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PROFESSOR: So today I want to
talk with you about how it is

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that we can do research of a
scientific kind for something

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as complex as human behavior as
opposed to things that you

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measure out in space or test
tubes or under microscopes.

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People are complex
organisms, right?

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And to do research on them, to
understand human nature, how

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the mind works, how the
brain supports it, is

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a challenging story.

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So the usual thing
is an experiment.

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You have a group of
participants.

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And we'll talk about that.

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But in the reading for today,
and I know it's the first time

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we've done this so you may not
have read it, but if you have,

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00:01:03,930 --> 00:01:07,430
that'd be great, is a kind of
another thread of the kind of

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way that people are studied,
which is dramatic individual

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stories, case studies, single
stories that are illustrative

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of something that we think
are broader principles.

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And a lot of our biggest
discoveries-- and we'll come

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to that later in the course--
have been made on very unusual

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single individuals who turn out
to have a lesson that's

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pretty broad, for example,
for the organization

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of the human brain.

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So in the Oliver Sacks book,
there's a story about Donald.

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And what did Donald do that
got him in big trouble?

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AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

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PROFESSOR: Yeah, he murdered
his girlfriend

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while he was on PCP.

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He's in a psychiatric
hospital.

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They try hypnosis to help
him remember it.

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He says he doesn't
remember it.

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Many of you may know that an
astounding number of criminals

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under interrogation tell you
they don't remember anything

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about the episode involved.

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So people are suspicious, at
first, for many reasons.

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Because the easiest thing
to say is I don't

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remember what happened.

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And then you can't catch
yourself in a lie or any

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complexity, right?

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Because you don't remember
what happened.

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And sometimes you
don't remember.

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And sometimes you do.

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But in this case, they
tried hypnosis.

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That doesn't help.

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He's in there for four years.

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And he knows conceptually that
he murdered his girlfriend.

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And he says, I'm not
fit for society.

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He knows it's a terrible
thing he did.

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But it's kind of like an
intellectual knowledge, right?

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It's not a feeling.

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It's not a memory.

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And then he goes biking and
something happens, which is he

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gets hit by a car.

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And so there's what appears to
be a drug-induced amnesia of

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the original murderous
episode.

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He gets hit by a car.

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He has a severe head injury.

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He's in a coma for two weeks.

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He has left-sided weakness as
he comes out of it, which

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means the biggest injury was
in the right side of his

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brain, weakness and numbness.

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And he has frontal
lobe contusions.

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He has injury and bleeding
around the frontal lobes of

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the cortex that sits in the
front of the brain.

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But now a remarkable
thing happens.

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It's as if two insults, two
wrongs, made a right, the

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first wrong being the
PCP, the second

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wrong being the accident.

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And now what happens?

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He remembers in vivid, in florid
detail the horror that

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he actually committed
this murder.

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It's as if two insults to the
brain, one drug-induced, one a

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focal injury, repressed the
memory and then unrepressed

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the memory.

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And one of the first things they
have to do is discover

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whether he really has his memory
or he just thinks he

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has his memory.

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And how do they figure out to
their satisfaction whether

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it's a really recovered memory
or a fabrication of his mind?

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AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

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PROFESSOR: Right.

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It's really important.

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He remembers details of the
murder that are not publicly

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available, that were not
in the information that

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was given to him.

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That's a really huge issue
in these kinds of memory.

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So this is a really recovered
memory, not an inadvertently

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fabricated memory.

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And they discover he has deep
seizure activity in his limbic

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structures, the parts of his
brain that are involved in

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emotion, are having seizures.

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In epilepsy, neurons are firing
for no good reason.

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And that's part of
his disorder.

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They give him medications
to help with that.

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But here's the question
for you from a

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moment to think about.

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And it's now such a common
question because our society

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is moving that way that
it's on many TV shows.

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I see it like every couple of
weeks there's a Law & Order

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episode that has something like
this, which is the more

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you know about the biology that
underlies really criminal

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terrible behavior, should
that be a cause for

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understanding it or not?

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So in this case, he
took the drugs.

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He killed the person.

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You think he's pretty
responsible.

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But how about somebody who kills
somebody and it turns

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out, and there's such a case, a
man with no history, a grown

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man with no history of criminal
activity of any kind,

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shoved his wife out of a high
window to her death in the

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course of a standard argument.

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Then they discover that he has
a big tumor growing in the

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basal part of his
frontal cortex.

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Now is the man responsible
for what he did?

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It's a really interesting
question.

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And the more we understand about
the neuroscience of our

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brains, what makes us do things,
what lets us control

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impulses, what makes
us murderous--

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There's a guy, Kent Kiehl, the
University of Mexico, he's

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driving around in a big van
with an MRI scanner.

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And he goes from penitentiary
to penitentiary.

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And he images the brains
of serial murderers, of

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psychopathic murderers.

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And he's getting things that
are pretty systematically

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different about their brains.

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And the question is, what
does that mean?

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Does that mean those people
were prone to do it for

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reasons of their early
environment or genes or some

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incident that happened?

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If that's the case, do you
forgive them differently?

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Should we have a different moral
code or legal code as we

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discover the brain basis for
some of these things?

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Or is that irrelevant?

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What counts is the action.

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So this is the kind of thing
you can think about, maybe

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discuss in your sections some.

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The more we understand about
the human brain, the more

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we'll understand
about behaviors

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00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:09,125
that we find terrible.

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And what does that mean about
legal and moral decisions

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about how to punish those
or think about those?

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So that's coming in
your lifetime.

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Because there's steady
progress on this.

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And how to think about that
is really a big question.

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So I'm going to talk with you
today about research in

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psychology.

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And a funny thing about
psychology, and I'll come back

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to this, is everybody is an
amateur psychologist.

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They have to be.

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If you deal with people,
you're an amateur

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psychologist.

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Moreover, we live in a world
with Oprah Winfrey and Dr.

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Phil, right?

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So in case you're only an
amateur one, you hear all

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kinds of stuff, newspaper,
internet, magazines.

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Everywhere you go, friends
will tell you stuff about

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psychologists have
found this or

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psychologists have found that.

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So you have your own intuitions
to deal with people

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in everyday life.

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And here's a kind of a sentence
from Time Magazine

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that drives psychologists crazy

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if you take it seriously.

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So here's the literal
sentence.

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"Almost half of children of
divorces enter adulthood as

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worried, underachieving,
self-deprecating, and

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00:07:10,900 --> 00:07:14,460
sometimes angry young
men and women."

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So that sounds kind of like a
psychological study of some

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kind, kind of, right?

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Somebody who wants to argue
about the importance of

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divorce and breakdown
of the family, this

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is the kind of thing.

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00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:26,060
So let's think about
this for a moment.

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Almost half of children
of divorce enter

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adulthood as worried.

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Are you guys worried about
global warming?

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A little.

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Are you worried about peace in
the Middle East and how that

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influences the Middle
East and the US?

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A little.

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Are you worried about an economy
that may not have jobs

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00:07:40,460 --> 00:07:41,280
waiting for you?

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A little.

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Who's not worried a little
bit of the time?

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So it doesn't even tell you that
half of children in the

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00:07:48,730 --> 00:07:50,730
world, for example,
are who come from

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families without divorce.

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Because that's the only
relevant question.

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It's not are people worried
about stuff.

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Underachieving, compared
to what?

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How would you prove somebody's
underachieving scientifically?

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Most of you probably have
had days where you've

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underachieved and days where
you've achieved pretty well.

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But how would you measure
and prove that?

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Self-deprecating, well,
sometimes I think that's

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actually kind of nice if
a person's modest.

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What's the difference between
modest and self-deprecation?

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And I like this one, sometimes
angry young men and women.

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Are you sometimes angry about
something or another?

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00:08:27,180 --> 00:08:29,730
And if you are, does that tell
us that society's breaking

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00:08:29,730 --> 00:08:31,350
down and your parents
did something

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bad that you're sometimes?

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00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:35,500
Who as a human being is
not sometimes angry?

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So here's a kind of
psychology-sounding sentence

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on a serious topic, which is
what is consequences of

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divorce in families?

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Should we be thinking about
things that encourage

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marriages to stay stable
and things like that?

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But there's really no
information at all from a

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00:08:55,020 --> 00:08:56,640
research or science
perspective.

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So I'm going to talk about a
little bit just reminding you

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00:08:58,300 --> 00:09:00,530
what science is, we're at a
university, obviously, that

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00:09:00,530 --> 00:09:03,570
thinks about science and does
science all the time, remind

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00:09:03,570 --> 00:09:05,870
you of what an experiment is,
a very brief history of

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00:09:05,870 --> 00:09:08,290
psychology experimentation, and
then walk you through a

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few experiments that I find kind
of interesting, and then

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some topics related
to psychology.

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So let me start with this.

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How do you know what is true?

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How do you know what is true,
that you take to be true?

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What is the answer?

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Everybody's looking like
how do I know it.

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00:09:27,173 --> 00:09:28,920
Please tell me.

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Well, when people try to analyze
this, and you can

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00:09:31,040 --> 00:09:33,510
think about it for
your own self,

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one of them is authority.

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00:09:35,220 --> 00:09:38,790
Parents, teachers, textbooks,
scientists, professors, and

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courses, we tell you
this is the truth.

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And if you remember the truth
correctly, you get an A. So

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00:09:45,030 --> 00:09:46,420
authority is a huge
source, right?

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It would be costly to go around
and kind of have your

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00:09:47,820 --> 00:09:49,060
own idea about everything.

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00:09:49,060 --> 00:09:50,060
12 inches in a foot?

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00:09:50,060 --> 00:09:51,830
I'm not taking that piece
of information without

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00:09:51,830 --> 00:09:53,180
skepticism, right?

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00:09:53,180 --> 00:09:55,250
You couldn't lead your life
without kind of believing a

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00:09:55,250 --> 00:09:55,820
lot of stuff.

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00:09:55,820 --> 00:09:57,600
But you don't want to believe
everything, right, just

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00:09:57,600 --> 00:09:58,420
because you hear it.

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00:09:58,420 --> 00:10:02,280
Repetition or tenacity, you hear
something often enough,

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00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:05,440
and people tend to
believe stuff.

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00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:06,465
A priori, what's reasonable?

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00:10:06,465 --> 00:10:07,530
You think things through.

250
00:10:07,530 --> 00:10:12,280
Just by thought, what's
possible, rational, and so on?

251
00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:14,900
Then maybe a fourth brand of
knowledge, too, something is

252
00:10:14,900 --> 00:10:17,610
scientific analysis where we
have hypotheses and we test

253
00:10:17,610 --> 00:10:19,900
them and some version of
experiments or at least

254
00:10:19,900 --> 00:10:22,580
correlations among data.

255
00:10:22,580 --> 00:10:28,130
Now, there's another view, which
is kind of whatever we

256
00:10:28,130 --> 00:10:30,510
think makes something science
is what the scientific

257
00:10:30,510 --> 00:10:34,400
community decides as a
community is true.

258
00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:37,590
Roughly speaking that is the
mainstay of faculty of places

259
00:10:37,590 --> 00:10:40,500
like MIT and Stanford and
Harvard and so on and around

260
00:10:40,500 --> 00:10:42,090
the world at universities
tell you, this

261
00:10:42,090 --> 00:10:43,360
is how science works.

262
00:10:43,360 --> 00:10:45,550
You go, OK, that's how
science works.

263
00:10:45,550 --> 00:10:48,850
I remember some years ago there
was a lot of excitement

264
00:10:48,850 --> 00:10:53,000
about a satirical article
written by a scientist where

265
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:55,205
he said, oh, this is all just
societal authority.

266
00:10:55,205 --> 00:10:57,350
The scientists tell you what's
true just because they believe

267
00:10:57,350 --> 00:10:59,290
in it just like a sports
writer says the

268
00:10:59,290 --> 00:11:00,940
Celtics are the best.

269
00:11:00,940 --> 00:11:02,450
You don't really think that
the sportswriter know

270
00:11:02,450 --> 00:11:04,360
scientifically the Celtics
are the best, right?

271
00:11:07,130 --> 00:11:10,040
He wrote a paper saying that
gravity is simply a consensus

272
00:11:10,040 --> 00:11:12,550
among scientists and a
particular view they're

273
00:11:12,550 --> 00:11:14,860
foisting on society.

274
00:11:14,860 --> 00:11:16,840
But none of us would want to
really go up there and jump

275
00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:18,630
out the window going,
well, gravity is

276
00:11:18,630 --> 00:11:19,540
one person's opinion.

277
00:11:19,540 --> 00:11:22,040
And now here's my
opinion, right?

278
00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:23,100
But it's kind of interesting.

279
00:11:23,100 --> 00:11:25,850
Because for those of you who
go to medical school, for

280
00:11:25,850 --> 00:11:28,770
example, you learn lots of
procedures and so on that the

281
00:11:28,770 --> 00:11:30,260
medical committee believes
is true.

282
00:11:30,260 --> 00:11:32,310
But there's not much scientific
evidence behind it.

283
00:11:32,310 --> 00:11:34,810
But they have to use
it every day.

284
00:11:34,810 --> 00:11:37,190
So you're used to hearing about
the scientific method.

285
00:11:37,190 --> 00:11:40,830
It applies to psychology in many
ways just like it applies

286
00:11:40,830 --> 00:11:43,230
to chemistry, physics,
or biology.

287
00:11:43,230 --> 00:11:45,970
We have to test things
that are falsifiable.

288
00:11:45,970 --> 00:11:48,350
We have to deal in probabilities
of outcomes in

289
00:11:48,350 --> 00:11:51,100
terms of statistics
in some sense.

290
00:11:51,100 --> 00:11:53,970
The kinds of data we can have
are descriptive or correlative

291
00:11:53,970 --> 00:11:55,540
or experimental.

292
00:11:55,540 --> 00:11:57,450
I'll talk about those
in a moment.

293
00:11:57,450 --> 00:12:00,140
We are always trying to disprove
the null hypothesis

294
00:12:00,140 --> 00:12:01,470
statistically as you know.

295
00:12:01,470 --> 00:12:02,900
We can't prove that
something is true.

296
00:12:02,900 --> 00:12:05,470
But we can prove that
it's not true.

297
00:12:05,470 --> 00:12:10,080
And then finally, like all
fields of science, today's

298
00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:12,470
most exciting breakthroughs
are tomorrow's things that

299
00:12:12,470 --> 00:12:15,450
have to be apologized for
and rediscovered, right?

300
00:12:15,450 --> 00:12:18,300
I mean what makes something
breaking science is not that

301
00:12:18,300 --> 00:12:19,100
it's known with certainty.

302
00:12:19,100 --> 00:12:20,430
What's known with certainty
is what's in your

303
00:12:20,430 --> 00:12:22,440
textbook kind of.

304
00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:24,160
What makes something breaking
science is it

305
00:12:24,160 --> 00:12:25,460
moves the field forward.

306
00:12:25,460 --> 00:12:27,180
So what's the difference between
the cutting edge and

307
00:12:27,180 --> 00:12:31,220
the bleeding edge is
a very close call.

308
00:12:31,220 --> 00:12:34,710
So here's a cartoon that says,
he's constantly proving his

309
00:12:34,710 --> 00:12:36,910
experiments wrong.

310
00:12:36,910 --> 00:12:38,530
And the guy's kind of
glum looking over.

311
00:12:38,530 --> 00:12:41,370
He's proving the null hypothesis
to be correct.

312
00:12:41,370 --> 00:12:44,630
Now, that's sort of funny
for scientists.

313
00:12:44,630 --> 00:12:47,590
But it's sort of funny in the
sense that, no, we don't

314
00:12:47,590 --> 00:12:51,140
really go around going, I hope
with all of my heart for this

315
00:12:51,140 --> 00:12:53,260
research project I worked on for
the last five years that

316
00:12:53,260 --> 00:12:55,360
it will prove the
null hypothesis.

317
00:12:55,360 --> 00:12:57,910
There's no difference between
things I'm studying.

318
00:12:57,910 --> 00:13:01,220
In fact, scientists, like all
humans, have agendas and hopes

319
00:13:01,220 --> 00:13:03,000
like everybody else.

320
00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:05,130
So they observe, hypothesize,
experiment.

321
00:13:05,130 --> 00:13:09,000
So the data, it doesn't always
go perfectly, right?

322
00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:11,230
And the last thing I want to say
is I'm going to emphasize

323
00:13:11,230 --> 00:13:15,620
today a scientific approach to
the human mind and behavior.

324
00:13:15,620 --> 00:13:18,870
But of course, there's many
other paths of knowledge for

325
00:13:18,870 --> 00:13:21,260
important things in our life:
religion, philosophy,

326
00:13:21,260 --> 00:13:22,280
arts, and so on.

327
00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:24,210
There's many things that
science cannot address.

328
00:13:24,210 --> 00:13:26,250
And I don't want to pretend
that it does.

329
00:13:26,250 --> 00:13:27,710
That's not a problem
too much when

330
00:13:27,710 --> 00:13:28,740
you think about chemistry.

331
00:13:28,740 --> 00:13:30,340
It's kind of an interesting
problem when you think about

332
00:13:30,340 --> 00:13:31,140
psychology.

333
00:13:31,140 --> 00:13:34,010
Because when we think about
happiness or values or things

334
00:13:34,010 --> 00:13:37,800
like that, those topics cut
across psychology and things

335
00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:41,400
like religion, philosophy,
and topics like that.

336
00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:44,250
So what makes something an
experiment is you have to have

337
00:13:44,250 --> 00:13:46,910
sort of two things conceptually
especially, the

338
00:13:46,910 --> 00:13:50,140
dependent variable, what you
measure, the outcome, and the

339
00:13:50,140 --> 00:13:52,440
independent variable,
what you vary.

340
00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:54,630
Once you have those things in an
experiment, you're kind of

341
00:13:54,630 --> 00:13:57,370
an experiment in
a broad sense.

342
00:13:57,370 --> 00:13:59,470
So in psychology, it
took a long time.

343
00:13:59,470 --> 00:14:01,430
It wasn't until the 1800's that
people had kind of an

344
00:14:01,430 --> 00:14:05,070
approach to doing experiments
in psychology and figuring

345
00:14:05,070 --> 00:14:08,860
out, for example, how to use the
simple measurement of time

346
00:14:08,860 --> 00:14:12,890
to measure how long a mental
operation lasts in your mind.

347
00:14:12,890 --> 00:14:14,060
So that's pretty cool.

348
00:14:14,060 --> 00:14:16,000
If you were to come to a fifth
grader and say, how would you

349
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:21,800
measure, not a brick or a stone,
but how long a thought

350
00:14:21,800 --> 00:14:24,840
takes, you would say, well,
that would be pretty hard.

351
00:14:24,840 --> 00:14:28,430
But it turns out it's not
as hard in a simple way.

352
00:14:28,430 --> 00:14:31,750
So Wilhelm Wundt, big figure in
psychology, first textbook

353
00:14:31,750 --> 00:14:34,440
in psychology, first laboratory
in psychology, did

354
00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:37,520
the following test of mental
chronometry, simply measuring

355
00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:39,220
how long it takes you
to do things.

356
00:14:39,220 --> 00:14:41,120
So he would show you a light.

357
00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:42,410
And you'd simply press
the button.

358
00:14:42,410 --> 00:14:45,760
And that would take about
1/5 of a second.

359
00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:48,090
And then he would say,
instead, you do this.

360
00:14:48,090 --> 00:14:50,730
If the light turns on and it's
red, you push one button.

361
00:14:50,730 --> 00:14:52,480
And if it's green,
you push another.

362
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:55,490
So his idea was the motor system
to push the button is

363
00:14:55,490 --> 00:14:56,560
about the same.

364
00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,870
The time to observe the light
is about the same.

365
00:14:59,870 --> 00:15:02,770
But the difference between these
two is how long it takes

366
00:15:02,770 --> 00:15:06,920
to make a choice, how long it
takes to make a choice.

367
00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:09,420
And that difference, when he
subtracts them, took about

368
00:15:09,420 --> 00:15:11,940
1/10 of a the second by
that measurement.

369
00:15:11,940 --> 00:15:13,800
So all of sudden you could
start to measure, in an

370
00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:17,330
objective sense, how long
a mental operation

371
00:15:17,330 --> 00:15:20,260
takes in your mind.

372
00:15:20,260 --> 00:15:21,880
Then psychology went a lot
of different directions.

373
00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:24,190
A famous one from Titchener,
who worked with Wundt,

374
00:15:24,190 --> 00:15:26,670
developed a psychology
department at Cornell, was

375
00:15:26,670 --> 00:15:28,060
introspection, look
inside yourself

376
00:15:28,060 --> 00:15:29,530
and think very carefully.

377
00:15:29,530 --> 00:15:33,360
When you think about a topic,
how do I think about it?

378
00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:36,340
That lost its way as a
scientific method.

379
00:15:36,340 --> 00:15:38,980
The trouble is one person
thinks one way.

380
00:15:38,980 --> 00:15:40,420
And one person thinks
another way.

381
00:15:40,420 --> 00:15:42,470
And you can't really
settle it, right?

382
00:15:42,470 --> 00:15:45,610
So introspection about your
thoughts is a private process.

383
00:15:45,610 --> 00:15:47,800
It's not a public measure that
you can exchange among

384
00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:50,570
scientists, like time
or measurements.

385
00:15:50,570 --> 00:15:52,530
But we still introspect a
lot when we think about

386
00:15:52,530 --> 00:15:54,230
psychology, whether it feels
right to us, what are the

387
00:15:54,230 --> 00:15:55,120
questions to ask.

388
00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:57,540
But still just being human, you
can't help but introspect

389
00:15:57,540 --> 00:15:59,680
about psychology topics.

390
00:15:59,680 --> 00:16:04,210
In the US, there was a sort
of a huge response to

391
00:16:04,210 --> 00:16:07,230
introspection as being
too loosey goosey.

392
00:16:07,230 --> 00:16:09,070
One famous name in this
is John Watson.

393
00:16:09,070 --> 00:16:11,640
He said the mind is
unobservable.

394
00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:15,020
So we can only study behavior,
things that people do,

395
00:16:15,020 --> 00:16:15,800
actions they take.

396
00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:16,620
Their mouth moves.

397
00:16:16,620 --> 00:16:18,290
Their hand presses.

398
00:16:18,290 --> 00:16:20,800
And then we identify what in
the environment influences

399
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:22,190
those behaviors.

400
00:16:22,190 --> 00:16:24,540
The principles of the mind
should be similar between

401
00:16:24,540 --> 00:16:25,900
animals and humans.

402
00:16:25,900 --> 00:16:28,390
And that the only thing a
responsible experimental

403
00:16:28,390 --> 00:16:29,870
scientist can do is relate

404
00:16:29,870 --> 00:16:33,370
environmental factors to actions.

405
00:16:33,370 --> 00:16:34,640
And so there's a stimulus.

406
00:16:34,640 --> 00:16:36,410
And you can control the stimulus
as a scientist.

407
00:16:36,410 --> 00:16:37,100
There's a response.

408
00:16:37,100 --> 00:16:38,280
You measure the response.

409
00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:41,270
And that's your psychology
experiment.

410
00:16:41,270 --> 00:16:44,820
And then the 1980's became
the cognitive revolution.

411
00:16:44,820 --> 00:16:47,910
Partly this path lead to not,
after a while, to not very

412
00:16:47,910 --> 00:16:48,970
interesting science.

413
00:16:48,970 --> 00:16:50,490
That was the biggest problem.

414
00:16:50,490 --> 00:16:53,670
And people said, no, we can make
inferences about the mind

415
00:16:53,670 --> 00:16:56,750
as it translates what it hears
or sees into what a person

416
00:16:56,750 --> 00:17:01,280
does so representations or
knowledge in the mind or in

417
00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:03,900
the brain later on and how that
translates what's out

418
00:17:03,900 --> 00:17:06,420
there and how you act upon it.

419
00:17:06,420 --> 00:17:09,440
So I'll remind you of a
couple more things.

420
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:10,930
And then we'll get
to specifics.

421
00:17:10,930 --> 00:17:14,410
So correlations you can only get
in an experiment, right,

422
00:17:14,410 --> 00:17:16,490
where you have an independent
variable.

423
00:17:16,490 --> 00:17:17,030
Sorry.

424
00:17:17,030 --> 00:17:18,819
Correlations you can look
at all the time.

425
00:17:18,819 --> 00:17:22,700
Experiments only allows
us to infer causation.

426
00:17:22,700 --> 00:17:25,900
So let's pick an example when
I read that struck me as

427
00:17:25,900 --> 00:17:29,240
slightly relevant so age
of parent and risk for

428
00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:30,960
disease in a child.

429
00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:33,350
So most of you are young enough
that you're not too

430
00:17:33,350 --> 00:17:34,130
worried about this yet.

431
00:17:34,130 --> 00:17:35,430
And you have no reason to be.

432
00:17:35,430 --> 00:17:37,490
But for those of us who are
in my generation and some

433
00:17:37,490 --> 00:17:41,810
generations back, many people
are postponing childbirth as

434
00:17:41,810 --> 00:17:44,240
they do their careers and
complete different tasks.

435
00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:46,170
And parents are getting older.

436
00:17:46,170 --> 00:17:47,790
They don't only seem old.

437
00:17:47,790 --> 00:17:51,060
They are old.

438
00:17:51,060 --> 00:17:55,590
It's the case statistically
that, the older the mother is,

439
00:17:55,590 --> 00:17:57,190
the higher the risk of
Down's Syndrome.

440
00:17:57,190 --> 00:17:59,720
So the statistics are, if a
mother is age 20 to 24, it's

441
00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:02,410
very rare to have
Down's Syndrome.

442
00:18:02,410 --> 00:18:05,370
And the number goes up
dramatically if the mother is

443
00:18:05,370 --> 00:18:06,960
over age 42.

444
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,970
So this is simple observation
and measurement.

445
00:18:09,970 --> 00:18:11,880
But it's something a lot of
women giving birth in their

446
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:15,070
30s and 40s are thinking about
and worrying about.

447
00:18:15,070 --> 00:18:17,750
And it's a thing
on their mind.

448
00:18:17,750 --> 00:18:21,780
Up until relatively recently men
said, oh, it's too bad for

449
00:18:21,780 --> 00:18:22,270
those women.

450
00:18:22,270 --> 00:18:24,470
But no problem for us.

451
00:18:24,470 --> 00:18:27,890
So you have the movie star,
right, who's 90 years old and

452
00:18:27,890 --> 00:18:30,630
marries a 20-year-old actress,
right, that kind of model that

453
00:18:30,630 --> 00:18:32,930
you see all the time.

454
00:18:32,930 --> 00:18:34,410
Because it doesn't matter
how old the guy is.

455
00:18:34,410 --> 00:18:37,320
Well, it turns out
it does matter.

456
00:18:37,320 --> 00:18:39,060
And here's some data for that.

457
00:18:39,060 --> 00:18:43,230
So here's the probability of
developing schizophrenia, a

458
00:18:43,230 --> 00:18:46,450
disease that's typically
diagnosed in a person's late

459
00:18:46,450 --> 00:18:51,040
adolescence or 20s depending
on the age of the father.

460
00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:53,200
And you can see if the father
is less than 25,

461
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,790
it's one out of 141.

462
00:18:55,790 --> 00:18:59,240
If the father is in his 50s,
it becomes one out of 50, a

463
00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:02,420
dramatic growth in the
likelihood of an offspring

464
00:19:02,420 --> 00:19:05,130
child having schizophrenia
depending on

465
00:19:05,130 --> 00:19:06,380
the age of the father.

466
00:19:08,580 --> 00:19:12,480
Now, there's a correlation
between age and whether a

467
00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:14,760
child expresses schizophrenia.

468
00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:19,570
So let's guess about the
possible causes of that.

469
00:19:19,570 --> 00:19:20,910
I can tell you, it's unknown.

470
00:19:20,910 --> 00:19:24,870
But let's even begin
to guess about it.

471
00:19:24,870 --> 00:19:26,120
Let me ask you to
guess about it.

472
00:19:32,810 --> 00:19:33,630
Yeah?

473
00:19:33,630 --> 00:19:38,040
AUDIENCE: Maybe the gametes
become damaged by age.

474
00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:41,990
PROFESSOR: Yeah, bad sperm,
right, for some reason, in

475
00:19:41,990 --> 00:19:45,440
some way, and sperm that leads
more likely to be risk for

476
00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:47,530
schizophrenia.

477
00:19:47,530 --> 00:19:48,700
That's your first intuition.

478
00:19:48,700 --> 00:19:51,660
And that may turn out to be
right, something problematic

479
00:19:51,660 --> 00:19:52,910
about the sperm from the male.

480
00:19:55,630 --> 00:19:56,840
Here's another one, though.

481
00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:03,860
And this shows you the
challenges with correlational

482
00:20:03,860 --> 00:20:05,920
research on something even so
important as this, which is

483
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:08,050
how about an alternative,
which is who

484
00:20:08,050 --> 00:20:09,860
marries later in life?

485
00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:15,360
Maybe the desirable men are
plucked off the market on

486
00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:18,550
average in large statistics
by age 30 or something.

487
00:20:18,550 --> 00:20:20,800
And a bunch of us-- and
I'm a late marrier--

488
00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:24,300
limp to find some woman around
the world who will accept us.

489
00:20:24,300 --> 00:20:28,300
And finally, out of pity, some
woman says, OK, drag yourself

490
00:20:28,300 --> 00:20:30,510
into your 50s and
I'll take you.

491
00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:35,510
Because it's not random
probably.

492
00:20:35,510 --> 00:20:37,010
We're averaging over
many people.

493
00:20:37,010 --> 00:20:40,260
But it's not random probably who
marries at 25 in a given

494
00:20:40,260 --> 00:20:41,720
society and who marries at 50.

495
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:43,240
It's not random.

496
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:45,510
It could be big differences
among the--

497
00:20:45,510 --> 00:20:46,840
and how can we tell
that difference?

498
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:48,340
Maybe it's nothing to
do with the sperm.

499
00:20:48,340 --> 00:20:52,860
Maybe it's something about the
genes and environment that

500
00:20:52,860 --> 00:20:56,330
goes with being a parent in your
50s versus being a parent

501
00:20:56,330 --> 00:20:57,430
in your 20s.

502
00:20:57,430 --> 00:21:00,030
Completely different
explanations, someday maybe

503
00:21:00,030 --> 00:21:00,850
we'll know.

504
00:21:00,850 --> 00:21:02,410
But we don't know now.

505
00:21:02,410 --> 00:21:03,810
So this is the limits
of correlations.

506
00:21:03,810 --> 00:21:05,460
And both could be
true, neither.

507
00:21:05,460 --> 00:21:08,360
It could be a third
story altogether.

508
00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:12,850
So that was about me, my
becoming a parent late in life

509
00:21:12,850 --> 00:21:13,810
and marrying late in life.

510
00:21:13,810 --> 00:21:15,390
Let's talk about you.

511
00:21:15,390 --> 00:21:18,200
So let's talk about the level
of stress you have and how

512
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:22,210
empathetic you are on average,
your college generation

513
00:21:22,210 --> 00:21:25,370
relative to ones five or
10 or 20 years ago.

514
00:21:25,370 --> 00:21:26,380
So let's ask that question.

515
00:21:26,380 --> 00:21:28,190
Why would people want to
know such a thing?

516
00:21:31,910 --> 00:21:34,930
Well, you might want to
understand what pressures are

517
00:21:34,930 --> 00:21:38,260
we putting young people under
as they go through grade

518
00:21:38,260 --> 00:21:40,760
school and high school
and college.

519
00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:41,610
What's the world like?

520
00:21:41,610 --> 00:21:42,680
Is it pretty much the same?

521
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,900
Is it pretty much changing?

522
00:21:45,900 --> 00:21:47,210
Now, how would we figure that?

523
00:21:47,210 --> 00:21:48,660
How would we begin
to measure that?

524
00:21:51,820 --> 00:21:53,440
It's a very simple question.

525
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:57,930
Are you more stressed than
people 10 years ago at MIT on

526
00:21:57,930 --> 00:22:00,310
average across the country?

527
00:22:00,310 --> 00:22:02,230
And are you more or
less empathetic

528
00:22:02,230 --> 00:22:03,480
towards other people?

529
00:22:06,350 --> 00:22:09,550
How might one answer that
kind of a question?

530
00:22:09,550 --> 00:22:10,507
Yeah?

531
00:22:10,507 --> 00:22:11,501
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

532
00:22:11,501 --> 00:22:13,986
we know a little bit about
hormones to the extent

533
00:22:13,986 --> 00:22:16,980
[INAUDIBLE].

534
00:22:16,980 --> 00:22:19,110
PROFESSOR: That would be a
very interesting path.

535
00:22:19,110 --> 00:22:20,350
It's a tough research path.

536
00:22:20,350 --> 00:22:21,010
But you're right.

537
00:22:21,010 --> 00:22:23,400
If we had some biological
signature of stress, that

538
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:23,930
would be a good one.

539
00:22:23,930 --> 00:22:25,550
But let's ask this question.

540
00:22:25,550 --> 00:22:27,570
Let's say I measured everybody
in here and got your average

541
00:22:27,570 --> 00:22:29,850
stress hormone or something
like that.

542
00:22:29,850 --> 00:22:34,570
Now what's my answer about
whether 10 years ago people

543
00:22:34,570 --> 00:22:36,500
were more or less stressed?

544
00:22:36,500 --> 00:22:37,280
Yeah?

545
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:40,370
AUDIENCE: We could look
at suicide rates.

546
00:22:40,370 --> 00:22:42,050
PROFESSOR: That would
be an outcome of it.

547
00:22:42,050 --> 00:22:43,550
Yeah, that would be sadly
an extreme outcome

548
00:22:43,550 --> 00:22:44,950
of stress of a kind.

549
00:22:44,950 --> 00:22:47,050
But there's a lot of things
that are going--

550
00:22:47,050 --> 00:22:50,090
So you have to worry
about two things.

551
00:22:50,090 --> 00:22:52,340
One thing we know is-- let
me ask another one.

552
00:22:52,340 --> 00:22:56,850
You could compare your level of
stress to people who are 10

553
00:22:56,850 --> 00:22:59,110
years older than you or 20
years older than you.

554
00:22:59,110 --> 00:23:00,360
What do you think about that?

555
00:23:03,540 --> 00:23:05,380
Yeah?

556
00:23:05,380 --> 00:23:06,196
Yeah?

557
00:23:06,196 --> 00:23:09,668
AUDIENCE: It would actually be
more accurate if you measured,

558
00:23:09,668 --> 00:23:12,148
if you want to know for college
students specifically,

559
00:23:12,148 --> 00:23:15,620
you'd have to be the baseline
of yourself from somewhere

560
00:23:15,620 --> 00:23:17,620
[INAUDIBLE].

561
00:23:17,620 --> 00:23:21,260
PROFESSOR: Yeah, because maybe
people who are 30 or 40 are

562
00:23:21,260 --> 00:23:23,690
more stressed for other reasons
because they have more

563
00:23:23,690 --> 00:23:26,120
bills and mortgages to pay or
less stressed for other

564
00:23:26,120 --> 00:23:27,410
reasons or whatever, right?

565
00:23:27,410 --> 00:23:30,300
Maybe it's not about the
generation you're in.

566
00:23:30,300 --> 00:23:32,530
Maybe it's about being
a person with more

567
00:23:32,530 --> 00:23:34,980
responsibilities at 40, right?

568
00:23:34,980 --> 00:23:37,430
So for some things you
get some luck.

569
00:23:37,430 --> 00:23:39,470
And you have it in your hands.

570
00:23:39,470 --> 00:23:43,100
So here's an emotional health
questionnaire where students

571
00:23:43,100 --> 00:23:47,420
across the country for the last
25 years have been given

572
00:23:47,420 --> 00:23:49,110
the identical questionnaire.

573
00:23:49,110 --> 00:23:51,730
It's a questionnaire, it's not a
biology measure, about their

574
00:23:51,730 --> 00:23:54,640
self-reported measure
of stress.

575
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,780
And this was on the New York
Times just a few weeks ago.

576
00:23:57,780 --> 00:24:01,230
It's you guys on average across
the country, US college

577
00:24:01,230 --> 00:24:04,610
students, are at an all
time high level of

578
00:24:04,610 --> 00:24:07,970
self-reported stress.

579
00:24:07,970 --> 00:24:09,220
Sorry about that.

580
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:14,930
It's not the perfect measurement
in every way.

581
00:24:14,930 --> 00:24:16,610
But it's the same questionnaire
to college

582
00:24:16,610 --> 00:24:18,080
students year in and year out.

583
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,130
By self-report, people say,
I feel more stressed.

584
00:24:21,130 --> 00:24:23,300
You can also see that
there's a difference

585
00:24:23,300 --> 00:24:24,650
between men and women.

586
00:24:24,650 --> 00:24:30,270
Women, on average, report
feeling more stressed.

587
00:24:30,270 --> 00:24:32,860
And it may be relevant that on
average, for example, there's

588
00:24:32,860 --> 00:24:37,220
a higher rate of depression
among women than men.

589
00:24:37,220 --> 00:24:39,850
There's a much higher rate of
autism among men than women.

590
00:24:39,850 --> 00:24:45,310
So being one sex or the other
is not a gift certificate of

591
00:24:45,310 --> 00:24:48,880
avoiding mental health
challenges.

592
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:50,740
So you're more stressed
than ever.

593
00:24:50,740 --> 00:24:51,850
Good luck.

594
00:24:51,850 --> 00:24:53,690
We'll try to do the best we
can in this course to not

595
00:24:53,690 --> 00:24:54,980
worry that way worse.

596
00:24:54,980 --> 00:24:56,795
But it's something
to think about.

597
00:24:56,795 --> 00:24:59,340
I got a call the other day from
somebody who said there's

598
00:24:59,340 --> 00:25:03,040
a lot of curiosity about whether
the shift from book

599
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:07,460
learning and book reading to
internet worlds and Twitter

600
00:25:07,460 --> 00:25:10,570
and Facebook worlds are
fundamentally changing how

601
00:25:10,570 --> 00:25:12,580
people think.

602
00:25:12,580 --> 00:25:14,880
And that sounds kind
of possible.

603
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:16,970
And there are people who give
amazingly entertaining

604
00:25:16,970 --> 00:25:19,550
lectures about these things.

605
00:25:19,550 --> 00:25:22,210
Scientifically, it's
unbelievably hard to imagine

606
00:25:22,210 --> 00:25:24,010
how we would ever answer that.

607
00:25:24,010 --> 00:25:26,260
So when I get occasional phone
calls like what do

608
00:25:26,260 --> 00:25:28,040
neuroscientists know about
that, what could

609
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:29,140
they know about it?

610
00:25:29,140 --> 00:25:32,260
Is that even an answerable
question?

611
00:25:32,260 --> 00:25:34,540
If I take you now and say, well,
you've probably done

612
00:25:34,540 --> 00:25:37,670
more Facebook than a 50-year-old
and compare you to

613
00:25:37,670 --> 00:25:40,860
a 50-year-old on some other
thing, is that going to answer

614
00:25:40,860 --> 00:25:44,340
the question of how you think
about ideas given the world

615
00:25:44,340 --> 00:25:47,310
you live in versus the world
the 50-year-old lived in?

616
00:25:47,310 --> 00:25:48,760
No.

617
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,650
So there's just a lot of huge
deep things about changes in

618
00:25:51,650 --> 00:25:53,650
the world that we can't
even begin to get at.

619
00:25:53,650 --> 00:25:54,490
Sometimes we get lucky.

620
00:25:54,490 --> 00:25:55,890
And people have been giving
some particular

621
00:25:55,890 --> 00:25:57,910
measure for some time.

622
00:25:57,910 --> 00:26:01,120
Empathy, by self-report--

623
00:26:01,120 --> 00:26:03,250
and now I wouldn't
fill it out now.

624
00:26:03,250 --> 00:26:04,390
But you can take a look
just to get a

625
00:26:04,390 --> 00:26:06,010
feeling at your leisure.

626
00:26:06,010 --> 00:26:08,150
This is the questionnaire
they used for

627
00:26:08,150 --> 00:26:09,410
self-reported empathy.

628
00:26:09,410 --> 00:26:15,080
It's self-report, 40% lower
today than 20 years ago.

629
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,500
So on average you guys,
literally, on average by these

630
00:26:18,500 --> 00:26:20,360
measures, are more
stressed and less

631
00:26:20,360 --> 00:26:22,600
empathetic towards others.

632
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:23,850
Sorry.

633
00:26:25,570 --> 00:26:26,680
This is not an individual.

634
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:27,720
This is an average, right?

635
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,930
So the levels that society
operates, things are going on

636
00:26:31,930 --> 00:26:34,310
and moving for some reason.

637
00:26:34,310 --> 00:26:36,920
By the way, I can tell you that,
when I'm stressed, I

638
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:39,150
have less room to
be empathetic.

639
00:26:39,150 --> 00:26:40,440
So maybe these things
are related.

640
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,740
If you're feeling stressed, your
first thought is not how

641
00:26:42,740 --> 00:26:45,720
can I help others but how can
I just get through the day?

642
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:49,040
So these things might
be related.

643
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,950
So let's turn a little bit to
experimentation and some of

644
00:26:53,950 --> 00:26:57,590
the challenges of relating
psychology to real world

645
00:26:57,590 --> 00:27:00,070
policies that are meant to make
the world better or safer

646
00:27:00,070 --> 00:27:01,280
in some way.

647
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:03,410
So there's a famous broken
window theory from the

648
00:27:03,410 --> 00:27:05,590
political scientist James Wilson
and the criminologist

649
00:27:05,590 --> 00:27:06,150
George Kelling.

650
00:27:06,150 --> 00:27:09,460
And their idea was this that,
especially in neighborhoods

651
00:27:09,460 --> 00:27:13,370
that are not immaculately kept
or to say it the other way

652
00:27:13,370 --> 00:27:16,040
where there's a lot of damage
around you, things like broken

653
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:19,130
windows is the phrase they used,
that this promotes in

654
00:27:19,130 --> 00:27:21,180
people who live in that
community or work around that

655
00:27:21,180 --> 00:27:23,970
community to sense that
the rules don't count.

656
00:27:23,970 --> 00:27:25,580
Anybody can do anything.

657
00:27:25,580 --> 00:27:29,180
And then it fosters the growth
of petty crimes.

658
00:27:29,180 --> 00:27:31,510
And once you do a petty crime,
you're more vulnerable or

659
00:27:31,510 --> 00:27:35,650
willing to do a major crime,
a slippery slope.

660
00:27:35,650 --> 00:27:42,010
And in fact, Rudy Giuliani and
Commissioner Bill Bratton

661
00:27:42,010 --> 00:27:42,600
employed this.

662
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:46,380
They asked the police to write
lots of tickets and make lots

663
00:27:46,380 --> 00:27:49,180
of sort of minor arrests for
things where people weren't

664
00:27:49,180 --> 00:27:52,090
upkeeping the environment to
where they were littering or

665
00:27:52,090 --> 00:27:53,310
things like that.

666
00:27:53,310 --> 00:27:54,260
And this is a huge debate.

667
00:27:54,260 --> 00:27:57,320
Because in a police department
you can only do so much.

668
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,110
So if they have a person working
on jaywalking and

669
00:28:00,110 --> 00:28:03,790
littering, that's a person not
working on major crime rings

670
00:28:03,790 --> 00:28:06,790
so to try to make a choice where
they think they can make

671
00:28:06,790 --> 00:28:09,650
community safer in the
most effective way.

672
00:28:09,650 --> 00:28:11,860
And the crimes went way
down in New York.

673
00:28:11,860 --> 00:28:16,430
In most cities now, you don't
hear crime discussed as a big

674
00:28:16,430 --> 00:28:17,800
topic nationally.

675
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:19,960
In some local areas, like
in Boston, some

676
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,010
specific areas, you do.

677
00:28:22,010 --> 00:28:24,810
I don't think in the State of
the Union there was a word

678
00:28:24,810 --> 00:28:27,050
about crime that I can
remember a week ago.

679
00:28:27,050 --> 00:28:28,870
It's not a big national topic.

680
00:28:28,870 --> 00:28:32,260
In some local places, it is a
big topic, but not nationally.

681
00:28:32,260 --> 00:28:35,390
So you don't know some years ago
when people said New York

682
00:28:35,390 --> 00:28:37,990
City was this horrible place
to go because there was so

683
00:28:37,990 --> 00:28:40,310
much crime that you'd walk out
from your airplane and get

684
00:28:40,310 --> 00:28:43,660
mugged before you made
it to your taxi.

685
00:28:43,660 --> 00:28:45,590
It was like the whole country
was saying big cities were

686
00:28:45,590 --> 00:28:49,300
just crime-ridden
and dangerous.

687
00:28:49,300 --> 00:28:50,430
They do this policy.

688
00:28:50,430 --> 00:28:51,830
Things get better.

689
00:28:51,830 --> 00:28:53,240
So everybody says, hmm, that
sounds pretty good.

690
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:54,540
But of course, it's
not an experiment.

691
00:28:54,540 --> 00:28:56,110
It's a real life policy.

692
00:28:56,110 --> 00:28:59,560
And then people had these kind
of incredibly clever

693
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,410
reinterpretations of why
crime went down.

694
00:29:03,410 --> 00:29:07,400
So the wildest one was in
Freakononimics was discussed

695
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:09,890
in that, which said,
well, abortion was

696
00:29:09,890 --> 00:29:11,810
legalized in 1973.

697
00:29:11,810 --> 00:29:15,780
That gave women who didn't have
access to legal abortions

698
00:29:15,780 --> 00:29:20,310
the ability to have them, that
the children, on average, in

699
00:29:20,310 --> 00:29:22,730
these communities that had at
least access to safe and legal

700
00:29:22,730 --> 00:29:25,850
abortions would be poor,
unstable, addiction-ridden

701
00:29:25,850 --> 00:29:28,610
communities statistically.

702
00:29:28,610 --> 00:29:32,460
And so that if you imagined the
reduced abortion rate in

703
00:29:32,460 --> 00:29:36,380
poor areas could, when you
count out the number of

704
00:29:36,380 --> 00:29:39,630
possible criminals in those
areas, account for the

705
00:29:39,630 --> 00:29:42,840
reduction in crime all by
itself, a completely different

706
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:46,050
interpretation that has nothing
to do with the policy.

707
00:29:46,050 --> 00:29:50,210
It just said we can have a
demographic shift, which will

708
00:29:50,210 --> 00:29:53,710
have a weird unexpected
consequence of lowering the

709
00:29:53,710 --> 00:29:58,060
crime rate because it's the
finding that young men, in

710
00:29:58,060 --> 00:30:00,760
particular, are most likely to
engage in violent criminal

711
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:01,015
activities.

712
00:30:01,015 --> 00:30:04,900
It's not an all rule but
a statistical average.

713
00:30:04,900 --> 00:30:08,890
Or there was a big crack
epidemic that reduced.

714
00:30:08,890 --> 00:30:12,530
Or lots of states put in laws
that put people into jail for

715
00:30:12,530 --> 00:30:15,730
much higher, longer periods,
much more severe penalties

716
00:30:15,730 --> 00:30:17,290
with new drug laws.

717
00:30:17,290 --> 00:30:20,810
So it's very hard to know if the
policy that was initiated

718
00:30:20,810 --> 00:30:23,370
really worked or whether
completely other things were

719
00:30:23,370 --> 00:30:25,750
happening that moved
the crime rate.

720
00:30:25,750 --> 00:30:29,410
And here's some very sort
of perverse or other

721
00:30:29,410 --> 00:30:30,850
explanations.

722
00:30:30,850 --> 00:30:33,550
So that left the question,
is broken

723
00:30:33,550 --> 00:30:34,840
windows even a good idea?

724
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:36,480
Just because Harvard--

725
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:37,910
and we know Harvard
is always right--

726
00:30:37,910 --> 00:30:39,720
but just because a Harvard
psychologist says pretty

727
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:42,160
interestingly, that sounds right
to me, is that even a

728
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:43,670
right idea?

729
00:30:43,670 --> 00:30:45,200
So let's take a step back.

730
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:46,840
Can we test that
experimentally?

731
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,800
So here's the experiment.

732
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:51,320
And the idea is, again, that,
when people observe that

733
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,290
others violate a social norm or
legitimate rule, are they

734
00:30:54,290 --> 00:30:55,240
more likely to violate it?

735
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,780
If you see people around you
breaking rules, are you more

736
00:30:57,780 --> 00:30:59,640
likely to do it?

737
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:00,910
And you could say, it
seems like it is.

738
00:31:00,910 --> 00:31:02,720
But let's do the science.

739
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:04,310
So here's an independent
measure.

740
00:31:04,310 --> 00:31:05,670
I'll show you the environment.

741
00:31:05,670 --> 00:31:07,400
The dependent measure is
the number of people

742
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:08,220
who perform a violation.

743
00:31:08,220 --> 00:31:10,460
Now, you can't go getting people
murdering each other

744
00:31:10,460 --> 00:31:11,195
and stuff for an experiment.

745
00:31:11,195 --> 00:31:13,530
But you can do this.

746
00:31:13,530 --> 00:31:14,510
You can have two conditions.

747
00:31:14,510 --> 00:31:17,330
So on the top condition, do you
ever go back to your car

748
00:31:17,330 --> 00:31:19,470
or bike, usually it's cars, I
think, and they put leaflets

749
00:31:19,470 --> 00:31:20,190
in your car?

750
00:31:20,190 --> 00:31:21,010
And now what are you
going to do?

751
00:31:21,010 --> 00:31:21,720
You're running away.

752
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,600
They'll leave the leaflet on
your windshield wiper.

753
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:25,730
So they put it out.

754
00:31:25,730 --> 00:31:28,130
And they either had a wall like
this, which was clean.

755
00:31:28,130 --> 00:31:30,230
There's a sign that
says no graffiti.

756
00:31:30,230 --> 00:31:31,710
And they put on those
white pieces of

757
00:31:31,710 --> 00:31:33,100
paper onto the bikes.

758
00:31:33,100 --> 00:31:36,540
Or they put a lot of graffiti
on the wall.

759
00:31:36,540 --> 00:31:39,540
And people came out from
their classes.

760
00:31:39,540 --> 00:31:40,390
They parked their bike.

761
00:31:40,390 --> 00:31:41,060
They ran into class.

762
00:31:41,060 --> 00:31:41,820
They came out.

763
00:31:41,820 --> 00:31:43,260
And they got all these
white leaflets.

764
00:31:43,260 --> 00:31:44,970
And what they did is watched.

765
00:31:44,970 --> 00:31:47,890
And they said, how many people
put the leaflet away?

766
00:31:47,890 --> 00:31:49,680
And how many people crumpled
it up and threw it right on

767
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,280
the ground?

768
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:53,090
So we don't know what they're
going to do with the leaflet

769
00:31:53,090 --> 00:31:53,720
after they put it away.

770
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:55,130
But we could hope they're
going to throw it out.

771
00:31:55,130 --> 00:31:57,060
But the one thing we know for
sure, if you crumple it up and

772
00:31:57,060 --> 00:31:58,840
throw it on the ground, it's
littering and not a good

773
00:31:58,840 --> 00:31:59,760
social norm.

774
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:04,390
And sure enough, 1/3 of the
people littered if the wall

775
00:32:04,390 --> 00:32:05,480
had no graffiti.

776
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,530
But it more than doubled if
the wall had graffiti.

777
00:32:08,530 --> 00:32:09,550
So that's a small thing.

778
00:32:09,550 --> 00:32:11,490
That's not a broken down,
complicated neighborhood.

779
00:32:11,490 --> 00:32:14,210
But just at that moment, as you
roar out of class, you get

780
00:32:14,210 --> 00:32:15,720
that piece of paper
on your bike.

781
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:17,760
And you see like, wow, this
is a pretty crummy place.

782
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,210
People are breaking the rules
all the time, twice as likely

783
00:32:20,210 --> 00:32:21,570
to throw a piece of paper
on the ground.

784
00:32:21,570 --> 00:32:24,440
So that shows that people very
easily are influenced by very

785
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:27,320
mild perceptions of whether
people are following rules or

786
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,500
not and will be their better
selves or their worse selves

787
00:32:30,500 --> 00:32:33,740
depending on that sense
of are all rules on or

788
00:32:33,740 --> 00:32:34,790
are all rules off.

789
00:32:34,790 --> 00:32:35,890
And there's a pretty good
bet they're not

790
00:32:35,890 --> 00:32:37,080
thinking about it, right?

791
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,280
They're not sitting there
thinking, OK, here's

792
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,900
littering, not as bad
as killing somebody.

793
00:32:43,900 --> 00:32:44,600
Here's the wall.

794
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:45,750
Well, there's 30% graffiti.

795
00:32:45,750 --> 00:32:46,630
I mean nobody does that.

796
00:32:46,630 --> 00:32:48,250
They have an emotion
quick response.

797
00:32:48,250 --> 00:32:51,510
But the environment makes a
difference in that regard.

798
00:32:51,510 --> 00:32:55,390
So an important thing about
studies like this, so let me

799
00:32:55,390 --> 00:32:56,440
tell you about this one.

800
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:58,330
Here's a study to look at a
drug that was supposed to

801
00:32:58,330 --> 00:33:00,960
lower mortality from coronary
artery disease.

802
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,040
So those who took the drug, 80%
or more, because people

803
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,090
follow whether you take the
drug, if you don't take the

804
00:33:05,090 --> 00:33:08,370
drug, of course, the drug
won't work, had a 15%

805
00:33:08,370 --> 00:33:11,060
mortality rate within
five years.

806
00:33:11,060 --> 00:33:14,850
Those who took the drug less
than 80% had a 25% mortality.

807
00:33:14,850 --> 00:33:18,020
So you'd say, well, 10% better
chance of living for five

808
00:33:18,020 --> 00:33:20,860
years, that's worth it.

809
00:33:20,860 --> 00:33:22,470
The nice thing is they
had a placebo.

810
00:33:22,470 --> 00:33:26,370
And there was no difference
whatsoever between those who

811
00:33:26,370 --> 00:33:29,720
took the active drug and those
who took the placebo.

812
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,900
The difference was those who
followed the instructions to

813
00:33:32,900 --> 00:33:37,170
take the pill and those
who didn't.

814
00:33:37,170 --> 00:33:38,420
So what does that mean?

815
00:33:38,420 --> 00:33:40,500
How do you interpret that?

816
00:33:40,500 --> 00:33:42,010
It's not the drug.

817
00:33:42,010 --> 00:33:42,410
Yeah?

818
00:33:42,410 --> 00:33:44,083
AUDIENCE: It could be the stress
of not following the

819
00:33:44,083 --> 00:33:46,575
directions, meaning
it's not working.

820
00:33:46,575 --> 00:33:47,770
PROFESSOR: It could be that.

821
00:33:47,770 --> 00:33:49,520
It could be the stress.

822
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:50,770
It could be that.

823
00:33:50,770 --> 00:33:51,990
But let me make a guess.

824
00:33:51,990 --> 00:33:53,840
There's no scientific
answer to this.

825
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:55,970
People who tend not to follow
instructions, are they mostly

826
00:33:55,970 --> 00:33:59,310
stressed by not following
instructions?

827
00:33:59,310 --> 00:34:01,000
The intuition is they're
blowing it off.

828
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:02,320
They're like, yeah, that's
the instructions.

829
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:04,520
But I got things to do
and places to go.

830
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:06,420
But you could be right.

831
00:34:06,420 --> 00:34:09,310
So anyway, the idea is, what you
pick up is, are people who

832
00:34:09,310 --> 00:34:11,659
tried to take care
of themselves.

833
00:34:11,659 --> 00:34:13,520
They have a health condition.

834
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,310
And the people who are following
the pill instruction

835
00:34:16,310 --> 00:34:19,969
are probably also doing the
best they can in terms of

836
00:34:19,969 --> 00:34:23,679
exercise and diet, all the
things they could do to

837
00:34:23,679 --> 00:34:25,820
maximize their health, right?

838
00:34:25,820 --> 00:34:26,960
And they're taking
their placebo.

839
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:27,719
Or they're taking the drug.

840
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:28,989
They don't know.

841
00:34:28,989 --> 00:34:30,340
But they're doing everything
they can.

842
00:34:30,340 --> 00:34:33,305
And the people who blowing off
stuff, they're the ones who

843
00:34:33,305 --> 00:34:34,969
are doing all the things that
aren't healthy, including not

844
00:34:34,969 --> 00:34:35,960
even taking your pills.

845
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:37,909
I mean, if you don't even
take your pills, right--

846
00:34:37,909 --> 00:34:39,080
Exercise is work.

847
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:39,949
Diet is work.

848
00:34:39,949 --> 00:34:43,380
Popping a pill that's been
handed to you that you're told

849
00:34:43,380 --> 00:34:46,750
might help you is probably
not that much work.

850
00:34:46,750 --> 00:34:48,530
It's what's called
self-selection bias, that you

851
00:34:48,530 --> 00:34:51,530
stand out if you tend to take
care of yourself or not.

852
00:34:54,570 --> 00:34:57,960
So when we run experiments at
universities that involve

853
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,540
people, a huge issue for us is
the idea is this, that we

854
00:35:01,540 --> 00:35:03,050
randomly recruit people.

855
00:35:03,050 --> 00:35:04,690
And we'll come back to
this in a moment.

856
00:35:04,690 --> 00:35:07,090
Then we randomly assign them to
one condition or another,

857
00:35:07,090 --> 00:35:08,430
for example, the placebo

858
00:35:08,430 --> 00:35:09,660
condition or the drug condition.

859
00:35:09,660 --> 00:35:13,340
We randomly assign them to the
messy wall or the clean wall.

860
00:35:13,340 --> 00:35:14,460
We discover something.

861
00:35:14,460 --> 00:35:17,800
And then we try to generalize it
as far as we can to people

862
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:18,240
as a whole.

863
00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:20,240
We've discovered something
fundamental about how humans

864
00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:23,820
work, generalizable principles
of human mind or behavior.

865
00:35:23,820 --> 00:35:25,580
So what really happens
in the world?

866
00:35:25,580 --> 00:35:28,670
And you're in between sort of
the best possible world and

867
00:35:28,670 --> 00:35:30,680
the world we actually live in.

868
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,710
So is it really random who
participates in research

869
00:35:34,710 --> 00:35:37,650
studies in psychology
departments where a lot of the

870
00:35:37,650 --> 00:35:38,400
research gets done.

871
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,040
Is it really random?

872
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:42,560
No.

873
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,100
So who volunteers?

874
00:35:44,100 --> 00:35:45,835
Have any of you volunteered
to be a subject in

875
00:35:45,835 --> 00:35:47,030
an experiment anywhere?

876
00:35:47,030 --> 00:35:49,420
Yeah.

877
00:35:49,420 --> 00:35:52,020
So it's not random.

878
00:35:52,020 --> 00:35:54,520
Some people, they either need
to make a few bucks.

879
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:56,220
Or they're very curious
about psychology.

880
00:35:56,220 --> 00:35:58,090
Or they have a friend
who's in psychology.

881
00:35:58,090 --> 00:35:59,090
It's not random.

882
00:35:59,090 --> 00:36:02,730
And in fact, population-wide,
people have said that

883
00:36:02,730 --> 00:36:04,850
psychology could be described
as WEIRD research for the

884
00:36:04,850 --> 00:36:08,350
following reason, that the vast
majority of the findings

885
00:36:08,350 --> 00:36:11,520
you'll read about everywhere,
including in your textbook,

886
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:15,060
but everywhere are from nations
that are westernized,

887
00:36:15,060 --> 00:36:20,050
educated, industrialized, and
relatively rich democracies.

888
00:36:20,050 --> 00:36:22,216
The vast majority are
between 17 and 25.

889
00:36:22,216 --> 00:36:23,990
They're undergraduates or
graduate students who

890
00:36:23,990 --> 00:36:27,250
participate in research.

891
00:36:27,250 --> 00:36:29,250
It's been estimated that, if
you're a US college student,

892
00:36:29,250 --> 00:36:32,960
you're 4,000 times more likely
to show up in a scientifically

893
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,540
reported experiment than if
you're a person anywhere else

894
00:36:36,540 --> 00:36:39,300
on the planet, 4,000 times.

895
00:36:39,300 --> 00:36:40,600
Because why?

896
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,160
Because it's changing a little
bit but for many, many years

897
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,380
the huge amount of research
happened in the US at

898
00:36:46,380 --> 00:36:49,290
universities, pretty much at
better universities, pretty

899
00:36:49,290 --> 00:36:52,750
much at highly selected
students.

900
00:36:52,750 --> 00:36:54,090
And then we never
publish that.

901
00:36:54,090 --> 00:36:57,210
We never say MIT students
did the following thing.

902
00:36:57,210 --> 00:36:58,570
Because people will say,
yeah, MIT students.

903
00:36:58,570 --> 00:37:00,300
Because then we have a different
report from Stanford

904
00:37:00,300 --> 00:37:02,260
or from UMass or from
Michigan or Texas.

905
00:37:02,260 --> 00:37:05,020
We say, no, humans did
an experiment.

906
00:37:05,020 --> 00:37:08,640
And humans are like this.

907
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:11,680
And it's just something to think
about as you see studies

908
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:12,220
and stuff like that.

909
00:37:12,220 --> 00:37:14,450
And people are more and more
sensitized to that.

910
00:37:14,450 --> 00:37:19,900
As more and more of the world
gets somewhat industrializes,

911
00:37:19,900 --> 00:37:21,380
there's more and more research
around the world.

912
00:37:21,380 --> 00:37:23,960
But still the vast majority
of findings are you guys.

913
00:37:26,460 --> 00:37:29,056
Now, that's just to start with
who's in the subject pool or

914
00:37:29,056 --> 00:37:30,800
the participant pool.

915
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,370
How normal are you when
you do an experiment?

916
00:37:33,370 --> 00:37:34,290
Are you like yourself?

917
00:37:34,290 --> 00:37:35,430
Or are you doing weird stuff?

918
00:37:35,430 --> 00:37:37,930
And people use this idea that
you're really weird when you

919
00:37:37,930 --> 00:37:39,520
do an experiment in
another sense.

920
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:40,900
Because you don't know
what's going on.

921
00:37:40,900 --> 00:37:42,530
You're following instructions.

922
00:37:42,530 --> 00:37:46,210
So they do experiments to show
how ridiculously people behave

923
00:37:46,210 --> 00:37:47,510
when they're doing an experiment
like they would

924
00:37:47,510 --> 00:37:47,940
never do it.

925
00:37:47,940 --> 00:37:49,280
So they ask them to come in.

926
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:51,260
And they say, will you fill out
200 sheets of paper filled

927
00:37:51,260 --> 00:37:53,210
with random digits,
add them pairwise?

928
00:37:53,210 --> 00:37:55,090
And I'll come back
in a few hours.

929
00:37:55,090 --> 00:37:58,570
Now, if a friend asked you to do
that, add random digits for

930
00:37:58,570 --> 00:38:01,530
a couple hours, you would
go no, thank you.

931
00:38:01,530 --> 00:38:03,260
I've got about eight million
better things to

932
00:38:03,260 --> 00:38:04,240
do than that, right?

933
00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:07,500
I could multiply random digits
just to start with.

934
00:38:07,500 --> 00:38:08,850
But people will do
it for hours.

935
00:38:08,850 --> 00:38:11,450
Because they're in this weird
like that's the instruction.

936
00:38:11,450 --> 00:38:12,500
And that's what my mission is.

937
00:38:12,500 --> 00:38:14,190
Or even more ridiculous,
they pick up a

938
00:38:14,190 --> 00:38:15,420
card after each page.

939
00:38:15,420 --> 00:38:18,100
They've added all these numbers
for no good reason.

940
00:38:18,100 --> 00:38:19,980
And the instruction tells them,
when you've done the

941
00:38:19,980 --> 00:38:21,930
page, tear the page
up into 32 pieces.

942
00:38:21,930 --> 00:38:23,580
And here's the next page
and the next page.

943
00:38:23,580 --> 00:38:27,280
It's obviously fruitless and
pointless, ridiculously so.

944
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,030
But because you're in an
experiment and somebody told

945
00:38:29,030 --> 00:38:31,720
you do that, you just keep
barreling forward.

946
00:38:31,720 --> 00:38:34,020
How much are we who we are when
we do experiments versus

947
00:38:34,020 --> 00:38:35,090
people following weird
instructions?

948
00:38:35,090 --> 00:38:37,510
And we'll come back to that
in some serious context.

949
00:38:37,510 --> 00:38:38,200
That's the subjects.

950
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:39,000
How about experimenters?

951
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:40,910
Experimenters are
never objective.

952
00:38:40,910 --> 00:38:43,210
We try to be as scientists
as objective as we can.

953
00:38:43,210 --> 00:38:45,760
We're never, we believe
certain hypotheses.

954
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:47,040
We have certain goals.

955
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,310
We recognize results that
would be super exciting.

956
00:38:49,310 --> 00:38:51,900
We recognize results that
would be boring.

957
00:38:51,900 --> 00:38:53,160
We're humans, too.

958
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:54,370
We want to do stuff
that matters.

959
00:38:54,370 --> 00:38:56,720
We want to do stuff that
people reward us for.

960
00:38:56,720 --> 00:38:57,660
I mean it's just human.

961
00:38:57,660 --> 00:39:02,040
So here's a lowest case example
of how, once you're an

962
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:04,180
experimenter, you produce
your own results.

963
00:39:04,180 --> 00:39:06,600
And believe me, it's much more
when your result matters for

964
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:09,500
things like your career
advancement or your

965
00:39:09,500 --> 00:39:10,720
status in the field.

966
00:39:10,720 --> 00:39:14,740
So students were told that rats
were either maze-bright

967
00:39:14,740 --> 00:39:15,310
or maze-dull.

968
00:39:15,310 --> 00:39:18,290
They were told that these rats
were bred to be smart learners

969
00:39:18,290 --> 00:39:19,540
or not so smart.

970
00:39:19,540 --> 00:39:21,730
The rats were all just
random rats.

971
00:39:21,730 --> 00:39:24,220
It's a fake story to
undergraduates.

972
00:39:24,220 --> 00:39:26,770
Then they had them
test on a maze.

973
00:39:26,770 --> 00:39:28,810
And they said for your
laboratory exercise write down

974
00:39:28,810 --> 00:39:31,675
how quickly the rat
runs the maze.

975
00:39:31,675 --> 00:39:36,600
And amazingly, the smart
rats did way better

976
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,080
than the dull rats.

977
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:41,265
Now, these are not students
trying to become famous or

978
00:39:41,265 --> 00:39:41,680
have a career.

979
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:43,772
They're handing in
an assignment.

980
00:39:43,772 --> 00:39:46,810
And how did that happen?

981
00:39:46,810 --> 00:39:47,530
Well, they went back.

982
00:39:47,530 --> 00:39:48,826
And it wasn't that anyone
faked data or

983
00:39:48,826 --> 00:39:49,350
anything like that.

984
00:39:49,350 --> 00:39:52,170
But when they looked at films or
discussed stuff with kids,

985
00:39:52,170 --> 00:39:55,650
students in the course, every
little thing that the students

986
00:39:55,650 --> 00:40:00,820
did that moved the data in tiny,
tiny ways always favored

987
00:40:00,820 --> 00:40:04,420
finding the maze-bright rats
being brilliant maze runners.

988
00:40:04,420 --> 00:40:07,440
So for example, they would put
the rat-- if you've ever run a

989
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:09,290
rat in a maze, has anyone
run a rat in a maze?

990
00:40:09,290 --> 00:40:09,730
Yeah?

991
00:40:09,730 --> 00:40:12,120
Is it easy?

992
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:14,210
Have you picked them up and
put them in the maze?

993
00:40:14,210 --> 00:40:15,810
It's more automated now.

994
00:40:15,810 --> 00:40:16,930
Is it physically easy?

995
00:40:16,930 --> 00:40:19,800
Are rats like, please, show
me the starting line?

996
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:20,500
I'm ready to go.

997
00:40:20,500 --> 00:40:20,810
No.

998
00:40:20,810 --> 00:40:21,440
What are they like?

999
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,990
Help me out here for you guys
who have done this.

1000
00:40:24,990 --> 00:40:25,785
Are they kind of really--

1001
00:40:25,785 --> 00:40:28,140
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

1002
00:40:28,140 --> 00:40:28,930
PROFESSOR: And they
don't like to be

1003
00:40:28,930 --> 00:40:31,385
handled that much really.

1004
00:40:31,385 --> 00:40:32,160
And they're fighting.

1005
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:33,380
And these are undergraduates
who've hardly

1006
00:40:33,380 --> 00:40:34,550
ever touched a rat.

1007
00:40:34,550 --> 00:40:37,220
They're like, please, don't
attack me or something.

1008
00:40:37,220 --> 00:40:38,340
So they're holding up.

1009
00:40:38,340 --> 00:40:39,460
And the rat's fighting back.

1010
00:40:39,460 --> 00:40:40,730
And because it's really
uncomfortable, the rat's

1011
00:40:40,730 --> 00:40:41,290
really unhappy.

1012
00:40:41,290 --> 00:40:44,130
And the student's
like really--

1013
00:40:44,130 --> 00:40:45,410
So what happens is--

1014
00:40:45,410 --> 00:40:47,030
and then they plunk
the rat down.

1015
00:40:47,030 --> 00:40:48,820
And they go, oh, my gosh, it's
facing the wrong direction.

1016
00:40:48,820 --> 00:40:49,600
And it's a smart one.

1017
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:51,960
Wait, stop the clock.

1018
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:52,680
Let's get him--

1019
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:56,030
But if it's a dull one facing
the wrong direction, it's OK.

1020
00:40:56,030 --> 00:40:56,750
It's a dull one.

1021
00:40:56,750 --> 00:40:59,160
Let the maze-- so lots
of little things.

1022
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:00,090
Are you sure you wrote
this down.

1023
00:41:00,090 --> 00:41:01,655
Was it 12 seconds or 11?

1024
00:41:01,655 --> 00:41:02,910
I guess it was 11.

1025
00:41:02,910 --> 00:41:04,700
Oh, because it's a smart one.

1026
00:41:04,700 --> 00:41:07,840
So completely innocently,
completely innocently as far

1027
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:11,630
as we understand, they made the
result to match up with

1028
00:41:11,630 --> 00:41:13,520
what the expectation was.

1029
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:14,940
And it's not just that.

1030
00:41:14,940 --> 00:41:17,770
And if you know this example,
cognitive psychologists have

1031
00:41:17,770 --> 00:41:19,290
studied a phenomenon
like this.

1032
00:41:19,290 --> 00:41:20,690
So try this at your desk.

1033
00:41:20,690 --> 00:41:22,640
Each card is a letter on
one side and a number

1034
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:24,110
on the other side.

1035
00:41:24,110 --> 00:41:27,010
Your job is to figure out what's
the smallest number of

1036
00:41:27,010 --> 00:41:29,380
cards you have to pick
up to discover if

1037
00:41:29,380 --> 00:41:31,110
this rule is right.

1038
00:41:31,110 --> 00:41:34,530
If a card has a vowel on one
side, then it has an even

1039
00:41:34,530 --> 00:41:35,840
number on the other side.

1040
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:37,200
So think about this
for a moment.

1041
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,020
If a card has a vowel on one
side, then it has to have an

1042
00:41:41,020 --> 00:41:42,070
even number on the other side.

1043
00:41:42,070 --> 00:41:45,290
What's the smallest number of
cards you can pick up to test

1044
00:41:45,290 --> 00:41:46,540
that hypothesis?

1045
00:41:48,500 --> 00:41:50,740
So here's what people
have found.

1046
00:41:50,740 --> 00:41:54,130
The correct answer
is E and seven.

1047
00:41:54,130 --> 00:41:57,780
And about 10% of people on
average come up with that.

1048
00:41:57,780 --> 00:42:03,690
Many, many more people pick
E alone or E and six.

1049
00:42:03,690 --> 00:42:06,540
Why?

1050
00:42:06,540 --> 00:42:09,580
Well, everybody gets that you
have to look at E. Because if

1051
00:42:09,580 --> 00:42:12,760
it's an even number, so
you flipped E over.

1052
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,200
And if that one turns out to
have, it's a vowel, if it has

1053
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,620
an odd number, the hypothesis
is wrong, right?

1054
00:42:19,620 --> 00:42:22,920
Everybody gets that you should
check E. Pretty much everybody

1055
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:24,770
gets that J is irrelevant.

1056
00:42:24,770 --> 00:42:26,750
Because it's a consonant.

1057
00:42:26,750 --> 00:42:30,300
Now comes the interesting
six and seven.

1058
00:42:30,300 --> 00:42:33,050
Because the sentence is talking
about a vowel and an

1059
00:42:33,050 --> 00:42:35,270
even number, sometimes people
feel like I got to check the

1060
00:42:35,270 --> 00:42:36,880
even number.

1061
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:39,130
But it doesn't say anything
about even numbers couldn't go

1062
00:42:39,130 --> 00:42:41,030
with consonants.

1063
00:42:41,030 --> 00:42:42,350
It doesn't tell you anything.

1064
00:42:42,350 --> 00:42:45,990
That's not part of
the hypothesis.

1065
00:42:45,990 --> 00:42:50,230
But if you flipped over number
seven and you discovered a

1066
00:42:50,230 --> 00:42:53,650
vowel, you'd violate the rule.

1067
00:42:53,650 --> 00:42:56,310
So what happens is they're
tempted to go for things that

1068
00:42:56,310 --> 00:42:59,500
feel like they confirm
the question.

1069
00:42:59,500 --> 00:43:00,980
And it feels like
E confirms it.

1070
00:43:00,980 --> 00:43:04,420
And it feels like
six confirms it.

1071
00:43:04,420 --> 00:43:06,800
It's what is called confirmatory
bias that when

1072
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:10,660
you look at stuff, if you see
what you think confirms it,

1073
00:43:10,660 --> 00:43:12,570
then you tend to go for that,
even when there's evidence in

1074
00:43:12,570 --> 00:43:17,870
front if you that could
contradict your expectation.

1075
00:43:17,870 --> 00:43:22,130
So now I'm going to give you a
practical suggestion for how

1076
00:43:22,130 --> 00:43:24,900
to win somebody over if you
have a brewing romantic

1077
00:43:24,900 --> 00:43:27,090
interest in that person.

1078
00:43:27,090 --> 00:43:28,260
So finally we get practical,
right?

1079
00:43:28,260 --> 00:43:30,270
Everything was like, I look at
you, I'm not running rats.

1080
00:43:33,570 --> 00:43:35,380
And I think it's very
interesting.

1081
00:43:35,380 --> 00:43:38,010
Because when we think about how
people make decisions in

1082
00:43:38,010 --> 00:43:39,330
their lives, we tend to think

1083
00:43:39,330 --> 00:43:41,120
intuitively about big decisions.

1084
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:42,570
What's my career going to be?

1085
00:43:42,570 --> 00:43:43,880
Where do I go to college?

1086
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:45,100
We think those are the
big decisions.

1087
00:43:45,100 --> 00:43:46,610
But a huge amount of
life is little

1088
00:43:46,610 --> 00:43:47,995
decisions, moment to moment.

1089
00:43:47,995 --> 00:43:49,520
If somebody asks you
for something, did

1090
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:50,810
you say yes or no?

1091
00:43:50,810 --> 00:43:52,490
Somebody walks up to
you at a party.

1092
00:43:52,490 --> 00:43:53,960
They want to talk with you.

1093
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:55,910
Do you feel like talking or
not feel like talking?

1094
00:43:55,910 --> 00:43:57,870
Maybe you talk with them and
it's a lifetime friend or

1095
00:43:57,870 --> 00:43:59,630
romantic partner or whatever.

1096
00:43:59,630 --> 00:44:02,920
So I think we make constantly
little decisions that turn out

1097
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:04,350
to big effects in our lives.

1098
00:44:04,350 --> 00:44:06,750
So here's some evidence about
things like that that

1099
00:44:06,750 --> 00:44:07,720
influence that.

1100
00:44:07,720 --> 00:44:10,010
And this is worked on at Yale.

1101
00:44:10,010 --> 00:44:13,290
So we describe people as warm.

1102
00:44:13,290 --> 00:44:16,390
Or we can define them as
cold or aloof, right?

1103
00:44:16,390 --> 00:44:18,690
And we could think those words
are kind of arbitrary.

1104
00:44:18,690 --> 00:44:20,770
And most of us, if you met
somebody at a party, would you

1105
00:44:20,770 --> 00:44:25,020
rather hang out with somebody
who's warm or cold?

1106
00:44:25,020 --> 00:44:29,460
Warm, OK, just checking.

1107
00:44:29,460 --> 00:44:34,700
Now sometimes there's an idea
of embodied cognition.

1108
00:44:34,700 --> 00:44:36,060
And here's what it is.

1109
00:44:36,060 --> 00:44:40,020
We can't really know how warm or
cold that person is or even

1110
00:44:40,020 --> 00:44:41,480
that's an abstract idea.

1111
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,060
But we know we're comfortable
when we're kind of warm.

1112
00:44:44,060 --> 00:44:46,330
And we know we're not
comfortable physically inside

1113
00:44:46,330 --> 00:44:48,230
us when we're kind of cold.

1114
00:44:48,230 --> 00:44:51,380
So there's an idea that when we
think about other people's

1115
00:44:51,380 --> 00:44:53,580
feelings, other people's
thoughts or abstract things in

1116
00:44:53,580 --> 00:44:56,520
the world, we base them on
physical experiences that we

1117
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:00,790
have inside, that there's a more
direct link between what

1118
00:45:00,790 --> 00:45:02,220
we know inside us.

1119
00:45:02,220 --> 00:45:04,170
And we use that to interpret
the world out there.

1120
00:45:04,170 --> 00:45:07,060
Embodied cognition, your
body is the vehicle for

1121
00:45:07,060 --> 00:45:08,630
understanding things
out there.

1122
00:45:08,630 --> 00:45:09,970
So here's the experiments.

1123
00:45:09,970 --> 00:45:11,730
It's really clever.

1124
00:45:11,730 --> 00:45:14,240
There's two temperature
conditions.

1125
00:45:14,240 --> 00:45:16,340
So what happens is you
go into a building.

1126
00:45:16,340 --> 00:45:19,570
And the examiner, an
undergraduate usually or a

1127
00:45:19,570 --> 00:45:21,770
graduate student, meets a
subject in the lobby.

1128
00:45:21,770 --> 00:45:24,780
And she's carrying or he's
carrying a cup of coffee,

1129
00:45:24,780 --> 00:45:28,550
sometimes it's hot coffee,
sometimes it's cold coffee, a

1130
00:45:28,550 --> 00:45:30,860
clipboard, two textbooks.

1131
00:45:30,860 --> 00:45:31,960
So you can imagine.

1132
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:32,900
It's a set-up, right?

1133
00:45:32,900 --> 00:45:33,610
The person's walking.

1134
00:45:33,610 --> 00:45:34,640
They're juggling with
the coffee, the

1135
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:36,490
textbook, oh, the clipboard.

1136
00:45:36,490 --> 00:45:38,690
And he says, on the elevator he
says, could you just hold

1137
00:45:38,690 --> 00:45:41,670
my cup while I write down your
name on my list of subjects in

1138
00:45:41,670 --> 00:45:42,660
the experiment?

1139
00:45:42,660 --> 00:45:45,510
It's very innocent, right,
on the elevator.

1140
00:45:45,510 --> 00:45:48,300
And so you hold the cup of
coffee, which half the people

1141
00:45:48,300 --> 00:45:51,750
get a hot cup, half the
people get a cold cup.

1142
00:45:51,750 --> 00:45:53,180
Then you read a description
of a person.

1143
00:45:53,180 --> 00:45:54,020
It's just a paragraph.

1144
00:45:54,020 --> 00:45:57,690
And you have to rate whether you
find the person described

1145
00:45:57,690 --> 00:45:59,300
as warm or cold.

1146
00:45:59,300 --> 00:46:02,070
And if you had the warm cup of
coffee, you're more likely to

1147
00:46:02,070 --> 00:46:05,560
describe that person as a
warm kind of a person.

1148
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:06,890
Now, these subjects
have no idea.

1149
00:46:06,890 --> 00:46:07,810
They held a cup of coffee.

1150
00:46:07,810 --> 00:46:08,660
They probably didn't
even think whether

1151
00:46:08,660 --> 00:46:10,160
it was warm or cold.

1152
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,660
But something in their body
that got warmed up to the

1153
00:46:12,660 --> 00:46:16,200
least degree possible,
that thought is

1154
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:16,940
still in their head.

1155
00:46:16,940 --> 00:46:18,050
So when they read a description
of something, you

1156
00:46:18,050 --> 00:46:19,710
go, oh, this seems like
a warm person.

1157
00:46:19,710 --> 00:46:23,560
Of if it was a cold cup of
coffee, they say, oh, this

1158
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,780
seems like a cold, aloof kind
of person as far as I can

1159
00:46:25,780 --> 00:46:28,330
tell, that little bit
of difference.

1160
00:46:28,330 --> 00:46:30,670
So here's the lesson
just so you got it.

1161
00:46:30,670 --> 00:46:33,730
If you want to take somebody
because you have a possible

1162
00:46:33,730 --> 00:46:35,890
friendship or romantic interest
in that person, are

1163
00:46:35,890 --> 00:46:38,700
you better off going out for a
warm cup of coffee or giving

1164
00:46:38,700 --> 00:46:40,590
them a cold glass of beer?

1165
00:46:44,060 --> 00:46:48,880
For that first impression,
scientific research shows it's

1166
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,340
something warm will
work it out.

1167
00:46:52,340 --> 00:46:53,300
It's not that powerful.

1168
00:46:53,300 --> 00:46:56,880
You're not going to be able
to control the world.

1169
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,350
But what it says is when we are
in ambiguous situations,

1170
00:47:00,350 --> 00:47:02,130
ambiguous situations, we
first meet somebody.

1171
00:47:02,130 --> 00:47:03,130
We don't really know them.

1172
00:47:03,130 --> 00:47:05,210
Little things can start
us off on one path.

1173
00:47:05,210 --> 00:47:06,290
Or it can start us
off another path,

1174
00:47:06,290 --> 00:47:09,370
surprisingly little things.

1175
00:47:09,370 --> 00:47:11,260
Now, then they have to worry
about a confound.

1176
00:47:11,260 --> 00:47:13,050
Can you imagine a
confound here?

1177
00:47:13,050 --> 00:47:14,090
Think of the rats.

1178
00:47:14,090 --> 00:47:17,660
Who knows if the cup is cold
or hot besides the person

1179
00:47:17,660 --> 00:47:18,910
holding it?

1180
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:23,150
The examiner, right?

1181
00:47:23,150 --> 00:47:25,500
Now, maybe the examiner doesn't
try to do this, but

1182
00:47:25,500 --> 00:47:27,870
maybe the examiner, no matter
what, says, oh, we're in the

1183
00:47:27,870 --> 00:47:28,690
warm condition.

1184
00:47:28,690 --> 00:47:30,890
And I'm smiling because this
is going to be nice.

1185
00:47:30,890 --> 00:47:32,850
I'm helping this person
feel good.

1186
00:47:32,850 --> 00:47:34,700
Here's the aloof condition
I'm giving.

1187
00:47:34,700 --> 00:47:36,040
We're all going to
be miserable.

1188
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:36,980
And the examiner knows it.

1189
00:47:36,980 --> 00:47:39,180
Because they know if they have
a hot or cold cup of coffee.

1190
00:47:39,180 --> 00:47:41,720
So maybe the person's not
vibing to the coffee.

1191
00:47:41,720 --> 00:47:44,260
They're vibing to the expression
or feeling or

1192
00:47:44,260 --> 00:47:47,670
sentiment of the examiner who
understands what's going on.

1193
00:47:47,670 --> 00:47:49,450
So they do one more experiment
where they give-- have you

1194
00:47:49,450 --> 00:47:51,380
seen these hot and icy
therapeutic packs that you can

1195
00:47:51,380 --> 00:47:52,560
make hot or cold?

1196
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:54,735
Now somebody else makes
it hot or cold.

1197
00:47:54,735 --> 00:47:57,520
The experimenter has no idea
whether it was hot or cold.

1198
00:47:57,520 --> 00:47:58,920
So it's what we call
double blind.

1199
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,050
A person doesn't know it's
relevant, the experimenter.

1200
00:48:01,050 --> 00:48:02,030
They rate the pad.

1201
00:48:02,030 --> 00:48:04,870
And now, this moves it a little
bit, they either get,

1202
00:48:04,870 --> 00:48:06,710
after this thing's over, they're
told it's a product

1203
00:48:06,710 --> 00:48:08,010
evaluation of the pad.

1204
00:48:08,010 --> 00:48:10,650
But they either got a hot
pad or a cold pad.

1205
00:48:10,650 --> 00:48:13,720
And they can either choose one
of two rewards, a Snapple

1206
00:48:13,720 --> 00:48:15,720
beverage or a $1 gift
certificate, whichever you

1207
00:48:15,720 --> 00:48:16,520
like better.

1208
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:18,220
You had two little things
you could do.

1209
00:48:18,220 --> 00:48:19,190
But here's the big decision.

1210
00:48:19,190 --> 00:48:20,410
Do you get it for yourself?

1211
00:48:20,410 --> 00:48:23,280
Or we can send it for
you to a friend.

1212
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:26,490
We can send them the Snapple
or the certificate.

1213
00:48:26,490 --> 00:48:30,350
If the people got a cold pad,
75% of the times they say,

1214
00:48:30,350 --> 00:48:31,380
please, give it to
me right now.

1215
00:48:31,380 --> 00:48:32,540
I'll take it.

1216
00:48:32,540 --> 00:48:36,850
If they had a warm pad, the
majority of the time they

1217
00:48:36,850 --> 00:48:39,250
actually send it to
their friend.

1218
00:48:39,250 --> 00:48:43,250
That pad difference moved
quite substantially the

1219
00:48:43,250 --> 00:48:45,710
likelihood that you take it for
yourself or you give it

1220
00:48:45,710 --> 00:48:47,820
away, quite substantially.

1221
00:48:47,820 --> 00:48:49,990
If you're a charity trying to
get people to donate or you

1222
00:48:49,990 --> 00:48:54,460
want to get help from somebody,
25% success rate is

1223
00:48:54,460 --> 00:48:57,620
a lot worse than a 54%, right?

1224
00:48:57,620 --> 00:49:00,360
It's a doubling, a doubling,
of whether you keep it for

1225
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:05,100
yourself or you're generous
to your friend, just that

1226
00:49:05,100 --> 00:49:07,030
therapeutic pad.

1227
00:49:07,030 --> 00:49:08,800
I'm going to give you two
more and then go to--

1228
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:10,600
How about money?

1229
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:12,730
When you think about money, I
don't mean traumatic things

1230
00:49:12,730 --> 00:49:14,820
about money, just a little bit
about money, how does that

1231
00:49:14,820 --> 00:49:17,710
influence how you relate
to other people?

1232
00:49:17,710 --> 00:49:19,860
OK, here's the experiment.

1233
00:49:19,860 --> 00:49:22,120
The idea is that money, on
average, when you just think a

1234
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:24,150
little bit about it-- and I'll
show you how ridiculously

1235
00:49:24,150 --> 00:49:27,380
little they think about it--

1236
00:49:27,380 --> 00:49:29,230
their hypothesis is that money
makes you think about

1237
00:49:29,230 --> 00:49:32,650
self-reliance, you earn your
money, your bank account,

1238
00:49:32,650 --> 00:49:34,400
compared to situations
where you're not

1239
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:36,300
thinking about money.

1240
00:49:36,300 --> 00:49:37,320
So here's what they did.

1241
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,700
They have people come in
in three conditions.

1242
00:49:39,700 --> 00:49:41,280
And they had to unscramble
sentences.

1243
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:43,360
You have no idea what's
going on.

1244
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:47,260
You got a sentence like, cold it
desk outside is, which you

1245
00:49:47,260 --> 00:49:50,950
would make into a good sentence,
or high a salary

1246
00:49:50,950 --> 00:49:52,430
desk paying.

1247
00:49:52,430 --> 00:49:54,180
So you just make those, you
scramble those words around.

1248
00:49:54,180 --> 00:49:57,630
But the money condition has
a word like salary in it.

1249
00:49:57,630 --> 00:50:00,180
Or you get the neutral
sentences that

1250
00:50:00,180 --> 00:50:01,140
have no money reference.

1251
00:50:01,140 --> 00:50:05,090
And you see Monopoly money in
the corner of the room.

1252
00:50:05,090 --> 00:50:07,580
So we're not talking like people
just sent you your

1253
00:50:07,580 --> 00:50:09,770
tuition bill or whatever.

1254
00:50:09,770 --> 00:50:14,710
Or you just found out that
something terrible happened

1255
00:50:14,710 --> 00:50:16,220
financially or you
won the lottery.

1256
00:50:16,220 --> 00:50:18,110
It's Monopoly money.

1257
00:50:18,110 --> 00:50:21,920
It's just like the
idea of money.

1258
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:23,200
And then they give
you a task to do.

1259
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:25,350
And the experimenter, as he or
she leaves the room, they say,

1260
00:50:25,350 --> 00:50:26,570
it's a pretty hard task.

1261
00:50:26,570 --> 00:50:27,940
You may want some help.

1262
00:50:27,940 --> 00:50:28,750
So just come and get me.

1263
00:50:28,750 --> 00:50:30,970
I'm glad to help you,
not a problem.

1264
00:50:30,970 --> 00:50:32,310
So what happens?

1265
00:50:32,310 --> 00:50:34,200
Here's the probability
of getting help.

1266
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:37,290
And it's incredibly more for the
control group that did the

1267
00:50:37,290 --> 00:50:40,300
sentences without money and
way less not only for the

1268
00:50:40,300 --> 00:50:43,020
people who unscrambled the
sentence with the word salary

1269
00:50:43,020 --> 00:50:47,420
but also way less if they saw
Monopoly money in the corner.

1270
00:50:47,420 --> 00:50:50,570
The mere idea of money, not
money given to you, not

1271
00:50:50,570 --> 00:50:54,960
financial trauma or financial
gain, the mere idea of money

1272
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,010
makes you less willing to
get up and get help.

1273
00:50:58,010 --> 00:51:00,600
So the positive it makes
you more self-reliant.

1274
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:03,930
The negative is people were less
willing to help somebody.

1275
00:51:03,930 --> 00:51:07,080
So now at the end as the
examiner comes and says, I'm

1276
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:08,340
an undergraduate like you.

1277
00:51:08,340 --> 00:51:10,100
I've got huge pressure
to get this paper in.

1278
00:51:10,100 --> 00:51:11,455
Can you help me code?

1279
00:51:11,455 --> 00:51:14,160
Can you help me score
up a few sheets?

1280
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:18,555
People were twice as much
willing to help if they just

1281
00:51:18,555 --> 00:51:22,770
did the neutral things than if
they unscrambled the money

1282
00:51:22,770 --> 00:51:25,030
sentences or saw the Monopoly
money in the

1283
00:51:25,030 --> 00:51:26,430
corner of the room.

1284
00:51:26,430 --> 00:51:29,710
Because just that thought about
money goes like, man,

1285
00:51:29,710 --> 00:51:33,190
self-reliance, we're all
in it for ourselves.

1286
00:51:33,190 --> 00:51:33,770
I've got my money.

1287
00:51:33,770 --> 00:51:35,000
You've got your money.

1288
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,910
Good luck.

1289
00:51:37,910 --> 00:51:39,700
Self-reliance can
be a good thing.

1290
00:51:39,700 --> 00:51:41,260
But it doesn't actually
go with helping

1291
00:51:41,260 --> 00:51:42,500
people very much also.

1292
00:51:42,500 --> 00:51:43,241
Yeah?

1293
00:51:43,241 --> 00:51:45,165
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

1294
00:51:45,165 --> 00:51:48,772
because the Monopoly money and
he's suspicious of why this

1295
00:51:48,772 --> 00:51:51,899
money's over there, that's why
you're not going to help.

1296
00:51:51,899 --> 00:51:52,880
PROFESSOR: It could be.

1297
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:54,710
Yeah, the Monopoly money,
I agree with you.

1298
00:51:54,710 --> 00:51:56,430
Maybe that's why they also had
the one where you just get the

1299
00:51:56,430 --> 00:51:59,160
scrambled sentences.

1300
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:00,100
I agree with you.

1301
00:52:00,100 --> 00:52:03,250
You could think there's many,
many ways to think about this.

1302
00:52:03,250 --> 00:52:06,370
The last example of this kind
that I want show you is dating

1303
00:52:06,370 --> 00:52:10,970
behavior and the way, again,
an experiment can challenge

1304
00:52:10,970 --> 00:52:12,770
various ideas.

1305
00:52:12,770 --> 00:52:15,100
And this is specifically about
dating between men and women.

1306
00:52:15,100 --> 00:52:17,300
The story, to the extent it's
been studied, would be a

1307
00:52:17,300 --> 00:52:19,160
little bit different if you're
dating within a sex.

1308
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:22,170
So if we're dating between men
and women, who is more

1309
00:52:22,170 --> 00:52:25,440
selective in their dating
choices do you think?

1310
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:31,560
Who's more willing to date
widely or a lot or less?

1311
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:34,980
What's your thought if you have
to generalize about men

1312
00:52:34,980 --> 00:52:37,340
and women on average in your--

1313
00:52:37,340 --> 00:52:38,340
AUDIENCE: Men.

1314
00:52:38,340 --> 00:52:39,590
PROFESSOR: Thank you.

1315
00:52:43,290 --> 00:52:45,850
And evolutionary psychologists,
and I love

1316
00:52:45,850 --> 00:52:46,750
evolutionary psychology.

1317
00:52:46,750 --> 00:52:48,130
But it drives me crazy, too.

1318
00:52:48,130 --> 00:52:50,960
Evolutionary psychologists
will go, well, because by

1319
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:53,370
evolutionary theory men have
to go and make as many

1320
00:52:53,370 --> 00:52:55,560
offspring as they can to
keep their genes going.

1321
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:56,730
Women have to be
more selective.

1322
00:52:56,730 --> 00:52:58,290
It takes nine months
to bear a baby.

1323
00:52:58,290 --> 00:53:00,170
It takes nine seconds
to do the male

1324
00:53:00,170 --> 00:53:03,880
part, right, estimated.

1325
00:53:08,670 --> 00:53:09,840
So this might or might
not be true.

1326
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:10,370
It's kind of fun.

1327
00:53:10,370 --> 00:53:11,190
We all laugh about it.

1328
00:53:11,190 --> 00:53:12,330
All of us find it kind
of amusing to

1329
00:53:12,330 --> 00:53:14,480
sort of think about.

1330
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,770
But how would we actually
know if this is

1331
00:53:17,770 --> 00:53:20,080
vaguely true on average?

1332
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:23,920
How would we actually know if
men for dating behavior?

1333
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,120
How would we even,
is that true?

1334
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:29,460
Is that a bad myth, bad
rap, or whatever?

1335
00:53:29,460 --> 00:53:30,205
Yeah?

1336
00:53:30,205 --> 00:53:31,135
AUDIENCE: Dating websites?

1337
00:53:31,135 --> 00:53:33,010
PROFESSOR: Yeah, thank
you very much.

1338
00:53:33,010 --> 00:53:37,370
So there's an entire research
enterprise out there now that

1339
00:53:37,370 --> 00:53:39,690
uses online dating sites, which,
of course, it's only in

1340
00:53:39,690 --> 00:53:42,540
the last 20 years or something
that they've existed, I think.

1341
00:53:42,540 --> 00:53:44,190
So it wasn't before.

1342
00:53:44,190 --> 00:53:46,630
And the other one that's been
a treasure trove of data is

1343
00:53:46,630 --> 00:53:49,990
speed dating environments where
you can observe things

1344
00:53:49,990 --> 00:53:50,990
and measure things.

1345
00:53:50,990 --> 00:53:54,250
And those studies have shown,
for example, that online

1346
00:53:54,250 --> 00:53:56,890
dating on average men are 1.5
times more likely to send

1347
00:53:56,890 --> 00:53:59,460
email offerings dates to a
woman than the other way

1348
00:53:59,460 --> 00:54:01,230
around compared to women.

1349
00:54:01,230 --> 00:54:05,110
And in speed dating, too, men
are more likely to indicate

1350
00:54:05,110 --> 00:54:08,410
they would be happy to date a
person they met than women.

1351
00:54:08,410 --> 00:54:11,230
So there's objective evidence
that this is true on average

1352
00:54:11,230 --> 00:54:14,100
in this society at this time.

1353
00:54:14,100 --> 00:54:16,170
And so everybody, oh, yeah, this
shows the evolutionary

1354
00:54:16,170 --> 00:54:16,840
psychology.

1355
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:18,200
Evolutionary psychology
drives you crazy.

1356
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:20,390
Because, on the one hand, it's
certainly the case that our

1357
00:54:20,390 --> 00:54:24,090
minds and brains evolved
through evolution.

1358
00:54:24,090 --> 00:54:27,190
So there's something about the
history we went through as a

1359
00:54:27,190 --> 00:54:29,110
species that matters
for who we are now.

1360
00:54:29,110 --> 00:54:30,510
That's got to be the case.

1361
00:54:30,510 --> 00:54:32,860
On the other hand, it was
a different world before

1362
00:54:32,860 --> 00:54:34,750
internet dating and speed
dating, right?

1363
00:54:34,750 --> 00:54:37,230
It's hard to know how those
things line up exactly.

1364
00:54:37,230 --> 00:54:38,390
So here's the fun thing.

1365
00:54:38,390 --> 00:54:41,460
It turns out that on average
in speed dating a typical

1366
00:54:41,460 --> 00:54:43,470
speed dating event will have
four minutes, right?

1367
00:54:43,470 --> 00:54:45,830
So you typically have women
sitting at desks.

1368
00:54:45,830 --> 00:54:47,700
Almost always they set
it up that way.

1369
00:54:47,700 --> 00:54:49,870
And the men are sitting in
chairs in front of the desk.

1370
00:54:49,870 --> 00:54:50,270
And they meet.

1371
00:54:50,270 --> 00:54:51,220
And they talk for
four minutes.

1372
00:54:51,220 --> 00:54:51,960
The bell rings.

1373
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:52,570
The men jump up.

1374
00:54:52,570 --> 00:54:54,610
And they shift over
one station.

1375
00:54:54,610 --> 00:54:57,160
And then what happens is, for
each time you meet a person,

1376
00:54:57,160 --> 00:54:59,080
you fill out a card that says
yes or no I'd be willing to

1377
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:00,260
have a date with the person.

1378
00:55:00,260 --> 00:55:03,930
And if you have two yeses from
the man and the woman, the

1379
00:55:03,930 --> 00:55:07,020
speed dating organizer exchanges
the information so

1380
00:55:07,020 --> 00:55:08,520
they can make direct contact.

1381
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:09,970
Does that sound OK?

1382
00:55:09,970 --> 00:55:13,050
And men make more
yes responses.

1383
00:55:13,050 --> 00:55:16,040
And it turns out, it doesn't
have to be this way, but

1384
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:19,480
almost, from my reading, that
almost every speed dating

1385
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:22,460
thing has the men rotating
around and the women sitting

1386
00:55:22,460 --> 00:55:24,540
there waiting for the men
to rotate around.

1387
00:55:24,540 --> 00:55:26,810
So let's just ask
this question.

1388
00:55:26,810 --> 00:55:29,770
What happens if the women
rotate, which

1389
00:55:29,770 --> 00:55:30,770
almost never happens?

1390
00:55:30,770 --> 00:55:32,430
But they did this
experimentally.

1391
00:55:32,430 --> 00:55:36,040
They said for half of the speed
dating sessions the men

1392
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:37,310
will be sitting at the table.

1393
00:55:37,310 --> 00:55:39,380
And the women will stand up and
move a chair over every

1394
00:55:39,380 --> 00:55:39,810
four minutes.

1395
00:55:39,810 --> 00:55:40,570
The bell rings.

1396
00:55:40,570 --> 00:55:43,280
So the women are moving
and rotating.

1397
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:45,900
And here's the results.

1398
00:55:45,900 --> 00:55:48,880
Basically, what's showing on
the left are when the men

1399
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:51,250
rotate, the standard
condition.

1400
00:55:51,250 --> 00:55:52,690
First, it's romantic desire.

1401
00:55:52,690 --> 00:55:55,640
Men feel more romantic desire,
on average, for the partner

1402
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:56,580
they sit with.

1403
00:55:56,580 --> 00:55:59,680
They feel that more chemistry
is happening with the person

1404
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:00,490
they sit with.

1405
00:56:00,490 --> 00:56:07,620
And on the bottom left corner,
they also are more likely to

1406
00:56:07,620 --> 00:56:11,530
give a yes response, I would
like a date with this person.

1407
00:56:11,530 --> 00:56:14,590
But reverse the roles, have the
women rotating, and look

1408
00:56:14,590 --> 00:56:16,330
at these bars.

1409
00:56:16,330 --> 00:56:18,570
There's no difference at all.

1410
00:56:18,570 --> 00:56:22,220
You completely wipe out the
male female difference and

1411
00:56:22,220 --> 00:56:26,140
self-reported romantic desire
per person, self-reported

1412
00:56:26,140 --> 00:56:28,790
chemistry they think is
happening, and the yes no

1413
00:56:28,790 --> 00:56:30,020
responses that I would
have a date.

1414
00:56:30,020 --> 00:56:33,750
You completely eliminate it when
the women are rotating.

1415
00:56:33,750 --> 00:56:35,440
It's flat even.

1416
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:38,690
So that's the result.

1417
00:56:38,690 --> 00:56:39,940
What does this suggest?

1418
00:56:41,980 --> 00:56:43,520
What happened to the
evolutionary psychology?

1419
00:56:48,150 --> 00:56:49,600
It disappeared just by
having the women

1420
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:50,350
rotate around the room.

1421
00:56:50,350 --> 00:56:52,630
It suggests, and we don't know
this with certainty.

1422
00:56:52,630 --> 00:56:54,680
But people are following this up
who are interested in this.

1423
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:57,770
It suggests that there's
something about getting up and

1424
00:56:57,770 --> 00:57:02,240
approaching that person, your
body going here I come, I'm

1425
00:57:02,240 --> 00:57:06,230
not sitting in my chair hanging
out, it's like here I

1426
00:57:06,230 --> 00:57:10,500
come, that makes a person
energized, feel more romantic,

1427
00:57:10,500 --> 00:57:12,610
feel more chemistry is
happening, and more likely to

1428
00:57:12,610 --> 00:57:13,340
ask on a date.

1429
00:57:13,340 --> 00:57:14,740
And it doesn't matter
whether you're a man

1430
00:57:14,740 --> 00:57:16,820
or a woman at all.

1431
00:57:16,820 --> 00:57:20,060
It's the getting up and that
physical approach.

1432
00:57:20,060 --> 00:57:20,880
You're more invested.

1433
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:21,530
You're more out there.

1434
00:57:21,530 --> 00:57:24,160
Who knows what it is, completely
eliminates what

1435
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:27,220
everybody had said is an
ancient, inevitable,

1436
00:57:27,220 --> 00:57:29,670
evolutionary difference
between men and women.

1437
00:57:29,670 --> 00:57:31,610
And this isn't to say there
might not be some of those

1438
00:57:31,610 --> 00:57:32,320
streaks in us.

1439
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:33,340
Who knows.

1440
00:57:33,340 --> 00:57:34,690
But speed dating is
not showing that.

1441
00:57:34,690 --> 00:57:36,325
All you got to do is have
the women rotate.

1442
00:57:36,325 --> 00:57:38,740
And you completely eliminate
what's thought to be some

1443
00:57:38,740 --> 00:57:42,620
hard-wired biological difference
on this dimension.

1444
00:57:42,620 --> 00:57:45,190
Now, talking about that, when
we do experiments like this

1445
00:57:45,190 --> 00:57:49,640
that look at sort of fun things
like dating around a

1446
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:52,110
thing or age difference between
a five-year-old and a

1447
00:57:52,110 --> 00:57:54,810
20-year-old or a 20-year-old and
a 80-year-old, cultures,

1448
00:57:54,810 --> 00:57:57,670
there's lots of experiments
that compare say Western

1449
00:57:57,670 --> 00:58:01,510
cultures verses Eastern Asian
cultures, we'll talk about

1450
00:58:01,510 --> 00:58:04,110
that later in the course in
terms of behaviors, genes,

1451
00:58:04,110 --> 00:58:07,720
whether you have one gene or
another, all those things, are

1452
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:08,970
those independent variables?

1453
00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:14,850
No.

1454
00:58:14,850 --> 00:58:18,850
We can't assign you randomly to
be a man or a woman, young

1455
00:58:18,850 --> 00:58:22,040
or old, to come from the United
States or Japan or

1456
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:25,370
China, or to have this
gene or that gene.

1457
00:58:25,370 --> 00:58:29,690
It's not that we couldn't do
stuff in some monstrous world

1458
00:58:29,690 --> 00:58:30,630
but not ethically.

1459
00:58:30,630 --> 00:58:32,970
And it's never going
to happen, right?

1460
00:58:32,970 --> 00:58:35,590
So whenever you have science
that talks about differences

1461
00:58:35,590 --> 00:58:39,560
between men and women or young
and old or cultures or genes,

1462
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:42,350
it's not really a completely
independent manipulation.

1463
00:58:42,350 --> 00:58:44,340
We can't assign you randomly.

1464
00:58:44,340 --> 00:58:46,510
And so it means everything in
the world about what it means

1465
00:58:46,510 --> 00:58:49,120
to be a man or a woman, a
20-year-old or an 80-year old,

1466
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:51,730
come from this continent or that
continent, have this gene

1467
00:58:51,730 --> 00:58:53,830
or that gene, those are not
things we can freely

1468
00:58:53,830 --> 00:58:54,155
manipulate.

1469
00:58:54,155 --> 00:58:56,920
And we have to be extra cautious
in interpreting those

1470
00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:57,740
kinds of studies.

1471
00:58:57,740 --> 00:59:00,200
Because we can't randomly assign
you to conditions.

1472
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:02,560
We just can't.

1473
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:06,230
And I didn't talk about the
fact that, up until this

1474
00:59:06,230 --> 00:59:08,570
moment, we've made every
conclusion a complete

1475
00:59:08,570 --> 00:59:10,380
generality about human nature.

1476
00:59:10,380 --> 00:59:12,280
And people are different one
from the other, individual

1477
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:12,670
differences.

1478
00:59:12,670 --> 00:59:15,040
We'll talk about that later
in the course, too.

1479
00:59:15,040 --> 00:59:17,210
So for the last couple minutes
I want to talk about this,

1480
00:59:17,210 --> 00:59:18,310
folk psychology.

1481
00:59:18,310 --> 00:59:19,560
Everybody has ideas
about psychology.

1482
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:22,280
So if you have this piece of
paper, if you would zoom

1483
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:26,620
through it, ideas about people
in psychology and just where

1484
00:59:26,620 --> 00:59:30,403
there is some scientific
evidence, if you just zoom

1485
00:59:30,403 --> 00:59:32,560
down and mark yes or no--

1486
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:35,730
On average, do opposites
attract?

1487
00:59:35,730 --> 00:59:38,050
On average, does familiarity
breed contempt?

1488
00:59:38,050 --> 00:59:40,120
On average, more people present
in an emergency, are

1489
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:42,680
you more likely to
get some help?

1490
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:45,080
On average, are there such
things as visual learners and

1491
00:59:45,080 --> 00:59:46,490
verbal learners, and if they
got the right kind of

1492
00:59:46,490 --> 00:59:48,890
instruction that would
help them in school?

1493
00:59:48,890 --> 00:59:50,440
Is hypnosis baloney?

1494
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:52,170
Does subliminal advertising
work?

1495
00:59:52,170 --> 00:59:54,690
When things are presented so
you don't see them below

1496
00:59:54,690 --> 00:59:58,320
consciousness, does it help
you buy something?

1497
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:01,030
Does playing Mozart to
an infant boost their

1498
01:00:01,030 --> 01:00:03,070
intelligence, Mozart effect?

1499
01:00:03,070 --> 01:00:04,570
Is old age, on average,
associated with

1500
01:00:04,570 --> 01:00:05,710
dissatisfaction?

1501
01:00:05,710 --> 01:00:07,975
If you're unsure of your answer
when taking a test, I'm

1502
01:00:07,975 --> 01:00:09,950
going to tell you the
science about this.

1503
01:00:09,950 --> 01:00:12,030
It's best to stick with
your first hunch.

1504
01:00:12,030 --> 01:00:14,120
Practically every website
tells you that.

1505
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:16,170
Have you heard that
many times?

1506
01:00:16,170 --> 01:00:17,782
I'm going to tell you what the
actual evidence is about that

1507
01:00:17,782 --> 01:00:20,130
and how they get that
in a moment.

1508
01:00:20,130 --> 01:00:21,790
Ulcers are caused primarily
by stress.

1509
01:00:21,790 --> 01:00:24,030
A positive attitude can
stave off cancer.

1510
01:00:24,030 --> 01:00:26,520
Raising children similarly leads
to similarities in their

1511
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:28,940
adult personalities.

1512
01:00:28,940 --> 01:00:30,460
Low self-esteem is
a major cause of

1513
01:00:30,460 --> 01:00:31,530
psychological problems.

1514
01:00:31,530 --> 01:00:34,050
People's responses on the ink
blot test tells us a lot about

1515
01:00:34,050 --> 01:00:35,330
their personalities.

1516
01:00:35,330 --> 01:00:37,960
Interviews help identify those
most likely to succeed in

1517
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:39,210
medical school.

1518
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:46,780
OK?

1519
01:00:46,780 --> 01:00:48,030
I'll give you a minute.

1520
01:00:51,290 --> 01:00:52,810
A bunch of these we'll come
back to in the course.

1521
01:00:52,810 --> 01:00:54,810
But the answer for all
these is this.

1522
01:00:54,810 --> 01:00:55,990
And there's evidence
to it all.

1523
01:00:55,990 --> 01:01:01,280
So I'm going to tell you about
four of them for 10 minutes.

1524
01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:03,620
One of the ones you might want
to know most about is the

1525
01:01:03,620 --> 01:01:05,480
changing your initial
hunch answer.

1526
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:06,630
How do you know that?

1527
01:01:06,630 --> 01:01:08,720
So the people have gone back
over test scores and looked

1528
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:11,180
where people crossed out an
answer or erased an answer.

1529
01:01:11,180 --> 01:01:12,330
That's the best source
of evidence they

1530
01:01:12,330 --> 01:01:13,530
have in large samples.

1531
01:01:13,530 --> 01:01:17,260
And people are twice as likely
to give a better, the correct

1532
01:01:17,260 --> 01:01:19,300
answer, than to move
to a wrong answer.

1533
01:01:19,300 --> 01:01:21,870
That's the empirical evidence.

1534
01:01:21,870 --> 01:01:25,830
So it's a fantastically
interesting disconnect that

1535
01:01:25,830 --> 01:01:27,310
you see so many places.

1536
01:01:27,310 --> 01:01:30,210
In teachers' advice, you go
with your first hunch when

1537
01:01:30,210 --> 01:01:31,300
you're unsure.

1538
01:01:31,300 --> 01:01:34,570
The empirical evidence is you're
much more likely to be

1539
01:01:34,570 --> 01:01:38,550
correct when you go with
your best final answer.

1540
01:01:38,550 --> 01:01:40,780
I mean, of course,
you're not sure.

1541
01:01:40,780 --> 01:01:42,430
So you're going to
miss a fair bit.

1542
01:01:42,430 --> 01:01:44,390
But you're twice as likely to
come out with the correct

1543
01:01:44,390 --> 01:01:46,930
answer when you go with your
best possible answer.

1544
01:01:46,930 --> 01:01:48,940
So that people who crossed out
their answers or erased their

1545
01:01:48,940 --> 01:01:51,270
answers, they were twice as
likely to move to a good

1546
01:01:51,270 --> 01:01:54,770
answer than leave behind
a good answer.

1547
01:01:54,770 --> 01:01:56,084
Yeah?

1548
01:01:56,084 --> 01:01:59,423
AUDIENCE: Do you know that
maybe it's they picked an

1549
01:01:59,423 --> 01:02:02,285
answer and then they switched
their answer and then picking

1550
01:02:02,285 --> 01:02:03,716
their best and going
back later--

1551
01:02:03,716 --> 01:02:04,500
PROFESSOR: Yeah, that's
an excellent question.

1552
01:02:04,500 --> 01:02:04,860
We don't know.

1553
01:02:04,860 --> 01:02:07,760
They've kind of gone like five
times back and forth.

1554
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:11,050
The assumption has been, on
average, that people will go

1555
01:02:11,050 --> 01:02:11,900
once back and forth.

1556
01:02:11,900 --> 01:02:13,580
But you're right.

1557
01:02:13,580 --> 01:02:15,160
But ask yourself the other
question, too.

1558
01:02:15,160 --> 01:02:17,650
What's the evidence ever that
going with your hunches?

1559
01:02:17,650 --> 01:02:19,560
And nobody's been able
to show that.

1560
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:21,300
So where there's evidence,
it's all in

1561
01:02:21,300 --> 01:02:23,600
favor of best answer.

1562
01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:26,480
And nobody's shown evidence that
hunch is the best way to

1563
01:02:26,480 --> 01:02:28,720
go empirically.

1564
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:30,190
That doesn't mean that sometimes
it doesn't happen.

1565
01:02:30,190 --> 01:02:31,940
But on average, that's
the way the ends go.

1566
01:02:31,940 --> 01:02:34,880
But your point's excellent.

1567
01:02:34,880 --> 01:02:36,090
How about Rorschach tests?

1568
01:02:36,090 --> 01:02:39,090
Every psychology program,
clinical psychologist in the

1569
01:02:39,090 --> 01:02:41,850
country, is required to learn
how to administer and evaluate

1570
01:02:41,850 --> 01:02:42,320
a Rorschach.

1571
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:42,990
You know this?

1572
01:02:42,990 --> 01:02:47,110
So this obviously shows,
obviously it shows, some sort

1573
01:02:47,110 --> 01:02:48,825
of horrible sex act
between animals.

1574
01:02:55,830 --> 01:02:56,770
You know these kinds of tests.

1575
01:02:56,770 --> 01:02:57,610
You're supposed to read it.

1576
01:02:57,610 --> 01:02:58,660
And then the examiner
listens to you.

1577
01:02:58,660 --> 01:03:01,270
And they figure out
something, right?

1578
01:03:01,270 --> 01:03:03,800
There's been about 10,000
publications about this.

1579
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:06,420
There's no evidence that there's
anything predictive or

1580
01:03:06,420 --> 01:03:08,920
correct about this test,
none, zero, none.

1581
01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:09,630
People argue it.

1582
01:03:09,630 --> 01:03:10,730
People give it.

1583
01:03:10,730 --> 01:03:13,830
People have to learn how
to give this test.

1584
01:03:13,830 --> 01:03:16,090
So this is a disconnect that
happens a lot between clinical

1585
01:03:16,090 --> 01:03:17,550
stuff and experimental work.

1586
01:03:17,550 --> 01:03:22,420
I mean researchers can't grasp
why people still give this.

1587
01:03:22,420 --> 01:03:24,280
Medical school interviews, those
of you who will apply to

1588
01:03:24,280 --> 01:03:29,070
medical school will
get interviews.

1589
01:03:29,070 --> 01:03:30,280
You'll get interviews
for jobs.

1590
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:31,970
You'll get interviews for all
kinds of things in your life.

1591
01:03:31,970 --> 01:03:33,030
What's the evidence that
interviews are

1592
01:03:33,030 --> 01:03:34,280
any good for anything?

1593
01:03:36,610 --> 01:03:38,820
How could you know whether
interviews

1594
01:03:38,820 --> 01:03:41,550
are good for anything?

1595
01:03:41,550 --> 01:03:42,950
A company interviews you.

1596
01:03:42,950 --> 01:03:45,040
A university interviews you.

1597
01:03:45,040 --> 01:03:46,210
How would you even
decide whether?

1598
01:03:46,210 --> 01:03:47,010
So I can tell you this.

1599
01:03:47,010 --> 01:03:48,760
Social psychologists have
shown repeatedly that

1600
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:52,220
interviews are cesspools
for discrimination.

1601
01:03:52,220 --> 01:03:55,600
Because people tend to like
people who are like them.

1602
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:56,910
Oh, you went to MIT?

1603
01:03:56,910 --> 01:03:58,500
Yeah, course nine.

1604
01:03:58,500 --> 01:04:01,710
Then you go, oh, man, this is
going to be good, right?

1605
01:04:01,710 --> 01:04:02,490
I went to CalTech.

1606
01:04:02,490 --> 01:04:03,480
We didn't like MIT people.

1607
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:05,020
We thought they were a little
bit snobby or something.

1608
01:04:05,020 --> 01:04:06,720
And you go that's not
going to be so good.

1609
01:04:09,290 --> 01:04:10,980
Social psychologists have shown
that, if you just vary

1610
01:04:10,980 --> 01:04:14,130
information in practice
interviews, people tend to

1611
01:04:14,130 --> 01:04:16,000
like people who are like
them, by background, by

1612
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:16,580
appearance, and so on.

1613
01:04:16,580 --> 01:04:17,830
On average, they try not to.

1614
01:04:17,830 --> 01:04:19,680
They try to be fair.

1615
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:21,960
So we know that.

1616
01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:23,180
So here's what they did.

1617
01:04:23,180 --> 01:04:25,170
Yale compared students who were
accepted or rejected on

1618
01:04:25,170 --> 01:04:26,220
the basis of an interview.

1619
01:04:26,220 --> 01:04:29,520
So they all had scores that
got them to the interview.

1620
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:32,180
And then they looked at them
where they went in pairs or

1621
01:04:32,180 --> 01:04:33,810
larger than pairs to other
medical schools.

1622
01:04:33,810 --> 01:04:36,660
So let's say you got
accepted by Yale.

1623
01:04:36,660 --> 01:04:38,720
And you were accepted or
rejected on the interview.

1624
01:04:38,720 --> 01:04:42,060
But you ended up as two students
at Penn or two

1625
01:04:42,060 --> 01:04:44,530
students at Michigan.

1626
01:04:44,530 --> 01:04:46,510
You're sitting next
to each other.

1627
01:04:46,510 --> 01:04:48,450
One of you was accepted
by interview at Yale.

1628
01:04:48,450 --> 01:04:49,890
One of you was not.

1629
01:04:49,890 --> 01:04:53,310
Who does better at
that other place?

1630
01:04:53,310 --> 01:04:54,670
They're dead even.

1631
01:04:54,670 --> 01:04:57,170
The interview added nothing
for predicting grade point

1632
01:04:57,170 --> 01:05:00,320
average or completion
of medical school.

1633
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:03,800
Here's one more example,
University of Texas enlarged

1634
01:05:03,800 --> 01:05:06,560
in the midst of their, at
Houston, in the midst of their

1635
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:10,760
interviews, it enlarged from
150 to 200 students.

1636
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:12,728
They had interviewed 800.

1637
01:05:12,728 --> 01:05:15,380
The 150 who came were among
their top ones.

1638
01:05:15,380 --> 01:05:15,770
They interviewed them.

1639
01:05:15,770 --> 01:05:16,290
They liked them.

1640
01:05:16,290 --> 01:05:17,450
They came.

1641
01:05:17,450 --> 01:05:19,570
And then all of a sudden because
the state legislation

1642
01:05:19,570 --> 01:05:22,980
said, by law, mandating that you
take 50 more, they took 50

1643
01:05:22,980 --> 01:05:26,740
more who didn't do so well
in the interview.

1644
01:05:26,740 --> 01:05:30,650
Those 50 more performed
identically to the ones who

1645
01:05:30,650 --> 01:05:32,770
got in with the successful
interview.

1646
01:05:32,770 --> 01:05:35,000
They couldn't find a difference
between them.

1647
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:37,630
Now, there's at least one thing
you might think the

1648
01:05:37,630 --> 01:05:39,370
interview might have done.

1649
01:05:39,370 --> 01:05:41,040
But we don't know.

1650
01:05:41,040 --> 01:05:42,670
What do you think it
might have done?

1651
01:05:42,670 --> 01:05:45,610
So the outcome was your grades
in medical school and your

1652
01:05:45,610 --> 01:05:47,330
likelihood of completing
medical school.

1653
01:05:47,330 --> 01:05:51,682
What else could an interview
have been relevant for?

1654
01:05:51,682 --> 01:05:55,930
Maybe, maybe, maybe something
about bedside manner or how

1655
01:05:55,930 --> 01:05:58,700
you relate to people, maybe,
maybe, maybe, but there's no

1656
01:05:58,700 --> 01:06:00,070
evidence that that's true.

1657
01:06:00,070 --> 01:06:02,070
Now you're starting to
grasp at straws.

1658
01:06:02,070 --> 01:06:04,070
So there's no evidence that
interview processes make any

1659
01:06:04,070 --> 01:06:04,850
difference anywhere.

1660
01:06:04,850 --> 01:06:06,680
But everybody does interviews
all the ways.

1661
01:06:06,680 --> 01:06:08,950
Because we always think we're
kind of good judges of human

1662
01:06:08,950 --> 01:06:11,020
nature or something.

1663
01:06:11,020 --> 01:06:13,080
So interviews, it's very
hard to tell that

1664
01:06:13,080 --> 01:06:14,070
they ever do anything.

1665
01:06:14,070 --> 01:06:15,510
So here's my last thing.

1666
01:06:15,510 --> 01:06:20,080
Self-esteem, you cannot watch
Oprah or Dr. Phil without some

1667
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:22,390
discussion of self-esteem
at some moment.

1668
01:06:22,390 --> 01:06:23,440
And it sounds good
to everybody.

1669
01:06:23,440 --> 01:06:25,366
I mean nobody would wish for you
as a parent or friend for

1670
01:06:25,366 --> 01:06:26,950
you to have low self-esteem.

1671
01:06:26,950 --> 01:06:29,540
And in fact, higher self-esteem
is correlated with

1672
01:06:29,540 --> 01:06:31,580
higher initiative and
persistence, happiness and

1673
01:06:31,580 --> 01:06:34,240
emotional resilience, and also,
unfortunately, with

1674
01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:35,860
people who are narcissistic
and bullies.

1675
01:06:39,300 --> 01:06:41,550
And how they measure it, just so
you know, because this is a

1676
01:06:41,550 --> 01:06:44,500
problem, too, how do
you measure it?

1677
01:06:44,500 --> 01:06:45,320
There's several scales.

1678
01:06:45,320 --> 01:06:47,910
But the most widely used scale
is this Rosenberg scale.

1679
01:06:47,910 --> 01:06:49,330
So you have that, too,
if you want to

1680
01:06:49,330 --> 01:06:51,530
try it out on yourself.

1681
01:06:51,530 --> 01:06:55,290
Self-report, and when they
reviewed 15,000 studies some

1682
01:06:55,290 --> 01:06:57,920
years ago, they could find
no evidence that higher

1683
01:06:57,920 --> 01:07:00,340
self-esteem leads to
better things.

1684
01:07:00,340 --> 01:07:03,430
It all seemed the other way
around that doing better at

1685
01:07:03,430 --> 01:07:05,920
things led to higher
self-esteem.

1686
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:07,660
They could never find
that pushing your

1687
01:07:07,660 --> 01:07:08,320
self-esteem up doesn't.

1688
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:11,760
Having said that, I can tell you
as a parent of two young

1689
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:14,093
kids or if you have friends and
you care about them and

1690
01:07:14,093 --> 01:07:16,020
you know this, we like to praise
people to build up

1691
01:07:16,020 --> 01:07:16,980
their self-esteem.

1692
01:07:16,980 --> 01:07:18,280
We tell you you're awesome.

1693
01:07:18,280 --> 01:07:19,220
Someday you'll go to MIT.

1694
01:07:19,220 --> 01:07:20,230
I know you will.

1695
01:07:20,230 --> 01:07:21,170
You're a wonderful person.

1696
01:07:21,170 --> 01:07:21,870
And you're smart.

1697
01:07:21,870 --> 01:07:23,370
And you're beautiful.

1698
01:07:23,370 --> 01:07:26,430
Parents want their children and
teachers, too, to grow up

1699
01:07:26,430 --> 01:07:29,610
and thrive and build up
that self-esteem.

1700
01:07:29,610 --> 01:07:32,070
And the easiest way to do that
is praise, right, just telling

1701
01:07:32,070 --> 01:07:35,410
your kid how awesome he or she
is or your younger sibling how

1702
01:07:35,410 --> 01:07:36,600
awesome her or she is.

1703
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:38,180
Get their self-esteem up.

1704
01:07:38,180 --> 01:07:39,570
So the last thing I'm going to
tell you and then we'll be

1705
01:07:39,570 --> 01:07:42,030
done in about three minutes is
work from Carol Dweck that

1706
01:07:42,030 --> 01:07:45,850
shows you how dangerous it is
and counterproductive it is to

1707
01:07:45,850 --> 01:07:51,400
have praise where you
don't think through

1708
01:07:51,400 --> 01:07:52,590
its relation to people.

1709
01:07:52,590 --> 01:07:55,540
And in one sense we'll talk
about, are you going to

1710
01:07:55,540 --> 01:07:57,980
succeed in life by your
effort or your talent?

1711
01:07:57,980 --> 01:07:59,590
What's a bigger question
than that?

1712
01:07:59,590 --> 01:08:01,520
Wherever you get to in your
life, it's going to be based

1713
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:03,400
on your effort or your
talent or both.

1714
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:04,930
I'll just have a sentence
about that now.

1715
01:08:04,930 --> 01:08:07,120
So here's the experiments she
did with fifth graders.

1716
01:08:07,120 --> 01:08:09,460
She had them perform
a pretty hard task.

1717
01:08:09,460 --> 01:08:12,530
And afterwards, randomly, they
were either praised for their

1718
01:08:12,530 --> 01:08:12,825
intelligence.

1719
01:08:12,825 --> 01:08:15,710
So a person said to
them, you, fifth

1720
01:08:15,710 --> 01:08:17,540
grader, you are so smart.

1721
01:08:17,540 --> 01:08:20,310
I can't believe how great you
did on that, fifth grader.

1722
01:08:20,310 --> 01:08:22,100
Or they were praised for
their hard work.

1723
01:08:22,100 --> 01:08:24,260
This shows a lot of hard
work, different kids.

1724
01:08:24,260 --> 01:08:29,380
And some kids got no praise
at all in this experiment.

1725
01:08:29,380 --> 01:08:33,550
Then they get a task that's
even a little bit harder.

1726
01:08:33,550 --> 01:08:35,970
How does the different kind of
praise influence things?

1727
01:08:35,970 --> 01:08:37,470
And here was the finding.

1728
01:08:37,470 --> 01:08:41,060
If you were praised for your
intelligence, you did worse on

1729
01:08:41,060 --> 01:08:41,930
the second test.

1730
01:08:41,930 --> 01:08:44,310
If you were praised for your
hard work, you did better.

1731
01:08:44,310 --> 01:08:47,370
If nobody said anything, your
performance didn't change.

1732
01:08:47,370 --> 01:08:48,410
And the idea is this.

1733
01:08:48,410 --> 01:08:50,210
You understand, praised for
your intelligence, you did

1734
01:08:50,210 --> 01:08:51,649
worse on a hard task.

1735
01:08:51,649 --> 01:08:53,290
Praised for your effort,
you did better.

1736
01:08:53,290 --> 01:08:56,810
And here's the idea that, if
we praise people for their

1737
01:08:56,810 --> 01:08:59,500
intelligence to build up their
self-esteem, they start to

1738
01:08:59,500 --> 01:09:02,850
care more about how their
performance reflects on them

1739
01:09:02,850 --> 01:09:04,840
than the performance itself.

1740
01:09:04,840 --> 01:09:07,459
Because you're trying
to prove that you're

1741
01:09:07,459 --> 01:09:10,200
an intelligent person.

1742
01:09:10,200 --> 01:09:12,010
The students who get that
kind of praise for their

1743
01:09:12,010 --> 01:09:15,069
intelligence, they persist
less in a difficult task.

1744
01:09:15,069 --> 01:09:17,210
They say they don't
enjoy challenges.

1745
01:09:17,210 --> 01:09:18,090
Why?

1746
01:09:18,090 --> 01:09:19,779
They just want to ace everything
to keep proving

1747
01:09:19,779 --> 01:09:22,200
they're smart.

1748
01:09:22,200 --> 01:09:24,899
The kids who got praised for
effort, they're kind of like,

1749
01:09:24,899 --> 01:09:26,029
OK, I'm going to make
some mistakes.

1750
01:09:26,029 --> 01:09:26,960
But I'm just going
to keep going.

1751
01:09:26,960 --> 01:09:29,069
Because with effort I can
do things sometimes.

1752
01:09:29,069 --> 01:09:31,140
And it turns out that it makes
a remarkable thing.

1753
01:09:31,140 --> 01:09:33,390
And so Dweck, and we'll come
back to this, talks about you

1754
01:09:33,390 --> 01:09:37,600
can imbue your intelligence as
a trait, I have only so much,

1755
01:09:37,600 --> 01:09:41,109
or as a growth, the harder I
work, the smarter I get.

1756
01:09:41,109 --> 01:09:43,630
But I have to do the hard
work to get there.

1757
01:09:43,630 --> 01:09:48,090
And we live in a society that
often goes by fixed traits.

1758
01:09:48,090 --> 01:09:51,810
American Idol, the harder the
work, the better you sing or

1759
01:09:51,810 --> 01:09:54,710
who has the talent
is discovered?

1760
01:09:54,710 --> 01:09:57,890
Who has the talent is
discovered, right?

1761
01:09:57,890 --> 01:09:59,900
Because the idea is
you have a certain

1762
01:09:59,900 --> 01:10:01,000
amount of musical talent.

1763
01:10:01,000 --> 01:10:01,960
And now the judges show.

1764
01:10:01,960 --> 01:10:03,030
And you break into the world.

1765
01:10:03,030 --> 01:10:05,590
And you're a famous
singer, right?

1766
01:10:05,590 --> 01:10:08,410
So ask yourself this.

1767
01:10:08,410 --> 01:10:11,600
When you are good at what you
do, is it because something in

1768
01:10:11,600 --> 01:10:14,410
your genes and environment made
you good at it or is it

1769
01:10:14,410 --> 01:10:16,410
because you try really hard?

1770
01:10:16,410 --> 01:10:19,200
So Malcolm Gladwell has this
statement that's floating

1771
01:10:19,200 --> 01:10:21,550
around, gets a lot of attention,
that anybody can

1772
01:10:21,550 --> 01:10:23,280
become great at anything
if they work on

1773
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:27,020
it for 10,000 hours.

1774
01:10:27,020 --> 01:10:29,990
So how much of your success in
the past, currently, and in

1775
01:10:29,990 --> 01:10:32,960
the future is going be
based on your effort?

1776
01:10:32,960 --> 01:10:35,960
And how much is it going to
be based on your talents?

1777
01:10:35,960 --> 01:10:37,020
And how would we know that?

1778
01:10:37,020 --> 01:10:40,172
And we're a very talent-oriented
society.

1779
01:10:40,172 --> 01:10:43,180
And it seems like, the more we
encourage effort, maybe the

1780
01:10:43,180 --> 01:10:44,510
more people might flourish.

1781
01:10:44,510 --> 01:10:47,110
So we talked about how
psychology and science,

1782
01:10:47,110 --> 01:10:50,170
experiments, brief history of
psychology experimentation,

1783
01:10:50,170 --> 01:10:51,660
some issues in experimentation,
and some

1784
01:10:51,660 --> 01:10:54,340
psychological topics, and some
practical information for

1785
01:10:54,340 --> 01:10:56,890
being generous and kind and
winning friends rapidly.

1786
01:10:56,890 --> 01:10:58,140
OK, thanks very much.