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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to blow your Mind from housetop works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome the stuff to go in your mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and bad John mc comick. So, Robert,

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question. Are you the

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Speaker 1: kind of person who makes New Year's resolutions? Oh? I

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Speaker 1: try to be very careful about it these days, and

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Speaker 1: I also exclusively begin my New year on Chinese New

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Speaker 1: Year these days. Oh, what day is that it's gonna be? Uh?

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Speaker 1: I want to stay February eight this year. I could

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Speaker 1: be wrong, but it's yeah. It generally occurs like one

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Speaker 1: month out from from Western New Year because I feel

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Speaker 1: mainly I feel that like if you're if you're gonna

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Speaker 1: get excited about like turning over a new leaf, for

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Speaker 1: getting back in the role of things. However you choose

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Speaker 1: to take on a new year, like I try not

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Speaker 1: to to, you know, strap my self to the mask

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Speaker 1: too much, uh and make any kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: a weird bargain about the future. But it's like just

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Speaker 1: coming off the holidays, it's just too much chaos. Everything's

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Speaker 1: out of order. It's the worst time in the world

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Speaker 1: to decide you're going to start a new habit or

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Speaker 1: a new cycle of doing things, or are you gonna

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Speaker 1: or that you're gonna engage in any level of betterment,

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Speaker 1: Better to wait until January is over and try that

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Speaker 1: stuff out in February. That's that's my approach. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think if you're going to make a resolution, you should

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Speaker 1: do it in the spring. Yeah, But have you ever

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Speaker 1: made a New Year's resolution and like actually followed through

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Speaker 1: with it, Like if you've tried it? Was it always

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Speaker 1: just kind of a thing you thought about for a

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Speaker 1: bit and then u um, maybe in the you know,

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Speaker 1: earlier on. But like I think last year, I decided

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Speaker 1: to stick to a basic yoga schedule, like decide what

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Speaker 1: classes I was going to go to and make a

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Speaker 1: point to go to them, and and worked out well.

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Speaker 1: But that was a reasonable goal, like something that that

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Speaker 1: I was already sort of halfway meeting, and then I

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Speaker 1: just said, all right, we're gonna just roll with this

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Speaker 1: this routine once things get going in February. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you've ever noticed this to be the case

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Speaker 1: at a GEM or y m c A or something

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Speaker 1: that you go to, but they're just horrible in like January,

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Speaker 1: first half of February you just it's it's they're packed

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Speaker 1: and then there and then the herd thins out. You know,

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Speaker 1: suddenly nobody's coming anymore by March. Yeah, yeah, I definitely

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Speaker 1: noticed that because I go to yoga at a y

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Speaker 1: m c A and and I love it. I love

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Speaker 1: my yoga teachers, all of the classes. But you do

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Speaker 1: see that influx of new faces, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: them are not gonna, not gonna stick around. And some

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Speaker 1: of them will show up with their genes on in

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Speaker 1: socks and with no understanding of what they're about to

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Speaker 1: get into. Some will show up fifteen or twenty minutes

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Speaker 1: late or leave fifteen or twenty minutes early. But it's yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just part of the process of people setting goals,

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Speaker 1: trying new things, and not everything works out, and that's

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Speaker 1: not necessarily a bad thing, but of course that that's

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Speaker 1: always the kind of goal you see, right when people

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Speaker 1: make New Year's resolutions, they it seems like they're almost

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Speaker 1: always inherently narcissistic, like they are for personal improvement. But

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Speaker 1: there for that kind of personal improvement, like I'm going

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Speaker 1: to quit smoking, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna get

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Speaker 1: in shape. There for things that that aren't bad. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're good for you, but they're they're you know, sort

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Speaker 1: of self focused. Yeah, I mean those seem to be

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Speaker 1: the ones that dominate all the lists and advice columns

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Speaker 1: that come out around this time of year. We want

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Speaker 1: to you know, we want to look sexier and feel

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Speaker 1: stronger and live forever. This is gonna be the year

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Speaker 1: I live forever, exactly right, and really locking down eternity

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Speaker 1: this year. Um. But instead of these kind of self gratifying, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, self improvement projects, I wondered about the personal

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Speaker 1: betterment project of of trying to be a better person.

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Speaker 1: I know sometimes people think about this in New Year's

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Speaker 1: and and and why shouldn't we think about it? Like,

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Speaker 1: if we're going to try to commit to changing our

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Speaker 1: lives in some way for the better, why not try

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Speaker 1: to be better humans? Yeah? And you know, and I

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Speaker 1: know some individuals do engage in, uh in this kind

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Speaker 1: of goal setting. But but it's it's also just as

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Speaker 1: if not more difficult. It's more it's just as challenging

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Speaker 1: as trying to change your body. You're going to try

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Speaker 1: and change your your mind state. Instead, you're gonna change

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Speaker 1: the way you interact with those around you and what

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Speaker 1: you care about, and and try and do so in

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Speaker 1: a in a meaningful way that actually lasts beyond January. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, how realistic is it to say this is

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Speaker 1: the year I stopped kicking strangers down flights of stairs,

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Speaker 1: because if that's already your thing, I mean, people really

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Speaker 1: don't change all that much. People change, but it it

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Speaker 1: takes a little bit more to to really turn over

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Speaker 1: a new leaf. Well, that's an interesting thing. You point out.

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Speaker 1: People don't change engine by and large. That's the extent

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Speaker 1: to which that's true is depressing. It's very, very difficult

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Speaker 1: to truly change our behavior in an effective, significant and

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Speaker 1: permanent way. But fortunately we do have some science about

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Speaker 1: the mind. And this is what we're gonna end up

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Speaker 1: talking about today. If you make a New Year's resolution

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Speaker 1: that you actually want to be a better person, you

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Speaker 1: want to live a more moral life and treat others better,

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Speaker 1: and not just in this vague form of you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it some kind kind of promise, but

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Speaker 1: in a way that actually gets results and changes your behavior.

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Speaker 1: How can we do it? It seems like we should

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Speaker 1: look to science. Yeah, because we were talking about leveling

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Speaker 1: up the old d n D character sheet. Here we're

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Speaker 1: talking about changing our stats. Uh, what does science have

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Speaker 1: to say about stat adjustments on the real life character sheet? Right?

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Speaker 1: And I can already hear people objecting and saying, wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, you can't do that, because science is about

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Speaker 1: empirical facts and morality is about values, and those things

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Speaker 1: don't mix. Now, one of the things I'd say is

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Speaker 1: that there, in fact, is an ongoing debate about whether

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Speaker 1: you can derive moral values from science. I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: you can, but we don't need to go there for

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Speaker 1: the purpose of this discussion. Like that, that's a debate

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Speaker 1: we don't even have to enter, because I would put

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Speaker 1: up an analogy of engineering, like let's say you're building

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Speaker 1: a hydroelectric dam. There is nothing about physics, chemistry, fluid dynamics,

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Speaker 1: any of that that tells you that it's best to

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Speaker 1: build a dam that produces the most electricity, cost the

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Speaker 1: least money to build, has the lowest ecological impact on

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Speaker 1: the river that you put it in, and has the

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Speaker 1: least likelihood of failing and flooding everybody downstream. But if

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Speaker 1: you start with those priorities as your assumptions, you can

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Speaker 1: most definitely use scientific fields like physics and chemistry and

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Speaker 1: fluid dynam amics to build the best possible dam to

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Speaker 1: achieve those goals. And I think you can sort of

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Speaker 1: approach morality in the same way. If you start with

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Speaker 1: some given goals of improving moral behavior, and especially you

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Speaker 1: want to start with specific ones like uh, like maybe

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Speaker 1: making yourself more generous or being more honest, you can

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Speaker 1: use research in neuroscience and psychology and related fields to

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Speaker 1: optimize your moral behavior and use what we know about

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Speaker 1: the human mind and the brain to fix the problem

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Speaker 1: and get results, sort of trick your brain and making

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Speaker 1: you the person you want to be. Yeah, So before

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Speaker 1: we get into the actual research, I do definitely want

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Speaker 1: to start with some caveats because the scientific study of

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Speaker 1: moral behavior is far from perfect and there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of potential difficulties we encounter when entering this field.

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Speaker 1: One example would be a sort of lack of agreement

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Speaker 1: on moral goal, like if a study is being conducted

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Speaker 1: by a member of a religion that says tomatoes or

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Speaker 1: minor gods and eating them as a heinous sin. Abstention

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Speaker 1: from tomato products is a crucial part of moral behavior,

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Speaker 1: and this is why it's important to study clearly specified

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Speaker 1: types of behavior one at a time, like studying how

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Speaker 1: much money someone gives to a charity as opposed to

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Speaker 1: just studying how good of a person are you? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and also in this getting into things that are

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Speaker 1: more or less universally considered moral positives. Yeah. Um. Another

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Speaker 1: thing would be that I think morality is an area

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Speaker 1: where you have to be especially careful about experiment or bias.

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Speaker 1: For example, it's probably no surprise that, uh, if your

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Speaker 1: experiment ers are a group of liberals, they might find

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Speaker 1: that liberals are more moral than conservatives, and vice versa.

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Speaker 1: If their conservatives, they might find conservatives are more moral. Um,

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Speaker 1: So you have to be especially cognizant of your of

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Speaker 1: your you know, experimental controls put in place to limit

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Speaker 1: the fact that the extent to which bias can affect

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Speaker 1: the outcomes. And then you've got methodological difficulties like how

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Speaker 1: do you test to see how moral somebody's behavior is?

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Speaker 1: You know, you can invite them into a lab and

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Speaker 1: have them play a game or do some kind of

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Speaker 1: interaction under controlled conditions, but people might behave very differently

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Speaker 1: under controlled conditions than they do in the wild. It's

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Speaker 1: one thing to give somebody a questionnaire, or have to

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Speaker 1: read a story and tell you how they feel about it,

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Speaker 1: or put some pebbles in a cup, But ultimately we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the real morality takes place in outside the lab. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but then if you want to track people's morality outside

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Speaker 1: the lab, you're pretty much gonna have to use self reporting, right,

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Speaker 1: people are going to have to report to you what

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Speaker 1: they did. And there is a pretty obvious problem there.

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Speaker 1: How honest can we expect people to be about what

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Speaker 1: their moral behaviors are. So, despite all those difficulties, I

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Speaker 1: think this is still a field we can study and

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Speaker 1: a place where we can try to look at some

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Speaker 1: studies and apply them to our moral behaviors to see

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Speaker 1: if we can hack our morals and and get under

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Speaker 1: the get under the bedrock there and move some things around.

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Speaker 1: So I think maybe the first place we should start

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Speaker 1: is by looking at some traditional answers to the question

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Speaker 1: of how to be a better person. Like, this is

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Speaker 1: not a new question, obviously, people have been talking about

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Speaker 1: this for thousands of years. You could look back to Socrates, Plato,

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Speaker 1: and Aristotle, or you know, all the way up to

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Speaker 1: more recent moral philosophers go a couple hundred years ago

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Speaker 1: to Emmanuel Kant. These are people who had very strong

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Speaker 1: opinions about how you could derive from first principles what

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Speaker 1: the moral life was and how to live it. So

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Speaker 1: the question is does moral philosophy or studying ethics make

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Speaker 1: you a better person? And this is where a really

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Speaker 1: interesting article from Ian magazine comes into play, written by

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Speaker 1: Eric Gushway skivel Uh titled Well, the Ian magazine titles

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Speaker 1: kind of shift, but I think the cheeseburger ethics with

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Speaker 1: kind of a subhead how often do ethics professors call

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Speaker 1: their mothers right? And it attempts to answer this question

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Speaker 1: where Schwitz cable and he he chronicles his work and

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Speaker 1: his work with another person named Joshua Rust over the

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Speaker 1: years to study how exactly do people who study ethics

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Speaker 1: and moral philosophy behave in their lives? Does does studying

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Speaker 1: ethics make you a better person? And they seem to

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Speaker 1: have found time and time again that the answer is no.

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Speaker 1: Ethicists who are you know, professors who study ethics and

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Speaker 1: moral philosophy for a living don't seem to be any

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Speaker 1: better or worse than other professors. So professors of chemistry, history,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, by a huge list of measures. Uh, they give,

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Speaker 1: they give a list. In this article, Schwitz Cable says

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Speaker 1: he looked at whether or not you vote in public collections,

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Speaker 1: how often you call your mother, eating the meat of mammals,

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Speaker 1: donating to charity, littering, disruptive chatting, and door slamming during

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Speaker 1: philosophy presentation, responding to student emails, attending conferences without paying

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Speaker 1: registration fees. There's a real killer there. Um organ donation,

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Speaker 1: blood donation, theft of library books, and overall moral evaluation

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Speaker 1: by one's departmental peers based on personal impressions. So there

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Speaker 1: you get at least some third party info. Their honesty

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Speaker 1: and responding to survey questions and joining the Nazi Party

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirties Germany. And what they found is that

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Speaker 1: the ethicists uh and the moral philosophers just they're like

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Speaker 1: everybody else. They're like the other professors studying. This doesn't

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Speaker 1: make them do any better on these tests. Now, one

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Speaker 1: thing that they did find it was different, is that

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Speaker 1: ethicists tend to accept more rigorous moral standards than non ethicists,

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Speaker 1: Yet they don't seem to be any more likely to

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Speaker 1: actually follow them. So a couple of examples they give.

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Speaker 1: One is that ethicists are way more likely than other

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Speaker 1: people to say that eating the meat of mammals is

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Speaker 1: morally wrong, yet they don't eat the meat of mammals

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Speaker 1: any less than anybody else. They're also more likely to

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Speaker 1: say that you should give more of your income a

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Speaker 1: higher percentage to charity than other people say, but they

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Speaker 1: don't give more than other people do. So it's like

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Speaker 1: they tend to accept higher standards, but they can't meet them.

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Speaker 1: So they have a more precise understanding of the sort

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Speaker 1: of the ethical suit of armor we all should be wearing,

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Speaker 1: but they're they're no more likely than we are to

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Speaker 1: slip it on exactly. Yeah, that's a good way of

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Speaker 1: putting it. And there are a lot of explanations. This

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Speaker 1: is actually Schwitz Gables article is a really good one,

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Speaker 1: and I h recommend reading it. It's very interesting. But

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Speaker 1: and he gives lots of explanations for why this might

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Speaker 1: be the case. But yeah, it appears that studying ethics

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Speaker 1: and moral philosophy is not the answer to not necessarily bad.

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Speaker 1: It's not that you shouldn't do it, but it's not

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Speaker 1: going to make you behave more and morally at least statistically.

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Speaker 1: Now there's another very traditional, classic answer to this question,

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Speaker 1: how to be a better person, you get some religion

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Speaker 1: in you. And the Udian magazine article went into that

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Speaker 1: a little bit and mentioning members of the clergy and

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Speaker 1: in questioning us and members of the clergy that asking them, hey,

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Speaker 1: is they member of the clergy? Are they a better

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Speaker 1: person than the the average person outside um, the church?

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Speaker 1: And they said, um, you know it's probably about the same,

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Speaker 1: maybe the clergy a little worse. Uh yeah, And and

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Speaker 1: of course he could chalk that he chalked that up

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Speaker 1: to It's possible they were just being humble about their

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Speaker 1: own profession, but at least as as far as they

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Speaker 1: presented publicly, they didn't think that they were any better

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Speaker 1: than anybody else. And there have been plenty of studies

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Speaker 1: that have looked into the relationship between levels of religiosity

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Speaker 1: and moral behavior. Now, when we get into this, it's

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Speaker 1: of course worth thing that this is a super loaded topic.

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Speaker 1: People often have very strong feelings about whether or not

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Speaker 1: religion is a good thing or a bad thing, So

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Speaker 1: it's again very easy to see how bias could creep

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Speaker 1: into scientific research on this subject if we're not careful.

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Speaker 1: But like we said, there have been lots of studies. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the answers seem to be I would say, very complicated

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Speaker 1: and contradictory. You see stuff going on both sides in

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Speaker 1: both directions on this. Uh. For example, I I know

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Speaker 1: you found one study that a religious belief in Hell

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Speaker 1: is linked to lower crime. Right, Yeah, that was awous.

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Speaker 1: Twelve paper diversion Effects of Belief in Heaven and Hell

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Speaker 1: and National Crime Rates by A. Zem F Sharif um Well,

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Speaker 1: he co authored it at any rate psychologist, and he

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Speaker 1: compared national crime rates with rates of belief in Heaven

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Speaker 1: and Hell in sixty seven countries, and it came back

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Speaker 1: with some interesting findings. First of all, Heaven's belief rate

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Speaker 1: is almost always higher than Hell's belief rate um. And

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Speaker 1: that kind of collaborates my personal theory that Hell is

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Speaker 1: always an unwanted and add on for many religions or

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Speaker 1: for even just semi religious people. It's the side dish

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Speaker 1: we didn't order, and generally we don't want to eat it.

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Speaker 1: But the papers major statistical finding was that nations with

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Speaker 1: higher belief rates in Hell predicted the lower crime rates,

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Speaker 1: while higher belief rates and heaven predicted higher crime rates.

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Speaker 1: Wait what Yeah, so essentially that the idea here, I

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Speaker 1: guess that you could say that the the stick was

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Speaker 1: more effective than the carrot um as far as the

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Speaker 1: religious worldview goes. Uh, And that health fearing citizens are

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Speaker 1: more mindful of screwing up in this life, while the

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Speaker 1: heaven crowd think they've got it knocked in the next life.

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Speaker 1: No matter what. It's um. But but even this study

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Speaker 1: underlying some of the problems here, because when you just

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Speaker 1: talk about religion, what are you talking about religion? Has

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Speaker 1: the one religion or even one slice of a particular

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Speaker 1: faith might tweak the carrot stick scenario a little bit

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Speaker 1: in one direction or the other. How is this system

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Speaker 1: of faith enforcing more behavior? Is it? You know, is

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Speaker 1: it really cutting you off from the world around you?

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Speaker 1: And and uh? And focusing inward? Is it focusing outward?

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Speaker 1: And it's going to vary from faith to faith. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's going to vary from person to person. I mean,

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Speaker 1: part of the problem here is that when we're dealing

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Speaker 1: with science, we're always dealing with broad statistical phenomena. So

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Speaker 1: it might be the case that in general, religion makes

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Speaker 1: people better, but it actually makes you worse, or vice versa.

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Speaker 1: In general, it makes people worse, but it makes you better.

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Speaker 1: You could be the anomaly, you could be different than

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Speaker 1: the average. Yeah. And I also want to mention that

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Speaker 1: there's a two thousand three Harvard study that determined economic

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Speaker 1: growth responds positible but positively to the extent of religious

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Speaker 1: but leaves notably those in heaven and hell. So their

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Speaker 1: take was that high religious beliefs stimulate growth, stimulate economic

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Speaker 1: growth because they help sustain behavior. But again that's a

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Speaker 1: an economic view. But then again, there there's no We

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Speaker 1: read some research this year about the effects of religious

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Speaker 1: belief or at least correlations between religious religiosity and children

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Speaker 1: and altruism, right, Yeah, this was Yeah, a new study

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Speaker 1: that came out titled the Negative Association between religiousness and

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Speaker 1: Children's Altruism across the World, and this was published in

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Speaker 1: the journal Current Biology. Was a study of one thousand,

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Speaker 1: one hundred seventy children in Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa,

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Speaker 1: and the United States and included five Muslims, two Christians,

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Speaker 1: and three d twenty three non religious children. And what

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Speaker 1: do they find. Their key findings were that, first of all,

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Speaker 1: family religious identification decreases children's altruistic behaviors decreases decreases it uh,

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Speaker 1: And that religiousness predicts parent reported child sensitivity to injustices

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Speaker 1: and empathy, and that children from religious households are harsher

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Speaker 1: in their punitive tendencies. Okay, so so this found at

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Speaker 1: least in this one study, this broad survey of of

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Speaker 1: religious and non religious children, and the children were from

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Speaker 1: a couple of different religions, the religious kids did not

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Speaker 1: do better in terms of being kinder to others being

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Speaker 1: more altruistic. In fact, they did worse. Yeah, I imagine.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can sort of view it as the

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Speaker 1: religion just provides a framework in which we make sense

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Speaker 1: of our own moral achievements and failings, rather than a

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Speaker 1: guideline that holds us up. Yeah. But then again, there

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Speaker 1: have been other studies that, of course found religious spurring,

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Speaker 1: a sort of religious priming, caused people to behave better right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was a two thousand studies two thousand seven paper

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Speaker 1: in Psychological Science that found both religious and non religious

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Speaker 1: people shared more money with a stranger after reading sentences

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Speaker 1: containing various whigious words such as spirit and God. But

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Speaker 1: people were also more generous after reading words associated with

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Speaker 1: secular authorities such as police. Uh. And then there's another

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Speaker 1: study that was published in seventy three in the Journal

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Speaker 1: of Personality and Social Psychology, and they found that more

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Speaker 1: religious people were just as likely as rest less religious

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Speaker 1: people to bypass a stranger in distress. Yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: that parody does seem to come through in the literature

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Speaker 1: a good bit. I want to look at one more

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Speaker 1: statistical study on religious behavior, and it wasn't just on

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Speaker 1: religious behavior, but it included that. And that was a

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Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen study in in Science called Morality

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Speaker 1: in Everyday Life by Wilhelm Hoffman, Daniel C. Waizenski, Mark J. Brandt,

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Speaker 1: and Linda J. Skitka. And this is where they got

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Speaker 1: a group of twelve hundred and fifty two participants and

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Speaker 1: they were each participant received five text messages a day

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Speaker 1: for three days. Each text message had a link to

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Speaker 1: the studies website, which prompted them to record moral and

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Speaker 1: in world experiences they'd gone through in the previous hour. So,

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Speaker 1: did anything interestingly moral immoral just happened in your life?

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Speaker 1: Did somebody do something moral or immoral to you, did

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Speaker 1: you do something moral or immoral? Just some examples from

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Speaker 1: a These were some great examples I read on a

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Speaker 1: news release about this. The of the good deeds reported

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Speaker 1: included sharing an extra sandwich with a homeless man. That's

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Speaker 1: guys good. But examples of the types of bad deeds

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Speaker 1: reported were arranging an adulterous encounter and quote hired someone

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Speaker 1: to kill a musk rat that's not ultimately causing any harm. Well,

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Speaker 1: I feel I can feel good then that I have

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Speaker 1: not done either of those things this week, right, So

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Speaker 1: maybe you should license yourself to do something evil because

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Speaker 1: you haven't had a muskrat assassinated. I like that they

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Speaker 1: were just arranging an adulterous encounter that because that brings

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Speaker 1: to mind and maybe they were not engaged in it,

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Speaker 1: but they just orchestrated the the rendezvous. Oh well, I

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Speaker 1: mean that was the A lot of after the Ashley

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Speaker 1: Madison leak, A lot of people had this defense, right,

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Speaker 1: like I was sort of seeking an affair, but I

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Speaker 1: never actually had one. Um. But anyway, so what did

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Speaker 1: they find in this study? They found over the broad

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Speaker 1: statistics of the study, religious and non religious people committed

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Speaker 1: both moral and immoral acts with about the same frequency.

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Speaker 1: There just really wasn't a big difference in how they acted.

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Speaker 1: So these are what we've just talked about moral philosophy

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Speaker 1: and ethics and in religion. These are not arguments against

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Speaker 1: adhering to a religion or studying moral philosophy. It's not

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Speaker 1: like saying you know that those are bad things to do.

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Speaker 1: It's just certainly not clear that either of these will

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Speaker 1: put you on the path to moral excellence. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: keep coming back to the suit of armor um analogy

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Speaker 1: I made earlier. It's I guess the way to look

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Speaker 1: at it is taking on a religious faith or even

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Speaker 1: just kind of pseudo religious faith, or a new age

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Speaker 1: a way of looking at it, any kind of worldview.

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Speaker 1: It's not an exoskeleton that's going to power your body.

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Speaker 1: It's it's more in line with a suit of armor, clothing,

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Speaker 1: a mapping system, some sort of framework for how moral

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Speaker 1: behavior can work. But you're still going to have to

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Speaker 1: move in that thing yourself. You have to use. Your

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Speaker 1: muscles are going to be the thing making you walk

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Speaker 1: across the room. Yeah, I think that's a really good analogy.

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Speaker 1: It's just like the ethics thing In both cases, the

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Speaker 1: religion and the study of ethics might give you clearer

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Speaker 1: ideas about what you think your moral goals should be.

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Speaker 1: But in order to get the motivation to follow through

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Speaker 1: on your moral convention convictions you're you just might need

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Speaker 1: some better tricks, better tricks up your sleeve, and we

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Speaker 1: might find find these tricks in studying psychology. So what

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Speaker 1: do we know about the human brain and moral behavior?

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Speaker 1: And are there anyways we can use science to trick

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Speaker 1: the former into the ladder? Okay, okay, So we're now

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Speaker 1: going to be looking at some scientific studies about factors

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Speaker 1: that correlate to or per it's even cause differences in

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Speaker 1: how we practice moral behavior towards others. And I think

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest areas that's been studied in this

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Speaker 1: field is generosity, that the act of giving and giving

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Speaker 1: more to others, taking you know, self sacrificially offering to

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Speaker 1: other people things that can help them. And there have

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Speaker 1: been lots and lots of studies in this field, right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: there have, and certainly we're not gonna be able to

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Speaker 1: explore all of them today. Yeah, but we're going to

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Speaker 1: try to offer a selection of some that we found interesting.

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Speaker 1: And that might be useful in coming up with strategies

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Speaker 1: of improving your moral behavior. And one of the findings

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00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: has to do with how we respond to the idea

432
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 1: of the victim in in the case where somebody needs

433
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,920
Speaker 1: generosity or somebody could benefit from your health. Yeah. This

434
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: is from a paper Sympathy and Callousness The Impact of

435
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: deliberative Thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims, And

436
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: this is published in the General Organizational behavi if you're

437
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 1: in human Performance. So the study basically looked at the

438
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 1: whole face of the tragedy angle. Yeah, and you can

439
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: probably be familiar with this just from your experience. Right,

440
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: there's sort of you know that old quote, uh that

441
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: one death is a tragedy, a million deaths or a

442
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:19,880
Speaker 1: statistic Yeah, it sort of goes along those lines, right. Yeah.

443
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: This boils down to the you know, the common fact

444
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: that if a tragedy occurs somewhere in the world, what

445
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 1: are you going to respond to. You're gonna respond to

446
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,240
Speaker 1: a statistical breakdown about how many people are suffering and

447
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 1: what happened, or are you going to respond to that

448
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,680
Speaker 1: one evocative photo of a single individual who's suffering? Yeah,

449
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: And it, you know it. It shouldn't be the case,

450
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 1: but it is the case that the former is true.

451
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: I mean, if you care about helping one person, you

452
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: should care a hundred times as much about helping a

453
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: hundred people, right, But that is not, in fact the case,

454
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: That is not what our brains do. Yeah, this study

455
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 1: found that when thinking deliberatively, people discount sympathy towards identifiable

456
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: victims but failed to generate sympathy towards statistical victims. So

457
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: some of the key takeaways from from this study where

458
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 1: that teaching or priming people to recognize the discrepancy in

459
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,679
Speaker 1: giving toward identifiable and statistical victims has a perverse effect.

460
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:22,679
Speaker 1: Individuals give less to identifiable victims, but they don't actually

461
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: increase giving to statistical victims. So no, so this is

462
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: not just what we mentioned, but the fact that thinking

463
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 1: about it deliberately doesn't help. In fact, it makes you

464
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: less generous. Yeah, I guess it's kind of like you

465
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: see through what were the old TV ads where for

466
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: just pennies a day you can help this child. Um, yeah,

467
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: I can't remember name the actors from what all in

468
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 1: the family we do those commercials? No, it's true, you know,

469
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: if there there's like a you know, Save the Children

470
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: or something like that, they would say, this child is Jeffrey,

471
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: you know, Jeffrey, Jeffrey needs help, when really the problem

472
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: is that there are many, many children who are suffering. Yeah,

473
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:02,680
Speaker 1: but the weird thing is that the study seems to

474
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,680
Speaker 1: indicate that we're more likely to want to help Jeffrey.

475
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: But then if we are convinced that Jeffrey either isn't

476
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: real or we're just like, that's just one kid and

477
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: it's a seede problem going on, realizing that we don't

478
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: actually want to we don't even want to help Jeffrey anymore. Yeah,

479
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: we don't want to hel Jeffrey, were we don't end

480
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: up helping everyone else either, So it just kind of

481
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 1: stalls out. Um. They they found that if organizations want

482
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 1: to raise money for a charitable cause, it's far better

483
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: to appeal to the heart with that photo of Jeffrey

484
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: than to the head with you know, a full sort

485
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: of MPR breakdown about who's suffering and what the needs

486
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: are feeling, rather than analytical thinking drive donation. Yeah. So

487
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: that's kind of unfortunate because on one hand, you always

488
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: want to provide people with the most true, accurate information possible. Right,

489
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 1: But it turns out that in general, people respond more

490
00:27:55,640 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: to perhaps a skewed, uh not fully curate picture of

491
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: the problem. You're more likely to help if you haven't

492
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: thought about the problem all that much, and you're responding

493
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:12,640
Speaker 1: emotionally to one particular anecdote about a particular person suffering

494
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 1: rather than a true, you know, numerical representation of the

495
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 1: scope of the problem and asked to think about it deliberately. Right. Yeah.

496
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: So anyway, the takeaway from this though, might be that

497
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: if you want to be more generous, focus on the

498
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: focus on the anecdote, right, yeah, focus on and individuals,

499
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: and and also like, don't give into the uh, don't

500
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: don't give into the into the skepticism of or just

501
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: the negativity of saying, hey, you're trying to manipulate me

502
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: with this picture of this uh, this child or this

503
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: suffering individual, Like, I guess take it at face value. Um,

504
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: you know, unless there's something shady going on, take it

505
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: it face value that, Yeah, this is what's going on,

506
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: and I need to emotionally connect with this. Okay, Well,

507
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: what's another finding about weird ways we might encourage trick

508
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: our brains into being more generous. Well, one way is

509
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: to endure ritual pain. Uh, ritual pain. Huh yeah, yeah,

510
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: this is uh so uh. This is one that I

511
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: actually was turned onto by another Ian magazine article, and

512
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: this one came from anthropologists Dmitri Zagats and he was

513
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: studying um uh in particularly, he was looking at Thia

514
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: pussum Uh festival, which is a Hindu festival uh thaih

515
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: Posum is a Hindu festival celebrate on the full moon

516
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: in the Tamil month of Thai, and devotees prey and

517
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: make vows, and when their prayers are answered, they fulfilled

518
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: their vows by piercing parts of their bodies such as

519
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: their cheeks, their tongues and backs before you know, carrying

520
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: on the sacred vessel along a for a kilometer parade route.

521
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah, so it does sound painful. Yeah, he was. So.

522
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: He was looking at this while and studying it while

523
00:29:55,720 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: also contemplating the work of French sociologists. He kneeled dur Time,

524
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: who argued in elementary forms of religious life, that's the

525
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve work that the collective performance of ritual generates

526
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: a kind of electricity and a static state of shared

527
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 1: excitement that he referred to as collective effervescence. So, taking

528
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: that in mind, he looked to see what what kind

529
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: of effects does this painful ritual have on behavior and

530
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: in particularly generosity, he found quote, those who had participated

531
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: in the extreme ritual gave twice as much as those

532
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: who had taken part in collective collective prayer. He found

533
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: the same high levels of generosity among those who had

534
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: him him themselves gone through the painful activities, uh as

535
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: as those who had just merely followed the procession and

536
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: without actually engaging in self torture. So, as it turned out,

537
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 1: the painful ritual boosted pro social behavior for its participants.

538
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 1: Huh So, so you can look at this in a

539
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: number of ways, right, I mean you could think that, well,

540
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: maybe just the sort of ecstatic state of mind that

541
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: this ritual puts you in primes you to to give more.

542
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: Or you could look at this as a function of

543
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: just sort of a secondary function of being deeply involved

544
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: in a in a social and religious community, right yeah, yeah,

545
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: I mean, on one hand, yeah, you can also say

546
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: that you know you're feeling this pain and therefore in pain,

547
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: you're maybe more empathetic to the suffering of others, but

548
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: indeed you're also putting yourself in this collective effervescence. You're

549
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: allowing yourself to perhaps um catch generosity, to to to

550
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: to catch it as if it were some sort of

551
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: a disease or an illness. And that leads us to

552
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: another thing that scientists have found about generosity, which is

553
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: that to a certain extent, it's contagious. Yeah. We and

554
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: it's actually in specific ways that it's contagious. There are

555
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: other ways in which its apparently not contagious us. But yeah,

556
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: what if people found about the social contagion of generosity, Well,

557
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: there was there's a paper the Social Contagion of Generosity

558
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: my Molina Teviskova and Michael W. Macy, and they basically

559
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: looked at two ways that you can encounter generosity. Either

560
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: you're you've you've been a recipient, or you've watched someone

561
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: else receive it. And they found that receiving help can

562
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: increase the willingness to be generous towards others, but merely

563
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: observing help can have the opposite effect, especially among those

564
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: who have not received help yet. So it's kind of like,

565
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: you know, uh, what's what's the word like, you know,

566
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: passing the buck on, passing it, playing it forward or

567
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: something it pay forward. The book stops here because I

568
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: don't practice generosity to anyone. No, yeah, yeah, they there.

569
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: I think there's a horrible movie about that in there.

570
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: I believe that I have not seen it, so I

571
00:32:57,640 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: can't pass judgment on it. But yeah, but the idea

572
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: is that somebody who has had a kind thing done

573
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: for them is more likely to do a kind thing

574
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: for somebody else. And that was actually that was That

575
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: finding was replicated in the paper Morality in Everyday Life,

576
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: the same paper I talked about earlier. Yeah, that found

577
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:20,719
Speaker 1: the text message. When that found no major difference between

578
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: religious and non religious people, it also found um support

579
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: for moral contagion. They found that people who benefited from

580
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: a moral deed were more likely to do something moral

581
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: for somebody else later on. So you could potentially talk

582
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: this up for being an argument for being a part of,

583
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: if not a religious community, and some sort of close

584
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: community that engages in generous activity right or even each other.

585
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: And then also to outsiders. I mean, if you really

586
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 1: wanted to trick your brain this way, you could set

587
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: up a relationship with somebody where you say, hey, you're

588
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: gonna be my generosity contagion buddy, and every day you're

589
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: gonna do three nice things for me that I didn't

590
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: expect that will maybe prime me to just be a

591
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: more generous person for the rest of the world. So, like,

592
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 1: pretend you're a vagrant, as if you're a character in

593
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: a Sherlock home story. Uh, and then when people are

594
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: generous to you, this will instill generosity in yourself. Yeah,

595
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: it could be. But at the same time, if you

596
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: want to trick your brain into being more generous, apparently

597
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:25,400
Speaker 1: you shouldn't watch people being generous to others because that

598
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: you can just kind of diffuse the responsibility there. You know,

599
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: you watch somebody else doing some community work and you think,

600
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:34,720
Speaker 1: oh that's nice. Well, I'm glad those people are getting

601
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: the help they need. I can go, you know, kick

602
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: somebody down the flight of stairs. Yeah, or maybe even thinking, hey,

603
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: nobody's helping me out, Well go on and do my thing.

604
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: One more funny thing I found about generosity I'm not

605
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: gonna spend a lot of time on. This was just

606
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: the finding that supposedly there are gender differences in what

607
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,240
Speaker 1: encourages people to be more generous, and there's a study

608
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: that found that apparently men are more likely to donate

609
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: to the poor if reminded that doing so indirectly benefits

610
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: them as well as opposed to other encouraging justifications like oh,

611
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: the person really deserves the help, or they've had a

612
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: hard time. Men are most likely to donate if you

613
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: make the case to them that the donation is good

614
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: for the donor. Okay, so if you need to trick

615
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: yourself with that in mind, you can certainly use that

616
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:30,879
Speaker 1: from an influtive purposes. Well, let's move on to another quality, honesty. Honesty, Uh, Robert,

617
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: don't want to put you in a scenario. Imagine I

618
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: give you a die, like a gambling die, and I

619
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: tell you that I'm going to pay you a sum

620
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: of money corresponding to the number of your role. So

621
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: the higher your role, the higher the payout. Six dots

622
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 1: gets you the most money, the cyclops I gets you

623
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,439
Speaker 1: the least. And I ask you to roll your die

624
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:53,320
Speaker 1: once so that I can't see it, and this is

625
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: the money roll. And then I allow you to roll

626
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: the die a few more times, just so you can

627
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:00,840
Speaker 1: rest assured that the die is not loaded. It's a

628
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: regular die. You can roll whatever number, and then I

629
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:08,360
Speaker 1: ask you via a computer terminal to enter the number

630
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: from your initial money role. I remember nobody saw the role,

631
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: but you you can enter any number you want. But

632
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: should you be honest how much money we're talking here? Show? Well,

633
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: let's let's say that I'm giving you about two fifty

634
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: or three bucks per per dot on the die, okay,

635
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: and then we're telling them all up. Yeah, Well, I mean,

636
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: in that case, I'm probably gonna be inclined to just

637
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,959
Speaker 1: play by the rules because I'm gonna win some money,

638
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lose some money, and uh, there's not really

639
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 1: any advantage in tweaking in my favorite. But if you're

640
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: not gonna lose any money, well, I mean, but I

641
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: am going to lose out on a maximum payout. But

642
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 1: the amount you could lose by not by not reporting

643
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: is not that much as you could get up to

644
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 1: what like eighteen bucks maybe here? Yeah okay, but if

645
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: it were for a single amount, if we were doing

646
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: one die roll for say three d bucks, and and

647
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: I didn't have it in my head that this is

648
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: like coming out of your pocket, that this wasn't gonna

649
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: hurt anybody that basically you had three d dollars to

650
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 1: spend on this experiment, then yeah, I would definitely lie

651
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: about it. So there's a price on your honesty. If

652
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: there is a price on my honesty, if it does

653
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: not hurt anyone, sure, yeah, I mean it would be

654
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: different if it was like I really wanted to, yeah,

655
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: take my wife out to dinner for our anniversary, but

656
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:26,839
Speaker 1: I'm also going to do this crazy dice game instead. Well,

657
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 1: let's go back to about two fifty per per dot.

658
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: Imagine this under two different scenarios. Number one, you can

659
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: take as long as you want to enter the number

660
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: into the computer, You do your roles, and you can

661
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 1: just sit there and enter it whenever you want. The

662
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: other scenario is you have to enter it very quickly,

663
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:47,800
Speaker 1: like within some number of seconds. Does this change what happens?

664
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 1: M So I'm gonna have less time to decide if

665
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: online or not. In that case, I probably tempted to

666
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 1: just enter the truth. Yeah. Funny you should say that,

667
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: because actually there's a study from Psychological Science in that

668
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,879
Speaker 1: found exactly the opposite. They found. The paper was tall

669
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: called honesty requires time and lack of justifications. By h

670
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: Shall shall Vie or the Elder and Yoela Barebi Meyer.

671
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: And they found that people who could take as long

672
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: as they wanted ended up being more honest. But wait,

673
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: you might be asking, how did they know how honest

674
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 1: people were being if they couldn't see the die uh.

675
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: And here this is an interesting fact about the study.

676
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,280
Speaker 1: They just used the power of statistics over many roles.

677
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: The average die roll will will begin to converge on

678
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:40,279
Speaker 1: the natural average of three point five. You can do

679
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: the math yourself, you know, add up one through six

680
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,720
Speaker 1: and then divide by six possible possibilities. The average should

681
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: be three point five. So if you try this with

682
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: many participants and you notice at the end that their

683
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: average is much higher than three point five, you can

684
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: be pretty much certain that they're lying. We can assume

685
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 1: almost nobody lied to reduce their payout. Uh. Thus the

686
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: answers consisted always of a mix of truthful reports and

687
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 1: then deceitful inflated reports. So they did one experiment where

688
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: they forced people to enter their result within twenty seconds,

689
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: and then of course they gave people as much time

690
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: as they wanted and for the for the people who

691
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 1: had to enter their role within twenty seconds, they found

692
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: an average of four point six people were really really

693
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: entering those sixes. And then they found that people who

694
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: did not have any time pressure integ roll of three

695
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: point nine. So both groups inflated their averages, but the

696
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: people who had more time to deliberate, who didn't have

697
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 1: a time constraint, were more honest they lied less. And

698
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: then they did a separate experiment where they did it again,

699
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: but they just gave people eight seconds, so even less

700
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: time to make the decision. The people who had eight

701
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 1: seconds had an average of four point four, so a

702
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,720
Speaker 1: little bit less than the people who had twenty seconds,

703
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: But the people who had no time limit reported an

704
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 1: average of three point four, so pretty much right on

705
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: the average. So basically there's any Without time to reflect,

706
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: people are going to default to cheating. Yes, So to

707
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:17,720
Speaker 1: take home here would be think long and hard about

708
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: your moral decisions, and that will perhaps lead you to

709
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 1: the more moral choice. Well, though that might not necessarily

710
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: be the case with something like generosity. This is a

711
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: funny thing where our our our decision to be moral,

712
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: and the way we hack our brain to follow through

713
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: with it is different depending on what moral quality we're

714
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: trying to encourage. According to this study, the longer and

715
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: more deliberately you think about something, probably the more honest

716
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 1: you're going to be, the less likely to cheat you're

717
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: going to be. But on the other one, you know,

718
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: we we saw we saw the deliberative thinking about generosity

719
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: made people less generous. Yeah. And in fact, there's a

720
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen study from the University of Missouri, Columbia,

721
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: and they their findings actually say, trust your gut, don't

722
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 1: think about it, just go with your gut instinct, and

723
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: that's liable to be the more moral choice. How did

724
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: that work out? Well? And I should know that the

725
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:15,320
Speaker 1: moral choice here within the framework of the experiment relates

726
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: to to cheating. Uh. So they took a hundred individuals,

727
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: they gave him a questionnaire to determine their their base

728
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 1: dependency on gut instincts, and then they read them stories

729
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: in which they they make a mistake uh and blame

730
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: a co worker, and in the control group they take

731
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: full responsibility for the mistake. So their findings were, first

732
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 1: of all, the individuals who are prone to trust their

733
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 1: instinctive hunches may at times be less likely to commit

734
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: im moral acts compared to those who tend to discount

735
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: their intuition. So yeah, if you're the type of person

736
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: who says, is this the right choice? Is probably not

737
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: the right choice, then you're probably gonna end up flipping right. Uh.

738
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: They also found that people who tend to rely on

739
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 1: their gut instincts are less likely to cheat after reflecting

740
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: on past experiences during which they behaved in more like okay,

741
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: And then they did a second experiment and potestimants were

742
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: asked to write about a time they acted in morally

743
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 1: um or a control topic with control group, and then

744
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: they were asked to take an unsolvable i Q test.

745
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: People who tended to rely on their gut feelings, uh,

746
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: they found are less likely to cheat after reflecting on

747
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 1: a time when they behaved im morally. And the theory

748
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 1: here is that people try to compensate for past bad

749
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: behavior by acting morally in the present. So you might

750
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: be if you're a person who follows your gut instincts,

751
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 1: you might be more likely to tell the truth if

752
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: you think about a time you were dishonest in the past. Yeah,

753
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on what your gut instinct tends

754
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 1: to be. What's your base gut instinct. If your your

755
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: gut instinct is always to lie about your your die roll,

756
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: then you know, stick with it and know what you know,

757
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: your gut know if your gut is uh is good

758
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 1: or even right? Well, I mean that that gut instinct.

759
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: It sounds like what they're talking about to me is

760
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 1: what we would call conscience, right that you you can

761
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: have rational deliberative processes about thinking about what's the thing

762
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: to do? Should I do this? Should I not do it?

763
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:06,360
Speaker 1: But then there's also that sort of involuntary uh, that

764
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: that internal critic that you don't even really have control over.

765
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:12,840
Speaker 1: It's just the thing that nags at you that tells

766
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:15,800
Speaker 1: you you really shouldn't do this. That sounds like the

767
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,479
Speaker 1: kind of gut feeling to me, right, Yeah, I feel

768
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: like mindfulness is a good take on from either of these,

769
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 1: Like the greater extent to which you are just mindful

770
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,360
Speaker 1: of uh, the voices going on and the temptations and

771
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: what's coloring your responses uh can be a great aid

772
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 1: in making the correct moral choice. Yeah, Okay, I got

773
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 1: another one. What about forgiveness? Is there any science related

774
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: to forgiving others, not holding grudges and letting things go

775
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: there is, and this is one that's uh, that's that's

776
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: always fascinated me because because I I can be I'm

777
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: tired about holding onto my grudges sometimes and and I

778
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 1: don't want to hold onto them, you know, because grudges

779
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 1: are horrible. They weigh you down, They feel your thought.

780
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,280
Speaker 1: You find yourself thinking about like somebody from high school

781
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 1: that you hated, even though like that person, they don't

782
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: even exist anymore in your life, but they're still caring

783
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: weight on your conscious. Just get real happy when you

784
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: see that person from my school posts something embarrassing on Facebook. Yeah. Yeah,

785
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: that's sort of thing. I feel like everyone can can

786
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: relate to this on some point. You know, you end

787
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 1: up keeping your Nixon enemy list in your head and

788
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:24,320
Speaker 1: and that you cling to it, but you really you

789
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: don't want it in your life. You want to forget it.

790
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: And uh. There's actually a two thousand fourteen study from

791
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,360
Speaker 1: the University of St. Andrews in Scotland that was published

792
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: in Psychological Science, and they found that the details of

793
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 1: a transgression are more susceptible to forgetting when that transgression

794
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: has been forgiven. So this is interesting when you think

795
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 1: of unforgiven transgressions that might play out in your head.

796
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 1: You know, that's essentially an unchecked off mental list because

797
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: remembers we've discussed before. Uncompleted tasks also stick in the mind,

798
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 1: right that. Let's that the zigarnic effect. Yeah, yeah, so

799
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: you can see this applying to for fiveness. I'm yet

800
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: to forgive that person, so they're right in my head

801
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: and you've gotta wake up. Yeah, you've got a box

802
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 1: that isn't checked yet. And or I have not avenged myself.

803
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,439
Speaker 1: I have not murdered them in their sleep and dumped

804
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: their body in a creek exactly. I mean, no matter

805
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: what happens to that person, I don't know. I think

806
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 1: I would go with the Kung Fu movie mentality on

807
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: this is you haven't really solved the problem until you've

808
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: either forgiven them or they're dead, killed them or at

809
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: least dead to you. If you can just if you

810
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 1: can just completely like wipe them off, then then that

811
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,359
Speaker 1: works too, I guess, right, And since we're not advocating

812
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 1: vengeful murder here, that the solution would seem to be forgiveness.

813
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: And then there's also a two thousand fifteen study from

814
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 1: the University of Missouri Columbia. They found it forgiving others

815
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 1: protects women from depression, but not men, thus pointing to

816
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: the importance of gender specific counseling or treatment. So they

817
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: found that older women who forgave others were less likely

818
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: to report depressive symptoms regardless of whether they felt unforgiven

819
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:02,399
Speaker 1: by others themselves, while older men reported the highest levels

820
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: depression when they both forgave others and felt unforgiven by others.

821
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: So they found that They also found that, while helpful,

822
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 1: self forgiveness didn't act as the protector against depression in

823
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: the case of the unforgiven mental state. So this kind

824
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: of plays into the whole addags like, oh, you have

825
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 1: to forgive yourself before you can, you know, move past

826
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: some traumatic occurrence. Like there's a little truth to that,

827
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: but some people are just way too good at forgiving themselves.

828
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. Some people are like that's the that's

829
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: the easy part. Like they did that the second after

830
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: it happened, right, you know, You're like, don't beat yourself up,

831
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: and they're like, yeah, good advice. And then there's also

832
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: some research from Ohio State University that suggests that people

833
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,919
Speaker 1: who have trouble metabolizing glucose in their bodies show more

834
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 1: evidence of aggression and less willingness to forgive others. So

835
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 1: they have this, uh, this transgression in their mind and

836
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: they're just they have just more of an aggressive response

837
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 1: to it, and that there may be a um, A

838
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: body chemistry a scenario underlying it. They point out though,

839
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: that the potential problem here is the number of people

840
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 1: who have trouble metabolizing glucose, mainly individuals with diabetes, is

841
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: rising rapidly. From nineteen through two thousand eight, the number

842
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,399
Speaker 1: of Americans with diabetes more than triple five point six

843
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: million to eighteen point one million. Well, that sounds like

844
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: a difficult thing to turn into a recommendation for somebody's behaviors,

845
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:30,359
Speaker 1: Like manage your internal blood sugar so that you don't

846
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:32,839
Speaker 1: have blood sugar problems and that will make you less

847
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: aggressive to others. I mean, it's good to have good

848
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: blood sugar in any case. Um, And here is maybe

849
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: another benefit of that, Yeah, I mean potentially boosting glucose

850
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: levels could reduce some you know, temporary aggressive behavior. So

851
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you're feeling a little unforgiving of

852
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: someone half sucker, have a put a little extra honey

853
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: in your tea and see how that that suits you,

854
00:47:55,960 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 1: I guess, but sugar yourself responsible? Yes, indeed. Now out

855
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: here's another one that I found pretty interesting, offering the

856
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: observation that it might be true that altruism, you know,

857
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 1: the giving, giving to others, being kind and supportive of

858
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: other people, is encouraged by a feeling of awe. And

859
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 1: so this is a May paper in the Journal of

860
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: Personality and Social Psychology called AWE, the Small Self and

861
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,399
Speaker 1: pro Social Behavior. They found that the feeling of awe

862
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: may cause people to behave more altruistically than they normally would.

863
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 1: The paper was by Paul piff, Pia Dietz, Matthew Feinberg,

864
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: and Daniel Stencado and Donker Keltner and so uh. They

865
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: offer a couple of things in terms of defining AWE.

866
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: Just a couple of quotes from the paper here. One

867
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: is that firsthand accounts of awe felt during experiences with

868
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: religion and spirituality, nature, art, and music often center upon

869
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,480
Speaker 1: two themes, the feeling of being diminished in the presence

870
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,320
Speaker 1: of something greater than the self, and the motivation to

871
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 1: be good to others. Uh. And and they define all

872
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 1: by saying, it's an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli

873
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:14,240
Speaker 1: that defy one's accustomed frame of reference in some domain.

874
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:17,360
Speaker 1: So you know what all is, he's thinking about the

875
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 1: scale of the universe, looking at a sunset or watching

876
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,799
Speaker 1: a volcano erupt or you know, seeing things that are

877
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: vast and huge and powerful and make you realize the

878
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: smallness and powerlessness of yourself. Yea, so Pif and colleagues.

879
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 1: They first got a sample of people to complete a

880
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: questionnaire to see how susceptible to all they were. They

881
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 1: played a game where they were given a number of

882
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: raffle tickets and they had the opportunity to share them

883
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:50,359
Speaker 1: with other people who didn't have raffle tickets of their own.

884
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: And the researchers found, first of all, a correlation between

885
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:58,399
Speaker 1: people who reported a tendency to feel awe and generosity.

886
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 1: So if you're one of these people who is likely

887
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,440
Speaker 1: to have experiences of awe, you're more likely to be generous.

888
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:09,800
Speaker 1: Then they conducted four more experiments involving individual behavior tests,

889
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 1: so people in an experimental group would be given an

890
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: experience designed to induce AWE, such as watching a slow

891
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: motion video of droplets of water splashing into milk, or

892
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 1: watching a montage of large scale natural threats like tornadoes

893
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:29,720
Speaker 1: and volcanoes, or being in the presence of huge eucalyptus trees,

894
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:37,760
Speaker 1: and yeah, exactly, and the the what the koala bears?

895
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 1: Feeling awe at the way they grip my skin? And

896
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 1: so the control groups were subjected to neutral experiences or

897
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: experiences designed to cause other emotions like maybe pride or something,

898
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: and what they found was, Yes, the experience of self

899
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: diminishment we call awe does seem to cause people to

900
00:50:56,080 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: behave more altruistically towards others. You know, thinking back, I

901
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:04,520
Speaker 1: can definitely relate to this idea of of of awe

902
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 1: and altruism. Uh specifically, Um, I've never been to Burning Man,

903
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 1: but I have been to some regional burns. You know,

904
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: there's kind of like offshoots of it. And at these places,

905
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: the ones I've been to, there's a they have a

906
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: gift economy where ideally nobody's gonna be selling this that

907
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: the other you're sharing food, or there's more of a

908
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:26,320
Speaker 1: you know, an openness and just how you relate to

909
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: each other. And I remember just you know, just stepping

910
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 1: into that and then growing accustomed to this, uh, this

911
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: environment where suddenly you're you're smiling and saying hi to

912
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 1: everybody instead of you know, just sort of the head down,

913
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: eyes on your your feet approach to taking public transportation

914
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 1: in a large metropolitan area. Like it just it's it's

915
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 1: it is kind of awesome. You find yourself realizing whoa

916
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 1: we can People can live like this, People can interact

917
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: with each other in a different way and on a

918
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: smaller level, like when you when you go to help

919
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,280
Speaker 1: somebody and you you're closer to like their pain, either

920
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: suffering or whatever's going in their life. That can also

921
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 1: be this moment of where you're you realize, you know,

922
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: it's it's not all about me, it's also see the whole. Yeah. Yeah,

923
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 1: you kind of do that powers attend zoom out from

924
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: your own life. You know. What this study reminded me

925
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: of was something I had read about in the past,

926
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 1: known as the overview effect and literature about it, which

927
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:28,360
Speaker 1: which has to do with a commonly reported feeling that

928
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 1: that astronauts talk about once they've been to space and

929
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:37,080
Speaker 1: seeing the Earth from above. Yeah. Yeah, the according to

930
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 1: YESA and NASSA reports, we're talking about euphoric feelings that

931
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: involved quote new insight into the meaning of life and

932
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 1: the unity of mankind A Paulo fourteen astronaut edgar Mitchell

933
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: described this sensation as the overview effect. And uh, and

934
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 1: I and I have a nice summer of this from

935
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: Discovery Space um writer and I believe I still had

936
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: editor over their een O'Neil who used to used to

937
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:03,400
Speaker 1: work with he explains. He explains it as as follows. Quote.

938
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:06,879
Speaker 1: He described this and sensation gave him a profound sense

939
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 1: of connectedness with a feeling of bliss and timelessness. He

940
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: was overwhelmed by the experience. He became profoundly aware that

941
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 1: each and every atom in the universe was connected in

942
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 1: some way, and on seeing Earth from space, he had

943
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:22,399
Speaker 1: an understanding that all the humans, animals, and systems were

944
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: a part of the same thing, a synergistic whole. It

945
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: was an interconnected euphoria because the Earth is so small

946
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:35,359
Speaker 1: and and we're up above it in the spaceship. Essentially, well, yeah,

947
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:39,319
Speaker 1: I mean it's hard to imagine anything more literally all

948
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: inspiring than that, right, I mean that that's almost perfectly

949
00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:48,320
Speaker 1: the definition of awe Uh. Realizing the smallness being diminished

950
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 1: in the face of of incomparably vast phenomena when you're

951
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 1: in space and you suddenly realized that Earth isn't the universe,

952
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:01,000
Speaker 1: it's a it's a tiny rock, and where these tiny

953
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 1: creatures occupying the surface of the rock. Yeah, I can

954
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:08,280
Speaker 1: certainly see how that would be sort of the ultimate

955
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: experience of awe, and how it could cause one to

956
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 1: I don't know, to just allow all of the petty

957
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: squabbles of human life too, to dissolve into this this nothingness. Yeah,

958
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 1: I mean it. It's one of those things that interrupts

959
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: the sort of me, me me narrative, that default mode

960
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:27,880
Speaker 1: network that goes on in her mind. It kind of

961
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: comes back to mindfulness, you know, just getting out of

962
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:32,880
Speaker 1: your own story. And if it takes going into space

963
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 1: to do that, if it takes helping somebody out that

964
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 1: I'm delivering a meal or something engaging in some level

965
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: of altruistic behavior, then uh, then do it. Yeah, give

966
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: it a give it a try. That would be my recommendation,

967
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 1: not only to everyone else. I'm not, you know, just

968
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 1: speaking on a podium here, like I I want to

969
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 1: take that on myself as a challenge for the new

970
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,800
Speaker 1: year in a in an unofficial way, and not until February.

971
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:00,800
Speaker 1: It sounds like a good one. Uh. I want to

972
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 1: encourage myself to be more altruistic by standing at the

973
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:06,279
Speaker 1: lip of a volcano and active one staring into it

974
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 1: more often, more often at least than I do now.

975
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 1: Um So, so we've we've talked about these studies and

976
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: as we said at the beginning, we I mean, we

977
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: can't even come close to covering the full breadth of

978
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 1: studies in this area. Yeah, it's ongoing. We're gonna see

979
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: a countless more in the years of fall how how

980
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 1: psychology effects and influences moral behavior. But that's sort of

981
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:30,160
Speaker 1: just a sampling of the kind of research that's out there.

982
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 1: And so I'm wondering if we can take any of

983
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 1: the stuff we've looked at in this episode, the findings

984
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 1: we've found it and turn them into strategies for tricking

985
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:42,399
Speaker 1: your brain into doing good. Well. I have a little

986
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 1: bit of advice here, and this this comes from Charles

987
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 1: do Higgs The Power of Habit, and he points out

988
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:52,719
Speaker 1: that every habit starts with a psychological pattern called a

989
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: habit loop. And there it's a three part process. So

990
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:58,359
Speaker 1: first there's a queue or trigger that tells your brain

991
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 1: to go into automatic mode and out of behavior unfold.

992
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 1: And then there's routine, and finally there's rewards. Something that

993
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:07,839
Speaker 1: your your brain likes, helps it remember the habit loop

994
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: in the future. Uh So, habit making behavior. All this

995
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:13,960
Speaker 1: ties to a part of the brain called the basil ganglia.

996
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 1: This is where we find emotions and memories and pattern recognition,

997
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 1: and the basil ganglia takes behavior and turns it into

998
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:21,840
Speaker 1: an automatic routine, kind of like a hot key for

999
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 1: the human body. This this is what happens when this

1000
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 1: cemula presents itself the macro. Yeah, and that could be

1001
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:30,520
Speaker 1: and when we say action, it could be an action,

1002
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: but we could also be just like this is the

1003
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,920
Speaker 1: way I think in response to something. UM Now decisions

1004
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:37,360
Speaker 1: on the other hand, or maybe a different part of

1005
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 1: the brain called the prefrontal cortex. But as soon as

1006
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 1: behavior becomes automatic, the decision making part of your brain

1007
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 1: goes into a sort of sleep mode. And and and

1008
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:49,840
Speaker 1: and uh and it's important to know that environment and

1009
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 1: forces as well. So like if you go on a vacation,

1010
00:56:52,520 --> 00:56:54,800
Speaker 1: if you travel or go just go to a different environment.

1011
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 1: Um this can mix things up because you're changing the

1012
00:56:57,560 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: stimuli around you. And it's one of the reasons that

1013
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 1: they aations are a great place, a great time to

1014
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 1: focus on changing a habit because you're stepping outside of

1015
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: your normal stimuli. I think that sounds true. I found

1016
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:12,719
Speaker 1: that to be true in my life. I think life

1017
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:15,320
Speaker 1: changing decisions are often made at a time when you

1018
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 1: are not under your normal circumstances. Yeah. Um, I think

1019
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: this is This is an interesting way of looking at it.

1020
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:23,680
Speaker 1: And one thing you could take away from this is

1021
00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:28,160
Speaker 1: that if you're talking about making deliberate decisions to change

1022
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 1: your moral behavior, they're not going to have to be

1023
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 1: deliberate decisions forever, right, right, They would just have to

1024
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: be You'd have to make that deliberate decision enough times

1025
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 1: long enough to establish a habit. And then once you've

1026
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:44,680
Speaker 1: established a habit, you don't have to be so deliberate

1027
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 1: about it anymore. It's just the new way you do things, right,

1028
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:50,080
Speaker 1: But just remember that the old way you do things

1029
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,040
Speaker 1: and the environment in which you do them is going

1030
00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 1: to be a hurdle to overcome in making that change,

1031
00:57:56,720 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 1: because you know, whatever you're planning to do stand in

1032
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:03,200
Speaker 1: the edge of volcano, or share half your sandwich will

1033
00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: with someone who's hungry. Uh, they're still gonna be that

1034
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 1: temptation to set in front of the Xbox and play

1035
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:11,240
Speaker 1: a game instead when you see that little green eye

1036
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 1: staring at you. But maybe if the game you're playing

1037
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 1: on the Xbox is so awe inspiring that it really

1038
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 1: does diminish your sense of self, it would make you

1039
00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 1: more altruistic. Maybe that sounds like a good a good

1040
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:26,200
Speaker 1: uh premise for a study. Well, let's see. Let's let's

1041
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: design a video game to hit all of these features

1042
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,000
Speaker 1: we've talked about. So you have a game that at

1043
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: the you have to enter your credit card information. In

1044
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:37,760
Speaker 1: the game, it gives you all inspiring scenarios where you

1045
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 1: you see amazing, cosmic, powerful events that you have no

1046
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 1: control over. And then you're you're faced with a single

1047
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:48,800
Speaker 1: anecdotal case of a person who's suffering rather than the

1048
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:53,640
Speaker 1: whole statistical overview of the problem. And then the game

1049
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 1: forces you to endure a ritual pain ceremony. You have

1050
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 1: to go through a communal ceremony with that her it's

1051
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: your body. Then the game connects you with other users

1052
00:59:03,120 --> 00:59:05,440
Speaker 1: who do something nice for you, and you get to

1053
00:59:05,520 --> 00:59:09,360
Speaker 1: experience the contagion of generosity. H Then the game asks

1054
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:13,240
Speaker 1: you to report your moral behavior to your social network,

1055
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 1: but gives you uh and lets you report, you know,

1056
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 1: whatever you want, but gives you enough time that you

1057
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 1: can sit there and be deliberate and think about it

1058
00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:25,040
Speaker 1: so that you're honest instead of immediately defaulting to cheat mode.

1059
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 1: All right, well, you know, I think throw in a

1060
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 1: few more cut scenes and we have the next metal

1061
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:34,960
Speaker 1: Gear game. A yeah, yeah, metal Gear Charity. Charitable Snake

1062
00:59:35,160 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: is your character and it's it's particular, particular game. Now,

1063
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 1: now what kind of charitable organization would would a Metal

1064
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:45,000
Speaker 1: Gear game? I don't know. It's a complicated question. They

1065
00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 1: really get into some tense uh. Like there's a lot

1066
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 1: of tense real life stuff wrapped up in some of

1067
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:53,480
Speaker 1: the more recent installments, right so I haven't played them.

1068
00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 1: I don't know. I would guess it would maybe maybe

1069
00:59:56,360 --> 01:00:00,720
Speaker 1: relate to, uh, I mean, refugee scenarios of work, foreign regions.

1070
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all they all deal with kind of

1071
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:06,120
Speaker 1: guerilla situations and international wrongdoing. So do they still have

1072
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:08,360
Speaker 1: giant robots? Would you build a giant robot that feeds

1073
01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 1: the hungry. I think they're still a giant robots. They

1074
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 1: tend to occur at the end of the game, and

1075
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: I burn out before I get so I see. So

1076
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:16,960
Speaker 1: they're just kind of like the gods of metal gear

1077
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:20,520
Speaker 1: that I never actually witnessed. Okay, well, uh, as we

1078
01:00:20,640 --> 01:00:22,960
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier a couple of times, you know this, this

1079
01:00:23,120 --> 01:00:25,320
Speaker 1: is a big field, and maybe this is a field

1080
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: where we will have the chance to return to it

1081
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 1: in the future. There I'm sure gonna be plenty more

1082
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: studies coming out all the time about psychology and moral behavior,

1083
01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 1: and maybe we can revisit the topic then. Yeah. And

1084
01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:38,680
Speaker 1: you know, on the subject of charity, supposed to be

1085
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 1: something interesting to discuss in a maybe a future listener

1086
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:44,520
Speaker 1: mail topic. If there's a particular charity that's near and

1087
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 1: dear to your heart, you know, like a vetted charity

1088
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: of some sort, let us know about it. Oh yeah,

1089
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 1: kind of fun to share these out and spread the

1090
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 1: word about about some of the causes out there in

1091
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, please do. And one last thing at

1092
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:59,520
Speaker 1: this time of year, good luck with your New Year's resolution,

1093
01:00:59,640 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 1: whatever it is, self serving or not. Yeah, and if

1094
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 1: you don't get it in January, just pick it up

1095
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 1: the next month for Chinese New Year. That's what I

1096
01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: do in the meantime. Check out Stuff to Blow your

1097
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That's we find. All of our episodes

1098
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:13,680
Speaker 1: are videos, blog post links out to social media accounts

1099
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 1: were we're on Facebook and Twitter as Blow the Mind,

1100
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 1: We're in tumbler as Stuff to Blow your Mind. Follow

1101
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:21,840
Speaker 1: us on those uh on those formats if you use them,

1102
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:23,520
Speaker 1: and if you want to get in touch with us,

1103
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 1: was in a feedback on this or other recent episodes?

1104
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 1: Or if you want to let us know what your

1105
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:30,320
Speaker 1: favorite charity is or what your New Year's resolution is,

1106
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:32,640
Speaker 1: you can email us at Blow the Mind the house,

1107
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Well more on this and passons

1108
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:47,280
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com

1109
01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: two p.