VEDANTAM: One of the things I found really interesting is that the evolution of words and language is constant. MCWHORTER: Oh, yeah, I'm a human being. VEDANTAM: So I find that I'm often directionally and navigationally challenged when I'm driving around, and I often get my east-west mixed up with my left-right for reasons I have never been able to fathom. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. So in terms of the size of differences, there are certainly effects that are really, really big. And if they were facing east, they would make the cards come toward them, toward the body. Goal Striving, Need Satisfaction, and Longitudinal Well-being: The Self-Concordance Model, by Kennon M. Sheldon and Andrew J. Elliot, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999. And so language changed just like the clouds in the sky. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live, Going the Distance on the Pacific Crest Trail: The Vital Role of Identified Motivation, Athletic Scholarships are Negatively Associated with Intrinsic Motivation for Sports, Even Decades Later: Evidence for Long-Term Undermining, Rightly Crossing the Rubicon: Evaluating Goal Self-Concordance Prior to Selection Helps People Choose More Intrinsic Goals, What Makes Lawyers Happy? ), Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy, 2004. And it's not just about how we think about time. Whats going on here? And they have correlated this with gender features in the language, just like the ones you were talking about. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? Parents and peers influence our major life choices. And, I mean, just in terms of even sounds changing and the way that you put words together changing bit by bit, and there's never been a language that didn't do that. It should be thought of as fun. Transcript Podcast: Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. She shows how our conversational styles can cause We all know casual sex isn't about love. So for example, English speakers, because they're very likely to say, he did it or someone did it, they are very good at remembering who did it, even if it's an accident. If you missed it, Think back to the last time someone convinced you to do something you didn't want to do, or to spend money you didn't want to spend. So for example, grammatical gender - because grammatical gender applies to all nouns in your language, that means that language is shaping the way you think about everything that can be named by a noun. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. How come you aren't exactly the way you were 10 years ago? And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. VEDANTAM: Lera now tries to understand languages spoken all over the world. One study that I love is a study that asked monolingual speakers of Italian and German and also bilingual speakers of Italian and German to give reasons for why things are the grammatical genders that they are. That hadn't started then. When we come back, we dig further into the way that gender works in different languages and the pervasive effects that words can play in our lives. Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live, by Kennon M. Sheldon, 2022. Can I get some chicken? Newsletter: Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. There are many scholars who would say, look, yes, you do see small differences between speakers of different languages, but these differences are not really significant; they're really small. And if that is true, then the educated person can look down on people who say Billy and me went to the store or who are using literally, quote, unquote, "wrong" and condemn them in the kinds of terms that once were ordinary for condemning black people or women or what have you. All sponsorship opportunities on Hidden Brain are managed by SXM Media. So for example, you might not imagine the color shirt that he's wearing or the kinds of shoes that he's wearing. So if the word for death was masculine in your language, you were likely to paint death as a man. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. And the answer should be, north, northeast in the far distance; how about you? The size of this effect really quite surprised me because I would have thought at the outset that, you know, artists are these iconoclasts. He says there are things we can do to make sure our choices align with our deepest values. And if you teach them that forks go with women, they start to think that forks are more feminine. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Language was talk. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. People who breathe too much put their bodies in a hypoxic state, with not enough oxygen to the brain How breath moves in the body: air comes in through the nose and mouth; the larynx (rigid tube to avoid closing) brings air from the nose and mouth to the lungs Lungs can expand and contract to bring in or expel air Many people have this intuition that, oh, I could never learn that; I could never survive in a community like this. Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. What Do You Do When Things Go Right? Our team includes Laura Kwerel, Adhiti Bandlamudi and our supervising producer Tara Boyle. This week, we're going to bring you a conversation I had in front of a live audience with Richard Thaler, taped on Halloween at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D. Richard is a professor of behavioral sciences and economics at the University of Chicago and is a well-known author. These relationships can help you feel cared for and connected. Something new will have started by then, just like if we listen to people in 1971, they sound odd in that they don't say like as much as we do. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. Accuracy and availability may vary. It's not something that you typically go out trying to do intentionally. BORODITSKY: I had this wonderful opportunity to work with my colleague Alice Gaby in this community called Pormpuraaw in - on Cape York. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. I'm shankar Vedantam in the 2002 rom com. That is the most random thing. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking foreign language). We recommend movies or books to a friend. You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. And there are all kinds of interesting, useful, eye-opening ideas that exist in all of the world's languages. Toward Understanding Understanding:The Importance of Feeling Understood in Relationships, by Harry Reis, Edward P. Lemay Jr, and Catrin Finkenauer, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2017. But also, I started wondering, is it possible that my friend here was imagining a person without a gender for this whole time that we've been talking about them, right? This week, a story about a con with a twist. You couldn't have predicted this I know-uh move-uh (ph). UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking foreign language). VEDANTAM: I'm Shankar Vedantam. This week on Hidden Brain, we revisit a favorite episode exploring what this culture means Jesse always wanted to fall in love. Assessing the Seeds of Relationship Decay: Using Implicit Evaluations to Detect the Early Stages of Disillusionment, by Soonhee Lee, Ronald D. Rogge, and Harry T. Reis, Psychological Science, 2010. BORODITSKY: My family is Jewish, and we left as refugees. And one thing that we've noticed is that around the world, people rely on space to organize time. The dictionary says both uses are correct. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. A brief history of relationship research in social psychology, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of the History of Social Psychology, 2011. That said, if you hear one or two pieces of music that you really love, feel free to email us at [emailprotected] and well do our best to respond to your request. There are signs it's getting even harder. And then question 21 was, is this person a man or a woman? And to our surprise, 78 percent of the time, we could predict the gender of the personification based on the grammatical gender of the noun in the artist's native language. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, What Do You Do When Things Go Right? But I don't think that it's always clear to us that language has to change in that things are going to come in that we're going to hear as intrusions or as irritating or as mistakes, despite the fact that that's how you get from, say, old Persian to modern Persian. Athletic Scholarships are Negatively Associated with Intrinsic Motivation for Sports, Even Decades Later: Evidence for Long-Term Undermining, by Kennon M. Sheldon and Arlen C. Moller, Motivation Science, 2020. Does a speaker of a language, like Spanish, who has to assign gender to so many things, end up seeing the world as more gendered? BORODITSKY: Yeah, that's true. In the second episode of our "Relationships 2.0" series, psychologist Do you ever struggle to communicate with your mom? Newsletter: BORODITSKY: So quite literally, to get past hello, you have to know which way you're heading. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. JERRY SEINFELD: (As Jerry Seinfeld) The second button literally makes or breaks the shirt. And what he noticed was that when people were trying to act like Monday, they would act like a man. So the way you say hi in Kuuk Thaayorre is to say, which way are you heading? All rights reserved. I'm Shankar Vedantam. The fact is that language change can always go in one of many directions, there's a chance element to it. So some languages don't have number words. And dead languages never change, and some of us might prefer those. And very competent adults of our culture can't do that. But what if there's a whole category of people in your life whose impact is overlooked? We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness can seem more el, When we want something very badly, it can be hard to see warning signs that might be obvious to other people. We'll begin with police shootings of unarmed Black men. In the final episode of our Relationships 2.0 series, psychologistHarry Reis says theres another ingredient to successful relationships thats every bit as important as love. He's also the author of the book, "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". That's the way words are, too. Happiness 2.0: The Only Way Out Is Through. We couldnt survive without the many public radio stations that support our show and they cant survive without you. But if you ask bilinguals, who have learned two languages and now they know that some genders disagree across the two languages, they're much less likely to say that it's because chairs are intrinsically masculine. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. BORODITSKY: Well, I think it's a terrible tragedy. Lera is a cognitive science professor at the University of California, San Diego. Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, by Robert A. Emmons, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986. It's just how I feel. They give us a sense that the meanings of words are fixed, when in fact they're not. There's been a little bit of research from economists actually looking at this. If a transcript is available, youll see a Transcript button which expands to reveal the full transcript. So act like Monday. MCWHORTER: Exactly. In this favorite 2021 episode, psychologistAdam Grantpushes back against the benefits of certainty, and describes the magic that unfolds when we challenge our own deeply-held beliefs. How big are the differences that we're talking about, and how big do you think the implications are for the way we see the world? VEDANTAM: Our conversation made me wonder about what this means on a larger scale. They know which way is which. If you can speak more than one language, does this mean that you're also simultaneously and constantly shifting in your mind between different worldviews? This week, in the second installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Todd Kashdan looks at the relationship between distress and happiness, and how to keep difficult emotions from sabotaging our wellbeing. 00:51:58 - We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date. BORODITSKY: One thing that we've noticed is this idea of time, of course, is very highly constructed by our minds and our brains. And all of a sudden, I noticed that there was a new window that had popped up in my mind, and it was like a little bird's-eye view of the landscape that I was walking through, and I was a little red dot that was moving across the landscape. Think back to the last time someone convinced you to do something you didn't want to do, or to spend money you didn't want to spend. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. It has to do with the word momentarily. If I give you a bunch of pictures to lay out and say this is telling you some kind of story and you - and they're disorganized, when an English speaker organizes those pictures, they'll organize them from left to right. VEDANTAM: So this begs the question, if you were to put languages on something of a spectrum, where you have, you know, languages like Spanish or Hindi where nouns are gendered and languages like English where many nouns are not gendered but pronouns are gendered, and on the other end of the spectrum, you have languages like Finnish or Persian where you can have a conversation about someone without actually mentioning their gender, it would seem surprising if this did not translate, at some level, into the way people thought about gender in their daily activities, in terms of thinking about maybe even who can do what in the workplace. When she was 12, her family came to the United States from the Soviet Union. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. You may link to our content and copy and paste episode descriptions and Additional Resources into your invitations. Writing has come along relatively recently. Going the Distance on the Pacific Crest Trail: The Vital Role of Identified Motivation, by Kennon M. Sheldon, Motivation Science, 2020. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not. So you might say, there's an ant on your northwest leg. al, Group Decision and Negotiation, 2008. Hidden Brain - Transcripts Hidden Brain - Transcripts Subscribe 435 episodes Share Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. What do you think the implications are - if you buy the idea that languages are a very specific and unique way of seeing the world, of perceiving reality, what are the implications of so many languages disappearing during our time? Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. MCWHORTER: You could have fun doing such a thing. As soon as you move the leg, it becomes a different leg. Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, by Amy Edmondson, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999. BORODITSKY: That's a wonderful question. Only a couple hundred languages - or if you want to be conservative about it, a hundred languages - are written in any real way and then there are 6,800 others. But might we allow that there's probably a part of all human beings that wants to look down on somebody else. And it irritates people, but there's a different way of seeing literally. Follow on Apple, Google or Spotify. Whats going on here? If you still cant find the episode, try looking through our most recent shows on our homepage. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Minimizes Defensive Reactions to Failure, by Peter A. Caprariello and Harry T. Reis, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2011. In a lot of languages, there isn't. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. So when the perfect woman started writing him letters, it seemed too good to be true. I'm Shankar Vedantam. But it turns out humans can stay oriented really, really well, provided that their language and culture requires them to keep track of this information. If you are a podcaster, the best way to manage your podcasts on Listen Notes is by claiming your Listen Notes This is HIDDEN BRAIN. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. So I think that nobody would say that they don't think language should change. She once visited an aboriginal community in northern Australia and found the language they spoke forced her mind to work in new ways. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, by Adam Grant, 2021. Hidden Brain. We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. MCWHORTER: Yeah, I really do. And I can't help surmising that part of it is that the educated American has been taught and often well that you're not supposed to look down on people because of gender, because of race, because of ability. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Look at it. VEDANTAM: I understand that if you're in a picnic with someone from this community and you notice an ant climbing up someone's left leg, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to tell that person, look, there's an ant on your left leg. But does a person who says that really deserve the kind of sneering condemnation that you often see? And so somebody says something literally, somebody takes a point literally. And nobody wishes that we hadn't developed our modern languages today from the ancient versions. something, even though it shouldn't be so much of an effort. I'm Shankar Vedantam, and you're listening to HIDDEN BRAIN. Copyright 2018 NPR. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Languages are not just tools. Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts are Influenced by Self-Esteem and Relationship Threat, by Shannon M. Smith & Harry Reis, Personal Relationships, 2012. out. You can find the transcript for most episodes of Hidden Brain on our website. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. This is a database with millions of art images. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. So I just think that it's something we need to check ourselves for. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. You're not going to do any of the things that are seen as a foundation of our technological society. You know, we spend years teaching children about how to use language correctly. And as you point out, it's not just that people feel that a word is being misused. And it's just too much of an effort, and you can't be bothered to do it, even though it's such a small thing. The categorization that language provides to you becomes real, becomes psychologically real. BORODITSKY: Yeah. This week, in the second installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Todd Kashdan looks at the relationship between distress and happiness, and ho, Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. podcast pages. He says that buying into false beliefs, in other words, deluding ourselves can . Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. Listen on the Reuters app. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. L. Gable, et. So I think it's an incredible tragedy that we're losing all of this linguistic diversity, all of this cultural diversity because it is human heritage. Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? It's as if you saw a person - I'm not going to say at 4 because then the person is growing up, and if I use that analogy then it seems like I'm saying that language grows up or it moves toward something or it develops. June 20, 2020 This week on Hidden Brain, research about prejudices so deeply buried, we often doubt their existence. How does that sound now? What techniques did that person use to persuade you? And so, for example, can I get a hamburger? All of the likes and, like, literallies (ph) might sometimes grate on your nerves, but John McWhorter says the problem might be with you, not with the way other people speak. GEACONE-CRUZ: And you're at home in your pajamas, all nice and cuddly and maybe watching Netflix or something. If you're just joining us, I'm talking to John McWhorter. What do you do for christmas with your family? There's not a bigger difference you could find than 100 percent of the measurement space.