, then the ideas that
Speaker 1: you would follow the same general pathway. You know, you
Speaker 1: would identify what it is your product is trying to do,
Speaker 1: whether it's trying to enhance a particular behavior or or
Speaker 1: discourage it or whatever, and make sure that your design
Speaker 1: falls in line with the same sort of approach. Right.
Speaker 1: For example, let's say that you're creating an app. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe that does motivate people to to get fit, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like like couch to five K Sure sure? Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: if if your app has really bad design, um, like
Speaker 1: it's difficult to use then if it's not using appropriate triggers, right, right,
Speaker 1: then it's going to be successful in helping people do
Speaker 1: this thing get couched five K and ultimately people won't
Speaker 1: use it, which means ultimately the people who developed the
Speaker 1: app don't benefit from it. So, uh, there are ways
Speaker 1: of using this in a broader sense. And it's while
Speaker 1: we've I've really focused on just this lab, it goes
Speaker 1: well beyond one lab. Oh yeah. Like, like I said
Speaker 1: at the top of this section, there are conferences yearly,
Speaker 1: conferences dedicated to this whole field of research, and for example,
Speaker 1: in the conferences, focus was on bringing together workers in
Speaker 1: the fields of human computer interaction and persuasive technologies, with
Speaker 1: the idea being that you know, persuasive technology researchers are
Speaker 1: really steeped in the psychology of persuasion, which has only
Speaker 1: recently expanded to include interactive technologies. You know, Previously it
Speaker 1: was the print, the radio, the TV, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: UM and that. You know. Meanwhile, human computer interaction researchers
Speaker 1: are chock full of knowledge about interactive us A, bility,
Speaker 1: UM and accessibility and experience, but might be less familiar
Speaker 1: with the psychological persuasion side. UM focus was on mobile apps.
Speaker 1: So so, so again we can see this kind of work. Uh,
Speaker 1: this kind of this kind of research find its way
Speaker 1: into realms that will ultimately impact us as consumers of
Speaker 1: either products or services. Yeah. So there are I'm sure
Speaker 1: lots of things that we could learn that would be
Speaker 1: interesting about the way different user interfaces and and apps
Speaker 1: and pieces of technology change our behaviors. I would love
Speaker 1: to see just this may exist. I don't even know,
Speaker 1: like an essay on the psychological effect in the long
Speaker 1: term of the like button? Does that do to us?
Speaker 1: I am creeked out by the potential of that of
Speaker 1: that essay. No, no, I would love to read it,
Speaker 1: um or even just a just an essay on how
Speaker 1: successful Amazon's one click button is. Oh yeah, yeah, to
Speaker 1: to increase the behavior of impulse buying. You guys have
Speaker 1: seen that they Amazon has launched a new thing where
Speaker 1: for certain brands, where it's a button that you connect
Speaker 1: to your WiFi, a physical button that you connect to
Speaker 1: your WiFi network. So you get a little plastic piece
Speaker 1: that's got a button on it, connected to a specific
Speaker 1: brand for specific product, and then if you push the button,
Speaker 1: it automatically puts in an order of that product through Amazon,
Speaker 1: and that's all you have to do. You just push
Speaker 1: the button and then they send the thing to you. So,
Speaker 1: for example, it could be like if you bump the box,
Speaker 1: you well, if you if you get a deluge to
Speaker 1: two things, two things one as soon as the well
Speaker 1: it's each for one brand, right, So there's that you're
Speaker 1: not gonna get everything out of Amazon's catalog. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you could end up with like a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: toilet paper if you're not careful. Except that it also
Speaker 1: has a thing where pizza rolls button is stuck in
Speaker 1: the on position it has. It also has a thing
Speaker 1: where you will not get um, they will not send
Speaker 1: you another another order until the first order that you've
Speaker 1: requested has arrived at your house. So you have you
Speaker 1: have like, yeah, you got a little kid visiting your
Speaker 1: house and they come up to the button and just
Speaker 1: start whacking away. You're just gonna get one of those.
Speaker 1: So as long as you don't have something like a
Speaker 1: private jet button where you're going to be like, well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't planning on buying to private jets this month,
Speaker 1: you should be all right. It's not like a pet
Speaker 1: snake button or something or it's usually it's very specific stuff,
Speaker 1: so like paper towels or dishwasher fluid, that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff I use so much dishwasher fluid, I need a
Speaker 1: button for it. Well, it's just one of the things
Speaker 1: where you realize when you're running low, you just press
Speaker 1: the button and then you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: it again. And for some things like paper towels, as
Speaker 1: a as a puppy owner, right now, that would come
Speaker 1: in incredibly handy when I'm coming down to that last
Speaker 1: roll and let's just hit that button right now. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: we don't have to talk all user experience and technology
Speaker 1: because in fact, there's a lot of science informing things
Speaker 1: that go way deeper into the human experience. Uh, that
Speaker 1: can change the ways that we think and behave. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the main ones that I've always heard about
Speaker 1: in my life is color. Yeah, color psychology. Uh. I
Speaker 1: don't know how big this was when you guys were kids.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, there was this whole thing
Speaker 1: about you know, what's the best kind of way to
Speaker 1: create colors in the elementary school classrooms for a learning environment,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Um, and there have been a
Speaker 1: lot of studies on color psychology what kind of colors
Speaker 1: might affect human behavior and decision making and our ability
Speaker 1: to learn that sort of stuff. UH, and some of
Speaker 1: the studies are really interesting, although there's a question about
Speaker 1: how much of it um is UH is like, what
Speaker 1: what are the methodologies behind it? Questionable methodology. But one
Speaker 1: of the studies I read about that the color red
Speaker 1: might help athletes beat the snot out of each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Scientific American had a study or an article that talked
Speaker 1: about study conducted by anthropologists at Durham University UH. And
Speaker 1: the study had athletes who were participating in combat sports
Speaker 1: like boxing and greco roman wrestling in taekwondo UH pitted
Speaker 1: against one another and some of the athletes were wearing
Speaker 1: outfits that were red and some were wearing outfits that
Speaker 1: were blue. And they saw that the people who wore
Speaker 1: red were winning more frequently than the ones who wore blue,
Speaker 1: particularly whenever you were looking at a scenario where the
Speaker 1: two opponents were really well matched, that their their skill
Speaker 1: level was considered to be very close in range. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you put a novice in red
Speaker 1: against a taekwondo master or just in blue, that a
Speaker 1: novice is probably not gonna take down the master. But
Speaker 1: if you're talking about two people of comparable skill level,
Speaker 1: it seemed that the ones who were wearing red were
Speaker 1: winning more frequently. Now why that's the case, that's still
Speaker 1: a valid question. We don't necessarily know the answer. It
Speaker 1: could be that the ones who are wearing red were
Speaker 1: suddenly becoming more aggressive and taking more chances, and were
Speaker 1: thus ended up ending up, you know, with that great
Speaker 1: risk and great reward. Uh. It could be that the
Speaker 1: ones who were wearing blue were becoming more defensive and
Speaker 1: we're not striking as frequently as the ones wearing red,
Speaker 1: and therefore ended up ultimately losing. It could be that
Speaker 1: the referees were favoring those wearing red over those wearing blue.
Speaker 1: It could be a combination of these factors. We don't that.
Speaker 1: The study did not go so far as to identify
Speaker 1: specifically why the ones in red were coming out on
Speaker 1: top more frequently. But there are other examples too. There's
Speaker 1: there are examples about colors affecting our our purchasing decisions,
Speaker 1: I mean their entire departments obviously, companies that are dedicated Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are reasons why most detergents have orange and blue
Speaker 1: color ring on their labels, and it's because at some
Speaker 1: point someone did a study and said these are power
Speaker 1: colors for power. Yeah, and then they get attention and
Speaker 1: people pay attention to as opposed to like the clear
Speaker 1: or the white detergent bottles that might be overlooked instead.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know if this is true. I
Speaker 1: remember hearing when I was younger that it was like
Speaker 1: McDonald's uses that red and yellow thing because it makes
Speaker 1: people hungry. That might be totally not true, but it's
Speaker 1: very well yeah, yeah, well it's at some point someone
Speaker 1: decided red makes you hungry, and actually yellow usually makes
Speaker 1: you angry, according to like classical color psychology. So I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where the yellow yellow comes also like ketchup
Speaker 1: and mustard, but I'm just you know, I'm just saying
Speaker 1: it's a bigger place anyway. So it's like bizarre arched
Speaker 1: fries descending into an ocean of ketchup. That's the way
Speaker 1: I hate them. Uh So. Over at Virginia Text Pamplin
Speaker 1: College of Business, there were a series of studies that
Speaker 1: found the consumers reacted differently to products that were presented
Speaker 1: on a red background versus those that were presented on
Speaker 1: a blue background, and they responded differently in different scenarios. So,
Speaker 1: in an auction scenario, for example, the consumers who saw
Speaker 1: a red background on the product tended to bid more
Speaker 1: aggressively than those who saw that same product on a
Speaker 1: blue background. However, in negotiation scenarios where you have someone
Speaker 1: you know already saying here's how expensive this product is
Speaker 1: going to be, and then the you as consumer are
Speaker 1: trying to bargain them down, they saw that people who
Speaker 1: saw that product on a red background were less likely
Speaker 1: to accept a higher payment price than those who saw
Speaker 1: the same product on a blue background. So it's like
Speaker 1: the red just generally made them more active in the
Speaker 1: bargaining either way. Yeah, like like it wasn't so much
Speaker 1: about the price point, but in like their level of participation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of. It is kind of weird because you could
Speaker 1: think that if you had presented this one product as
Speaker 1: an auction, the person seeing red was going to bid higher.
Speaker 1: If you presented it as a negotiation, they were going
Speaker 1: to demand it be lower in price. But it could
Speaker 1: be the exact same product with the red background, just
Speaker 1: two different scenarios. Some some research that I ran into
Speaker 1: would probably say that that was due to agitation. Um,
Speaker 1: But I'll get to that in just a moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all that being said, color psychology is still a field
Speaker 1: that's under a lot of study. Like I had mentioned before,
Speaker 1: methodologies are an issue, particularly with earlier studies, especially the
Speaker 1: ones that were dating out the nineteen fifties when this
Speaker 1: was starting to explode as a field of study. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure this applies to a lot of the science
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about in this episode, because
Speaker 1: it's dealing with that kind of like a behavioral conditioning.
Speaker 1: And in these cases, I think a lot of times
Speaker 1: these studies don't they're not reproducible. I don't know. And
Speaker 1: in furthermore, anytime that you're trying to really sess out
Speaker 1: the reasons for human behavior, there are so many factors
Speaker 1: at work there. Sure. Yeah, and also just the idea
Speaker 1: that a lot of these studies get communicated to us
Speaker 1: through various forms of the media that may be oversimplifying
Speaker 1: or for multiple stating the significance of exactly like it
Speaker 1: might be that people with a red background or five
Speaker 1: percent more likely to do something than with another color.
Speaker 1: And it's like Wow, look at that right orlikely? And
Speaker 1: unless you're able to isolate all the other variables, like
Speaker 1: Lauren was saying, it's really hard to make a definitive conclusion.
Speaker 1: But there are other other stimuli that could potentially alter
Speaker 1: our moods to the point where our decision making is
Speaker 1: in fact affected, like sound, like if you are tired
Speaker 1: of my voice, you may want to strangle somebody, that
Speaker 1: would be altering your decision making process. I'm sure unless
Speaker 1: you had already planned to do that, which case, don't
Speaker 1: do that. I'm sure you could devise a pretty effective
Speaker 1: mind control method for me that would just make me
Speaker 1: want to get out of a place that had the
Speaker 1: fluorescent light buzzings. That's fair. So uh. I read a
Speaker 1: piece in Psychology today. It was published way back at
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one that looked at the effect of sounds
Speaker 1: and urban environments on the mental health of people who
Speaker 1: lived there or you know how, how how they perceived
Speaker 1: sound and noise. So the beginning of the article described
Speaker 1: a very simple experiment in which a researcher was carrying
Speaker 1: several volumes of books down the sidewalk and then would
Speaker 1: drop some of those books as if it was just
Speaker 1: an accident like tripping and dropping a couple of books.
Speaker 1: And they also had, during various trials of this experiment,
Speaker 1: a lawnmower that was either running so the lawnmower motor
Speaker 1: was making noise, or it was not running. And they
Speaker 1: found that fifty percent of the time when the researcher
Speaker 1: quote unquote accidentally dropped books but the lawnmower wasn't running,
Speaker 1: people would come to help the researcher to pick up
Speaker 1: the books. So half the time when the lawnmower wasn't running,
Speaker 1: someone would come and help out. But if the lawnmower
Speaker 1: was running, only twelve point five percent of the time
Speaker 1: would someone come to help them. So if this irritated
Speaker 1: noise was going, people are just like, no, I just
Speaker 1: want to get out of here and just keep on walking.
Speaker 1: Presumably that's why they were thinking. Obviously, a study can't
Speaker 1: really find out what people are thinking yet because we
Speaker 1: haven't installed the necessary technology to read thoughts. Uh So.
Speaker 1: The piece then went on to explore how unwanted noise
Speaker 1: and the way we perceive it can affect our mental health,
Speaker 1: and in general, unwanted noise can cause things like stress, anxiety, irritation,
Speaker 1: sleep deprivation, that sort of stuff factors that can influence
Speaker 1: our decision making processes. But just like we were talking
Speaker 1: with color, we don't know to what extent this can
Speaker 1: affect us. It clearly does affect us, But does it
Speaker 1: affect us to a point that we are making decisions
Speaker 1: based mainly on that? Probably not. It is a it
Speaker 1: is one of many factors. And with all of these
Speaker 1: questions about about whether it's user experience in an app
Speaker 1: or color or sound, to what extent could these things
Speaker 1: be used with precision someone trying to get a particular
Speaker 1: result out of your right like could could could I
Speaker 1: have someone orchestrate a situation where I walk into a
Speaker 1: red noisy room and that makes me do what they
Speaker 1: want me to do? Probably not? Uh, And Joe, you
Speaker 1: and I even talked about something like this about the
Speaker 1: wind turbines, about how people who have perceived a low
Speaker 1: level noise from wind turbines say it's negatively impacting their
Speaker 1: lives and therefore they don't want wind turbines installed uh
Speaker 1: in near their neighborhoods. So it's I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a real thing that really does real in the sense
Speaker 1: that it's really affecting people, whether whether it's physically affecting them. Right.
Speaker 1: Another real thing that really does work and is manipulatable
Speaker 1: is sent Oh yeah, we actually so funny story. We
Speaker 1: got our idea to do this whole podcast about various
Speaker 1: methods of subtle and explicit mind control after we did
Speaker 1: an episode about the future of smells and how we
Speaker 1: learned that there is at least some amount of research
Speaker 1: suggesting that certain smells changed the way we act in
Speaker 1: certain scenarios or yeah, and the way we perceive things
Speaker 1: as well, and that it can be a subliminal smell,
Speaker 1: it can be below our threshold of detection and yet
Speaker 1: still have an effect. So, for example, UH, one of
Speaker 1: the studies we talked about involved people looking at a
Speaker 1: series of different UH photographs of people having kind of
Speaker 1: a neutral expression on their faces. But they the control
Speaker 1: group was just in a room looking at pictures, and
Speaker 1: the experimental group was in a room looking at pictures,
Speaker 1: but the room had a subliminal level scent of I
Speaker 1: think it was a floral scent, pleasant floral scent, and
Speaker 1: that the ones who were in the room that had
Speaker 1: the floral scent ended up saying that more of the
Speaker 1: faces looked likable than the control group did. And so
Speaker 1: it suggests that when we are subjected to this kind
Speaker 1: of stimuli, our perception can be um, somewhat somewhat nudged,
Speaker 1: not necessarily to the point where we're going to make
Speaker 1: a completely new decision, but we might have a different
Speaker 1: first impression. We may have a different emotional association with
Speaker 1: whatever that situation happens to be. So if the first
Speaker 1: time you ever encountered something was accompanied by a really
Speaker 1: unpleasant scent, you may have an unpleasant association with whatever
Speaker 1: that thing is. So which you know, again it's it's
Speaker 1: not like it's not like mind blowing revelation, but it
Speaker 1: is interesting that the smell does not have to be
Speaker 1: at a detective level. Yeah, yeah, that was the thing
Speaker 1: that that part was really and I mean, how do
Speaker 1: you control for that? So now now we're talking about
Speaker 1: if someone can get me into a red, noisy room
Speaker 1: that smells like very fatally of jazz man, there you go,
Speaker 1: could they get me to do what they want me
Speaker 1: to do? And again, um, probably not unless it's just
Speaker 1: like do you want to leave the room? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: if this is all it is is a red noisy room,
Speaker 1: then yeah, I want to go. You know, you're saying
Speaker 1: you're saying you're not likely to encounter of the scenario
Speaker 1: because you're picturing it as a physical location, like somebody
Speaker 1: getting you to go into a red, noisy room with
Speaker 1: a certain smell. But I think that there is much
Speaker 1: more potential for using these kinds of factors to influence
Speaker 1: us when we imagine them coming in digital form. So instead,
Speaker 1: think about the way you are sort of living in
Speaker 1: your computer for a lot of the time. You know,
Speaker 1: you what you're looking at. Your entire world is what's
Speaker 1: on your computer screen. You've got your headphones on. That's
Speaker 1: what you're hearing. Sound really sad and well, unfortunately we
Speaker 1: know we all we all become immersed in our devices,
Speaker 1: and that can be in a lot of ways, kind
Speaker 1: of like going into a room where somebody gets to
Speaker 1: control all the environmental conditions. They're controlling what you hear,
Speaker 1: what you see, what the colors are, if you buy
Speaker 1: that that smell orama kind of stuff we talked about
Speaker 1: in the Future of Smells episode, there may even be
Speaker 1: digital ways of influencing and introducing sense into your environment.
Speaker 1: So I can see this being sort of like an
Speaker 1: electronically deliverable environment that can be controlled to influence your
Speaker 1: behavior and thoughts. Yeah, maybe something a little more simple,
Speaker 1: like here is a virtual experience that is meant to
Speaker 1: help you relieving anxiety and stress. Like that, it could
Speaker 1: easily see. But as as opposed to something like, you know,
Speaker 1: here's an experience that you are unaware is attempting to
Speaker 1: affect your behavior to certain ends, I'm not entirely certain
Speaker 1: that would work. That happens all the time. Every single
Speaker 1: time that you walk into a store or a restaurant,
Speaker 1: you are entering an environment that has been created specifically
Speaker 1: to get you to do certain things, and that's usually
Speaker 1: buy more stuff. And a whole lot of research has
Speaker 1: gone into this field. It's called environmental psychology. Um it
Speaker 1: includes the music, the color, the scent um, and again
Speaker 1: a caveat. Like I said before, there are so many
Speaker 1: variables that go into any individual person's decisions to stay
Speaker 1: in a place and make purchases there. So it's it's
Speaker 1: really hard to assign any of these individual stimuli the
Speaker 1: responsibility of driving a customer's behavior. But when discussing environmental psychology,
Speaker 1: lots of researchers depend upon a model that was created
Speaker 1: by Arabian and Russell in four and that is pleasure
Speaker 1: arousal dominance. And that's not some weird fifty shades a
Speaker 1: great thing. That is a three D graph of feeling
Speaker 1: pleasure versus displeasure, aroused versus calm and in control versus controlled. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: Now that second vector aroused versus calm or or or
Speaker 1: agitated versus column, as I said earlier in this episode,
Speaker 1: is what gives a lot of researchers fits. Because some
Speaker 1: research indicates that across the board, people make more snap
Speaker 1: purchases when they're aroused, when there's loud music or bright
Speaker 1: colors or something like that. Um. But some research indicates
Speaker 1: that people make more purchases overall when they're calm, because
Speaker 1: they're more likely to stay in a place longer. But
Speaker 1: you know, if we go with the music example, what
Speaker 1: types of music lead to those feelings? Uh? In one
Speaker 1: study that was published in Advances in Consumer Research in
Speaker 1: n they found that playing popular music arousing music basically
Speaker 1: boosted sales that were made to younger men, but playing
Speaker 1: instrumental music calming music boosted sales made to older women.
Speaker 1: M hm. But there's still a lot of questions to
Speaker 1: be asked. You know, was the music familiar or unfamiliar
Speaker 1: to the people? Hypothetically familiar music is more arousing, uh,
Speaker 1: hypothetically un you know, you know, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: listening to unfamiliar music and going like, what is that
Speaker 1: music about? Let me look it up on my phone,
Speaker 1: that can lead to a higher state of arousal. How
Speaker 1: how loud was the music? I had the customers just
Speaker 1: gone through a breakup and listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift And was Taylor Swift playing and did that
Speaker 1: motivate them to buy more or less? I you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say. Yet again, that makes me think
Speaker 1: about the potential for personalized advertising, like with incorporating these
Speaker 1: environmental kind of factors. Then again, I don't know how
Speaker 1: that would really happen for like an online shopping experience.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't want to go to an online
Speaker 1: shopping destination and have it start playing music at you.
Speaker 1: Just seems I don't turn it off. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go anywhere and have it play music at me
Speaker 1: unless I have chosen to listen to music, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what that's my immediate like, where is the
Speaker 1: mute button on my computer? Reaction whenever I encounter that. Sure,
Speaker 1: but there are some online shops, uh, usually like private
Speaker 1: boutique kind of shops that will have and if they're clever,
Speaker 1: that they'll have a little button that says, would you
Speaker 1: like to play the accompanying music? And that will that
Speaker 1: will give you some some stuff to listen to while
Speaker 1: you're buying lots of things on Earth clicks. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes out of curiosity, I'm like, I do want to
Speaker 1: know what they want me to listen to? Right now?
Speaker 1: That sounds horrifying. Yeah, that's kind of interesting, I guess I.
Speaker 1: You know a little tidbit out there for restaurant owners
Speaker 1: who have websites, don't have your website AutoPlay music. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make me want to eat your food more. However,
Speaker 1: just go to the Oatmeal and read their web comic
Speaker 1: about what not to do when you're a restaurant website,
Speaker 1: because that's that just really sums u up. Have have
Speaker 1: the hours of operation on every page, yes, and have
Speaker 1: make sure your menu is up to date. Those are
Speaker 1: my two big ones. Post your address, Just post your address.
Speaker 1: That's that's a good one too. Please yeah, but hours
Speaker 1: of operation. Don't put it on contact. That doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. All right, I think what I think, I've
Speaker 1: gone off on a tangent. Let's you know what. I
Speaker 1: need to calm down. So I'm just gonna take my meds.
Speaker 1: Here you talk about the next thing, you know, Hold
Speaker 1: on a second, But that was that was a blatant transition?
Speaker 1: Would it wouldn't have been blatant if you hadn't pointed
Speaker 1: it out? Okay, let's talk about drugs, because it is
Speaker 1: no secret at all that drugs can affect your behavior.
Speaker 1: That is the purpose of some of them. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: But the question is about the level of precision with
Speaker 1: which people could intentionally use drugs to modify their own
Speaker 1: behavior or the behavior of others. So we're familiar with,
Speaker 1: for example, a psycho pharmacological drugs, the drugs we take
Speaker 1: to help us with like subjective mental states or just
Speaker 1: an example would be antidepressants or anti anxiety medication or
Speaker 1: something like that. It causes changes in your brain chemistry
Speaker 1: that translate into changes in subjective experience and behavior. But
Speaker 1: research is showing that some particular drugs can have an
Speaker 1: influence on not just that, but on people's ethical decision making,
Speaker 1: so not just how they feel their internal states, but
Speaker 1: how they make decisions and what their values are and
Speaker 1: what they do. So, in the scholarly literature, using scientific
Speaker 1: or technological methods to induce a change, hopefully for the better,
Speaker 1: in one's ethical tendencies or capacities, is known as moral enhancement.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of debate among like philosophers and
Speaker 1: ethicists about you know, what does it really mean to
Speaker 1: say that we could use external you know, methods and
Speaker 1: drugs and surgeries and brain stimulation and things like that
Speaker 1: to change our morals? What would that is? Does that
Speaker 1: action actually have a moral quality to it? Like is
Speaker 1: it moral to take a pill that you think would
Speaker 1: make yourself more moral? See? Well, I mean that's a
Speaker 1: philosophical argument that we could we could actually have right now,
Speaker 1: because well, let's get into that in a minute, because
Speaker 1: first I should talk about the fact that this actually
Speaker 1: seems very likely to be possible. Just a few examples
Speaker 1: of chemicals that could potentially change moral or social behavior.
Speaker 1: One is oxytocin. That's a naturally occurring hormone. So there's
Speaker 1: already oxytocin in your body. Um, and it's associated with
Speaker 1: a wide range of effects in the brain, mostly centered
Speaker 1: around like intimacy and bonding kind of hugging, cuddling, happy
Speaker 1: times chemicals. So the release of oxytocin is triggered in
Speaker 1: maternal infant bonding behaviors, and for that reason you can
Speaker 1: probably guess that it's been named as a potential candidate
Speaker 1: for chemical moral enhancement. UM. And if we discover, for example,
Speaker 1: that taking a nasal spray dose of oxytocin makes people
Speaker 1: more empathetic, increases nurturing behaviors, encourages trust, and cuts down
Speaker 1: on anxiety, why wouldn't we want to live in a
Speaker 1: world where everybody sort of hits the squared to oxytocin
Speaker 1: before coming into the office in the morning. It's like
Speaker 1: it's just a spray of cuttle juice. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I sit between Josh and Chuck and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I want to get cuddled. Um. But then it's funny
Speaker 1: because oxytocin is kind of a flagship for the complications
Speaker 1: that exists now with our incomplete understanding of how drugs
Speaker 1: affect are our moral and ethical decision making, Because on
Speaker 1: the one hand, it does seem to have this effect
Speaker 1: like encourages these positive pro social emotions like like trust
Speaker 1: and bonding, but at the same time it may come
Speaker 1: with its own problems. For example, I've seen reports suggesting
Speaker 1: that in addition to all the positive traits, oxytocin might
Speaker 1: be associated with increased ethnocentrism in group, loyalty outgroups, suspicion
Speaker 1: uh the ideas that it might encourage sort of lots
Speaker 1: of good pro social qualities for the close inner circle
Speaker 1: of people at the expense of relationships with strangers and
Speaker 1: people perceived to be outside. This is fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes me think of of primitive cultures
Speaker 1: that were that were, you know, in fairly close proximity
Speaker 1: with one another, where you study the language of those
Speaker 1: cultures and often the word that they give for themselves
Speaker 1: tends to mean the people, and the word that they
Speaker 1: give for other cultures that are within the proximity tends
Speaker 1: to be something like those heathens over there, or those
Speaker 1: those those folks that we don't like to talk about,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And it sounds like this is
Speaker 1: this is kind of instilling that are potentially could be
Speaker 1: you know, kind of giving those sort of same feelings
Speaker 1: that we we witness in primitive culture. Right. Well, part
Speaker 1: of the thing is we we just don't know the
Speaker 1: full range of effects yet, because you know, these relationships
Speaker 1: between our total sort of profile of behavior and single
Speaker 1: chemicals and how to act on the brain is very
Speaker 1: complex and difficult to understand. Oh, of course, although you
Speaker 1: know with with this particular example, we know that this
Speaker 1: is a hormone that does stuff in our body, that
Speaker 1: does brain stuff in our body in these ways. But
Speaker 1: what about drugs that aren't necessarily intended to do brain
Speaker 1: stuff in our body? Yeah, we've actually discovered that some
Speaker 1: drugs already used for other purposes have a side effect
Speaker 1: of having implications for our moral and ethical decisions and behaviors.
Speaker 1: For example, I've just one thing that people talk about
Speaker 1: is SSR eyes taken for various reasons, can help change
Speaker 1: the way people look at certain moral dilemmas. And then
Speaker 1: here's a big one. What about a drug to reduce racism?
Speaker 1: They have a drug for that, Well, I mean we
Speaker 1: have a drug where there is a suggested link. So
Speaker 1: there's a drug called properanal all. It's used as a
Speaker 1: beta blocker for people with like cardiovascular conditions. So if
Speaker 1: you have high blood pressure heart disease, you might take
Speaker 1: propranol al UH to relax your circulatory system and uh
Speaker 1: decrease your blood pressure. Well, a study published in Psychopharmacology
Speaker 1: in found that one side effect of this drug is
Speaker 1: that it seems to reduce people's implicit negative racial bias. So,
Speaker 1: in a double blind test environment, thirty six white volunteers
Speaker 1: were randomized, divided into groups, and the test group was
Speaker 1: given a single forty milligram dose of propranol all and
Speaker 1: then there was of course a placebo controlled group, and
Speaker 1: the participants were given tests of both their explicit levels
Speaker 1: of racial prejudice like you know what they would report,
Speaker 1: and then also a racial implicit association test. It's sort
Speaker 1: of this thing to find out what you're unconscious racial
Speaker 1: biases are. UH. And the author's reported quote relative to placebo,
Speaker 1: propranol al significantly lowered heart rate and abolished implicit rate
Speaker 1: shull bias without affecting the measure of explicit racial prejudice.
Speaker 1: Propranolol did not affect subjective mood, So that's that's really interesting,
Speaker 1: and the difference between what people think they're doing and
Speaker 1: what they actually are doing is is a factor that's
Speaker 1: been studied in a lot of these fields that we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, and so this was a small study,
Speaker 1: and the authors themselves call out for more researchers to
Speaker 1: try to find so they they ask, you know, please
Speaker 1: more people try to replicate this and see what you
Speaker 1: come up with. Um. But whether or not this particular
Speaker 1: drug or any of its family can actually make us
Speaker 1: less racist, just the possibility of such a chemical is
Speaker 1: really worth talking about because in my mind, the fact
Speaker 1: that most people who exhibit racist behavior claim not to
Speaker 1: be racist when you call them out for it signals
Speaker 1: to me at least that I think most people, even
Speaker 1: most fairly racist people, record noie that racial bias is
Speaker 1: generally a bad thing, and many would be willing to
Speaker 1: take a pill to reduce their own racial bias if
Speaker 1: they could. Maybe maybe one would hope so if at
Speaker 1: the worst, I would hope that they would say, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't going to do anything because I'm not racist
Speaker 1: as well, you know, can't hurt to take it, right,
Speaker 1: as long as it was something where like what are
Speaker 1: the side effects? Other side effects, well then you're fine,
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and I'm not advising it. Yeah, that's obviously
Speaker 1: we are not telling people to start taking a heart
Speaker 1: disease medication, but certainly not randomly on the black market. Right,
Speaker 1: So there may be other drugs that have similar effects
Speaker 1: that don't have side effects, right. We don't know yet,
Speaker 1: but the fact that that's a possibility is very interesting
Speaker 1: because it brings up the question of what is it
Speaker 1: ethical to try to get other people to do to
Speaker 1: change their behavior years. I mean, if we if it
Speaker 1: turned out that we discovered there was a pill then
Speaker 1: and we tested it rigorously and said, huh, you know,
Speaker 1: it looks like this pill has no negative side effects
Speaker 1: except that it generally makes people have a little bit
Speaker 1: less anxiety and it decreases racial bias by would it
Speaker 1: be would that be a drug you could say, Okay,
Speaker 1: everybody in society should take this. Yeah, that's a tough
Speaker 1: that's a tough one. I mean, to me, the question
Speaker 1: of ethics really comes in the pursuit of using these
Speaker 1: these techniques specifically to alter human behavior. Um from like
Speaker 1: a study perspective, because I think implementation is always going
Speaker 1: to be problematic. I mean, obviously, if you are living
Speaker 1: in a a culture where the the good of the
Speaker 1: many outweighs the good of the few, and that's the accepted, um,
Speaker 1: you know, worldview for that culture. Maybe, and you would
Speaker 1: actually have this as a prescribed element where you had
Speaker 1: to take it, because that's just culturally what people believed.
Speaker 1: But in other places I think it would be problematic
Speaker 1: at best. To me, the two main factors that go
Speaker 1: into whether or not it's ethical to attempt to alter
Speaker 1: human behavior our intent and implementation. By that, I mean,
Speaker 1: what what is the purpose for attempting to change human behavior?
Speaker 1: If your intent is to make the environment a better
Speaker 1: place to live, and therefore people tend to make more
Speaker 1: quote unquote moral or ethic ethical decisions because the environment
Speaker 1: they are in is a more pleasant environment. I see
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that, because ultimately what you're saying is
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do my best to make this environment
Speaker 1: a good one for people. So in this case, I
Speaker 1: would say things like, when you're going in for redevelopment
Speaker 1: of urban landscapes, that would potentially be good, although we
Speaker 1: also know there are big issues with that too, like
Speaker 1: you could end up driving prices up and then pushing
Speaker 1: people who could most benefit from that renewal outside of
Speaker 1: that area, which obviously we don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: You're defeating the purpose then, so it's a very delicate
Speaker 1: thing to do. That kind of leads into the implementation.
Speaker 1: How do you actually implement these things so that you're
Speaker 1: trying to change behavior if you're doing it in a
Speaker 1: way where it's not invasive or intrusive. Uh, and you aren't,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to specifically herd people into a particular
Speaker 1: type of behavior. I don't have a whole lot of
Speaker 1: objections to it. Obviously, the more invasive or uh uh,
Speaker 1: you know, unescapable you make this kind of implementation, the
Speaker 1: more I get really nervous about it. So those are
Speaker 1: the two factors to me that are the most important.
Speaker 1: And it's not like a binary system where one is
Speaker 1: good and one is bad. It's definitely several shade across
Speaker 1: the spectrum. And uh, these these various that the two
Speaker 1: factors can play very important roles in different ways. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the main distinctions that is becoming
Speaker 1: quite obvious is people choosing behavior changing stimulations and conditions
Speaker 1: to apply to themselves versus applying that to other people,
Speaker 1: like without their knowledge or without their consent. That's of
Speaker 1: course in the second condition where it becomes really difficult.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think anybody really has much of
Speaker 1: a problem with use. Somebody choosing to use whatever kind
Speaker 1: of techniques or drugs or anything science can come up
Speaker 1: with to make themselves exercise more by their own choice,
Speaker 1: or to make themselves have, you know, less racial bias,
Speaker 1: or to make themselves more generous. That all seems pretty fine.
Speaker 1: I think most most humans agree that that's a personal choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so of course we would probably also mostly agreed
Speaker 1: that it's wrong gong to use techniques like this against
Speaker 1: other people's will to coerce them or to exploit them.
Speaker 1: But what about in these middle case scenarios where you
Speaker 1: are basically coercing people but for something that seems to
Speaker 1: be for the greater good. That's where it gets really sticky. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, there is talk of using a hypothetical aggression
Speaker 1: reducing impulsiveness reducing drug as a cure for somebody convicted
Speaker 1: of a violent crime. Now, I have very little doubt
Speaker 1: that we could find several drugs in the future that
Speaker 1: would accomplish this goal. That doesn't seem implausible to me
Speaker 1: at all. But it's the ethical question. Is it an
Speaker 1: unacceptable violation of the freedom and the privacy of the accused.
Speaker 1: On one hand, my intuition sort of says unequivocally, yes,
Speaker 1: you can't force people to take drugs that will change
Speaker 1: their personality. Is getting back to a clockwork orange, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that seems very very wrong. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: what do we do now to somebody who's convicted of
Speaker 1: a violent crime, Well, we lock them in a prison,
Speaker 1: or in some cases, like historically or depending on where
Speaker 1: you are in the world, you might physically injure them
Speaker 1: or kill them or something. And then there's even in
Speaker 1: the prison scenario where rehabilitation is supposed to be a factor, uh,
Speaker 1: in reality that the rehabilitation effect doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: um taking high priority in a lot of cases. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I don't know. I mean, locking someone in
Speaker 1: a prison is not at all a nice thing to
Speaker 1: do to them. I mean most to most people accept
Speaker 1: that that's something you have to do, but it's sort
Speaker 1: of a necessary evil. So if someone's a murderer, they're
Speaker 1: a hit man for the mob or something, most people,
Speaker 1: I think feel like it's okay to lock that person
Speaker 1: up somewhere where they can't hurt other people. So would Yeah,
Speaker 1: So would it really be worse to offer that hit
Speaker 1: man instead the option of a reduced sentence and the
Speaker 1: option of taking a drug that makes of people in
Speaker 1: previous cases less likely to commit acts of violence in
Speaker 1: the future. Uh. It's a tough call because intuitively, I
Speaker 1: still don't like it. It seems creepy. But then again,
Speaker 1: you know that's my intuitions. If I went with my gut,
Speaker 1: I would be telling the right brothers that if man
Speaker 1: had been meant to fly, etcetera, he'd been born with
Speaker 1: a aerodynamic hydrogen s act. Well, and there's a historical
Speaker 1: case that we can point to immediately in the technology
Speaker 1: world where you know, this very thing had been employed
Speaker 1: and it wasn't for violence but for homosexuality. UH. Touring
Speaker 1: was given the option to UH to Touring, he was
Speaker 1: given the option to be chemically castrated rather than be
Speaker 1: incarcerated for his homosexuality, which he he opted to do,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately he would, depending upon your the the report,
Speaker 1: he committed suicide or was incredibly unfortunate in consuming too
Speaker 1: much arsenic from apple seeds. I Uh, I thought about
Speaker 1: that exact same comparison. The one thing that makes that
Speaker 1: very different than what we're talking about, is that touring
Speaker 1: was very obviously I mean, at least to all of
Speaker 1: us in the room, I think we would agree the
Speaker 1: victim of a deeply unjust law. Yeah, oh sure, and
Speaker 1: also like he actually did something deeply evil that except
Speaker 1: that you know, again, it's it's all based upon whichever
Speaker 1: whichever culture is imposing this, right, I mean, in our
Speaker 1: culture obviously now we're having this change where people are
Speaker 1: more accepting of homosexuality, but which yes, again I agree,
Speaker 1: hooray for that. But there are other cultures where they
Speaker 1: might still very much considerate. In fact, there are other
Speaker 1: cultures where they very much considered a crime. And so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's one of those things that we
Speaker 1: do see is being employed right now. It's just not
Speaker 1: in the case of this pill will make you less violent, right,
Speaker 1: And of course it is a different thing to say, uh,
Speaker 1: imprisonment versus chemical castration and imprisonment versus a really good
Speaker 1: drug that has no negative side effects that lets you
Speaker 1: be who you are but less violent. Two. I mean
Speaker 1: there are side effects to being chemically castrated and those
Speaker 1: are negative. Yeah, And of course I'm I'm not going
Speaker 1: so far as to advocate that less violent I'm saying
Speaker 1: it's a tough call. I don't know what we should
Speaker 1: do in that scenario. Yeah. Well, and if I may
Speaker 1: kind of Devil's advocate, uh, I, I would say that
Speaker 1: the question is nearly moot when you get right down
Speaker 1: to it, Because although I do believe in the wonders
Speaker 1: of modern medicine continuing into the incredible future, psychology is
Speaker 1: not a science that can be applied evenly across the population. Um.
Speaker 1: Even psychiatry is really a guessing game, certainly at our
Speaker 1: current level of knowledge. And and I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: I can envision an immediate future in which we've gained
Speaker 1: enough new knowledge to to to make it so. You know, um,
Speaker 1: that the human body and brain are so complex, There's
Speaker 1: so much going on with each individual person that that
Speaker 1: any given uh method or drug is is difficult to
Speaker 1: apply across an entire culture. Uh. But if I, if
Speaker 1: I had to take a side, I guess I would
Speaker 1: say that, you know, i'd agree with you too, like like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not ethical too ever try to change someone else's
Speaker 1: behavior probably, uh, But but sometimes factors more important than
Speaker 1: ethicality do influence our decisions in the same way that
Speaker 1: it's also not ethical to lock somebody in a prison.
Speaker 1: You just might have to do it considering the alternative well,
Speaker 1: And and in my case, when I'm thinking about altering behavior,
Speaker 1: I think I'm looking at it a little less in
Speaker 1: a little less of an extreme case than than what
Speaker 1: has been proposed here. Mostly we'd be talking about just
Speaker 1: changing day to day behaviors and everybody, Yeah, really, what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about is improving things like demonstrably improving things
Speaker 1: like cleaning up environments, making places more pleasant to live
Speaker 1: and work in, that sort of stuff, where again, you're
Speaker 1: setting up a person for success. You're removing some of
Speaker 1: the negative things that could uh influence decision making to
Speaker 1: making choices that would harm yourself or others. Not that
Speaker 1: it eliminates it, but that it decreases some of the triggers,
Speaker 1: some of the motivations for that behavior. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you're not you're not so much trying to change someone's
Speaker 1: behavior as you are trying to make the environment as
Speaker 1: conducive to good behavior as possible. That's really the only
Speaker 1: way I would see it as being something I would
Speaker 1: accept personally. Well, sure, and there could be other ways
Speaker 1: that there are things that have a big impact that
Speaker 1: really matters more so than just like, you know, can
Speaker 1: we convince people to buy more hamburgers or uh, But
Speaker 1: that aren't necessarily associated with like here's a hit man
Speaker 1: for the mob who were trying to reform, with with
Speaker 1: drugs or with a happy you know, red room that
Speaker 1: plays good music or something. Um No, I mean there
Speaker 1: can be things like public opinion. I mean, this sort
Speaker 1: of gets us back to the propaganda thing. But there
Speaker 1: there are problems that almost everybody recognizes when faced with
Speaker 1: them explicitly in the ways we deal with public problems.
Speaker 1: For example, we just are not very good at long
Speaker 1: term thinking. I mean we live in like a you know,
Speaker 1: in ostensibly a semi properly functioning democracy where your vote
Speaker 1: has some kind of meaning, where you can vote on
Speaker 1: the issues that matter to you, but we were consistently
Speaker 1: not doing a great job of casting the kinds of
Speaker 1: votes that would be most beneficial to people in a
Speaker 1: hundred years from now. You know. Yeah, everyone's more concerned
Speaker 1: about like what they're getting for lunch tomorrow than what
Speaker 1: their grandchildren will be getting for lunch. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean That just kind of makes
Speaker 1: me think, like, well, what if we found a drug
Speaker 1: that or you know, or smell or something in your brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes people more likely to think long term instead
Speaker 1: of just about short term personal games. All I have
Speaker 1: to do is find that secret to reversing aging, and
Speaker 1: then we will very much be concerned with long term.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we would actually think we would still
Speaker 1: be very short term and just be like, Wow, things
Speaker 1: sure are crappy now. I think we care about ourselves
Speaker 1: tomorrow way more than we care about ourselves in forty years.
Speaker 1: I guess it depends. It's interesting. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: probably would lean towards that at least for the again,
Speaker 1: the short term, but I think that would be something
Speaker 1: we would grow out of. Unfortunately, the question is whether
Speaker 1: we would grow out of it before it was too
Speaker 1: late to do anything about it. At any rate. We're also,
Speaker 1: you know, in the future, we're already talking about things
Speaker 1: like brain computer interfaces that I mean, there's some that
Speaker 1: already do exist that work on various levels that we've
Speaker 1: talked about in this podcast, and we've also mentioned the
Speaker 1: fact that this interaction doesn't just go from brain to computer.
Speaker 1: It can go from computer to brain. Uh. But, as
Speaker 1: Lauren was saying, human brains were super complex and we
Speaker 1: barely know what's going on right now. Like we we
Speaker 1: can have a very high level view of how the
Speaker 1: brain works, but when you get down to specifics like
Speaker 1: can you make someone remember a specific memory or experience
Speaker 1: a specific thing? Um, it's that gets a lot trickier.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why when you read about the knowledge
Speaker 1: and the effects of neurochemicals and things like that day,
Speaker 1: you'll often see phrases like associated with because like we
Speaker 1: we have a very very wide, i'd say, but also
Speaker 1: very loose understanding of what's going on inside the brain
Speaker 1: and how that correlates to subjective experience and behavior. So
Speaker 1: now that that knowledge is going to increase, it's going
Speaker 1: to continue to increase over time, and maybe someday it's
Speaker 1: possible that will come up with methods that could allow
Speaker 1: us to very specifically alter someone's views, perspectives, behaviors, experience, whatever.
Speaker 1: But that day is not really gonna be close, right,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be far. It's twenty four years. You think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weird that the singularity war off guys, really strange,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's one of those things where maybe one
Speaker 1: day the sort of the real dystopian science fiction kind
Speaker 1: of views of the future will be uh closer to
Speaker 1: a potential reality. I mean, you might argue that we're there,
Speaker 1: depending upon which dystopia you're looking at and how cynical
Speaker 1: you are. Uh. Now, my hope is that by continuing
Speaker 1: these kind of conversations and really just getting into the
Speaker 1: discussion of why this is so complicated beyond just ethics
Speaker 1: but to biology as well, that we will get a
Speaker 1: better understanding not just of of how we work, but
Speaker 1: why we work the way we do. And uh, this
Speaker 1: has been really fascinating to cover this pair of topics,
Speaker 1: this pair of episodes about these topics, and you know,
Speaker 1: the Smell one I think was a nice way of
Speaker 1: leading us into this. And obviously we could have done
Speaker 1: five or six or ten more episodes that are based
Speaker 1: on this, We could have done deeper dies on these things.
Speaker 1: So if you guys out there were really fascinated by
Speaker 1: this and you want to hear more discussions, or there's
Speaker 1: something specific you would like to hear more about, you
Speaker 1: should let us know, Or if you just have a
Speaker 1: suggestion for any sort of future episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: be doing some listener mail episodes very shortly. You can
Speaker 1: contact us our email addresses f W Thinking at how
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