Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about undercover actors in the shadows self. Now.
Speaker 1: We're following up our pro wrestling episode The Keeping Cafe,
Speaker 1: which published just prior to this one, UH. And in
Speaker 1: that episode, we talk a lot about this UH, about
Speaker 1: the idea of layering reality with these with fiction, particularly
Speaker 1: as it involves institutions and sports and UH and product
Speaker 1: performance products that are given to to an audience, layering
Speaker 1: it with fiction to improve upon it and change it.
Speaker 1: And we touched a little bit about what happens when
Speaker 1: you put these layers of fiction upon yourself. We talked
Speaker 1: to pro wrestler Colt Cabana Quis him a little bit
Speaker 1: about what it's like when he has to play a
Speaker 1: villain in the ring and then when he leaves the ring, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, how he's able to shut that off, but
Speaker 1: how he still feels like there is a certain amount
Speaker 1: of him that is UH, that escapes into this villainous character.
Speaker 1: And likewise there's a there's an aspect of him in
Speaker 1: the really goody were not really goody two shoes, but
Speaker 1: the good guy version of himself that he also portrays.
Speaker 1: So in this episode, we're going to continue the sort
Speaker 1: of exploration, but we're gonna be looking beyond the world
Speaker 1: of pro wrestlers and looking into the world of actors
Speaker 1: method acting, for instance, We're gonna look at undercover cops, uh,
Speaker 1: and we're also going to look at our online selves
Speaker 1: a little bit. And before we do so, just wanted
Speaker 1: to UM, let you know a little bit about cafe
Speaker 1: being in case you didn't hear the other episode. Cafe
Speaker 1: is a term that's an old Carney term that he's
Speaker 1: uh used to indicate that someone should keep being fake.
Speaker 1: In other words, if you are wrestling, UM, and you're
Speaker 1: it's a fake wrestling match, you want to make sure
Speaker 1: you don't break out of characters, so you want a
Speaker 1: cave ape, right. And we talked in that other episode
Speaker 1: about how kfaving really pervades the fabric of our culture,
Speaker 1: and this is something that has come up, I believe
Speaker 1: with Cold Cabana. Um it has come up and uh
Speaker 1: Eric Weinstein's article about k fabing uh that you can
Speaker 1: find it everywhere. You can find it in reality shows
Speaker 1: because a lot of these reality shows, as we know,
Speaker 1: are scripted, and yet the audience doesn't seem to care
Speaker 1: much like in pro wrestling, right that they don't care
Speaker 1: that there's k saving going on. It's about the spectacle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, but then it can also end up sort
Speaker 1: of warping the individual, or seeming to because we asked
Speaker 1: Cold about this and he said that, yeah, there are
Speaker 1: times where a particular wrestler lets their gimmick, let's their
Speaker 1: their fictional self, um, kind of alter their their real self.
Speaker 1: Like they'll they'll buy into the gimmick too much, they'll
Speaker 1: believe the hype about the character they betray, and on
Speaker 1: some level it becomes with confused with who they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why Eric Weinstein in his essay alluded to that
Speaker 1: and said that sometimes they believe these confabulations of their
Speaker 1: storylines so much so, like for instance, some sort of
Speaker 1: infidelity or adultery, that they will actually then go on
Speaker 1: to commit adultery. Some of these pro wrestlers and some
Speaker 1: of these various storylines that they've had to play out.
Speaker 1: So we start thinking about that, and of course we
Speaker 1: look at ourselves and start to wonder, okay, what about
Speaker 1: our own minds and our own consciousness and sense of
Speaker 1: self Because when we get up in the morning, we
Speaker 1: basically have to put on our public selves right when
Speaker 1: we go out the door. And what is this story
Speaker 1: that we're telling ourselves? What is this script that we're
Speaker 1: we're following for ourselves? Yeah, and ultimately, who is that guy?
Speaker 1: Who is that girl that you are in these various
Speaker 1: environments like who's that Who's that person that you are
Speaker 1: on the subway train versus that person that you are
Speaker 1: in the office, versus that person that you are, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, say tucked into bed with your significant other
Speaker 1: or you know, talking to the cat in the meddle,
Speaker 1: And I don't know. It's like every different an environment,
Speaker 1: every different interaction with the external world, it tends to
Speaker 1: summon a different you. Yeah. And although we tend to
Speaker 1: think that we've got this continuity director in our head
Speaker 1: making sure that we're always the same person we we
Speaker 1: purport ourselves to be, there are opportunities for us to
Speaker 1: break from the script. And that's what we're gonna look
Speaker 1: at a little bit today. And when you start thinking
Speaker 1: about scripts, of course, we have to look at actors yes, now, yeah,
Speaker 1: when you start thinking about actors, and certainly that comes up.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about like pro wrestlers who are
Speaker 1: in an angle where they have to pretend they're having
Speaker 1: an affair, and then they end up having the affair.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can think of various examples of actors
Speaker 1: and and they end up meeting on a set where
Speaker 1: they're playing significant others and then they end up being
Speaker 1: significant others to a certain extent, you know, And and
Speaker 1: certainly I even remember I was in a community play
Speaker 1: adaptation of seventy six. I was Thomas Jefferson and uh
Speaker 1: and I ended up dating um Mrs Jefferson after the play. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you feel like that the groundwork was put there
Speaker 1: and that it was just like that whole debate about
Speaker 1: whether or not you have any free will. It was
Speaker 1: like the suggestion was there and you followed it. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's possible, but but but certainly
Speaker 1: you see this at times. You see people that that,
Speaker 1: and you hear stories about actors really getting into their roles,
Speaker 1: particularly as far as method acting is concerned. So method
Speaker 1: acting uh generally combines uh, the the you know, the
Speaker 1: actor's consideration of the character's psychological motives and personal identification,
Speaker 1: like they're they're getting there trying to get their mind
Speaker 1: inside that of the character they're portraying, Like they're they're
Speaker 1: asking themselves, who is this person? And then what do
Speaker 1: I need to do to connect with them? Like how
Speaker 1: can I connect my own feelings with the feelings of
Speaker 1: this character and and therefore create a more um believable
Speaker 1: presentation on the screen, this versus more you know, a
Speaker 1: more traditional, like non method approach, where one just simply
Speaker 1: it gets up there and and you know, recites the
Speaker 1: lines and does so in a way that that mimics um,
Speaker 1: legitimate deep felt emotion and uh. And then there's of course,
Speaker 1: there are stories plenty of stories about actors who supposedly
Speaker 1: like don't break character, like for like an entire week
Speaker 1: of fifth filming, even though they're only filming like during
Speaker 1: the day, like they're they're they're staying in character outside
Speaker 1: of the picture um and uh. And the and those
Speaker 1: stories are like you people get a little um auntsie
Speaker 1: about that, particularly people who really follow the method. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they'll say, well, that's not really what method acting
Speaker 1: is all about, that's not what was actually you know,
Speaker 1: originally part of the method as it was conceived. And
Speaker 1: then you also have some some stories that just simply
Speaker 1: didn't happen, like one of the famous ones is is
Speaker 1: supposedly and again this is has never happened. But Solrence
Speaker 1: Olivia and Dustin Hoffman, Um, we're on the seat of
Speaker 1: Marathon Man and and Dustin Hoffman shows up just looking
Speaker 1: like hell, just dirty and just just strong outlooking because
Speaker 1: his character is supposed to be. And he explained, and
Speaker 1: he explains it in preparation for the scene, he stayed
Speaker 1: up all night and he didn't bathe and all this,
Speaker 1: and Olivier supposedly responded by saying, my good Sarah, why
Speaker 1: don't you just try acting? Ha ha ha. And it's
Speaker 1: supposed to know, it's supposed to be a good laugh
Speaker 1: at the method actor has expense saying, well, why don't
Speaker 1: you just pretend to be the thing that you are
Speaker 1: instead of trying to embody it. But what I like
Speaker 1: about that is that's cafe being the cafebe, you know,
Speaker 1: because here's this fake story about this about fake in reality, right, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's really interesting. What I like about
Speaker 1: actors is I think they're very interesting creatures because they
Speaker 1: are dealing with this duality of nature, right, and they
Speaker 1: are having to inhabit this space and try to do
Speaker 1: so in a way that really fools us. Right um.
Speaker 1: Actor Tandy Newton has a great ted dot com talk
Speaker 1: and she talks about what it's like to be an
Speaker 1: actor and what it's like to inhabit another character, and
Speaker 1: she has some interesting thoughts on it, and we just
Speaker 1: wanted to share some quotes with you. She talks about
Speaker 1: this idea that she always felt separate from other people.
Speaker 1: She always felt like the other, particularly because she was
Speaker 1: someone of color in England growing up and write away
Speaker 1: and a female and so here she is already the other.
Speaker 1: So she talked about this idea of oneness and separateness.
Speaker 1: She said, our little portion of oneness is given a name,
Speaker 1: is told all kinds of things about itself, and these details,
Speaker 1: opinions and ideas become facts which go towards building ourselves,
Speaker 1: our identity. So she's talking about this idea of self
Speaker 1: and this little bit of self we can grab in
Speaker 1: the world and define ourselves by. And she says, and
Speaker 1: that self becomes the vehicle for navigating our social world.
Speaker 1: But the self is a projection based on other people's projections.
Speaker 1: Is it who we really are or who we really
Speaker 1: want to be or should be. So she says that
Speaker 1: this whole interaction with self and identity was really difficult
Speaker 1: for her growing up. So she said that when she
Speaker 1: found acting it was revelatory. She said, I can hardly
Speaker 1: find the words to describe the piece I felt when
Speaker 1: I was acting, my dysfunctional self could actually plug into
Speaker 1: another self, not my own, and it felt so good.
Speaker 1: Because she says that while she had a degree from
Speaker 1: cab Cambridge, a thriving career, she herself was a bit
Speaker 1: of a car wreck because she was so invested in
Speaker 1: this idea of self and she hadn't quite yet figured
Speaker 1: out that it is just a projection, it's an illusion.
Speaker 1: And she says that that this, this idea of self
Speaker 1: is something that we value above all else, and we've
Speaker 1: created an entire value system in a physical reality to
Speaker 1: support the worth of self. Yeah, it reminds me of
Speaker 1: the study that we ran across. And this is from
Speaker 1: Ellie a contage from the University of Amsterdam. She was
Speaker 1: curious how much how much actors are aware of their
Speaker 1: performance when they perform it and how into what extent
Speaker 1: they're letting a character take over. Because we've we've we've
Speaker 1: heard we've heard that before. We heard a little of
Speaker 1: that from Cold Cabana about you know, you're you're playing
Speaker 1: this character and you just your your juices get flowing
Speaker 1: and you just you embody the character kind of possesses you. Right. So,
Speaker 1: um So, this study was interested in that. So she
Speaker 1: asked Dutch actors to rate their own emotions and the
Speaker 1: emotions of the characters they were playing across a range
Speaker 1: of different states from disgust to anxiety, tenderness, pleasure, fear,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And as she found that positive emotions were
Speaker 1: often felt by the actors as they played those characters emotions,
Speaker 1: but the more and more negative the emotion that they
Speaker 1: were supposed to portray, the less likely it was that
Speaker 1: the actor word report actually feeling that emotion. So so
Speaker 1: so in this study they found that actors were better
Speaker 1: able to connect and be taken over by those positive feelings. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they were able then to manage that system of
Speaker 1: not being influenced so much by by their emotions are
Speaker 1: the emotions of the character? Um See, this is why
Speaker 1: I think It's such an interesting mind game, this acting,
Speaker 1: because you do, you get into some very weird territory
Speaker 1: about who you are and what reality is. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we've discussed before too, like we're talking about chest opening exercises,
Speaker 1: which we talked about laughter and smiling and laughter. Year
Speaker 1: then all this and it, you know, comes out to
Speaker 1: that kind of that fake it till you make it
Speaker 1: kind of vibe, the idea that just on a physical level,
Speaker 1: if we, you know, we smile and it makes us,
Speaker 1: it makes us begin to feel the emotions that would
Speaker 1: have made the smile. When we put the effect out there,
Speaker 1: it generates the cause, even if there was no cause.
Speaker 1: And so what Tanny Newton is saying is that when
Speaker 1: when you think about this self and you think, okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm happy today, and and if you are so
Speaker 1: malleable that you allow all these different forces to act
Speaker 1: upon you, then what you're doing is you're confusing self
Speaker 1: for actual living Because what she says is that it's uh,
Speaker 1: the self is not an actual living thing. It's projection,
Speaker 1: which are clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves
Speaker 1: from the reality of death. So she's saying that it's
Speaker 1: our ability to divorce ourselves from the concept of self
Speaker 1: and then ground ourselves in others and outside experiences. That
Speaker 1: really liberates us and allows us to live fully. So
Speaker 1: I liked what she had to say about this from
Speaker 1: an actor's perspective, because, Um, there there is a ton
Speaker 1: of duality going on here. So what do you mistake
Speaker 1: for the real thing? And what is the real thing?
Speaker 1: I think is what we're trying to get at here.
Speaker 1: Um In Underscore you get into questions of what is
Speaker 1: there a real thing? Is there is there anything at
Speaker 1: the heart of this or is it just a bunch
Speaker 1: of masks encircling the formless um? And then and then
Speaker 1: to what extent are some is something? If there is
Speaker 1: a true you, then to what extent is the fake you?
Speaker 1: Almost as powerful there was. There's a really great episode,
Speaker 1: I think a shorty of Radio Lab that aired recently
Speaker 1: called What's Up doc Um. I recommend you guys checking
Speaker 1: it out, And I know a lot of you are
Speaker 1: Radio lap fans anyway, But it concerned mel Blank of course,
Speaker 1: the classic voice actor who you know did the voice
Speaker 1: of Bugs, Bunny and countless others and voice and uh.
Speaker 1: In the end up they talked to his son in
Speaker 1: this episode, and he talks about like when he played
Speaker 1: these care it wasn't just like all right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do Wacky Voice number one in vacky Wacky Voice number two.
Speaker 1: I mean he was there was almost there was a
Speaker 1: sort of method acting mentality there where he knew these characters.
Speaker 1: He would embody them and even though he's just doing
Speaker 1: the audio, he would act out. You know, you could
Speaker 1: you'd see physically his he was different when he was
Speaker 1: doing one for voice versus the other, and uh and so.
Speaker 1: And in this episode they talked about how at one
Speaker 1: point he was in this horrible crash car crash on
Speaker 1: dead Men's Curve in Hollywood Boulevard and he nearly died,
Speaker 1: and he was he was out for two weeks in
Speaker 1: a coma, and he would not spond to anyone, respond
Speaker 1: to anyone. But then how do they get him to respond?
Speaker 1: That's the crazy part. Well, this is yeah, this is
Speaker 1: the crazy part. His neurosurgeon, Dr Conway, Uh, just he said,
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, he just decided to call him bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny called Mel Blank, one of his character's bugs Bunny
Speaker 1: and said, uh, something like, hey, bugs, how are you
Speaker 1: doing today? And then Mel Blank actually responded as bugs bunny,
Speaker 1: what's up back? And in character right, he responds, he
Speaker 1: comes out of his comma, basically inhabiting this character, and
Speaker 1: he goes through a couple of other voices, um, I think,
Speaker 1: including Porky Daffy and fog Horn Lankhorn, until he himself
Speaker 1: mel Blank, the person the self that that we all
Speaker 1: think of, is sitting there saying what's going on? Where
Speaker 1: am I? So, Timmy, it points to this amazing moment
Speaker 1: where you do have this question of like, well, how
Speaker 1: much of mel Blank is the characters? And how much
Speaker 1: of those characters is are is mel Blank? You know? Um?
Speaker 1: To what degree is he himself or this fictionalized character
Speaker 1: that he's inhabited. Now this leads us into another area
Speaker 1: as we discussed earlier undercover cops, undercover agents, vice operatives
Speaker 1: and uh and you know, in the interview with Colt Cabana,
Speaker 1: and we asked him briefly about you know, what it's
Speaker 1: like when he's out there and he's portraying a bad guy.
Speaker 1: He has his character, the officer, Colt Cabana is like
Speaker 1: a you know, vile uh, you know, foul mouth the
Speaker 1: policeman and uh. And then he has to go back,
Speaker 1: you know, he has to leave the ring, go into
Speaker 1: the backstage area. And he says he's able to shut
Speaker 1: it off like it's not. It doesn't bleed over into
Speaker 1: his life after the fact. And of course that brings
Speaker 1: to mind again these these vice officers, police officers who
Speaker 1: have to go out and pretend to be drug dealers,
Speaker 1: pretend to be, um, you know what happened some sort
Speaker 1: of criminal element in order to infiltrate it and and
Speaker 1: you know, and and actually get the actual criminals and
Speaker 1: get them arrested. So what happens when they're doing that?
Speaker 1: What happens when they have to play that part? And
Speaker 1: then is there is there the chance that the the
Speaker 1: the the criminal element they're pretending to be becomes the
Speaker 1: real them? Did they end up? You know, essentially they're
Speaker 1: pretending to be this monster and then the monster consumes
Speaker 1: them and it does happen. Yeah, I mean this is
Speaker 1: a high wire act, right, and um, you have a
Speaker 1: bit about how there have been some instances right where
Speaker 1: that shadow self has taken over. Yeah, yeah, And this
Speaker 1: is of course, this is important stuff. This is stuff
Speaker 1: that's been that's been studied because ultimately you're talking about
Speaker 1: law enforcement, which is important. You're talking about individuals risking
Speaker 1: their their lives and and ultimately their their sanity to
Speaker 1: to engage in these kind of operations. So uh. Dr
Speaker 1: Michael or Ato a professor of psychology at the University
Speaker 1: of Ottawa. He conducted a ten year study of undercover
Speaker 1: agents and uh he he looked at seventy two undercover
Speaker 1: cops and out of the seventy two, um, there were
Speaker 1: there were six that ended up being disciplined for acting
Speaker 1: inappropriately during their missions. So one for one person that
Speaker 1: was using cocaine. For another, it was conspiracy to self
Speaker 1: class to self classified information about ongoing investigations. For one,
Speaker 1: it was actually selling classified informations. For another, it was
Speaker 1: sexual involvement with a confidential informant. For another, excessive use
Speaker 1: of force. And for another it was theft of money
Speaker 1: from an evidence locker. UM. I mean and uh And
Speaker 1: you see the varying degrees of of shadiness in these
Speaker 1: and you can imagine, like all right, you know, like
Speaker 1: in the cocaine, you can imagine like a guy who's
Speaker 1: posing as a drug dealer being put in a position
Speaker 1: where he has to use the drug or someone says, hey,
Speaker 1: he's you know, not hey use that drug, but but
Speaker 1: you know, encouraging them to sample it to prove their worth.
Speaker 1: You kind of see that as a trope in various
Speaker 1: undercover cop movies anyway. But then other stuff like stealing
Speaker 1: money from an evidence locker, like that's more of I
Speaker 1: have come back from the role I'm pretending to be
Speaker 1: and now I'm actually that in the evidence locker. I'm
Speaker 1: that at at the base, at the home um where
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to leave this criminal fake me behind. So
Speaker 1: his ultimate finding, uh Dr Garrotto's finding was that undercover
Speaker 1: agents with a disciplined self image and control of their
Speaker 1: impulses almost unwaveringly saw themselves as merely playing the part
Speaker 1: of a drug dealer. So like Cold Cabana or or
Speaker 1: any number of actors, and out there they were able
Speaker 1: to say, all right, um no, I'm back home now,
Speaker 1: and at home, I'm the real me. I am this
Speaker 1: version of me, and that other thing that that the
Speaker 1: drug dealer that I was just pretending to be for
Speaker 1: like six hours, that's just a show. That's just a fake.
Speaker 1: So ultimately he says that it's what you need is
Speaker 1: an internal set of social standards that prevent you from
Speaker 1: losing your sense of identity. Yeah, it makes me think
Speaker 1: back to our episode on will power and self control,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if living a double life creates a
Speaker 1: heavy cognitive load. We talked about this cognitive loade and
Speaker 1: that if you have to remember, you know, let's say
Speaker 1: two or more items as opposed to ten items, and
Speaker 1: then have to take some sort of UM test and
Speaker 1: self control afterward, you're going to be less likely to
Speaker 1: follow through with self control if you have a high
Speaker 1: cognitive load. So, in other words, if you're a double agent,
Speaker 1: or you have a double life, then you have to
Speaker 1: keep in mind this entire other story, which might erode
Speaker 1: some of that self control, uh and lead to some
Speaker 1: of these ego depletion that we've talked about before too.
Speaker 1: That you just have a finite amount of mental energy
Speaker 1: to dedicate to certain tasks. So I can see how
Speaker 1: the shadow self could kind of take over very easily
Speaker 1: in that instance. UM wanted to mention to that. Psychologist
Speaker 1: Dr Alan Sillarian has has talked about what it's like
Speaker 1: to work with secret agents. He says, the most secret
Speaker 1: agents I have met have two signature traits fearlessness and
Speaker 1: a high tolerance for anxiety. Whether because of bio biological
Speaker 1: factors such as an elevated level of the mood enhancing
Speaker 1: neurochemical serotonin, or because of the influences of their early lives,
Speaker 1: these people seem to be extreme risk takers who can
Speaker 1: tolerate and manage worry, tension, and stress with natural ease.
Speaker 1: So you have to wonder that what point are the
Speaker 1: stakes so high that the tension um begins to to
Speaker 1: erode some of that self control. All right, well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we are going to discuss fiction. We're going to discuss avatars.
Speaker 1: And when I say avatars, not only are you going
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about your online avatar, but
Speaker 1: also the the older concept of the avatar itself and
Speaker 1: not the movie. All right, we're back, and uh, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about avatars here about the
Speaker 1: online self, because this is a you know, we've discussed
Speaker 1: already this idea that that we we assume different personas
Speaker 1: U two varying conscious degrees whenever we're interacting with the
Speaker 1: outside world. There there's a slightly different you when you're
Speaker 1: talking to your mother. Uh, there's a slightly different you
Speaker 1: when you're talking to the grosser, you know it. It's
Speaker 1: there's just all these different masks swirling around the the
Speaker 1: ephemeral self, and we just put on those different masks
Speaker 1: to interact with the world. But here's this avatar, this
Speaker 1: opportunity to build a new you from the ground up, right,
Speaker 1: And what they found, Now, what some researchers have found
Speaker 1: is that it isn't always too far from the real you,
Speaker 1: the flesh and blood you. Uh, this is very interesting.
Speaker 1: It's from an article called is It a Game? Evidence
Speaker 1: for Social Influence in the Virtual World. It was published
Speaker 1: in the journal Social Influence. And in the study, which
Speaker 1: was conducted by Paul W. Eastwick and Wendy L. Gardner,
Speaker 1: one avatar tried to influence another to fulfill a request,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about here is relationships. They were using
Speaker 1: something called there dot com for this, which is kind
Speaker 1: of like second life, this kind of limitless virtual environment
Speaker 1: where people create little versions of themselves and then they
Speaker 1: kind of teleport around and interact with each other. And
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the fun is just sort
Speaker 1: of outfitting your character, uh, you know, giving it certain
Speaker 1: physical characteristics, so on and so forth. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, like I said, it really is
Speaker 1: about communication, because you're just mirroring what you're already doing
Speaker 1: in society, or at least this is what this paper
Speaker 1: is saying. Um. So yeah, you've got these. You've got
Speaker 1: one avatar trying to influence another to fulfill a request,
Speaker 1: just like in life. Right, I asked something of you,
Speaker 1: you asked something of me. We try to cooperate together
Speaker 1: to get something done. Um. The experiment, or in this case,
Speaker 1: an avatar, first snakes an unreasonably large request to which
Speaker 1: the responder is expected to say no, followed by a
Speaker 1: more moderate request. Yeah. I think it was something like
Speaker 1: go to like twenty screenshots from a particular environment in
Speaker 1: this in this uh this world. So it's like if
Speaker 1: you were like playing one of these quest games like Skyrim,
Speaker 1: and you just it was like a ridiculously, ridiculously complex
Speaker 1: mission for some seemingly low payoff. So as I expected,
Speaker 1: the avatars, which is similar to people who participated in
Speaker 1: the same experiment in the real world, were more likely
Speaker 1: to comply with the moderate request when it was preceded
Speaker 1: by the large request. Then when the moderate request was
Speaker 1: presented alone. Now that's kind of a that's a tactic
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people use, Like if
Speaker 1: I just go in for the it's sort of like
Speaker 1: if you asked for a raise. If I asked for
Speaker 1: a million dollars, then it's a lot easier to get
Speaker 1: to the maybe X amount that I want, as opposed
Speaker 1: to if I just asked for a thousand dollar raise. Um.
Speaker 1: So what you see is that they exhibited a psychological
Speaker 1: tendency to reciprocate the requests concession that change from a
Speaker 1: relatively unreasonable request to a more moderate request. So one
Speaker 1: of the other more striking findings was the effect of
Speaker 1: what they call the d I t F technique, which
Speaker 1: it was during the face. This is the way that
Speaker 1: they made the request was significantly reduced when the requesting
Speaker 1: avatar was dark toned. The white avatars and the d
Speaker 1: I t F experiment received about a increase in compliance
Speaker 1: with the moderate request. The increase for the dark toned
Speaker 1: avatars was eighty. And again, this is a virtual world,
Speaker 1: so there's there's no telling on the other side of
Speaker 1: a virtual character if they are black, if they're white,
Speaker 1: if they are male or their female I mean in
Speaker 1: second life you see people going around is like you know,
Speaker 1: monkeys and cats and dogs and stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: and there are various other examples of people playing you know,
Speaker 1: very inhuman characters. So on some level we know that
Speaker 1: the person and they decide can be any thing, but
Speaker 1: we still ended up end up buying into the vision
Speaker 1: that is presented to us. Yeah, we're still tether to
Speaker 1: some degree to our our prejudices and that the social
Speaker 1: construction in our mind of what we think the world is. Um.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was interesting that that still what
Speaker 1: it boils down to is that even though you've created
Speaker 1: this avatar and uh it's supposed to represent this duality
Speaker 1: within yourself, you're still you're still socializing and cooperating or
Speaker 1: not cooperating in the same sense that you would in
Speaker 1: your life. And of course another thing to keep in
Speaker 1: mind with all this is that in these video game interactions,
Speaker 1: you're of course not making eye contact. Now. I like
Speaker 1: to think of a of a of a future time
Speaker 1: when our video game characters we will have our actual eyes.
Speaker 1: I think that could be. I think that would be
Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, but for now, they most characters and
Speaker 1: video games have just the dead soulless eyes of the
Speaker 1: Uncanny Valley. Um. But but one of the studies we
Speaker 1: were looking at, and this was where was this from?
Speaker 1: This was from the University of Haifa in Israel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they asked seventy one pairs of college students who
Speaker 1: did not know one another to debate an issue over
Speaker 1: instant mass messenger and try to come up with an
Speaker 1: agreeable solution. And they did a couple of fasces of this.
Speaker 1: But the ultimate finding was that when their eyes were hidden,
Speaker 1: the participants were twice as likely to be hostile because
Speaker 1: they had and some of the the the the subjects
Speaker 1: were were you they're reasoning like a skype webcam technology
Speaker 1: so that they can they can make eye contact during
Speaker 1: these interactions and others not. And so when the eyes
Speaker 1: are hidden, hostility is more likely to occur. Which is again,
Speaker 1: you know you're you're outside of the social contract, right,
Speaker 1: because the way that you know that you're in a
Speaker 1: social contract is by witnessing the other person's reaction to you,
Speaker 1: all the non verbal gesturing that gives you an indication
Speaker 1: of how they're feeling. So if you can't see that,
Speaker 1: then it makes sense that you would miss those cues
Speaker 1: or that they just wouldn't be present and enough to
Speaker 1: sort of get you to line up with acceptable behavior.
Speaker 1: So this, of course is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: we see rude behavior running rampant online. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 1: you see like these outrageous examples of trolls, you know,
Speaker 1: where someone's just out there just being completely awful, and
Speaker 1: you know they whenever they're eventually exposed there you know,
Speaker 1: or not allay, they're not eventually exposed, but in the
Speaker 1: cases where they're exposed, you see, oh well, this actually
Speaker 1: seems like a fairly normal person. How are they that
Speaker 1: awful online? And you know it's because they're they're on
Speaker 1: some level, they're not they don't see themselves as interacting
Speaker 1: with real people. They're just kind of interacting with automatons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think they'll be interesting to see if the
Speaker 1: shadow self, this sense of shadow self, becomes more acceptable
Speaker 1: as we continue to communicate online and that we this
Speaker 1: this duality maybe disappears a bit, because again, we we
Speaker 1: think of ourselves as this continuity, right this script director,
Speaker 1: and our our brain saying you are this, You're a
Speaker 1: good person, you have integrity, you moved throughout the day
Speaker 1: in the following ways, but then we act another way
Speaker 1: when nobody is looking. So how much of that will
Speaker 1: you know in the future be acceptable or not acceptable? Yeah. Finally,
Speaker 1: the world of fiction, which we've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: the story of the power of storytelling, the power of fiction.
Speaker 1: But there was a little study that we ran across
Speaker 1: that that ties in nicely with what we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: and this is from Brigamany Young University research team led
Speaker 1: by Sarah M. Coney, and she writes up in this
Speaker 1: instance for the British Journal of Social Psychology, and she
Speaker 1: was looking at how exposure to aggressive behavior in literature
Speaker 1: has a psychological impact on readers. So in this case
Speaker 1: they had to the test subjects read two different versions
Speaker 1: of a story, like some people will read a story
Speaker 1: where the outcome is that the conflict is solved with violence,
Speaker 1: and in the other the conflict is not solved with violence.
Speaker 1: And in both the cases they found that provoked people
Speaker 1: who were given the opportunity to engage in the pacifics
Speaker 1: civic form of rertalatory violence were more likely to do
Speaker 1: so if they had just read a fictional account of
Speaker 1: similar activities. So, in other words, the individuals who just
Speaker 1: read this thing where someone solves a problem with violence.
Speaker 1: If they are then if they then encounter a real
Speaker 1: life conflict, they're more likely to be aggressive in that
Speaker 1: that incident, which I I hadn't stumbled upon that study
Speaker 1: until we started doing research on this, because we, like
Speaker 1: you said, we've done We've covered this subject quite a
Speaker 1: bit in the ability of the reader to take on
Speaker 1: the persona of the character and also mirror neurons, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, firing at the same time that a character
Speaker 1: is throwing a ball in a book. Right. But to
Speaker 1: see this, this concrete manifestation of the abstract aggression is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. And then I think that it points to
Speaker 1: this idea that this again, that self is a very
Speaker 1: tenuous thing, that this consciousness, this continue a d factory
Speaker 1: that we try to have in our head of turning
Speaker 1: out this idea of who we are isn't quite as
Speaker 1: solid as we think it is. Yeah, And then then
Speaker 1: we had this other study. We looked at researchers from
Speaker 1: Ohio State University and they conducted like six different experiments
Speaker 1: on about five different participants, and they found that stories
Speaker 1: written in the first person can temporarily transform the way
Speaker 1: readers view the world, themselves and other social groups. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, they that they were particularly interested at one
Speaker 1: point in what would happen when individuals were reading about
Speaker 1: a character and then that character was then revealed to
Speaker 1: be homosexual. This particular experiment, they had like seventy heterosexual
Speaker 1: males and that they read this story and uh, they
Speaker 1: found that it depending on where in the narrative the
Speaker 1: revelation was made, it it had a big impact on
Speaker 1: how they, uh they felt about the protagonist being gay,
Speaker 1: and and also how they just envisioned that character. Like
Speaker 1: if if it was revealed early in the story, then
Speaker 1: they brought in a lot of baggage and a lot
Speaker 1: of conceptions about what a gay character should be. But
Speaker 1: if they revealed it later, then then all that stuff
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily thrown into the mix because they had a
Speaker 1: chance to try to occupy that person's Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 1: very cool stuff. Yeah, it really makes you think about
Speaker 1: the power of first person narratives, Like I instantly started
Speaker 1: thinking about um Joyce Carol Oates book Zombie, which is
Speaker 1: the first person perspective and the character is based loosely
Speaker 1: on Jeffrey Dalmer. So you have a very dark and
Speaker 1: troubled individual and you and and then I think that's
Speaker 1: maybe the thing that's so you know, narcotic about text
Speaker 1: like that is that it puts you in the mindset
Speaker 1: of this individual. It is seemingly far removed from who
Speaker 1: you are. But then ultimately you have to act yourself
Speaker 1: how far removed if I'm able to embody that person
Speaker 1: when I read this you? Uh, that was in the
Speaker 1: book swap right for our early holiday gathering. Yeah, Lauren
Speaker 1: the new co host on Tech Stuff, got that one.
Speaker 1: So so right now she is her nightmarage. She's having
Speaker 1: nightmares in the corner Jeffrey Dahmer. I'm just I'm gonna
Speaker 1: throw some subluinal things out today Jeffrey Dahmer and just
Speaker 1: see how she reacts. Wow. So um so, like I
Speaker 1: say I said earlier, it makes me think about avatars,
Speaker 1: not only in the in the the online avatar sense,
Speaker 1: but in the the the old idea of the avatar,
Speaker 1: which is steeped in Hinduism, comes from the Sanskrit word avatar,
Speaker 1: which means descent, and the idea here is that you
Speaker 1: have a god um and that God is just immaterial
Speaker 1: and just completely separate from the physical world, and then
Speaker 1: to descend to the physical world, the god has to
Speaker 1: take on a form uh that can be understood by
Speaker 1: the physical world and that can interact with the physical world.
Speaker 1: For instance, Vishnu has ten different avatars, and they range
Speaker 1: from there's a fish, there's a tortoise as a bore,
Speaker 1: there's a dwarf, there's a and then and then there's Krishna,
Speaker 1: and then there's Buddha, and then there's a pen the
Speaker 1: avatar that's uh the form of a white horse with wings,
Speaker 1: and it's a destroyer that will come at the end
Speaker 1: of the world. So can I really like this this uh,
Speaker 1: this metaphor for ourselves and the various selves we present,
Speaker 1: you know, think of your your your ultimate inner thoughts
Speaker 1: and everything that's going on inside you. You're kind of
Speaker 1: like this vision of this this formless thing. And then
Speaker 1: to interact with the physical world. To descend to the
Speaker 1: physical world, you have to take on these various forms,
Speaker 1: and they need different things and they have different applications
Speaker 1: in different environments. Right, So that the type of self
Speaker 1: that we roll out really sort of depends on which
Speaker 1: avatar we need at the moment. Uh. You know what
Speaker 1: one of my avatars is what's a duck? So Julie
Speaker 1: takes on the form of the duck and uh, and
Speaker 1: how do you use that avatar? Well, it doesn't really speak,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. Alright, Shall we bring over the robots.
Speaker 1: Let's call the robot over here and we'll do a
Speaker 1: couple of quick listener mails. All right, Well, we've heard
Speaker 1: a lot of great comments on our episodes on mazes
Speaker 1: and labyrinths, and we heard from Andrew. Andrew writes and
Speaker 1: this says, Hi, guys love the podcast and especially love
Speaker 1: the episodes dealing with mazes and labyrinths. I think it
Speaker 1: is noteworthy that modern psychology has been applied to the
Speaker 1: construction of malls and shopping spaces that specifically create maze
Speaker 1: or labyrinth like environments. Have either of you ever been
Speaker 1: to Ikea? Of course we have because we live in
Speaker 1: the same city as one, so everyone has to go.
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot of mandatory. Um. The place is
Speaker 1: a labyrinth, no two ways about it. You walk in
Speaker 1: and you follow a path of consumption uh and leave
Speaker 1: next to the entrance. Uh. This psychological tool of peace
Speaker 1: and religious expansion is being used to proliferate consumer culture. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then he goes on to say, you know, it's
Speaker 1: rather different inside of a mall environment, where it's just
Speaker 1: it's like a maze. There are all these like how
Speaker 1: do I get out of here? How do I get
Speaker 1: to the store I want to go to? How do
Speaker 1: I escape the horrors of the food court? All these
Speaker 1: questions come up, whereas indeed, I kea is so well
Speaker 1: laid out and o versed in design that there's a path,
Speaker 1: you flow, it's it's at least for the first hour,
Speaker 1: it's a calming experience. Um and uh. And the book
Speaker 1: that we we discussed in in in Maps and Labyrinths
Speaker 1: also makes that point in regard to to hospitals and
Speaker 1: similar environments. One of the problems there, of course, is
Speaker 1: that you end up with a maze like hospital because
Speaker 1: in many cases that you build part of a hospital
Speaker 1: and then you build another wing onto it, and there's
Speaker 1: another wing here, so you have all these layers coming
Speaker 1: together to form this this this thing where there's no
Speaker 1: cohesive design in place, which heightens your anxiety, particularly if
Speaker 1: you're at the hospital to visit someone or you yourself
Speaker 1: checking in. So not necessarily this sort of design that
Speaker 1: you want this. The book is called Healing Spaces. Healing Spaces. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and we were talking about government buildings just
Speaker 1: yesterday and how it has like this, you know, Kafka
Speaker 1: bureaucratic layering of of as, like uh, ways to get
Speaker 1: to where you need to go, and almost seems intentional,
Speaker 1: like we're gonna make you go down this a mile
Speaker 1: long hallway and then we're gonna give you directions that
Speaker 1: are you know, twenty different directions on top of that.
Speaker 1: Um so, yeah, all right, well, here here a couple
Speaker 1: more that. This one is from Jill Jill Wrightson and
Speaker 1: says hello, thanks for the fantastic podcast. Labyrinth have become
Speaker 1: close to my heart over the past few years. After
Speaker 1: my husband and I eloped to San Francisco, we had
Speaker 1: a marriage blessing at Grace Cathedral where I saw my
Speaker 1: first labyrinth. He walked it and it was beautiful to
Speaker 1: see every step really count. I was not comfortable to
Speaker 1: have a prayer for or meditative practice in the open,
Speaker 1: but I did find this box and book picture below,
Speaker 1: and she included some some very some excellent to photographs
Speaker 1: that there of labyrinths. At Christmas this year for my
Speaker 1: own practice, the tracing and breath are a good connection
Speaker 1: for me. I completely agree with what you said about
Speaker 1: the mazes. They're frustrating and I don't know why they
Speaker 1: were included in this pack. She's referring to the pack
Speaker 1: of Mazes laborage. Yet meditative maze did prove to be
Speaker 1: an oxymoron because the flas we discovered's nothing meditative about
Speaker 1: being lost. Thanks again for all you do. It is
Speaker 1: appreciated down here in Orlando. And then we also heard
Speaker 1: from Kelly Kelly Road and said, hello, I just finished
Speaker 1: listening to the Labyrinth episode and wanted to thank you
Speaker 1: for all the interesting facts. I am actually getting married
Speaker 1: in a labyrinth this August. My husband and I were
Speaker 1: legally married last March, but postponed our larger ceremony and
Speaker 1: reception as I was nine months pregnant and couldn't see
Speaker 1: my feet. Now that our beautiful baby boys here, we
Speaker 1: are renewing our vows and having an actual ceremony and reception.
Speaker 1: Our ceremony is being held here in the center of
Speaker 1: a labyrinth, which is set in the woods here in
Speaker 1: Illinois where we live. We like the idea of the
Speaker 1: ceremony being a meditative experience. I plan to have a
Speaker 1: sign near the entrance offering a brief explanation and history
Speaker 1: of labyrinth and inviting people to sneak away from the
Speaker 1: reception to try it for themselves. I will definitely use
Speaker 1: some of the facts you've covered in the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for a great episode, and if you read this
Speaker 1: on the show, I just want to say thanks to
Speaker 1: my has been chat and my son's Kaden and Silas
Speaker 1: for being the three most wonderful guys on the planet. Kelly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's sweet. I think it's very cool to have a
Speaker 1: ceremony and elabyrinths. It is, yeah and yeah interesting to
Speaker 1: see to hear from two different listeners who have employed
Speaker 1: labyrinths in their their ceremony. All right, well, if you
Speaker 1: have something you would like to share with us, be
Speaker 1: it about mazes and labyrinths, or be it about the
Speaker 1: shadow self? Um, actors, I know we have some actors
Speaker 1: out there. Uh, let us know how that works in
Speaker 1: your mind? What's it like to take on a character? Uh?
Speaker 1: And you know, do you use the method to to
Speaker 1: any degree? Um? If we have anyone who has done
Speaker 1: any kind of undercover work, be it like official, you know,
Speaker 1: hard and gritty, undercover work or something a little more mundane. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of like even public performance kind
Speaker 1: of thing where you're having to put on a character
Speaker 1: to deceive people. Uh, don't tell us, don't you know.
Speaker 1: But but but seriously, if you've engaged in anything like that,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear some more inside on how that
Speaker 1: feels and how you feel yourself embodied in the character
Speaker 1: that you're being, or how you feel that character affecting you.
Speaker 1: So I'd love to hear from you about any of that.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Tumblr and you can find
Speaker 1: us on Facebook. We are stuff to blow your mind
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