1
00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:08,000
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

2
00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,280
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday.

3
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:13,480
Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault, and this time with

4
00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:17,240
Speaker 1: us in the dark is the ultimate wintertime bad boy,

5
00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:20,320
Speaker 1: the greatest goat of all time. I guess the greatest

6
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,640
Speaker 1: goatman of all time. Dear Crumpus. That's right. This worked

7
00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:27,640
Speaker 1: out perfectly because we put this episode out last year

8
00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:32,000
Speaker 1: on Crumpus Knocked, and now we have a slot for

9
00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:35,560
Speaker 1: a vault episode on Crompus Knocked, so we're we're unleashing

10
00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:38,199
Speaker 1: the be Steel Hordes once again. Now when did this

11
00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:44,200
Speaker 1: episode originally come out? Originally published twelve five nineteen, and uh,

12
00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:47,960
Speaker 1: if the calendar speaks true, today is twelve five, So

13
00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:54,160
Speaker 1: it's perfect. Let's get in the basket. Welcome to Stuff

14
00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:56,160
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. A production of I Heart Radios

15
00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:04,640
Speaker 1: has to work. Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to

16
00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:07,119
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

17
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,440
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And it's Crampus Night, isn't it. That's right?

18
00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:15,160
Speaker 1: Today is so or tonight? Rather is Crampus Knocked? The

19
00:01:15,319 --> 00:01:20,280
Speaker 1: night during which the Beast of Christmas comes down from

20
00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:25,840
Speaker 1: the mountains and terrorizes alpine towns around the world. Right,

21
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:29,960
Speaker 1: it's so given that this episode falls on Crampus knocked,

22
00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:34,320
Speaker 1: we realized we had a solemn duty, a solemn holiday duty,

23
00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:38,399
Speaker 1: to explore Crampus in depth. Man, I think Crampus just

24
00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:40,960
Speaker 1: took a walk through our kitchen because I just went

25
00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:42,959
Speaker 1: through there and there was such a reek. There was

26
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:48,160
Speaker 1: like a waft of aged shrimp all throughout the microwave area.

27
00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:52,120
Speaker 1: Does Crampus smell? You know? I would imagine you could

28
00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:55,400
Speaker 1: smell somewhat of sulfur and rot, Yeah, one would think,

29
00:01:55,480 --> 00:02:00,000
Speaker 1: or or certainly the hides would have a daintness to them. Right. Um,

30
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 1: But but the smell is often overlooked because generally it's

31
00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:06,560
Speaker 1: more it's it's generally thought of as more visual spectacle. Uh.

32
00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:10,079
Speaker 1: Certainly for those of us far away from the Alpine

33
00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:14,560
Speaker 1: regions that that either have to make do with some

34
00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:18,560
Speaker 1: facsimile of Crampus rights in our own cities or simply

35
00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:22,080
Speaker 1: have to make do with with footage and uh images

36
00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:25,320
Speaker 1: and illustrations of what these rights consist of. Now, Crampus

37
00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:28,000
Speaker 1: was really having a moment like a couple of years

38
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,839
Speaker 1: ago I think like the suddenly interest in this creature surged, uh,

39
00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,280
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's it's calmed down enough now

40
00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:38,160
Speaker 1: that we that we can properly tackle it. Yeah, but

41
00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:39,840
Speaker 1: I think the good news is that I think it

42
00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:43,800
Speaker 1: has calmed down to like a steady infection of of

43
00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:47,720
Speaker 1: Western civilization beyond the alpine regions, say, certainly here in

44
00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:51,799
Speaker 1: the United States, like crampus has you know, surged infected

45
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:54,320
Speaker 1: the holiday host And now I think we can say

46
00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:57,679
Speaker 1: Crampus is part of our our holiday traditions here in

47
00:02:57,680 --> 00:02:59,840
Speaker 1: the United States. Now, another thing is you said you

48
00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:01,679
Speaker 1: were going to be leaning into the holidays this year,

49
00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:04,400
Speaker 1: and man, you have been what we we do promise

50
00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:06,960
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be all Christmas stuff the rest of

51
00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:09,720
Speaker 1: the year. It was just that you saw that it

52
00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:12,160
Speaker 1: was coming out on Crampus knocked and we we couldn't

53
00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:16,200
Speaker 1: do but go to the horns exactly. So let's talk

54
00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:18,280
Speaker 1: a little bit more about Crampus, because some of you

55
00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:20,760
Speaker 1: may not actually be familiar with crampas or you might

56
00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:23,960
Speaker 1: not have, you know, as a robust and understandings as

57
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:26,720
Speaker 1: other folks out there. So the short version, of course

58
00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:30,200
Speaker 1: is that Crampus is an Alpine holiday monster used as

59
00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:35,320
Speaker 1: negative reinforcement, a threat of punishment for bad behavior against children.

60
00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:38,560
Speaker 1: He has the bad cop to St. Nicholas's good cop.

61
00:03:38,840 --> 00:03:42,680
Speaker 1: He is uh the stick, whereas St. Nicholas is the carrot,

62
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:46,000
Speaker 1: though much more directly so than St. Nicholas being the carrot,

63
00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,880
Speaker 1: because the child doesn't actually want to see St. Nicholas

64
00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:52,040
Speaker 1: in their house that would perhaps be traumatic. You want

65
00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:54,480
Speaker 1: the treats and the goodies and the presence that St.

66
00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:58,160
Speaker 1: Nicholas brings, So the St. Nicholas is like an indirect

67
00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:01,760
Speaker 1: giver of the carrot. Crampus is himself quite the stick,

68
00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:04,800
Speaker 1: right and and butt. He is something you wish to avoid.

69
00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,440
Speaker 1: And that's the general idea. The Crampus is what happens

70
00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:11,120
Speaker 1: to the bad children. You young women are not one

71
00:04:11,120 --> 00:04:14,280
Speaker 1: of the bad children, are you? Uh wait, so what

72
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,800
Speaker 1: exactly does Crampus do to the bad children? Well? Uh

73
00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:20,279
Speaker 1: so so it it very I mean, the basic idea

74
00:04:20,400 --> 00:04:23,200
Speaker 1: is that Crampus is going to come and cramplog and

75
00:04:23,240 --> 00:04:27,040
Speaker 1: describe Crampus for everyone. Though again this is a situation

76
00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:30,279
Speaker 1: where the exact incarnation of Crampus is going to drift

77
00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:32,640
Speaker 1: a little bit, and we're going to discuss the wise

78
00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:35,640
Speaker 1: of that in a bit a little bit baffa metti. Yeah,

79
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:38,680
Speaker 1: a goat like beast man, kind of a satyr, kind

80
00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:42,160
Speaker 1: of a pan figure, kind of a demon, like a furry,

81
00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:47,799
Speaker 1: shaggy alpine demon from the cold mountain wilderness comes down.

82
00:04:48,279 --> 00:04:51,600
Speaker 1: Uh you know, it's covered in bells, has a basket

83
00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:55,640
Speaker 1: on it on his back as switches may bring coal

84
00:04:55,760 --> 00:04:57,560
Speaker 1: as well. Sometimes it's shown to have like a big

85
00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:02,680
Speaker 1: lolling uh you know, giraffe like tongue, and basically he's

86
00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:05,520
Speaker 1: going to come in scare the bad children with the

87
00:05:05,520 --> 00:05:08,400
Speaker 1: bad children with his switches, and if you're particularly bad,

88
00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:11,440
Speaker 1: throw you into his basket and take you with him

89
00:05:11,480 --> 00:05:14,719
Speaker 1: back to the wilderness to either eat you out there

90
00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:17,120
Speaker 1: maybe or maybe take you to hell. Is is that

91
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:19,719
Speaker 1: sometimes part of it? Uh? Yeah, I think again, the

92
00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:23,080
Speaker 1: exact exact details are going to vary. Sometimes. I wonder

93
00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:25,919
Speaker 1: if it's like, because clearly Crampus has coal, perhaps he

94
00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:28,680
Speaker 1: needs the children to work in the coal mine. Okay,

95
00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:31,760
Speaker 1: but that's just me. That's my my possible twist on it.

96
00:05:32,279 --> 00:05:35,719
Speaker 1: Now you're probably wondering, you know, where does this idea

97
00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,400
Speaker 1: come from? We know that it it definitely seems to

98
00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:41,880
Speaker 1: originate in the Alpine regions of Europe, but it's unsure

99
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:46,120
Speaker 1: if it's truly a pre Christian pagan tradition. Um. Some

100
00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:49,800
Speaker 1: people say that it is, though it undoubtedly invokes pre

101
00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:53,920
Speaker 1: Christian pagan ideas and images, um, you know, regardless of

102
00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:56,760
Speaker 1: where it's actually or when it's actually emerging. But at

103
00:05:56,800 --> 00:05:59,560
Speaker 1: hard he's a he's just a general bogey, right, the

104
00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:03,919
Speaker 1: embodied event of negative reinforcement of cultural norms in children,

105
00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:07,840
Speaker 1: and perhaps going back to our discussion of Jenny Green teeth, uh,

106
00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:11,320
Speaker 1: the bogey that is used to warn children away from

107
00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:15,280
Speaker 1: from still waters that are dangerous, perhaps crampus is an

108
00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:18,599
Speaker 1: embodiment of, you know, the general message that bad things

109
00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:21,080
Speaker 1: will happen to you if you do not take seriously

110
00:06:21,120 --> 00:06:24,120
Speaker 1: the rules and advice that your parents and your elders

111
00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:28,359
Speaker 1: present you with. So, while yes, misbehaving will not actually

112
00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:31,960
Speaker 1: result in foul beastmen venturing down from the mountains and

113
00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:35,159
Speaker 1: dragging you away to some horrific fate, but misbehaving could

114
00:06:35,279 --> 00:06:38,560
Speaker 1: result in bodily harm, and certainly the potential for violent

115
00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:42,880
Speaker 1: mistreatment by others is you know, is possible in certain circumstances.

116
00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:46,400
Speaker 1: Either way, Crampus is an embodiment of fear in a

117
00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:48,960
Speaker 1: holiday that is often reduced to just a notion of

118
00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:52,479
Speaker 1: pure joy, right, especially in the United States traditionally. But

119
00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:55,600
Speaker 1: his spirit is is certainly of the winter from which

120
00:06:55,600 --> 00:06:58,840
Speaker 1: our holiday traditions emerge. Uh. You know, he is the

121
00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:03,440
Speaker 1: the darkness of the holidays that is ultimately essential to

122
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:08,720
Speaker 1: to winter um rights and winter belief systems that you

123
00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:12,080
Speaker 1: find in cultures around the world. Now, one thing that

124
00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:14,880
Speaker 1: I think is an interesting difference is that, like whether

125
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:17,640
Speaker 1: or not there's really a St. Nicholas to bring you presents,

126
00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:21,320
Speaker 1: children will often end up with presents on Christmas Morning

127
00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:24,520
Speaker 1: with the implication that they have come from St. Nicholas,

128
00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:29,200
Speaker 1: But nobody ever actually gets carried off by Crampus. Yeah,

129
00:07:29,960 --> 00:07:32,360
Speaker 1: you know, you'll He's one of the big things here

130
00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:37,600
Speaker 1: is you have Crampus parades, traditional cramps parades in alpine areas,

131
00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:40,600
Speaker 1: in which people dressed in the crampus costumes will parade

132
00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:44,520
Speaker 1: through the streets and um and scared children. Though certainly

133
00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:48,120
Speaker 1: nowadays they are not They're generally not permitted to touch

134
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:50,560
Speaker 1: the children or to actually strike the children with sticks,

135
00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:56,200
Speaker 1: much less drag them away. Uh. But in previous decades. Uh,

136
00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:59,160
Speaker 1: you know, I imagine they perhaps had a little more leeway. Yeah,

137
00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:01,520
Speaker 1: I guess so either way. Yes, the idea is that

138
00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:04,720
Speaker 1: Crampus is a a performance. It is a is a

139
00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:09,480
Speaker 1: folk festival performance and which people dress up as the monster,

140
00:08:09,640 --> 00:08:12,480
Speaker 1: and then the monsters parade through the streets. Uh. And

141
00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:15,440
Speaker 1: in this, you know, it touches on so many other

142
00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:18,680
Speaker 1: different folk traditions. There's something about Crampus that seems to

143
00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:21,760
Speaker 1: embody just like it just checks off so many boxes

144
00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:25,080
Speaker 1: for folk traditions uh that you find throughout Europe but

145
00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:27,640
Speaker 1: also and around the world, you know, like the making

146
00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:33,439
Speaker 1: of bread totems that resemble Crampus, Crampus wearing the bells,

147
00:08:33,559 --> 00:08:37,240
Speaker 1: bells being objects that are typically used in folk decisions,

148
00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:41,600
Speaker 1: worn off evil spirits, uh. Crampus as being a kind

149
00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:44,959
Speaker 1: of horned god as another thing that is often brought up,

150
00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:47,720
Speaker 1: you know, and of course there are many versions of

151
00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:51,520
Speaker 1: horned gods and horned beings and various religions and myth

152
00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:54,319
Speaker 1: cycles uh, you know, tied you know, particularly with the

153
00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:57,600
Speaker 1: horned god to the unpredictable nature of the hunt. Uh.

154
00:08:57,720 --> 00:09:01,560
Speaker 1: So he he really you know stands uh, you know,

155
00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:05,920
Speaker 1: on this kind of nexus of so many different ideas,

156
00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:09,240
Speaker 1: Like it's easy to just go nuts chasing cramps through

157
00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:13,120
Speaker 1: the you know, through the centuries of of of human

158
00:09:13,559 --> 00:09:18,320
Speaker 1: fulk history. Well, he's also just a classic hybrid monster. Yeah, yeah,

159
00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:20,440
Speaker 1: I mean that at heart, he is kind of part

160
00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:26,720
Speaker 1: part man, part goat. I guess you'd say, part sheep,

161
00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:30,320
Speaker 1: maybe part you know, part beast. And in that like

162
00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,280
Speaker 1: he ties into some of our our oldest you know,

163
00:09:33,600 --> 00:09:37,200
Speaker 1: magical ideas. A hybridity is key to monstrosity. And what

164
00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:39,600
Speaker 1: he's thought to be the first monster in the human

165
00:09:39,640 --> 00:09:42,360
Speaker 1: imagination is none other than the uh what the the

166
00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:46,160
Speaker 1: Lowan ninch figuring from about thirty five to forty thousand

167
00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:49,360
Speaker 1: years ago. Well, the first that we have physical episode,

168
00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:51,640
Speaker 1: because yeah, as we talked about in our episode about

169
00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:54,080
Speaker 1: the first monster, you can't know what the first monster was,

170
00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:56,200
Speaker 1: but this seems to be like the earliest one where

171
00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:58,960
Speaker 1: there's a physical record of the monster. Yeah, and we

172
00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,440
Speaker 1: did a whole episode on that talking about like, you know,

173
00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:04,920
Speaker 1: you know, certainly how this example was found and what

174
00:10:05,200 --> 00:10:07,800
Speaker 1: experts have thought about it, and how it ties into

175
00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:11,400
Speaker 1: just how how our minds work, like bringing two uh

176
00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:14,640
Speaker 1: different ideas together into a new idea, and what this

177
00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:19,800
Speaker 1: new idea encompasses totally. So what happens on Crampus Knocked, Well, uh,

178
00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:23,640
Speaker 1: Crampus Knocked is the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas.

179
00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:28,360
Speaker 1: It occurs every December five, and so Crampus descends from

180
00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:30,920
Speaker 1: the mountain, terrorizes the children, drags the worst of them

181
00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:35,400
Speaker 1: away in that foul wicker basket covered in bells. Sometimes

182
00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:38,679
Speaker 1: he he hands out coal or root and bundles of sticks,

183
00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:43,160
Speaker 1: which is interesting. The bundles of sticks are sometimes also

184
00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,000
Speaker 1: musical instruments, of course, because they're can be used to

185
00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:49,520
Speaker 1: it with a percussion instrument. Um. But you know, this

186
00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:53,319
Speaker 1: is the overall just a parade in which there is

187
00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:56,440
Speaker 1: this threat of greater beatings or abduction if you do

188
00:10:56,520 --> 00:11:00,200
Speaker 1: not behave yourselves and um. And this is another thing

189
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:03,040
Speaker 1: like the Crampus parade through the streets also has this

190
00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:05,920
Speaker 1: kind of unruly atmosphere to it that ties in with

191
00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,680
Speaker 1: a lot of parade traditions that involve masks and you know,

192
00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:13,439
Speaker 1: be steel guys is that people take on and this

193
00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:18,080
Speaker 1: you know, so again it runs parallel to so many

194
00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:20,080
Speaker 1: different things in human culture. Well, it's one of the

195
00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:23,200
Speaker 1: great ironies in the belief in demons and devils that

196
00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:25,959
Speaker 1: have haunted us throughout the centuries, which is that they

197
00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:31,320
Speaker 1: are often used precisely to enforce order, like orderly behavior

198
00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:34,920
Speaker 1: among children, and yet they are themselves figures of chaos.

199
00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:39,040
Speaker 1: It's like this unruly, unpredictable, wild kind of thing will

200
00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:41,360
Speaker 1: be there to punish you if you break the rules.

201
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,480
Speaker 1: Why is that? I don't know that. That's interesting to me. Yeah,

202
00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:48,400
Speaker 1: we'll certainly get into the psychology of this more in

203
00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:51,160
Speaker 1: the later portion of the episode. I asked for the

204
00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:54,600
Speaker 1: name Crampus comes from crumping, which means claw in German,

205
00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,280
Speaker 1: so which has a you know, a nice nasty connotation

206
00:11:57,360 --> 00:11:59,720
Speaker 1: to it, like this is the claw the claw man

207
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,240
Speaker 1: um let's see. Goodness, where do you even even go

208
00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:05,920
Speaker 1: from there? So we talked about crampas come, Crampas comes

209
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:10,160
Speaker 1: to town, Crampus parades through the streets, or the crampus,

210
00:12:10,200 --> 00:12:12,960
Speaker 1: the cramp I you know, multiple cramp Crampus is some

211
00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:16,920
Speaker 1: of these, especially these these modern h crampus parades. You're

212
00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:20,200
Speaker 1: talking like four hundred crampuses parading through the streets. They're

213
00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:23,240
Speaker 1: quite a festival. Sometimes there's fire, uh, you know, sometimes

214
00:12:23,240 --> 00:12:26,600
Speaker 1: the costumes are a little more modern, but other times

215
00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:32,280
Speaker 1: they put a strong emphasis on maintaining traditional originality wooden masks,

216
00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:35,280
Speaker 1: actual um um, you know, goat and sheep skins, that

217
00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:39,600
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So the basic ideas that, okay, Crampus

218
00:12:39,640 --> 00:12:43,880
Speaker 1: either incorporates pagan ideas or emerges from pagan ideas, or

219
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:48,400
Speaker 1: even is ultimately rooted in pre Christian pagan traditions. But

220
00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:51,680
Speaker 1: then St. Nicholas does come along around Uh. This is

221
00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:56,160
Speaker 1: the solemn Catholic precursor to the sort of jolly modern

222
00:12:56,240 --> 00:12:59,240
Speaker 1: Santa Claus that most of us grew up with. And St.

223
00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:01,679
Speaker 1: Nick gain pop already among German speaking people during the

224
00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 1: eleventh century. Now, the story of St. Nicholas is itself

225
00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:09,520
Speaker 1: full of fascinating diversions, Like there's a great story where St. Nicholas,

226
00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:12,720
Speaker 1: I believe he comes across a place where an evil

227
00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:16,360
Speaker 1: innkeeper or somebody like that has murdered some young boys.

228
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,440
Speaker 1: And then then St. Nicholas murdered them, chopped them up

229
00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:24,640
Speaker 1: and pickled them. And then St. Nicholas resurrects the chopped

230
00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:30,360
Speaker 1: up pickled boys. Uh. And I guess the innkeepers somehow punished, Yeah,

231
00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:33,440
Speaker 1: and and and St. Nicholas is this the rather different

232
00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:36,000
Speaker 1: figure from from modern Santa Claus. To him that he is.

233
00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:40,079
Speaker 1: I mean, he's essentially like a former bishop of of

234
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:42,760
Speaker 1: what is now Turkey. I think, so, yeah, he's and

235
00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:45,520
Speaker 1: he's this dour individual. So he's not really jolly. I

236
00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:49,080
Speaker 1: guess he's jolly in comparison to the beast man Crampus,

237
00:13:49,520 --> 00:13:52,480
Speaker 1: but he's not quite Santa Claus, that's for sure. He's

238
00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:57,120
Speaker 1: more like a Christmas saw rouman kind of. I don't know.

239
00:13:57,160 --> 00:13:59,280
Speaker 1: I think he's yeah, yeah, I guess he has kind

240
00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:03,280
Speaker 1: of kind Yeah. Anyway, in the centuries to follow, Crampus

241
00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:05,960
Speaker 1: becomes an essential part of these traditions. You have Crampus,

242
00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:08,760
Speaker 1: and you have sat Nick uh certainly you have Crampus

243
00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:12,640
Speaker 1: knocked ahead of the coming of St. Nicholas and uh,

244
00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:15,680
Speaker 1: and this just becomes, you know, just a popular part

245
00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:18,600
Speaker 1: of the holiday, and at times it actually gets a

246
00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:22,520
Speaker 1: little too popular for some people. So Crampus has always

247
00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:25,920
Speaker 1: been just as Crampus as this this darkness to the light, uh,

248
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:28,680
Speaker 1: compared to the light of St. Nicholas. You know, Crampus

249
00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:31,080
Speaker 1: even today is I think sometimes seen as kind of

250
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:34,120
Speaker 1: an enemy of craft Christmas. Well, you know, the same

251
00:14:34,160 --> 00:14:37,440
Speaker 1: way they say, like, it's hard to make an anti

252
00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:40,800
Speaker 1: war movie because war is inherently thrilling. It might be

253
00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:45,240
Speaker 1: hard to make an anti Satan like demon character because

254
00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,160
Speaker 1: demon characters are inherently kind of fun to act out,

255
00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:51,680
Speaker 1: and so like, there's always the risk that people might

256
00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:55,920
Speaker 1: be having a little too much fun acting out their

257
00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:58,360
Speaker 1: Crampus roles unless the Church might need to bring the

258
00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:01,120
Speaker 1: hammer down. That's right. So, you know, the Catholic Church

259
00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:04,760
Speaker 1: attempted to ban these festivals in the seventeen and eighteenth centuries,

260
00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,960
Speaker 1: but they weren't able to do so. Uh. And then

261
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:15,320
Speaker 1: before Nazi Germany's invasion of Austria, Catholic Austro Fascist briefly

262
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:18,360
Speaker 1: held power, and is reported in a ninety five New

263
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:23,320
Speaker 1: York Times article titled Crampus Disliked in Fascist Austria. Uh.

264
00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:29,520
Speaker 1: They pointed out that that at the time, the people

265
00:15:29,520 --> 00:15:33,000
Speaker 1: in power saw Crampus as a demonic, unruly and potentially

266
00:15:33,120 --> 00:15:39,120
Speaker 1: communist usurper of Christian traditions. Yeah. So basically the Crampus,

267
00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:42,120
Speaker 1: according to this article, Crampus postcards and candies, you know,

268
00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:44,880
Speaker 1: had always been popular, but but they had they had

269
00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:49,200
Speaker 1: become so popular that Crampus had virtually taken over from

270
00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:51,760
Speaker 1: Sander like he was, he was becoming the gift giver

271
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:56,200
Speaker 1: as well. Um So, at any rate, there was an

272
00:15:56,200 --> 00:15:59,560
Speaker 1: attempt to uh uh, you know, to to to oust

273
00:15:59,600 --> 00:16:03,360
Speaker 1: cramp us, to to you know, to say it's a communist,

274
00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:06,320
Speaker 1: because ultimately, in some depictions he was reading wearing red

275
00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:09,600
Speaker 1: I guess. But they ordered anyone in a crampas costume

276
00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:13,280
Speaker 1: to be rested on site. Festive crampas dances were outlawed,

277
00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:16,320
Speaker 1: and they even required all Santa clauses as well to

278
00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:21,320
Speaker 1: be licensed by the state and monitored fascist through and everything, yes,

279
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,800
Speaker 1: now um uh. In modern times, of course, there have

280
00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:30,520
Speaker 1: also been concerns about the potential trauma of subjecting children

281
00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:33,520
Speaker 1: to the idea of cramps or certainly the reality of

282
00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:38,200
Speaker 1: frightening um grown people in crampas costumes breaking through the street.

283
00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:41,560
Speaker 1: According to a two thousand six report from Reuter's, concerned

284
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:44,600
Speaker 1: parents and one child psychologists spoke out against the demons

285
00:16:44,680 --> 00:16:48,920
Speaker 1: violent influence as well as so called childhood crampus trauma,

286
00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:52,080
Speaker 1: of which there are you know, only a few cases,

287
00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:56,160
Speaker 1: but at any rate enough for some individuals to to

288
00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:59,040
Speaker 1: want to sound the alarm. Uh. And you know what

289
00:16:59,040 --> 00:17:01,360
Speaker 1: What made the city wish and particularly interesting was that

290
00:17:01,400 --> 00:17:04,399
Speaker 1: while Santa ended up being banned for visiting kindergartens in

291
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:07,760
Speaker 1: Vienna at the time, Crampus apparently still had access to

292
00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:10,200
Speaker 1: the children, and so there was a certain amount of

293
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:13,760
Speaker 1: outrage over that. Well, you know, so I'm of two

294
00:17:13,840 --> 00:17:16,040
Speaker 1: minds about this. Of course, I love Crampus. I love

295
00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:18,840
Speaker 1: the demons and the monsters and all that that that's

296
00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:22,400
Speaker 1: sort of my personal jam. But I also am very

297
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:28,800
Speaker 1: naturally disposed against terrorizing children with supernatural threats. Uh So,

298
00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:31,600
Speaker 1: I mean I would I would propose making Crampus more

299
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:34,720
Speaker 1: of a Halloween style thing. What what vampires and goblins

300
00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:37,879
Speaker 1: are to Halloween, Crampus could be to the Christmas season,

301
00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:41,000
Speaker 1: you know, not something that you are taught is literally

302
00:17:41,119 --> 00:17:43,960
Speaker 1: an existent threat that will hurt you, but just kind

303
00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:47,080
Speaker 1: of like a fun trapping of the season. Ah, you

304
00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:49,200
Speaker 1: know this week kind of referring back to our episode

305
00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:52,119
Speaker 1: on cuteness and monsters. Right, Ultimately, if you want to

306
00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:57,000
Speaker 1: declaw the monster, if you want to deflox, declaw the Crampus,

307
00:17:57,080 --> 00:17:59,159
Speaker 1: what you need to do is make him funny and

308
00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:03,639
Speaker 1: or cute, especially cute. The cut Crampus becomes the you know,

309
00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:06,280
Speaker 1: the less terrifying he is. But then how will we

310
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:10,320
Speaker 1: get the children to behave um and now I mentioned

311
00:18:10,320 --> 00:18:12,520
Speaker 1: earlier about how you know, the tradition of of of

312
00:18:12,600 --> 00:18:17,119
Speaker 1: Crampus has spread over the world and uh and as such,

313
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,320
Speaker 1: you'll see some crampas parades where there's more of a

314
00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:23,800
Speaker 1: Hollywood and horror of film culture reflected. Uh. Certainly, if

315
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:26,240
Speaker 1: you just start looking at Crampus images online, some of

316
00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:28,639
Speaker 1: them are going to look more like demon costumes that

317
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,960
Speaker 1: you might buy at a Halloween superstore. And then you're

318
00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:36,560
Speaker 1: gonna see things that are that are far more traditional looking. Um.

319
00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:39,520
Speaker 1: And I was looking at one particular article. This is

320
00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:42,320
Speaker 1: a New York Times article titled he Sees You when

321
00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:46,199
Speaker 1: You're sleeping and gives you Nightmare My Melissa Eddie. This

322
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:50,359
Speaker 1: is about the celebration of Crampus in Munich. And in

323
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:53,919
Speaker 1: this article I point out that that in in this

324
00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:58,439
Speaker 1: particular Munich Crampus parade, they only allow really traditional crampuses.

325
00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:02,560
Speaker 1: So this means wouldn't mask horns, goat and sheep pelts,

326
00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:07,720
Speaker 1: bells and switches. Um and uh. She writes that local

327
00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:13,040
Speaker 1: Crampus clubs there will spend between eighteen hundred and euros

328
00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:16,119
Speaker 1: upwards of three thousand dollars each year on masks and

329
00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:19,200
Speaker 1: costumes made from local materials. How do you join a

330
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:22,960
Speaker 1: crampus club? Is that very exclusive? Um? I give the

331
00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:26,439
Speaker 1: impression it's kind of like joining a crew with a

332
00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:29,040
Speaker 1: k uh down in New Orleans, you know, for the

333
00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:31,159
Speaker 1: various parades. You know, it's kind of like you have

334
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:34,399
Speaker 1: clubs that get together and put put together. Uh, you know,

335
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:38,760
Speaker 1: these these particular costumes and performance. It's not like a

336
00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:41,520
Speaker 1: horned beast. Country club is not where crampus is gathered

337
00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:43,840
Speaker 1: to use the pool and place. I don't think so,

338
00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:46,800
Speaker 1: but she points out the master or in this case

339
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:50,560
Speaker 1: car from lime, Swiss pine or alderwood, and the skins

340
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:53,080
Speaker 1: are going to be sheep or goats. Quote. Although no

341
00:19:53,119 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 1: one turns away a crampus wearing wild board, which is nice,

342
00:19:58,280 --> 00:20:00,600
Speaker 1: and so four hundred crampas is wrong. They take to

343
00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:03,200
Speaker 1: the streets, but there are rules no drinking and again

344
00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:07,760
Speaker 1: no actual hitting the children. Okay, but crampus traditions are

345
00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:11,240
Speaker 1: going to vary as well. Al Right, and our pointed

346
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:14,560
Speaker 1: out on Atlas Obscure back in that it's it's not

347
00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 1: what crampas looks like so much is what he does

348
00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:20,040
Speaker 1: or threatens to do that matters. For instance, entire all

349
00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 1: the crampas tradition there is the crampus is essentially wearing

350
00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:26,440
Speaker 1: this big suit of straw. So the crampuses look kind

351
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:30,639
Speaker 1: of like a hay bale with the you know, beast legs,

352
00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:34,160
Speaker 1: arms and head and um and and that's just gonna

353
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:37,800
Speaker 1: be the way that cramp is depicted in that particular area.

354
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:40,120
Speaker 1: And then you can you know, travel over. For instance,

355
00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:43,360
Speaker 1: there's a part of Bavaria where they don't even have crampus.

356
00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:47,719
Speaker 1: Instead it's a bouten Munden, which is like a cramps figure.

357
00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:52,520
Speaker 1: So um. The author here that Alice obscure Piece says, quote,

358
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:55,399
Speaker 1: like the tooth fairy, he had a definite function but

359
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:57,800
Speaker 1: no definite form. I think it's a nice way of

360
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:01,160
Speaker 1: putting it. Now, another thing that right and now points

361
00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:04,680
Speaker 1: out is that crampas traditions were ultimately, you know, traditionally

362
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,520
Speaker 1: a thing of the country. They spread slowly and then

363
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:11,200
Speaker 1: eventually made their way to the cities where illustrators there

364
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 1: might have never heard of such traditions before, so in

365
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:16,919
Speaker 1: depicting them, they too might have had to rely on

366
00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:20,760
Speaker 1: other demonic motifs such as devil motifs that were already

367
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:25,280
Speaker 1: you know, prevalent uh in religious iconography, as well as

368
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:31,840
Speaker 1: pan and sader motifs from art culture. So this would

369
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:34,199
Speaker 1: and then I would imagine that this would end up

370
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 1: influencing through the traditions to some extent as well. So

371
00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 1: again it ultimately the exact appearance of the creature is

372
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:45,119
Speaker 1: going to vary, but it's the the intent that is

373
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:48,800
Speaker 1: that is almost pure and its chaotic menace. I wonder

374
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:53,680
Speaker 1: what exactly it was that caused the sudden international surge

375
00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: in Crampus interest a few years ago. Well, there's there's

376
00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:00,399
Speaker 1: one possible answer to that. I was treading an article

377
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 1: in the Chicago Tribune from from this year by Rick Cogan,

378
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 1: and he points out that the US explosion of Crampus

379
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,080
Speaker 1: might in part be due to the two thousand four

380
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:14,360
Speaker 1: publication of The Devil in Design the Cramps Postcards by

381
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:18,440
Speaker 1: mont Beauchamp, an award winning Chicago art director and graphic designer.

382
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:20,720
Speaker 1: So the idea here is, like this book came out,

383
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 1: these images started circulating around um. The images zo ended

384
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 1: up being licensed in some cases, or at least they

385
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:30,160
Speaker 1: were licensing request, and this kind of sets off the

386
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 1: online fascination with Crampus and these Crampus images. You know,

387
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 1: suddenly here's this this new dark spin on the holidays.

388
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:42,840
Speaker 1: It starts appearing in television shows. Uh what Venture Brothers

389
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:44,960
Speaker 1: I think was one of the first things, first shows

390
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 1: in which I saw a depiction of Crampus, but I

391
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: understand he's shown up on like Supernatural was another one,

392
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 1: um and eventually had his own horror movie. I think

393
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 1: that was in the last couple of years. That was that,

394
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:56,919
Speaker 1: So my dad's a big fan of it. This is

395
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 1: like that. That was probably the Pete Crampus year I

396
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 1: think would be like or something. Yeah, and of course,

397
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 1: you know, Crampus parades can now be found throughout the

398
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 1: United States, and there's one every year right here in Atlanta.

399
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 1: That's also it's sort of a more of a pub

400
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 1: crawl if I remember correctly, unless it's changed, uh, then

401
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: like a pure parade, like an actual license parade. But

402
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:25,399
Speaker 1: then unsurprisingly you'll find parade crews in New Orleans that

403
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 1: that put on a Crampus parade every year through the

404
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:30,520
Speaker 1: streets and then they finish up at a German restaurant.

405
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 1: There in uh, in New Orleans. Okay, you Hollywood development people,

406
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:36,639
Speaker 1: I've got an idea. I'm gonna pitch it to you

407
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 1: right now. Okay, It's a Miracle on thirty four Street,

408
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:43,159
Speaker 1: but with Crampus instead of Santa Claus. Right. So, a

409
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:46,360
Speaker 1: little girl be friends a goatman who thinks he who

410
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,199
Speaker 1: says he's the real Crampus, And you don't know, the

411
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:51,879
Speaker 1: whole movie is either real Crampus or is he just

412
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: a regular goat man who thinks he's Crampas. I don't know.

413
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, that's that's the thing. A Miracle

414
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:02,119
Speaker 1: on thirty fourth Street is a story about Santa and

415
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 1: a story about about letters and language, right uh. And

416
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:11,119
Speaker 1: Crampas is basically unlanguaged, like there are no words with Crampus,

417
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,239
Speaker 1: there are no there are no prayers, there are no

418
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 1: letters to Crampus. The unspoken implication get in the basket. Yeah,

419
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,919
Speaker 1: he is just just just pure menace. He's like Jason,

420
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,199
Speaker 1: Jason beforehees yeah, it doesn't need to speak you just

421
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:30,119
Speaker 1: his intentions are clear. Well, it goes back to the

422
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,680
Speaker 1: lion Man. It goes back to the basic hybridity of monsters.

423
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,680
Speaker 1: Monsters don't have to say anything because monsters are the message,

424
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 1: right their form speaks for them exactly. So yeah, Crampas

425
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: doesn't have to say a thing. Crampus is the message.

426
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:45,120
Speaker 1: All right. Well, for the rest of the episode, we're

427
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: going to be exploring the biology and the psychology of

428
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,439
Speaker 1: of Crampus knocked. But before we do that, we probably

429
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 1: need to take a break, right, yes, so we will

430
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: be right back with more. Alright, we're back. So I

431
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 1: admit that was kind of an extended ramble in the

432
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 1: first part of the episode, but hopefully we were able

433
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 1: to get across some of the basic points of the

434
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: Crampus traditions. But it can be kind of difficult because

435
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 1: again it varies from place to place from time to time.

436
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 1: Crampus is pure in his intent and his just physical message,

437
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: but everything else is kind of up for grabs. You know.

438
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: I think it's time to play one of our favorite

439
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: games on the show, which is, let's take this monster

440
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: in a biologically literal way. Yes, uh, which is actually

441
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: kind of difficult to again to do with Crampus because

442
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: the actual interpretation of him changes so much. But uh,

443
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: I will start by mentioning like two literary worlds that

444
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: come to mind that provide fun parallels to the Crampus idea.

445
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: So one is a book by Michael Crichton, the book

446
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: Eaters of the Dead. Have you read this? I actually haven't.

447
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: I went through a strong Michael Crichton phase when I

448
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: was younger, but never got to this one. I was

449
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:05,120
Speaker 1: in all the techno thrillers. This one, Yeah, this one

450
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: is the the odd non techno thriller. But it's really good.

451
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:12,720
Speaker 1: It's essentially a spin on Bayo Wolf. Instead of Grendel,

452
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: the singular monster, you have the people known as the Windel,

453
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: who are possible Neandertal descendants who periodically descend from the

454
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 1: mountain to raid Vikings settlements. Uh so um, you know,

455
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 1: the clear inspiration for this again being Grendel who comes

456
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,439
Speaker 1: down from the wilds and Bayow Wolf to assault the

457
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: mead Hall. Another literary parallel it comes to mind the

458
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: White Walkers and George R. Martin's Song of Lice and

459
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: Fire books, particularly uh, the situation with Craster of Craster's Keep,

460
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: who sacrifices his male children to the White Walkers in

461
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: order to sort of protect himself to maintain like this

462
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: weird alliance with the forces of of wilderness and gold

463
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 1: and death. Yeah. Yeah, these uh, these demonic entities who

464
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: live out in the in the freezing woods, and they

465
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: they and they represent a threat to human children. Right. So,

466
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: playing with these extrapolations of monsters from the winter wild,

467
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: we might arrive at a view of crampus as a

468
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: as a as a people who come down from the

469
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,880
Speaker 1: mountains to raid the civilizations of man, but who might

470
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: be bought off through an offering of our worst human children,

471
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:24,679
Speaker 1: which they presumably eat or yeah, or maybe put to

472
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 1: work in the coal mines. Um. As far as I

473
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: can tell, this would be you know, a pretty unique arrangement, uh,

474
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: in part because outside of our myths and fictions, there

475
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: are no beast menu there are no inhuman others to

476
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: deal with in this manner. Uh though tantalizing lee enough,

477
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,719
Speaker 1: we are dealing with Europe here, a place where humans

478
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 1: end any and Neanderthals seem to have coexisted for a

479
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 1: number of years. Um, And I was looking around, I

480
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 1: was wondering, like, surely somebody has has written about the

481
00:27:57,160 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: possibility of cramps having something to do with the andrew Tals,

482
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: but but nobody else has made that uh, gone out

483
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 1: on that pedal limb. That's just me on that limb.

484
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: But at any rate, as we discussed in our recent

485
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: cannibalism episode, there there is clear evidence that both Neanderthals

486
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: and prehistoric humans engaged in cannibalism, but there's nothing solid

487
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: to suggest that they really ate each other. Though child

488
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,679
Speaker 1: sacrifice itself can be found throughout cultures of the ancient

489
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: Near East, pre Columbian America's, pre modern Europe, parts of Africa, etcetera.

490
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: So so, you know, this is just me spitballing here,

491
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: But but I don't don't think there's anything unbelievable about

492
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: the idea of humans offering up their worst children to

493
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 1: a species of mountain creatures, um as the cold demands

494
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: of winter set in. In fact, you know, when you

495
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: think about one of the predecessors to Christmas was Roman Saturnalia,

496
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: which involved a great deal of public ruckus and sacrifices,

497
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: though apparently not of the human variety, or so we're told. Yes, Now,

498
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: as far as thinking about cramp as creatures biologically, I

499
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: mean we we simply you know, we could imagine them

500
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: as a cold weather adapted to hormaid species. Uh, you know,

501
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: what with all the fur, and and again it is

502
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: interesting to think about the fact that Neandertals may have

503
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: been essentially that species adapted to cold, the cold weather

504
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: of the ice ages, though interpretations vary on that as well.

505
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: For instance, there's even one theory that states that Neanderdal's

506
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: might actually have been killed out by a cold dry

507
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: spell spanning centuries during the period of their decline. But

508
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: also when we think about the fur and the horns

509
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: of the crampas, we can interpret that as clothing and

510
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: ritual garb, just like human beings might wear and certainly

511
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: do wear when they dress up as cramp as in

512
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 1: the streets. But we could also imagine some horned humanoid

513
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: as well. We have countless examples of such creatures and

514
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: beings and global myths and even cases of humans in

515
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: the past with horn like growths, but nothing on the

516
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: level of a horned, biped mammalian species. Now, as for

517
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: that tongue, I'm always intrigued by, especially some of these

518
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: cramp as illustrations, which the tongue is actually wrapping around

519
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: is screaming child. The closest analog you can really find

520
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 1: in nature is probably the eighteen to twenty centimeter prehensile

521
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: giraffe tongue. That's a good tongue. Yeah, okay, but if

522
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: you have, certainly you've got to see a giraffe at

523
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: the zoo, you've or certainly in the wild, if you've

524
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: been so lucky that hopefully you've you've you've seen the

525
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: way that tongue can wrap itself around vegetation and then

526
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: you know, pull it free. It's like a snake coming

527
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: out of the mouth. Yeah, so that would be a

528
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: possibility for our imagined cramps creature. But then that would

529
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: again come to down to what's the function of this tongue.

530
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: Does that mean that Crampus actually depends, you know, primarily

531
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: on vegetation, and why would he have the tongue and

532
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: hands as well? Like that seems like the physical form

533
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:58,479
Speaker 1: would be over investing in vegetation manipulation unless he has

534
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: to eat all those leaves while scooping up screaming children,

535
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: in which case I don't know. Oh yeah, that's interesting.

536
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: Or another way you could look at it is what

537
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: if Crampus is not in fact by Peotle? Crampus could

538
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 1: be a four leg a critter, right, Yeah, perhaps perhaps

539
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: is mostly going about on four legs, but Rhett rises

540
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: up on two legs when when wanting to display a threat,

541
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: right to make himself look bigger, right right? Um. However,

542
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: the I do have to say that the idea of

543
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: Crampus being a vegetarian, of course, that that would play

544
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: in well with what we know of other like bovine creatures,

545
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: and certainly uh giraffe and the and the related creatures

546
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: like these are these are herbivores, so primarily so, so

547
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: you know, those would be the main parallels to some

548
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 1: sort of a goat man I imagine. But then again,

549
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: if you go back in the fossil record, you'll you'll

550
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 1: find things like Andrew Sarkas, which some paleontolers interprets a

551
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: cloth and hoofed carnivore. So you know, I think there's

552
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: hope there that you could have. You could you could

553
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: theoretically have some sort of a hoofed goat creature that

554
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: feast sun flesh. Nice, But there's already that stereotype that

555
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: goats will lead anything. Right, you feed him a tin

556
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: can and and the lead. I don't know to what

557
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: extent that's true. I'm sure you shouldn't do yea certainly

558
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: you should not. But but you know, if you're at

559
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: like a petting zoo, certainly goats are curious and they

560
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: will they'll nibble on a lot of different things. Um,

561
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,719
Speaker 1: it could be kind of a squirrel situation here, the

562
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: thing that that primarily eats vegetation, but uh, you know,

563
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: who knows what they'll dip into given the opportunity. So

564
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 1: to come back to the question, could cramp as exist, Yeah,

565
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: I think theoretically, like there's nothing you know, completely unrealistic

566
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: about the idea. So, um, you know you're sort of

567
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: getting into like the plausibility of sasquatch. Yeah, things like

568
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 1: a large, hairy, bipedal creatures, uh that you know, may

569
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: dwell outside the bounds of human civilization. Now here's an

570
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: interesting question though, which is more real crampus who no

571
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: one is claiming to have seen in the wilds or

572
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: sasquatch in which people do make that claim and and

573
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: do devote their lives to the idea that it really exists.

574
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: Like one is extremely real in the in the imagination,

575
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: in human traditions, and the other is has this cryptozoological

576
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: standing for the most part, with with some creep into

577
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: you know, the cultural area as well. Well. Obviously, I

578
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: mean I'm pretty skeptical of of both. But I mean,

579
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: if you had to rule one is more plausible than

580
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: the other, obviously it would be it would be the Squatch, right,

581
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: because the Squatch is oriented toward plausibility. And not to

582
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: read too much into people's intentions, but you almost get

583
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: the sense that some of the reports are kind of

584
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: crafted in order to make it seem like a more

585
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: biologically plausible thing, right, uh, and not just like a

586
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: fantasy monster and that I saw in the woods. And

587
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: then ultimately, ultimately cramp is a celebration of a fantasy

588
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: monster that is a part of holiday traditions. You know,

589
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: the fantasy monsters are better they carry baskets, since sasquash

590
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: does not. That's right. Yeah, So all this talk of

591
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:08,439
Speaker 1: Crampus has got me wondering. So you've got to st

592
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: Nicholas on one hand, the big bag full of toys

593
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: for all the good boys and girls, and then you've

594
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: got Crampus, who's got the whip or the switch the

595
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: basket to carry the bad children off somewhere wretched. I

596
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: was wondering which idea is actually more effective at motivating

597
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: good behavior. Uh. And I want to be clear, We're

598
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 1: certainly not encouraging you to terrorize your children with threats

599
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:35,280
Speaker 1: of monsters and other supernatural punishments. But I am curious

600
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 1: just in the abstract, which is more motivating to two

601
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,879
Speaker 1: people in general and to children the promise of rewards

602
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,240
Speaker 1: like toys or the threat of punishment. Is it toys

603
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,959
Speaker 1: or horns? Yeah, this is This is one of those

604
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: big questions that I think every parent struggles with, uh,

605
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 1: you know, trying to figure out, you know, to what

606
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:59,319
Speaker 1: extent should we keep it positive positive reinforcement, uh, than

607
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: to what extent you actually dip into the negative. And

608
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately you generally don't want to dip into

609
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: the negative reinforcement. You don't we certainly don't want to

610
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 1: invent imaginary horrors uh to scare children. But on the

611
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: other hand, it comes back to the reality of the

612
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: Jenny Green teeth that there are real, pressing threats to

613
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:23,359
Speaker 1: a child's life in their immediate vicinity, and you want

614
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: to get the message across. UH. You know, you don't

615
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: want to think about, uh, your child getting hit by

616
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: a car, for instance, by wandering into the street, but

617
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 1: you you want to you want to drive home the

618
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,280
Speaker 1: message that this could happen and so you should certainly

619
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: not do this thing, right. I mean, it's totally different question,

620
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: I think once you get into the area of like

621
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: clear life threatening types of things. I mean, I think

622
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: the things people deal with on a more often day

623
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 1: to day basis, or just like, how do you regulate behavior?

624
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: How do you get the child to to not, you know,

625
00:35:55,520 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: behave in a like obnoxious selfish way toward other children,

626
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: in toward teachers and parents and all that. So I'm

627
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 1: asking the question in a general way here. We'll try

628
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: to give a general answer if I can, But obviously

629
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: this is going to depend on a lot of individual circumstances,

630
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: both of the people being motivated, the situation they're in,

631
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: the types of rewards and punishments on offer. And given

632
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: that reality, you probably won't be surprised to find that

633
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: the evidence here is somewhat mixed and confusing about whether

634
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: rewards or punishments are more effective. It depends a lot,

635
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: but I'll try to flesh it out a little bit.

636
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: So one thing that's important to remember is the difference

637
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: between positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment, which are three

638
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: distinct categories in psychology. Though the terms of negative reinforcement

639
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: and punishment are sometimes used interchangeably, they do have subtle differences. So,

640
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 1: positive reinforcement is when an action is encouraged with a reward.

641
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: So imagine you're designing a car that encourages people to

642
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: wear their seat belts. For positive reinforcement, every time you

643
00:36:57,960 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: put on your seat belt, maybe the car gives you

644
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,439
Speaker 1: a candy, or it displays a little thing that says

645
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 1: good job. For negative reinforcement, you have to imagine that

646
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: the car does what many cars actually already do. It

647
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: makes an annoying sound or keeps beeping until you put

648
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: your seat belt on. So for negative reinforcement, what this

649
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: actually means is there's an existing negative stimulus, which is

650
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: the sound of the negative reinforcer, and you can only

651
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 1: make the negative reinforcer go away by doing the desired

652
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: action of putting on the seat belt. Punishment is similar

653
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: but slightly different. Instead of presenting a bad effect and

654
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 1: then removing it when you do something good, it threatens

655
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,240
Speaker 1: you with subsequent bad effects if you do something bad,

656
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: So punishment would be more like your car automatically writing

657
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: you a ticket every time you drive somewhere without your

658
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: seat belt. Uh, And so negative reinforcement is something that's

659
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: already painful or unwanted and you have to do something

660
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: right to make it stop. Punishment is something bad that

661
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 1: will happen to you if you do something wrong. And

662
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 1: then even within that, I think technically there's both like

663
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: positive punishment and negative punishment. Positive punishment would be doing

664
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: something you don't like, like the car shocking you after

665
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 1: you drive somewhere with without a seat belt. Negative punishment

666
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: would involve like taking away a benefit as a punishment,

667
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 1: so like if the car automatically disabled its air conditioning

668
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: after you drove without your seat belt. So which one

669
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: of these is cramp us? Uh? Crampus kind of shows

670
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: the way that some of the categories do have some overlap,

671
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: they kind of bleed together. I suppose it is in

672
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:38,360
Speaker 1: one sense a threat of positive punishment, like this monster

673
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: will be coming to possibly whip you, But it's also

674
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: a bit of negative reinforcement, maybe because like maybe helping

675
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: mom and dad do the chores could do something to

676
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: alleviate the negative reinforcer, which is the nagging fear of

677
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 1: crampus that haunts your mind. Yeah, I think that's that's fair. Again,

678
00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: there there's a an amorphous aspect to crampus, so it

679
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: would be it would be too much to expect him

680
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: to fit firmly in any kind of category. Well, but

681
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 1: it's not just crampus. Also, it's like tons of things,

682
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: Like it's difficult to know exactly like where they fit

683
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: on the SKIP because you can frame them in different ways,

684
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: Like you can frame doing the exact same thing as

685
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,799
Speaker 1: like an inhibition or a positive behavior, like are you

686
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 1: remembering to turn the lights off when you leave the

687
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 1: room a positive behavior? Or are you not leaving the

688
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 1: lights on when you leave the room? I mean, it's

689
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: sort of like hard to tell which is which in

690
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: some cases. Um, but so so to look at some studies,

691
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 1: there was one study from the nineteen seventies that came

692
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:42,839
Speaker 1: across by Arthur F. Constantini and Kenneth the Hoving called

693
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: the Effectiveness of Reward and punishment contingencies on Response inhibition,

694
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: and this was in the Journal of Child Psychology ninety three,

695
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: and so this looked at the relative strength of rewards

696
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: and punishments in in motivating behavior. It involved training two

697
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:04,240
Speaker 1: groups of forty kindergarteners and forty second graders in something

698
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: called response inhibition training. This is training that teaches children

699
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: to suppress actions that are inappropriate for the context. Their

700
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: quote from the paper is, this is uh the tendency

701
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: to inhibit irrelevant acts and to select appropriate ones, So

702
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:24,360
Speaker 1: basically it's self control, like in a laboratory context. This

703
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 1: kind of training might take the form of anything from

704
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,319
Speaker 1: the Marshmallow test, like getting kids to resist eating a

705
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 1: treat on the promise that a better treat is coming later,

706
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,720
Speaker 1: to something called the Stroop test, which involves showing people

707
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: the name of a color printed in a different color,

708
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: and then they have to say the color that the

709
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: word is printed in. So, for example, you'd see the

710
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: word red printed in green, and you would have to

711
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: say green instead of red. And this is taken as

712
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: a suppressing activity, but because it requires the suppression of

713
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: the dominant response behavior, which is to simply read the

714
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: word you're seeing. But there are all kinds of analogies

715
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:07,720
Speaker 1: for response inhibition training in the behavioral education of children.

716
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: If you're trying to train a child not to grab

717
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 1: things out of other people's hands or not to whine

718
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: when they want something, that's a form of response inhibition training. Anyway,

719
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,879
Speaker 1: the short version is that this study found that for

720
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: this particular type of training, children at both age groups

721
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: learned the response inhibition on the given task more efficiently

722
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: when they were threatened with punishment than when they were

723
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: promised rewards. Though I should know because it's probably relevant

724
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: what the punishments and rewards consisted of. Basically, children were

725
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: shown an assortment of toys and told that their performance

726
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: on these training tasks would determine a payout of marbles,

727
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: which they could then use to purchase the toys that

728
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: they had been shown. So, in the reward condition, good

729
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 1: performance on the task was rewarded with the accumulation of marbles.

730
00:41:57,400 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: You do good, and you get more marbles. In the

731
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: punishment condition, you had some marbles, and bad performance on

732
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: the task was punished with the removal of marbles awarded

733
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: at the beginning. So basically, the rewards and the punishments

734
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 1: here both had to do with toy buying power. Granted,

735
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: toy buying power is an immensely powerful force, and in

736
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: the child mind, oh, I remember it, I remember that power. Uh,

737
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: And and so the author's right quote the motivational effect

738
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: of losing marbles is apparently greater than receiving them, even

739
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: when the actual number retained by or given to the

740
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: subjects is the same under both conditions. Uh. Now, note

741
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: here that the punishment, even though it is incredibly motivating

742
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 1: to have toy buying power, the punishment here is not

743
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: an intrinsically painful effect, but rather the withdrawal of previously

744
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:51,840
Speaker 1: awarded positive reinforcers. And this probably has very important differences

745
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: from a demon with a whip. Yeah, this, this would

746
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: have more just in common with sort of the crampst

747
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: free idea that Santa will either bring you the toys

748
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: you want, less toys or no toys, based on your

749
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 1: behavior exactly. So this is just one study from the seventies,

750
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: and I was reading more recent opinions of scholars and

751
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: child psychologists, and the picture continues to get more complicated

752
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: from there. So another thing I was looking at was

753
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:20,879
Speaker 1: a column in Psychology Today by a pretty well known

754
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: American child psychologist named j. Belski, who had actually been

755
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: the subject of some kind of controversy after he published

756
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 1: research that seemed to show some mildly negative behavioral outcomes

757
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: for children who had spent a lot of time in daycare.

758
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about him or his research to

759
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: have an opinion on that issue, but I thought I

760
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 1: should flag it since I saw something about it. But anyway,

761
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:45,359
Speaker 1: Bellski argues here that rewards are generally more effective than

762
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: punishment at teaching good behavior, especially for young children. Uh

763
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: and specifically he gives the example of rewarding good behavior

764
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: but simply ignoring bad behavior. He writes that, you know,

765
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: a lot of rents are are kind of intuitively averse

766
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 1: to this, like they would think, you know, why would

767
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 1: ignoring bad behavior be better than meeting out punishment when

768
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 1: a child does wrong? And Beilski calls attention to the

769
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 1: work of a group of Dutch neuroscientists who study the

770
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 1: effects of simple rewards and punishments, and these are about

771
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: as mild as you can get for rewards and punishments. Basically,

772
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 1: it was children ages eight to nine and children ages

773
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:28,400
Speaker 1: eleven to twelve, and they were trained to do a

774
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: computer task in which they had to discover and follow

775
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 1: some rules, and the inferring and following of the rules

776
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: could be reinforced either by rewards, which would consist of

777
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 1: a check mark when they got the right answer, or

778
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: punishments a big X when they got the wrong answer,

779
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: and the study found that the younger children improved more

780
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 1: when the feedback was positive, whereas the older children improved

781
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 1: more when the feedback was negative. Young adults eighteen to

782
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: twenty five also responded more to negative feedback in a

783
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: similar test. And the near scientists who carried out this

784
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:05,360
Speaker 1: research had the children undergo brain scans while while learning

785
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: through these tasks, and the brain imaging work showed differences

786
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 1: between the brains of the younger children and the older

787
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: children while doing the computer task. The areas of the

788
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: cerebral cortex associated with cognitive control, which is related to

789
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 1: the self control and the response inhibition we were just

790
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: talking about. In these areas, older children showed stronger activation

791
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:29,800
Speaker 1: in response to negative feedback and younger children showed stronger

792
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:33,720
Speaker 1: activation in response to positive feedback. So what could fully

793
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 1: account for the difference here, like why would younger children

794
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: learn faster from minor rewards and older children and young

795
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: adults learn faster from minor punishments. Belski offers an explanation

796
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: that's in line with the authors of the study. Quote information,

797
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: which stipulates that you did something wrong is more complicated

798
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: than information stipulating that you did something well, so younger

799
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 1: children may simply have an easier time processing simpler, positive

800
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: rewarding information than negative feedback. As the authors noted, learning

801
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: from mistakes is more complex than carrying on in the

802
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: same way as before. You have to ask yourself precisely

803
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: what went wrong and how it was possible. That is,

804
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: it takes more analysis to figure out that what was

805
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: done is mistaken than that it is correct. So, if

806
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: you think about it, I think that makes sense. Positive

807
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 1: reinforcements and rewards are actually often so simple as to

808
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 1: be nearly mechanical, like whatever you just did that was good,

809
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: keep doing that, do more of it. Punishments let you

810
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:40,879
Speaker 1: know that you're screwing up, but they don't necessarily tell

811
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 1: you what you should be doing. Instead, they don't necessarily

812
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: model a positive behavior, so they can be confusing, frustrating,

813
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: de motivating. Uh. And so it seems that for pre

814
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: adolescent children, modeling and rewarding positive behavior is probably more

815
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 1: effective than punishing bad behavior, since it's easier for them

816
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: to understand and and repeat. So, of course, an an

817
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: important note of difference here the difference between the effects

818
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,919
Speaker 1: of like simple mild rewards and punishments that you get

819
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: in real time during an experiment, versus the effects of

820
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,239
Speaker 1: the promise of rewards and the threat of like terrifying

821
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: punishments extended far into the future. Like obviously, it's one

822
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: thing to test the difference between more toys and less

823
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: toys right now, or checks and x's right now versus

824
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: the you know, the difference between awesome toys and monstrous

825
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: doom many months down the road. And I I wasn't

826
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:37,240
Speaker 1: able to come across anything that was able to really

827
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: model like the threats of punishment and promises of rewards

828
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: exactly as they're presented to children around these kind of

829
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,280
Speaker 1: Christmas ideas. But I have to imagine the like time

830
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: delay plays a big role there, Right, You've got to

831
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: get very different effects when you're talking about rewards and

832
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 1: punishments that are long off in the future versus immediately apparent. Yeah,

833
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: I mean, especially when you're talking about Christmas, because we

834
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 1: all have I think we've all had that experience. When

835
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 1: you're when you're an adult, December just flies by like

836
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: any month. But when you're when you're a child, um,

837
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 1: you know, the holiday time passes an entirely different way. Yeah,

838
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: you know, the span of time between between December one

839
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: and December it seems immense um and uh and it

840
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 1: certain and yet at the same time, like are you

841
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 1: gonna invoke Santa Claus in April or in July? You know,

842
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: like that's it's so far away that it seems like

843
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 1: it would lose its impact, you know. Yeah, well that's

844
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 1: a good question. What time of year does Santa Claus

845
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: start to matter? Yeah? Or or for instance, the elf

846
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: on the shelf. You know, another sort of aspect of this, uh,

847
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: you know, penopticon, notion of of Santa watching you at

848
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,239
Speaker 1: all times, or possibly watching you at all times. You

849
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: don't know, you don't know what's going on in the

850
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 1: eye of the panopticon, the penopticon for anyone who's nothing

851
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: Maybe with that term like this refers back to a

852
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: basic design for a prison in which you have a

853
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: large settilance cylindrical space with the cells of the prison

854
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: lining the inside walls, and at the center of this

855
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 1: vast cylinder there's a single guard tower and there's really

856
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:21,399
Speaker 1: only like you know, one or two guards in there,

857
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:23,799
Speaker 1: but you can't see where they're looking. They could be

858
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,279
Speaker 1: looking into your cell. All cells are visible to the

859
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: panopticons to central tower. Um, you just don't know who

860
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 1: they're looking at right now, and in may well be you.

861
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: I mean I I certainly I bristle at the idea

862
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:42,839
Speaker 1: of of enforcing the panopticons, especially supernaturally, on children. But

863
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 1: then at the same time, I think, well, that's not

864
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: unusual historically, right, I mean, it just it seems to

865
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: be the norm that children are generally taught about Santa

866
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,319
Speaker 1: Claus or ELpH on the shell for about, you know,

867
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: just supernatural deities or anything like that that's always watching

868
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 1: what they do. Uh. So, not not to suggest that

869
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,839
Speaker 1: because it's been normal historically, it's okay, but yeah, that's

870
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: got to be. Like I mean, I was like that

871
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. I remember thinking that, yeah,

872
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: they're seeing everything. Yeah, and if you believe at all

873
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: this a crowded room full of folks watching everything you do,

874
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 1: every every vile deed you've perpetrated as a child. Uh,

875
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 1: Santa Claus is their crampus and elf um, God Jesus,

876
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 1: you're the spirits of your elders. They're all They're just

877
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 1: waiting for you to slip up. Yeah, anyway, coming back

878
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 1: to the research I was just talking about. So we

879
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 1: were talking about the possible reasons why rewards could be

880
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: more salient for young children, and it's because in some

881
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:45,280
Speaker 1: cases it's a reward is an easier type of reinforcement

882
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: to process mentally and understand that punishments can be confusing.

883
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: It's harder to establish exactly the link between what you

884
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: did wrong, the punishment, and what you should be doing instead.

885
00:50:56,840 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 1: But the other question would be the other side of

886
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: the coin, what's going on in adults that appears to,

887
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: at least in many cases, make punishments more powerful than

888
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: rewards for them. Uh, this doesn't really explain it, but

889
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: it does seem in keeping with a widely observed principle

890
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:16,319
Speaker 1: in cognitive psychology known as loss aversion, which is this

891
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:20,080
Speaker 1: bias where simply put, on average, people are much more

892
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: strongly motivated to avoid losses than they are to acquire

893
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,839
Speaker 1: equivalent gains. So what this means is that you've got

894
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: a bunch of experiments showing people would work harder, would

895
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: do more to avoid losing ten dollars they already have,

896
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: than they would to acquire ten dollars they don't have yet.

897
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: So monetarily the loss in the road, it's exactly equivalent,

898
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,919
Speaker 1: But it's just the question of like it feels so

899
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 1: much worse to lose something you have than to not

900
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,919
Speaker 1: get something you could get. It's kind of I've become

901
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 1: accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and it's there in all

902
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: kinds of fiction, right, you know, Like why is why

903
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 1: are the tragedies always about kings and stuff about people

904
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: in in great exalted places of power. It's like there's

905
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: this idea that being reduced from a from a high

906
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: starting point is so much more awful and tragic than

907
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: having things happened to you if you were already suffering. Yeah,

908
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 1: and I mean and so certainly for a child, you know,

909
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 1: when when you get into them, like the material possession

910
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: of toys, like to to take the toy away is

911
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: it's like almost a violent act. You know, you've you've

912
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:35,279
Speaker 1: taken away, um, you know, part of their body almost. Um.

913
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: There was there was recently a time where my wife

914
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: took our son to like a thrift store and there

915
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 1: was a stuffed animal he really wanted and he m

916
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 1: he remarked to my life, he said, he said, this,

917
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 1: h my my whole body wants this toy, you know,

918
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:54,839
Speaker 1: which that was great because that really does sum out

919
00:52:54,960 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: just how um important uh, these these physical toys are

920
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: to us as children, like our whole body wants them,

921
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:06,719
Speaker 1: and we will be incomplete if we do not have it.

922
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 1: And likewise, if it is taken away from us, you

923
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:11,400
Speaker 1: were taking away a part of them. I don't know

924
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:13,839
Speaker 1: this is the case, but I would suspect it's a

925
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 1: lot harder to deny a toy to a child once

926
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 1: the child has already had it in their hands. Like

927
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,719
Speaker 1: it's there's gonna be way more grief about, Like you

928
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:26,719
Speaker 1: can't have a toy that they've already picked up in

929
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:29,240
Speaker 1: a handle. This is one that's still on the shelves.

930
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 1: And it's always the worst when you're in like a

931
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:34,120
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble or something, you know, and then you

932
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 1: see that your child is carrying something from with them

933
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,759
Speaker 1: now from another aisle, like they've already like the toy

934
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: has imprinted on them. It's gonna be that much harder

935
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 1: and that much more tragic to extract from the store

936
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 1: without a purchase. It's the pain, I feel it, all right,

937
00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 1: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be

938
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 1: right back. Alright, we're back. So a couple more studies

939
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 1: I was reading about rewards and punishment and the and

940
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:02,319
Speaker 1: their variable effect uh so. One was published in Cognition

941
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:06,719
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen by Jan Kubanick, Lawrence Snyder, and Richard Abrams,

942
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 1: and I was reading a write up of this uh

943
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 1: in the wash You School of Medicine news site. Um So,

944
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:16,280
Speaker 1: this was study dealing with the relative effects of rewards

945
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:19,319
Speaker 1: versus punishments on a difficult task where subjects had to

946
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:23,280
Speaker 1: count numbers of like binaral clicks that they were hearing

947
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: and headphones, or count numbers of localized flashes of light

948
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:30,080
Speaker 1: they saw, and it was a difficult test. And then

949
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 1: they were given randomized payouts of different value tokens between

950
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,239
Speaker 1: five and twenty five cents, and the tokens were awarded

951
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 1: for correct answers or taken away for incorrect answers. And

952
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 1: so subjects who were rewarded tended to repeat their previous answer.

953
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 1: That's not surprising because, like you know, when you get

954
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:51,239
Speaker 1: a reward, you the simplest thing to do is just

955
00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 1: do what you did before. Meanwhile, subjects who were punished

956
00:54:55,960 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 1: strongly avoided repeating their previous answers, and the me magnitude

957
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 1: of these effects were asymmetrical. This is what they found.

958
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:07,319
Speaker 1: They found that losses had two to three times more

959
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 1: motivating power than equivalent gains did, but also effects for

960
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:15,279
Speaker 1: the punishment factor were strong no matter no matter the

961
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:19,600
Speaker 1: magnitude of the punishment, even very small punishments. Deducting five cents,

962
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 1: we're strongly motivating to produce changes in behavior, and so

963
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: one of the author's Jan Kubanick said to this news

964
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 1: site quote regarding teaching strategies, our studies suggest that negative

965
00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:35,879
Speaker 1: feedback may be more effective than positive feedback at modifying behavior.

966
00:55:36,160 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: Our study showed that such feedback does not have to

967
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 1: be harsh, since it appears that we tend to react

968
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: in the same manner to any amount of negative feedback.

969
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 1: From an evolutionary perspective, people tend to avoid punishments or

970
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 1: dangerous situations. Rewards, on the other hand, have less of

971
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 1: a life threatening impact. Uh So, okay, so that's one

972
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: thing here, But then a little bit on the other hand.

973
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 1: I was reading article in the Harvard Business Review by

974
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:05,720
Speaker 1: a cognitive neuroscientist at the University College London named Tally

975
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 1: Shiro and contrary to what we were just learning about

976
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 1: punishments being more motivating than rewards and adults. Shiro begins

977
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:16,160
Speaker 1: the article by drawing attention to a two thousand eleven

978
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:18,799
Speaker 1: study carried out at New York at a New York

979
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:22,880
Speaker 1: State hospital published in the journal Clinical and Infectious Diseases

980
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: by Donna Armelino at All and the basic gist is

981
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 1: like this. So you've got healthcare workers and they are

982
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 1: supposed to sanitize their hands whenever they enter and exit

983
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:36,840
Speaker 1: a patient's room. Healthcare workers are constantly reminded of this

984
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 1: fact and of how important the practice is for stopping

985
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 1: the spread of potentially deadly infectious disease. And yet when

986
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 1: this hospital installed cameras at hand hygiene stations to monitor

987
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:53,680
Speaker 1: the healthcare worker behaviors, they discovered a dismal compliance rate.

988
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 1: Only about ten percent of medical staff sanitize their hands

989
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: upon entering and exiting patient room, even though they knew

990
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 1: the cameras were present. Then the hospital introduced a feedback

991
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:08,840
Speaker 1: mechanism to see if this would improve the hygiene. It

992
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:11,719
Speaker 1: was a simple electronic board on the wall which gave

993
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 1: positive messages like good job to workers who fully sanitize

994
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: their hands when they were supposed to, and the rates

995
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: of hand sanitization rocketed up from about ten percent to

996
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:26,920
Speaker 1: about nine percent. And then these results were replicated at

997
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:31,280
Speaker 1: another hospital. So the question is why, like, why would

998
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:36,000
Speaker 1: this simple trivial reward be more powerful as a motivator

999
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:39,880
Speaker 1: than the threat of potentially spreading infectious disease which could

1000
00:57:39,920 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 1: literally kill people, and hire has got a very interesting

1001
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:47,200
Speaker 1: answer here. The suggestion is that this is actually consistent

1002
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 1: with a large body of research in psychology and neuroscience

1003
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 1: that shows that there's a difference based on whether you're

1004
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 1: trying to get people to do something to perform an action,

1005
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:02,760
Speaker 1: or trying to vent them from performing an action, and

1006
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:06,480
Speaker 1: Shiro says that the evidence indicates the threats of punishment

1007
00:58:06,480 --> 00:58:09,960
Speaker 1: are more effective when trying to keep people from doing

1008
00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 1: bad things. Meanwhile, rewards, even minor positive reinforcements, are more

1009
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 1: effective if you're trying to get people to actively do something,

1010
00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: if you're trying to motivate an action rather than prohibit it.

1011
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: So by this token, the threat of spreading infectious disease

1012
00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:29,440
Speaker 1: might be more effective at keeping people out of a

1013
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 1: restricted pathology lab. So you know the threat motivates you

1014
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 1: to stay out, whereas the smiley face and the good

1015
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: job message are more effective at motivating people to perform

1016
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:42,840
Speaker 1: a simple positive action over and over, like using the

1017
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:47,200
Speaker 1: hand sanitizer and Uh, this was interesting. Shiro thinks this

1018
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 1: is consistent with the evolutionary context in which motivation and

1019
00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: inhibition arose. So like, normally, if you think about for

1020
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:57,440
Speaker 1: an animal to get a reward, usually it needs to

1021
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 1: do something to go foraging, for to put in the

1022
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 1: effort to wu a made or whatever. But in order

1023
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:06,840
Speaker 1: to avoid danger, most of the time it needs to

1024
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 1: not to do something like don't go in the deep water,

1025
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 1: don't go off on your own, don't eat this plant,

1026
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And the author gives the example

1027
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:17,920
Speaker 1: that this is why one of the most primal reactions

1028
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 1: animals have to a threatening stimulus is to freeze. When

1029
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 1: there's a threat and you don't fully understand it yet

1030
00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:28,880
Speaker 1: you're still processing what the threat is, the instinctual reaction

1031
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:33,120
Speaker 1: is don't do anything, just freeze. And I think that's

1032
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 1: an interesting explanation for what might be going on there. Uh,

1033
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: But they also write that this might be part of

1034
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:41,000
Speaker 1: the explanation is probably not the full story because they're

1035
00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:44,080
Speaker 1: probably also social incentives for things like, you know, showing

1036
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:46,960
Speaker 1: something on a board in a hospital where everybody can

1037
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:50,960
Speaker 1: see it. Right. But Shiro and colleagues who also conducted

1038
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 1: research showing a similar dynamic, where the short version is

1039
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:58,280
Speaker 1: volunteers were faster to press a button when they would

1040
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 1: get a dollar than they were to press a button

1041
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:04,240
Speaker 1: to avoid losing a dollar, so the reward motivates the action,

1042
01:00:04,280 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 1: but they were better at refraining from pressing a button

1043
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:10,640
Speaker 1: when doing so would prevent them from losing a dollar

1044
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:13,560
Speaker 1: than it would result in them gaining a dollar, so

1045
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 1: the threat of punishment motivated inhibition. Uh. And another interesting

1046
01:00:19,080 --> 01:00:22,920
Speaker 1: finding was the right that people often interpret positive information

1047
01:00:23,280 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: like the promise of rewards as relevant to them personally,

1048
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:31,080
Speaker 1: while interpreting negative information like the threat of punishments as

1049
01:00:31,160 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 1: not applying to them personally, as being you know, maybe

1050
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: just something about other people that have the cramp has

1051
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 1: happens to bad kids, right exactly. But Sharrow concludes by saying,

1052
01:00:40,840 --> 01:00:43,960
Speaker 1: it's not very effective to try to scare people into

1053
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 1: action to make people actively do good things as opposed

1054
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 1: to refraining from bad things. Rewards, even small rewards, are

1055
01:00:52,560 --> 01:00:56,160
Speaker 1: usually more powerful than threats of punishment. And yet our

1056
01:00:56,200 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: basic Santa story is totally screwed up because the hell

1057
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: thing is san is watching and there are all these

1058
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: things you better not do in order to get the reward.

1059
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 1: It's not, it's not. The positive reward is not attached

1060
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:13,960
Speaker 1: to any kind of positive action usually, well, I mean

1061
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:15,439
Speaker 1: for I think for a lot of kids. And maybe

1062
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you do your chores, you help

1063
01:01:17,400 --> 01:01:19,520
Speaker 1: out around the house, you share or you do that

1064
01:01:19,600 --> 01:01:22,920
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Right, Yeah, I guess so. But it

1065
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:27,600
Speaker 1: seems like the like the basic Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge

1066
01:01:27,720 --> 01:01:31,160
Speaker 1: kind of messaging towards adults that the holidays at a

1067
01:01:31,200 --> 01:01:33,680
Speaker 1: time when you should make, you should act, you should

1068
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:36,760
Speaker 1: do things to help give to charity. Yeah, that sort

1069
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:39,240
Speaker 1: of thing. Like that's more about the adults of Christmas

1070
01:01:39,240 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: messaging as opposed to the childhood Christmas messaging, which is

1071
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: more like just don't be bad. Just kind of a

1072
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:50,640
Speaker 1: low threshold to set, right, Um, maybe it should be

1073
01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: more along the lines of go out and do good things. Uh,

1074
01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 1: you know, ask about ask about helping out in the

1075
01:01:57,560 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 1: house more, ask your your parents about doing things in

1076
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 1: your community. That sort of thing. Well, yeah, I mean,

1077
01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:06,160
Speaker 1: I think one thing that comes up here is that

1078
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 1: there's a lot of the way that rewards and punishments work,

1079
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:12,840
Speaker 1: or even not even rewards and punishments, maybe things more

1080
01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 1: just like motivation work for child behavior can it can

1081
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 1: be sensitive to how you frame the issue for the child, right,

1082
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:25,800
Speaker 1: just like putting the exact same behavior in a different context.

1083
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: It seems like it could sometimes have a pretty strong

1084
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:32,600
Speaker 1: effect on how that behavior is regulated. Right Like, instead

1085
01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 1: of when a child is being selfish or something and

1086
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 1: won't share their toy, like you could yell at them

1087
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:41,240
Speaker 1: and say they're being bad and you know, they need

1088
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 1: to learn how to share, or you could say, hey,

1089
01:02:43,680 --> 01:02:47,400
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's practice modeling sharing behavior or something,

1090
01:02:47,480 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 1: and and ultimately you're getting at the same activity but

1091
01:02:50,840 --> 01:02:53,280
Speaker 1: framing it in a very different way. I guess one

1092
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: of the big things too, is that certainly you may

1093
01:02:56,760 --> 01:03:02,520
Speaker 1: employ negative or positive reinforcement in a given scenario like that, um,

1094
01:03:02,560 --> 01:03:06,080
Speaker 1: you know, depending on the situation, in your exact parenting style, etcetera.

1095
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 1: But how many people really use the Christmas mythology and

1096
01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 1: Christmas ritual as negative or positive feedback? I don't know

1097
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 1: how many do that. I don't know, Like I mean,

1098
01:03:18,720 --> 01:03:23,280
Speaker 1: in my experience as a former child and current parent,

1099
01:03:23,680 --> 01:03:27,200
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like like gifts are obtained, like

1100
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:30,240
Speaker 1: everything is set in motion pretty early on, and it

1101
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 1: would have to be some really bad, like crampus worthy

1102
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: behavior to make they actually say, Okay, we're scaling back

1103
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:38,840
Speaker 1: on the gifts. Now, this one's going back to the store.

1104
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:41,880
Speaker 1: They've been too bad. I mean, it seems like more

1105
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:44,320
Speaker 1: a situation where the holiday is set in motion and

1106
01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:46,680
Speaker 1: then you say, oh, by the way, just be a

1107
01:03:46,720 --> 01:03:49,120
Speaker 1: good child right now, because they've got a lot on

1108
01:03:49,160 --> 01:03:51,560
Speaker 1: our play just making it through December. Well yeah, I

1109
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:55,439
Speaker 1: mean it's so you're you're talking about the reality there

1110
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 1: that like often even when a child is maybe like

1111
01:03:58,040 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 1: threatened with rewards or punishments, can learning Christmas a lot

1112
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 1: of times there's not necessarily a lot of real causality

1113
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:06,480
Speaker 1: taking place. But I mean, I mean, it could be

1114
01:04:06,520 --> 01:04:09,800
Speaker 1: a situation to where the ritual has lost its potency

1115
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 1: in modern time. Certainly, that would that would be in

1116
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:16,240
Speaker 1: keeping with what our holidays have become totally, and you

1117
01:04:16,280 --> 01:04:18,880
Speaker 1: know that there there are other things too that you

1118
01:04:18,880 --> 01:04:22,040
Speaker 1: know might make you think twice even about the even

1119
01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:24,560
Speaker 1: if you're saying, okay, well, I'm not going the punishment route.

1120
01:04:24,600 --> 01:04:27,680
Speaker 1: I wouldn't threaten child with with with crampus or whatever,

1121
01:04:27,720 --> 01:04:30,480
Speaker 1: which is okay, good on you, But that might make

1122
01:04:30,480 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 1: you think twice even with the reward framing, because I

1123
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:35,200
Speaker 1: was reading an article in The New York Times from

1124
01:04:35,920 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 1: by a therapist named Heather Turgeon who pointed out some

1125
01:04:39,400 --> 01:04:42,880
Speaker 1: things I've never read about before. She just mentioned some

1126
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 1: possible downsides of rewards in addition to punishments for controlling

1127
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:51,360
Speaker 1: child behavior, which are For example, some studies find um

1128
01:04:51,400 --> 01:04:55,800
Speaker 1: that the introduction of a reward structure can sometimes decrease

1129
01:04:55,920 --> 01:05:00,160
Speaker 1: intrinsic motivation for for like, good behaviors, so like. And

1130
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:02,640
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how consistently this holds up, but at

1131
01:05:02,720 --> 01:05:05,120
Speaker 1: least in a few experiments, like if a kid likes

1132
01:05:05,160 --> 01:05:08,640
Speaker 1: to draw and then you start paying them to draw,

1133
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 1: they will naturally start to draw less. The same for sharing, right,

1134
01:05:13,480 --> 01:05:17,959
Speaker 1: introduce a payout scheme for sharing, and sharing decreases under

1135
01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:21,880
Speaker 1: naturalistic conditions. Uh And the author here writes quote, this

1136
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:25,840
Speaker 1: is what psychologists called the over justification effect. The external

1137
01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:30,600
Speaker 1: reward overshadows the child's internal motivation, which I mean that

1138
01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:33,040
Speaker 1: sounds like a really tragic effect if you actually were

1139
01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 1: to bring something like that about, right, I mean, you're

1140
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:39,240
Speaker 1: you should your your desire to do something should not

1141
01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:43,120
Speaker 1: be destroyed by rewards for doing that thing, not until

1142
01:05:43,120 --> 01:05:46,000
Speaker 1: you enter the workforce. And exactly isn't that I mean,

1143
01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:48,680
Speaker 1: like that's one of the dangers about you know. I mean,

1144
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:50,400
Speaker 1: on one hand, it's great to be able to do

1145
01:05:50,440 --> 01:05:52,640
Speaker 1: what you love for a living, but there's a dark

1146
01:05:52,640 --> 01:05:54,680
Speaker 1: side to it do right, you know, if you do

1147
01:05:54,720 --> 01:05:57,240
Speaker 1: what you love for a living, it kind of has

1148
01:05:57,440 --> 01:06:00,080
Speaker 1: it has some power to corrupt what you love. It

1149
01:06:00,360 --> 01:06:02,680
Speaker 1: makes it about money, It makes it like this is

1150
01:06:02,720 --> 01:06:04,760
Speaker 1: what I have to do. Yeah, now I get to

1151
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:07,400
Speaker 1: stress out about the thing that used to be my hobby. Yeah.

1152
01:06:07,480 --> 01:06:10,800
Speaker 1: So anyway, I would say in the end, rewards and punishments, uh,

1153
01:06:11,080 --> 01:06:14,160
Speaker 1: their effects on us, I think are very complicated. I

1154
01:06:14,680 --> 01:06:16,880
Speaker 1: hope you have learned something for that from this, even

1155
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:19,280
Speaker 1: though I can't clearly say it's just one way or

1156
01:06:19,320 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 1: the other. Rewards are better, punishments are better. But I

1157
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:24,960
Speaker 1: will say, do not punish your children with threats of demons,

1158
01:06:25,000 --> 01:06:27,720
Speaker 1: no matter what I think that is across the board

1159
01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:30,560
Speaker 1: going to be bad. So, as with any crampus ritual,

1160
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:33,160
Speaker 1: you may well have learned nothing, but hopefully it was

1161
01:06:33,200 --> 01:06:37,400
Speaker 1: at least a spectacle. That's uh. At least it hopefully

1162
01:06:37,520 --> 01:06:40,800
Speaker 1: entertains you. I hope your your tongue is lolling violently

1163
01:06:41,360 --> 01:06:45,520
Speaker 1: thirty inches out of your mouth. Now, obviously, we would

1164
01:06:45,560 --> 01:06:47,480
Speaker 1: love to hear from folks out there, because I know

1165
01:06:47,520 --> 01:06:51,120
Speaker 1: we have we have listeners around the world, certainly we

1166
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:53,280
Speaker 1: we have. We probably have some listeners in the United

1167
01:06:53,280 --> 01:06:58,000
Speaker 1: States that have participated in some of the newer crampus

1168
01:06:58,040 --> 01:07:00,840
Speaker 1: traditions here, and then hopefully we have some listeners who

1169
01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:04,480
Speaker 1: have witnessed or participated in some of the more traditional

1170
01:07:04,920 --> 01:07:08,440
Speaker 1: rights of these Alpine regions that we mentioned. And of

1171
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 1: course in general, I think we all have something to

1172
01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:14,600
Speaker 1: do no matter what. If you celebrate anything like uh,

1173
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:18,520
Speaker 1: you know, you know, Christmas or holiday traditions, or even

1174
01:07:18,520 --> 01:07:20,920
Speaker 1: if you don't, you probably have something to say about

1175
01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:24,160
Speaker 1: negative and positive reinforcement as a child or a or

1176
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:26,640
Speaker 1: a parent. Uh, And we'd love to hear from you

1177
01:07:26,680 --> 01:07:28,760
Speaker 1: about that. In the meantime, if you want to check

1178
01:07:28,760 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 1: out other episodes of stuff to blow your mind, I

1179
01:07:30,920 --> 01:07:32,520
Speaker 1: don't know, over the stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1180
01:07:32,560 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find them. Uh, let's see what else. Um, Yeah,

1181
01:07:36,520 --> 01:07:38,160
Speaker 1: there's a merg store up there if you want to

1182
01:07:38,200 --> 01:07:39,880
Speaker 1: check out our merch you know, they're all sorts of

1183
01:07:40,200 --> 01:07:43,360
Speaker 1: year end sales going on at the moment. Good place

1184
01:07:43,360 --> 01:07:46,200
Speaker 1: to get Christmas gifts. Yeah. And then in terms of

1185
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:50,000
Speaker 1: other shows, uh, there's the second oil Age for horror

1186
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:52,720
Speaker 1: and science fiction. All those episodes are out and you

1187
01:07:52,760 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 1: can binge them. And then Invention our other podcasts, the

1188
01:07:56,600 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: podcast about human techno History, we've been doing some pisodes

1189
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:03,440
Speaker 1: on toys, classic toys and where they came from, who

1190
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:07,800
Speaker 1: invented them, because certainly even something like a slinky uh

1191
01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:11,000
Speaker 1: that had to be created, that had to emerge from

1192
01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:13,720
Speaker 1: the human mind and and uh and be brought to

1193
01:08:14,480 --> 01:08:17,720
Speaker 1: life through technology and the story of how that comes

1194
01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:19,800
Speaker 1: together is fascinating. So I hope you check that show

1195
01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:23,040
Speaker 1: out as well. And whichever show you're listening to, just

1196
01:08:23,080 --> 01:08:25,559
Speaker 1: make sure that you have subscribed and that you were

1197
01:08:25,640 --> 01:08:27,960
Speaker 1: rating and reviewing it, because that is a great way

1198
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 1: to help these shows out in and ensure that they

1199
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:33,640
Speaker 1: have more life. Absolutely huge things. As always to our

1200
01:08:33,720 --> 01:08:36,960
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

1201
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:38,800
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1202
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1203
01:08:41,680 --> 01:08:44,800
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1204
01:08:44,880 --> 01:08:54,680
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1205
01:08:54,680 --> 01:08:56,720
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radios. Hows

1206
01:08:56,760 --> 01:08:59,080
Speaker 1: to works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio is

1207
01:08:59,120 --> 01:09:02,000
Speaker 1: at the iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1208
01:09:02,040 --> 01:09:06,240
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows over