So I just think that it's something we need to check ourselves for. Of course, eventually, the Finnish kids also figured it out because language isn't the only source of that information, otherwise it would be quite surprising for the Finns to be able to continue to reproduce themselves. Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at Hidden Brain telling the stories of . And you suddenly get a craving for potato chips, and you, realize that you have none in the kitchen, and there's nothing else you really want to, eat. edit transcripts, Improve the presence of your podcasts, e.g., self-service, If you share your Listen Notes page and at-mention. 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. Let's start with the word literally. 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. Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date. in your textbooks but when you're hanging out with friends. VEDANTAM: It took just one week of living in Japan for Jennifer to pick up an important new term. So new words are as likely to evolve as old ones. He didn't like that people were shortening the words. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PARKS AND RECREATION"). Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? Writing has come along relatively recently. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS), by Harry T. Reis et. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. 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. To request permission, please send an email to [emailprotected]. 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. But if he just bumped into the table, and it happened to fall off the table and break, and it was an accident, then you might be more likely to say, the flute broke, or the flute broke itself, or it so happened to Sam that the flute broke. This week, we launch the first of a two-part mini-series on the scie, If you think about the people in your life, it's likely that they share a lot in common with you. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Speaking foreign language). VEDANTAM: Many of us have dictionaries at home or at work, John. MCWHORTER: Yes, that's exactly true. Hidden Brain - KQED | News, Radio, Podcasts, TV And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Right. Language as it evolved was just talking to an extent that can be very hard for we literate people to imagine. We'll also look at how languages evolve, and why we're sometimes resistant to those changes. Subscribe: iOS | Android | Spotify | RSS | Amazon | Stitcher Latest Episodes: Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button LERA BORODITSKY: The categorization that language provides to you becomes real - becomes psychologically real. VEDANTAM: Jennifer moved to Japan for graduate school. Hidden Brain Claim By Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam Podcasts RSS Web PODCAST SEARCH EPISODES COMMUNITY PODCASTER EDIT SHARE Listen Score LS 84 Global Rank TOP 0.01% ABOUT THIS PODCAST Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking foreign language). I saw this bird's-eye view, and I was this little red dot. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. by Harry T. Reis, Annie Regan, and Sonja Lyubomirsky, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2021. Take the word bridge - if it's feminine in your language, you're more likely to say that bridges are beautiful and elegant. It's inherent. And a girl goes in this pile. It's never going to. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around. All episodes of Hidden Brain - Chartable Hidden Brain Episodes Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. This week, in the final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes what happens when we stop to savor the beauty in nature, art, or simply the moral courage of those around us. Of course, if you can't keep track of exactly seven, you can't count. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. But if you seed a watermelon, nobody assumes that you're taking seeds and putting them in the watermelon, you're taking them out. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. VEDANTAM: Languages seem to have different ways of communicating agency. VEDANTAM: John McWhorter, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. Official Website Airs on: SUN 7pm-8pm 55:27 Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button Feb 27 Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. You can also connect directly with our sponsorship representative by emailing [emailprotected]. So what happens is that once literally comes to feel like it means really, people start using it in figurative constructions such as I was literally dying of thirst. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. In English, actually, quite weirdly, we can even say things like, I broke my arm. 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 They're supposed to be painting something very personal. And one day, I was walking along, and I was just staring at the ground. Hidden Brain : NPR You-uh (ph). Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. It should just be, here is the natural way, then there's some things that you're supposed to do in public because that's the way it is, whether it's fair or not. I just don't want to do it. So the question for us has been, how do we build these ideas? VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often, untranslatable. VEDANTAM: Time is another concept that is also central to the way we see and describe the world. FEB 27, 2023; Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button . VEDANTAM: I'm Shankar Vedantam. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Hidden Brain on Apple Podcasts And that is an example of a simple feature of language - number words - acting as a transformative stepping stone to a whole domain of knowledge. For example, if you take seeds and put them in the ground, that's one thing. We couldnt survive without the many public radio stations that support our show and they cant survive without you. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? And I thought, wow, first of all, it would be almost impossible to have a conversation like that in English where you hadn't already revealed the gender of the person because you have to use he or she. BORODITSKY: Well, there may not be a word for left to refer to a left leg. Well never sell your personal information. So we did an analysis of images in Artstor. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. And it really is an illusion that what language is, is something that sits still. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. If you grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your native tongue without even thinking about it. If you're a monolingual speaker of one of these languages, you're very likely to say that the word chair is masculine because chairs are, in fact, masculine, right? Newsletter: Google Podcasts - hidden brain I'm Shankar Vedantam, and you're listening to HIDDEN BRAIN. So for example, you might not imagine the color shirt that he's wearing or the kinds of shoes that he's wearing. After claiming your Listen Notes podcast pages, you will be able to: Respond to listener comments on Listen Notes, Use speech-to-text techniques to transcribe your show and : A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, by Lawrence S. Krieger and Kennon M. Sheldon, George Washington Law Review, 2015. Hidden Brain - Transcripts Whats going on here? GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. out. But it's a lovely example of how language can guide you to discover something about the world that might take you longer to discover if you didn't have that information in language. Why researchers should think real-world: A conceptual rationale, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Daily Life, 2012. Hidden Brain Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam Science 4.6 36K Ratings; Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. You have to do it in order to fit into the culture and to speak the language. MCWHORTER: Those are called contronyms, and literally has become a new contronym. Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. And then question 21 was, is this person a man or a woman? 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. But if you prefer life - the unpredictability of life - then living language in many ways are much more fun. And dead languages never change, and some of us might prefer those. Hidden Brain. What techniques did that person use to persuade you? - you would have to say something like, my arm got broken, or it so happened to me that my arm is broken. If you take literally in what we can think of as its earliest meaning, the earliest meaning known to us is by the letter. If you're like most people, you probably abandoned those resolutions within a few weeks. Because were a small team, we dont have a publicly-available list of every piece of music that we use. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, by Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Kevin Ochsner, Psychological Science, 2008. So LOL starts out as meaning hardy-har-har (ph), but then it becomes something more abstract. BORODITSKY: Thank you so much for having me. Yes! So I think it's something that is quite easy for humans to learn if you just have a reason to want to do it. I decided it was very important for me to learn English because I had always been a very verbal kid, and I'd - was always the person who recited poems in front of the school and, you know, led assemblies and things like that. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: (Speaking foreign language). So to give you a very quick wrap-up is that some effects are big, but even when effects aren't big, they can be interesting or important for other reasons - either because they are very broad or because they apply to things that we think are really important in our culture. BORODITSKY: And Russian is a language that has grammatical gender, and different days of the week have different genders for some reason. JERRY SEINFELD: (As Jerry Seinfeld) The second button literally makes or breaks the shirt. And you can even teach people to have a little bit of fun with the artifice. native tongue without even thinking about it. 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. There's a way of speaking right. And so for me, that question was born in that conversation of are there some languages where it's easier to imagine a person without their characteristics of gender filled in? There was no such thing as looking up what it originally meant. ), The Sourcebook of Listening Research: Methodology and Measures, 2018. I think it's a really fascinating question for future research. This week, in the final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes what happens when we stop to sav, Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. Everyone wants to be loved and appreciated. In this favorite 2021 episode, psychologist Adam Grant pushes back against the benefits of certainty, and describes the magic that unfolds when we challenge our own deeply-held beliefs. 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. It should be thought of as fun. Copyright 2023 Steno. But it's exactly like - it was maybe about 20 years ago that somebody - a girlfriend I had told me that if I wore pants that had little vertical pleats up near the waist, then I was conveying that I was kind of past it. Listen on the Reuters app. Hidden Brain - Google Podcasts Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. 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. I'm Shankar Vedantam. A brief history of relationship research in social psychology, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of the History of Social Psychology, 2011. You can run experiments in a lab or survey people on the street. And if you can enjoy it as a parade instead of wondering why people keep walking instead of just sitting on chairs and blowing on their tubas and not moving, then you have more fun. We also look at how. . BORODITSKY: The way to say my name properly in Russian is (speaking foreign language), so I don't make people say that. 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. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. And in fact, speakers of languages like this have been shown to orient extremely well - much better than we used to think humans could. MCWHORTER: It's a matter of fashion, pure and simple. If you still cant find the episode, try looking through our most recent shows on our homepage.