Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I guess what mego with that? Well, all right, so
Speaker 1: I was reading up this week on strange advantages that
Speaker 1: certain people have. You know, we're always trying to get
Speaker 1: a leg up on people super competitive, as our listeners
Speaker 1: may know. But it turns out that left handed people
Speaker 1: have a pretty distinct advantage. Like when it comes to
Speaker 1: one on one sports. Do you take boxing, tennis, fencing,
Speaker 1: even pitching a baseball If it involves taking aim at
Speaker 1: an opponent, lefties have a little bit of an edge.
Speaker 1: And if you look at professional sports, the numbers actually
Speaker 1: bear this out. For instance, back in two thousand seventeen,
Speaker 1: one third of Major League baseball players were left handed.
Speaker 1: That's kind of crazy, isn't it, as well as of
Speaker 1: the top ranking boxers and of the top ranking fencers. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: it's a completely different story for the more team oriented
Speaker 1: sports like basketball or football. So why do you think
Speaker 1: that is? Well, it ultimately comes down to how rare
Speaker 1: lefties are. It's estimated that only ten perent of the
Speaker 1: people in the world are left handed. That means that
Speaker 1: if you're a right handed tennis player, for example, you've
Speaker 1: probably only ever gone up against other right handed players,
Speaker 1: and the same is true for left handed players too.
Speaker 1: Right like of the world is right handed, then left
Speaker 1: handed players are also mostly squaring off with right e's.
Speaker 1: This was something I really didn't think about. So the
Speaker 1: result is that when a left handed player goes up
Speaker 1: against the right handed one is just another day at
Speaker 1: the office. Same but that's not the case for a
Speaker 1: right handed player. The right handers don't really know what
Speaker 1: to expect, and that makes it easier for them to
Speaker 1: be caught off guard. It makes sense, like when you
Speaker 1: think about it. Playing baseball as a kid, if you
Speaker 1: saw a lefty throwing to you like it was, it
Speaker 1: just looked so strangely. It's almost like when a boxer throws,
Speaker 1: I mean left hook, you know that old south pas surprise.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a real boxing well, just
Speaker 1: like when you were a big boxer as a kid
Speaker 1: and left but weirdly enough, some researchers think the main
Speaker 1: reason why left handed trade is still around today is
Speaker 1: because it's always granted this element of surprise and combat.
Speaker 1: For example, there was a study in two thousand five
Speaker 1: where researchers looked at the remains of primitive societies and
Speaker 1: made a breakdown of how many people were left handed
Speaker 1: and how many were right handed, And amazingly, they found
Speaker 1: that about three percent of the population was left handed
Speaker 1: in the more peaceful societies, but a whopping twenty seven
Speaker 1: percent were left handed and the more warlike Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, think twice if you've ever challenged the
Speaker 1: left handed boxer, Historically speaking, it probably isn't gonna go
Speaker 1: so well for you. Well, I'm not sure i'd fear
Speaker 1: that much better against right handed boxes that. There's plenty
Speaker 1: more where that came from, because today's show is all
Speaker 1: about the unusual advantages that everyday people enjoy, from the
Speaker 1: high social standing of tall people to the surprising success
Speaker 1: rate behind your lucky rabbit's foot. There's all sorts of
Speaker 1: ways to get the upper hand in life, even if
Speaker 1: you aren't left handed. So let's dive in. H he
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: Man Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of that
Speaker 1: soundproof glass working the soundboard with his left hand. Today
Speaker 1: Impress that is our brilliant producer Lowell, and I should
Speaker 1: say that law is not, in fact left handed, so
Speaker 1: this is something at least somewhat notable. So anyway, Mango,
Speaker 1: where do you want to start? Yeah, and we've never
Speaker 1: faced a left handed producer before, so I um, I
Speaker 1: actually do want to stick with actual sports and talking
Speaker 1: about something I had always wondered about until this week,
Speaker 1: and that's whether or not home field advantages a real thing,
Speaker 1: Like does the location of a game factor into an
Speaker 1: athlete's performance or do teams play the same whether they're
Speaker 1: on their own turf or not? What? It's kind of
Speaker 1: an age old question, and if I had to guess,
Speaker 1: I'd say there's at least some truth to it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know some sports leagues have regulations to ensure that
Speaker 1: playing fields are mostly the same from place to place,
Speaker 1: but there's still the psychological element of it all, Like
Speaker 1: you have to figure players would be more at ease
Speaker 1: in the place that they're used to playing. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: in the world the bathrooms are the best places to
Speaker 1: get nachos. The way team is not going to know
Speaker 1: any of that, but it's very, very true. I love
Speaker 1: that your conception of home field advantages. Knowing where to
Speaker 1: find that the tastiest snacks. But you're right about home
Speaker 1: field advantage being a real thing, and and a good
Speaker 1: deal of why that is does have to do with psychology.
Speaker 1: So first I want to give a little bit of background. Um,
Speaker 1: there have been a bunch of studies into home field
Speaker 1: advantage over the years, covering a wide variety of different sports,
Speaker 1: and the results have been shockingly consistent, like the home
Speaker 1: team wins more games away than away teams, and not
Speaker 1: by small margin either. In two ten, as psychologist named
Speaker 1: Jeremy Jamison put together a review of all the different
Speaker 1: home field advantage studies out there, and based on the
Speaker 1: combined data, it concluded that a home team will win
Speaker 1: roughly six of all its games its place. That suks
Speaker 1: a little bit higher than that I would have guessed.
Speaker 1: So what's actually fueling that advantage, like you said, has
Speaker 1: something to do with the psychology of the players, that's right.
Speaker 1: So part of it goes back to what you allude
Speaker 1: to earlier, like the players familiarity with where they're playing,
Speaker 1: kind of feeling at ease in this environment. It tends
Speaker 1: to contribute a lot to the home field advantage. In fact,
Speaker 1: according to one study, if a team moves into a
Speaker 1: new home stadium, it'll have a weaker home field advantage
Speaker 1: until the players get acclimated to the new space. Oh
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So so you're feeling at home in your
Speaker 1: home field at some point. So what else is a factor?
Speaker 1: The next one is something I know we can both
Speaker 1: relate to, and and that's travel fatigue. Like, I don't
Speaker 1: travel as much as you do, but it can get
Speaker 1: pretty exhausting trying to adjust to new cities and time
Speaker 1: zones and all the while taking meetings and missing home.
Speaker 1: But you know, imagine all of that except in between flights,
Speaker 1: you play hours and hours of tackle football in front
Speaker 1: of like thousands of screaming fans. Like jet like suddenly
Speaker 1: becomes like a million times more tiring. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: do kind of want somebody to tackle you before our
Speaker 1: next meete, just to see for ourselves, Like yeah, they
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta live by example here. But all right,
Speaker 1: So you're saying there's a link between how far a
Speaker 1: team travels and how well they play against the home
Speaker 1: team competitors. Yeah, it seems like the further team has
Speaker 1: to travel, the bigger the advantage for the home team,
Speaker 1: and the last factor at play kind of goes along
Speaker 1: with that travel component, because the other downside for the
Speaker 1: way team is that it can't bring its fan base along.
Speaker 1: Like a crowd's behavior has a major impact on how
Speaker 1: well the players perform. You and I know this from
Speaker 1: going to Duke and and having that whole advantage there.
Speaker 1: But you know, at an away game, most of the
Speaker 1: people in the crowd will be rooting for the home team.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And and that obviously gives the home team
Speaker 1: a little morale boost, but imagine it also deflates the
Speaker 1: away team, Like it can't be a great feeling to
Speaker 1: hear a stadium full of people cheering for the other
Speaker 1: guy or against to you. But you know, all the
Speaker 1: stuff we've mentioned, the crowd, the field, the travel time,
Speaker 1: all of that factors into the psychological state of the players,
Speaker 1: and that positive mindset is really the biggest contributor to
Speaker 1: home field advantage. If all the players are feeling motivated
Speaker 1: and upbeat about the conditions of the game, that's likely
Speaker 1: to show up in their performance. Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: makes sense, but I'm still wondering, like if this advantage
Speaker 1: is the same from sport to sport. Like I know
Speaker 1: you said that studies have looked at a wide range
Speaker 1: of different sports, but we're some sports better for the
Speaker 1: home team than others Or was it always pretty much
Speaker 1: the same degree of advantage? Yeah, so I wondered about
Speaker 1: that too, and it seems like it really does very
Speaker 1: depending on the sport. For example, there's a sports author
Speaker 1: named John Bois who took three years worth of win
Speaker 1: and lost data and he took it from four different
Speaker 1: pro leagues, so hockey, baseball, football, and basketball. Then he
Speaker 1: extrapolated how each of the different win counts would have
Speaker 1: been affected if the teams had played all of their
Speaker 1: games at home, so like no away games at all.
Speaker 1: And what he found was that the NHL teams and
Speaker 1: MLB teams would have experienced the smallest boost from the
Speaker 1: home field advantage of all the leagues. They would have
Speaker 1: won each a little shy of I guess five and
Speaker 1: a half percent more games than they actually did, which
Speaker 1: is still nothing is sneeze at, particularly if you've got
Speaker 1: money riding on those games. But the NFL teams would
Speaker 1: have seen the second biggest boost, about six point four percent,
Speaker 1: and then NBA teams would have seen the biggest boost
Speaker 1: by far if they had played all of their games
Speaker 1: at home for a three year period, they would have
Speaker 1: won ten percent more games than they actually do. You know,
Speaker 1: I think about this in in football. I feel like
Speaker 1: it makes sense because you think about the intensity of
Speaker 1: the cheering when the offense is trying to call plays
Speaker 1: or whatever like whatever they do in that scenario, right,
Speaker 1: and it's hard for them to hear each other, and
Speaker 1: it seems like you could get them rattled. But do
Speaker 1: we know why the advantage would be so much greater
Speaker 1: for NBA teams, Well, we don't, but I guess one
Speaker 1: of the things that Bo has pointed out was that
Speaker 1: the playing dimensions of a basketball court don't really very
Speaker 1: like they do in other sports such as baseball, and
Speaker 1: and on top of that, like NBA games are all
Speaker 1: played inside, so weather is never a factor. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, the hometown, crowd and trial factors are still
Speaker 1: in play for NBA teams, but the environmental factor might
Speaker 1: not play his large role in in the players mindsets
Speaker 1: as as it does in baseball or even football. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, home field advantage isn't the only
Speaker 1: kind of location based benefit in the sports world. There's
Speaker 1: also something I was reading about this week called small
Speaker 1: town advantage, and the gist of this is that people
Speaker 1: who grew up in a small town they like fifty
Speaker 1: thou people or under, they will have a higher chance
Speaker 1: of becoming a professional athlete than someone for a more
Speaker 1: populated city or town. That's something I've not seen before,
Speaker 1: and the numbers behind this are actually pretty remarkable. So
Speaker 1: there was this two thousand seventeen article in Pacific Standard
Speaker 1: that only about of the u S population lives in
Speaker 1: a town with under fifty thou people. Yet despite that,
Speaker 1: nearly half of all NFL and p g A players
Speaker 1: are from towns that size, and the same trends present
Speaker 1: to a slightly lesser degree in other sports too. That's
Speaker 1: I think it's like NHL players somewhere around that same
Speaker 1: staff or Major League Baseball players come from towns fewer
Speaker 1: than fifty thousand, and for the NBA, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's twenty eight percent, So pretty interesting. That's pretty crazy,
Speaker 1: especially since you think the opposite would be true, right,
Speaker 1: like the larger cities would have access to more equipment,
Speaker 1: maybe more competition, and more opportunities for players to be discovered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the truth is it's tough to pinpoint why
Speaker 1: small towns make such great incubators for pro athletes. I mean,
Speaker 1: it could be there's something unique about the atmosphere of
Speaker 1: small towns that make it particularly conducive to athletic development.
Speaker 1: The close knit community spirit, or the level of importance
Speaker 1: that rural areas tend to place on sports. Maybe, But
Speaker 1: whatever first got the trend rolling, it's kind of become
Speaker 1: a self perpetuating cycle at this point. What do you
Speaker 1: mean by that, Well, small town residents tend to know
Speaker 1: how many legends their areas have produced, like Bo Jacks.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many times a day do I remind
Speaker 1: you that Bo Jackson came from the Birmingham area, right,
Speaker 1: you know, to Wayne Gretzky. And that makes the dream
Speaker 1: of making it to the big league seem all the
Speaker 1: more attainable for the next crop of players. And it
Speaker 1: is something that makes sense. So if somebody grew up
Speaker 1: in your neighborhood and you see them turn pro, then
Speaker 1: it stands the reason that maybe you could too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I used to live in Greenville and North
Speaker 1: Carolina and and Kinston was right next door. And the
Speaker 1: number of star basketball players and football players that will
Speaker 1: come out of is pretty remarkable. Um, but not Jackson, No,
Speaker 1: not win Gretzky. But you know, there's one more sports
Speaker 1: advantage I wanted to talk about, and that's the fact
Speaker 1: that being short can actually give players a big advantage
Speaker 1: in soccer. It's it's funny, but one of our friends
Speaker 1: kids learned from his doctor that he might be you know,
Speaker 1: six foot or whatever like these projections, and he was
Speaker 1: totally depressed because he would He was hoping he'd be
Speaker 1: like five seven, like Messy or five eight, which is
Speaker 1: just funny to think about, especially for someone like me.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's kind of counterintuitive since bigger is
Speaker 1: usually better when it comes to sports. But in the
Speaker 1: case of soccer, being tall is only helpful if you're
Speaker 1: a defender or a goalie. For the other positions like
Speaker 1: forwards and fielders, the edge goes to the shorter players.
Speaker 1: So why is that the main reason is that shorter
Speaker 1: players tend to have better control of their limbs, which
Speaker 1: allows them to change direction faster than a tall player could. Uh.
Speaker 1: That kind of nimbleness really keeps defenders on their toes
Speaker 1: and and makes it harder to box in a short
Speaker 1: opponent or to anticipate their movements. But that's not the
Speaker 1: only advantage, you know. According to The Atlantic, studies have
Speaker 1: shown that tall players are called for fouls more frequently
Speaker 1: than shorter players. That could just be that the referees
Speaker 1: are associating height with aggression, or maybe the longer limbs
Speaker 1: are more visible. But you know, I'm not sure exactly
Speaker 1: what the reason is, but but tall folks definitely get
Speaker 1: carded more. Yeah, and I know in other sports like basketball,
Speaker 1: it's obviously an advantage overall to be tall. But it
Speaker 1: is also interesting to watch, you know, when you used
Speaker 1: to watch guys like Shack play and they could just
Speaker 1: get hammered all day long and nobody would call them.
Speaker 1: A lot of times Everson will pull someone down and
Speaker 1: get called exactly exactly. It's so bizarre to to look
Speaker 1: at these stats, but you know, it's interesting to see
Speaker 1: how different levels of influence people can have over these advantages.
Speaker 1: Like with home field advantage, it kind of comes down
Speaker 1: to the player's mindset and how they respond to things
Speaker 1: outside their control. And with the small town advantage, like
Speaker 1: that's something people could actually seek out if they were
Speaker 1: so inclined, Like if you had a young kid that
Speaker 1: wants to be a pro football player, you could move
Speaker 1: to a small town and theoretically they could reap the
Speaker 1: advantage of that. But now we're getting into stuff like
Speaker 1: height and the social stigma surrounding height, and those are
Speaker 1: things that nobody really has much say in. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems like a good distinction to make, and why
Speaker 1: don't we check out some of those advantages. Right after
Speaker 1: this break, you're listening to part Time Genius and we're
Speaker 1: talking about some of the lesser known advantages that certain
Speaker 1: groups of people enjoy. And since we closed out the
Speaker 1: last segment with a short person perk, I think it's
Speaker 1: only fair we balance out and go for for one
Speaker 1: for the tall people out there. So here we go.
Speaker 1: Tall people make more money than short people. That's it,
Speaker 1: end the story. So I hate this already, but I
Speaker 1: feel like you need to explain a little bit. Well.
Speaker 1: According to a two thousand fifteen study published in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Human Capital, salary rates trend upward right along
Speaker 1: with height in most Western countries, so much so that
Speaker 1: if one employee is four or five inches taller than another,
Speaker 1: the taller person would make anywhere between nine and fifteen
Speaker 1: percent more than the short who imagine being a seventh
Speaker 1: fetter would be so rich. But put another way, an
Speaker 1: extra inch of height could be worth as much as
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars per year in additional earnings. Match that
Speaker 1: to inflation rates, track it over thirty years, and you're
Speaker 1: looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra income
Speaker 1: just for being tall. So I guess, setting aside the
Speaker 1: sheer injustice of this tall I'm curious to hear what's
Speaker 1: driving this because I feel like this would have made
Speaker 1: sense like centuries ago, right when most of the jobs
Speaker 1: relied on size or strength or whatever. But it seems
Speaker 1: strange that the trend would continue in an era of
Speaker 1: like the desk job, right, like maybe someone who's taller
Speaker 1: can reach the high shelf in the break room or
Speaker 1: something that height doesn't really help with Excel sheets, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make a lot of sense on paper. And
Speaker 1: you know, one theory is that employers aren't paying strictly
Speaker 1: based on height. Instead, it's that taller people are landing
Speaker 1: higher paying jobs because their height lends them to more
Speaker 1: self confidence or better social skills, which allows them to
Speaker 1: climb the pay ladder faster. Anyway, if you're angling for
Speaker 1: a raise at work, adding some lists to your shoes
Speaker 1: might actually help. So think about that. I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: how Tom Cruise got that big payday, right. So, sticking
Speaker 1: with our theme of things that are beyond our control,
Speaker 1: here's another bombshell. I bet you never would have guessed
Speaker 1: their advantages to being attractive. What you don't say, mango?
Speaker 1: Come on. So what's funny about this is that even
Speaker 1: scientists benefit from this. So, according to new research from
Speaker 1: the University of Essex and the Universe Said Cambridge, the
Speaker 1: way that a scientist looks affects the level of interest
Speaker 1: in their work and they're perceived credibility. As one of
Speaker 1: the psychologists behind the study explained, this is true because
Speaker 1: quote people partly treat science communication as a form of entertainment,
Speaker 1: where emotional impact in the esthetic appeal are desirable qualities.
Speaker 1: Like it's weird to think society might buy into an
Speaker 1: argument that the world is flat or some other ridiculous
Speaker 1: argument like if the scientist is is just attractive enough.
Speaker 1: It sounds a little like that thirty Rock episode where
Speaker 1: John Hamm becomes a doctor and a Tennyson starter and
Speaker 1: like he's horrible at all. These things that people keep
Speaker 1: getting in the past because he's so handsome. But uh,
Speaker 1: I actually clarified this with GiB because I was thinking
Speaker 1: the same thing you were, and the link here between
Speaker 1: attractiveness and credibility isn't quite what you're thinking. So over
Speaker 1: the course of six studies, researchers were able to show
Speaker 1: that scientists who peer competent, moral, and attractive are more
Speaker 1: likely to garner interest in their work, which isn't a surprise, right,
Speaker 1: But then the researchers continued writing, quote, the scientists who
Speaker 1: appear competent, in and moral, but who are relatively unattractive
Speaker 1: create a stronger impression of doing high quality research. So
Speaker 1: just to get this right, so the public is more
Speaker 1: likely to pay attention to the research of an attractive scientist,
Speaker 1: but less likely to believe what they're saying. Like, is
Speaker 1: that right? Yeah, they're basically like cer no diverge racking.
Speaker 1: But basically, the next time the public needs to be
Speaker 1: informed about a scientific breakthrough, it's probably best to pair
Speaker 1: scientists to give a presentation like an attractive one to
Speaker 1: win the audience's approval, and you know, an ugly one
Speaker 1: to give it credibility. The old Watson and Crick is
Speaker 1: what they call it, I think, so I have no idea.
Speaker 1: That's interesting though, Well, since we're on the subject of scientists,
Speaker 1: have you ever noticed how we tend to refer to
Speaker 1: the male ones by their surnames, but we call female
Speaker 1: scientists by their full names, Like Darwin is just Darwin.
Speaker 1: But have you ever heard anyone just say Cury like
Speaker 1: it's always Marie Curry, Right, I know it's just making
Speaker 1: a joke about Watson Crick, but like I know Rosalind
Speaker 1: Franklin's full name, but I know one of them is James,
Speaker 1: but I don't know which one. Yeah, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: actually even a name for this bias. It's called surname bias.
Speaker 1: So basically, when we hear someone called by their surname,
Speaker 1: it tends to improve our perception of them. Maybe it
Speaker 1: makes them seem more important or dignified in our minds,
Speaker 1: maybe stronger or more imminent or something like that. But
Speaker 1: the main problem with this is that we don't wield
Speaker 1: that surname bias fairly so. According to a string of
Speaker 1: recent studies, on average, and regardless of gender, people are
Speaker 1: twice as likely to refer to men by their surnames
Speaker 1: than they are women. And those findings hold true across
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of different professions, whether it's politics, science, literature,
Speaker 1: like the list goes on. So how exactly does this
Speaker 1: advantage play in real life? Like what's the payoff for
Speaker 1: being just being called by your last name? Alright, we're
Speaker 1: just going back to the scientists for a minute. There
Speaker 1: was a study back in two thousand and seventeen were
Speaker 1: more than five hundred participants were asked to determine who
Speaker 1: among a group of scientists should receive a half million
Speaker 1: dollars science grant. Some of the scientists were referred to
Speaker 1: by or full names and others by their surnames. And
Speaker 1: as you can probably guess by what we've been saying,
Speaker 1: the participants showed a clear preference for this surname only contenders.
Speaker 1: In fact, those candidates were a full fourteen percent more
Speaker 1: likely to be recommended for the award. So if that
Speaker 1: same strange advantages cropping up across all these different fields,
Speaker 1: it stands to reason that surname bias is a serious
Speaker 1: contributor to the gender inequality in the workplace. And the
Speaker 1: ironic part of this is that you know, the trend
Speaker 1: of using women's full names actually may have started with
Speaker 1: noble intentions as a way of drawing attention to the
Speaker 1: presence and the contributions of women, especially in fields traditionally
Speaker 1: associated with men. So the plan, though, it seems to
Speaker 1: have backfired since so many of us have this surname
Speaker 1: bias kind of baked into us. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: little depressing, but I'm glad we're more aware of it,
Speaker 1: and I think I am only going to call Marie
Speaker 1: Curry Cury from now on. But why don't we switch
Speaker 1: gears and talk about a few of the more even
Speaker 1: handed advantages there right after this break? Welcome back to
Speaker 1: part time genius. Okay, well, so let's talk about advantages
Speaker 1: that are a little easier to come by, ones that
Speaker 1: aren't as dependent on chance or circumstances. Did you come
Speaker 1: across anything like that. Yeah, I feel like I've got
Speaker 1: just the thing for you, because all you really need
Speaker 1: for this one is a library card. Now. Being able
Speaker 1: to read and having access to books are obviously big
Speaker 1: advantages in life, especially during childhood, and hopefully it's clear
Speaker 1: by now that you and I are big proponents of reading.
Speaker 1: But according to new research, simply being around books might
Speaker 1: be a benefit in itself, even if you don't actually
Speaker 1: read them. So my first question is, are you sure
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be talking about this because my kids
Speaker 1: listening to this program just just sitting near the books.
Speaker 1: But what's advantage of having unread books around? There's something
Speaker 1: in social science called radiation effect. I think this is
Speaker 1: so interesting. So that's when children grow up with books
Speaker 1: in the house, they don't read them very much, but
Speaker 1: still somehow benefit later in life just from having grown
Speaker 1: up around books. It's a really weird phenomenon, but there's
Speaker 1: a study on it recently by a sociologist at the
Speaker 1: Australian National University. Her name is Joanna Secora, and along
Speaker 1: with her colleagues, she pieced together five years worth of
Speaker 1: developmental data on more than a hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 1: adults from thirty one different societies. These surveys were aimed
Speaker 1: at assessing things like literacy, competency with numbers, even technology,
Speaker 1: and part of this was asking the question of how
Speaker 1: large of a home library the participants had during their adolescence.
Speaker 1: Some of the findings from this we were actually pretty surprising. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, the participants who only had a high school education,
Speaker 1: but who had grown up around books. They boasted better literacy, numeracy,
Speaker 1: and digital problem solving as adults than the college grads
Speaker 1: and the survey who had grown up in bookless homes.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, and I'm guessing this all comes down to
Speaker 1: someone in the house valuing knowledge or learning. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: ultimately comes down to why the books are in the
Speaker 1: house in the first place. So the lead researcher, Skora
Speaker 1: sum this up well in a recent interview with Scientific American.
Speaker 1: Here's what she said. If we grow up in a house,
Speaker 1: in a home where parents enjoy books, where books are
Speaker 1: given as birthday presents and cherished and valued, this is
Speaker 1: something that becomes part of our identity and gives us
Speaker 1: this lifelong incentive to be literacy oriented, to always kind
Speaker 1: of steer towards books and read more than we would otherwise.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, and honestly, I have so many books in
Speaker 1: our house that we haven't read. I'm wondering if it's
Speaker 1: a good life hack for you know, not having to
Speaker 1: pay for my kids college. So good strategy. On an
Speaker 1: opposite note, Gabe was telling me about Lucky Charms this
Speaker 1: week and it's pretty much the opposite case, right. The
Speaker 1: advantage depends entirely on the charm holders participation in it.
Speaker 1: But there are you saying there really is some advantage
Speaker 1: to carrying a lucky charm. It sounds impossible, but there's
Speaker 1: a social psychology study from about a decade ago where
Speaker 1: participants all performed better in memory and dexterity tests when
Speaker 1: they were allowed to keep their lucky charms with them,
Speaker 1: and when the charms were taken away their scores plummeted,
Speaker 1: and when the charms were returned, their scores increased again.
Speaker 1: So then one it's like a placebo effect, but for
Speaker 1: luckiness instead of health. Yes, sort of. I mean the
Speaker 1: researchers theorized that the people would lucky charms perform better
Speaker 1: because they stuck with the problems longer than those without charms.
Speaker 1: Because they believed in the luckiness of their objects, they
Speaker 1: felt more equipped and capable when faced with a tough challenge,
Speaker 1: and that confidence ultimately boosted them over the top. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because there's this urge to like look sideways
Speaker 1: of people for putting so much faith and like a
Speaker 1: rabbit's phone or whatever. The lucky charm is. But I
Speaker 1: guess there must be some reason why they believe in
Speaker 1: an object's luck in the first place, right, Like something
Speaker 1: must have convinced them. It's just hard to imagine exactly
Speaker 1: what that could be. Yeah, I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: helps to remember that what we think of as luck
Speaker 1: is really more about brain chemistry and worldviews than it
Speaker 1: is about you know, chance or magic. Like our our
Speaker 1: brains are hardwired to look for patterns, and we often
Speaker 1: have good incentive to find them, like even if they
Speaker 1: aren't really there. For example, I if I make a
Speaker 1: conscious choice to wear I don't know, a shirt with
Speaker 1: a bear on it, and then I end up having
Speaker 1: a great day at work, there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that will take notice of that and link the two
Speaker 1: events wearing the bear shirt and then having a good
Speaker 1: day at the office. And and then if I wear
Speaker 1: the bear shirt a second time and have another great
Speaker 1: day at work like that mental connection will become even stronger,
Speaker 1: and and I might think there's something going on and
Speaker 1: that shirt is lucky or whatever. You know. I know
Speaker 1: we talked about a lot of business ideas, but like,
Speaker 1: just hearing you talk about this, it kind of makes
Speaker 1: me think we need to get in the bear st
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be our next thing. But as
Speaker 1: bizarre as it all sounds, I have to admit, it's
Speaker 1: sort of comforting to think that there could actually be
Speaker 1: away for us to kind of make our own luck.
Speaker 1: Like that. It reminds me of something I read in
Speaker 1: The Atlantic this week about the social advantage that comes
Speaker 1: with having pockets Mango like pant pockets. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It turns out the word pocket is an Anglo Norman
Speaker 1: word meaning little bag, And when pockets first came on
Speaker 1: the scene in the late seventeenth century, that's essentially what
Speaker 1: they were, like, these small, detachable bags that were tied
Speaker 1: around the waist with a draw string. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until the eighteen fifties, when clothes became more tightly fitted,
Speaker 1: that pockets started to be sewn directly into the garments.
Speaker 1: And this new kind of pocket was smaller than the
Speaker 1: old draw string version, but it kind of made up
Speaker 1: for that by being so much harder to steal. Honestly, though,
Speaker 1: if you were a woman living during this time period,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't really care which kind of pockets you had,
Speaker 1: so long as you did have pockets. And that's because
Speaker 1: pockets were a game changer for women. So it seems
Speaker 1: like such a small thing, but being able to easily
Speaker 1: and discreetly carry objects that, you know, it is an advantage.
Speaker 1: But before pockets came along, that really wasn't much of
Speaker 1: an option for women. Now remember this is all prior
Speaker 1: to the rise of handbags and backpack and so suddenly
Speaker 1: women were able to move outside the home because now
Speaker 1: they had a private space to hold, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: they needed throughout the day. That's funny. I never really
Speaker 1: thought of pockets as a symbol of independence. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you can't have your wallet or phone or keys
Speaker 1: on you like, you can't really move through not like
Speaker 1: public spaces. Yeah, it's right. And in fact, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember this, but there's a great scene
Speaker 1: about pockets and the wind and the willows. Do you
Speaker 1: remember all the scenes from you say pockets this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's when Mr Toad is trying to escape from jail
Speaker 1: after being locked up, you know, for joy riding in
Speaker 1: his motor car and he ends up disguising himself as
Speaker 1: the prisons washer woman in order to slip past the guards.
Speaker 1: But he finds out that the stolen clothes he's wearing
Speaker 1: don't include pockets, and so listen to how he takes
Speaker 1: the news to this horror. Toad recollected that he had
Speaker 1: left both coat and waistcoat behind him and his cell.
Speaker 1: All that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes the
Speaker 1: many pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the feior
Speaker 1: one pocketed or no pocketed productions that hop or trip
Speaker 1: about permissively unequipped for the real contest. Pretty defenditive right there.
Speaker 1: So even m your toad realized the freedom grunted by pockets,
Speaker 1: and not just him. So back in the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: you'd see posted advertisements for runaway slaves, and some of
Speaker 1: the descriptions would warn that just because his clothes have pockets,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean he's a free man. So I guess
Speaker 1: we should be grateful for pockets, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep saying pockets. But they give us
Speaker 1: this agency in public that was denied to so many
Speaker 1: people for a long long time. Plus where else are
Speaker 1: you gonna keep your lucky charms? Right? So you know,
Speaker 1: we started today's show talking about one on one competitions,
Speaker 1: and now it's time to close it by holding one
Speaker 1: of our own. It's time for the fact off. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So I came across a bunch of different advantages this
Speaker 1: week that all center on the sound of your voice
Speaker 1: and how it can fluence the way people perceive you. So,
Speaker 1: for example, men are more likely to vote for men
Speaker 1: who have deeper, more masculine voices, and and ceo s
Speaker 1: with deeper voices tend to manage larger companies and earn
Speaker 1: larger salaries. But there's at least one profession where it
Speaker 1: pays for men to be a little more soft spoken.
Speaker 1: According to a study outlined and New Scientists, lawyers with gentler,
Speaker 1: less masculine voices are more likely to win in court
Speaker 1: than their gruffer, sounder colleagues. And the researchers behind the
Speaker 1: study aren't a hundred percent sure why that is, but
Speaker 1: they say it could be that the lawyers with deeper
Speaker 1: voices are perceived as being overcompensating or trying to sound masculine.
Speaker 1: Well that's interesting, all right. So here's a weird one.
Speaker 1: It turns out that die hard opera fans have a
Speaker 1: slight edge when it comes to chemistry class. This is
Speaker 1: my favorite. So back in two thousand thirteen, a team
Speaker 1: of chemists study the librettos of twenty famous operas, and
Speaker 1: they found that the effects of twenty five different natural
Speaker 1: and synthetic chemical materials were accurately described in them, everything
Speaker 1: from snake venom to deadly nightshade. According to the Smithsonian,
Speaker 1: the researchers hope that teachers will use the poison based
Speaker 1: plots to help the students better engage with chemistry, because
Speaker 1: if there is one thing teams love more than chemistry,
Speaker 1: it's gotta be opera. So we talked about left handed
Speaker 1: advantages at the top of the show, but there's one
Speaker 1: more that's too random not to mention. According to a
Speaker 1: report commissioned by the A Driving School, left handed drivers
Speaker 1: have a much easier time passing their driving test. In fact,
Speaker 1: six out of ten or fifty seven percent actually, of
Speaker 1: the left handers passed their driving test on the first try,
Speaker 1: according to the findings, and that means south pause are
Speaker 1: a full ten percent more likely than right handers to
Speaker 1: pass on their first attempt. And as any Color points
Speaker 1: out for ABC News, that puts left handed drivers in
Speaker 1: good company with famous lefty drivers including buzz Aldren and
Speaker 1: none other than Chewbacco himself. Who you know it was
Speaker 1: also left handed. That's right, all right, Well, here's one
Speaker 1: I was kind of surprised to learn. Actually, color blindness
Speaker 1: can sometimes be an asset in combat situations. The ideas
Speaker 1: that the condition forces a soldier to focus on patterns
Speaker 1: instead of colors, which can be useful for spotting camouflaged
Speaker 1: enemies in the field. So much so, in fact, that
Speaker 1: color blind units were reportedly used during World War Two
Speaker 1: to help identify snipers. That's fascinating. So here's a fun one.
Speaker 1: It turns out that women are more attracted to men
Speaker 1: if they're holding guitars, which is why someone taught the
Speaker 1: house course in college called just Enough Guitar to Serenade
Speaker 1: a Girl. That's right. I think the whole thing led
Speaker 1: up to playing that song Tangerine by led zepplind That. Uh.
Speaker 1: Let let me tell you about the study because it's interesting.
Speaker 1: A team of researchers in France hired this beefcake guy
Speaker 1: and over the course of a single afternoon, they had
Speaker 1: him hit on three women between the ages of eighteen
Speaker 1: and twenty two, and in each case, the guy followed
Speaker 1: the same routine, right beat for beat, he introduced himself
Speaker 1: and he told the woman like, I think you're really pretty,
Speaker 1: and then he proceeded to ask each one for her
Speaker 1: phone numbers, so you know they could get a drink together.
Speaker 1: But here's the twist. For a third of these counters,
Speaker 1: the guy was carrying a guitar case, for another third
Speaker 1: he was carrying a gym bag, and for the remaining
Speaker 1: third he wasn't carrying anything. And wouldn't you know it,
Speaker 1: when when he was carrying the guitar case, a shocking
Speaker 1: thirty of the women gave him their numbers, compared that
Speaker 1: with nine percent who did when he was carrying the
Speaker 1: gym bag and when he was carrying nothing. And it's
Speaker 1: pretty clear that music is the language of love. That's
Speaker 1: wild though, like thirty two percent to fourteen percent. It's
Speaker 1: not just like a small advantage, it's a huge advantage.
Speaker 1: And nine percent with the gym bag because I think
Speaker 1: like they just think he's a meat head or something. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's pretty well. Well, it may not be the most
Speaker 1: surprising fact of the day, but you managed to breathe
Speaker 1: a little romance into the show, and for that alone,
Speaker 1: I think you got to take the show. Mango, well
Speaker 1: played thanks so much, and I accept this on behalf
Speaker 1: of everyone who's faked playing a musical instrument to get
Speaker 1: a date. But that's going to do it. For today's
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius from Will Gave Blowl and myself, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. We'll be back soon with another
Speaker 1: new episode. Ye Part Time Genius is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite show.