JERRY SEINFELD: (As Jerry Seinfeld) The second button literally makes or breaks the shirt. Imagine you meet somebody, they're 39 and you take their picture. Imagine this. MCWHORTER: It's a matter of fashion, pure and simple. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. And then if you are going to be that elliptical, why use the casual word get? You can run experiments in a lab or survey people on the street. I'm Shankar Vedanta. by Harry T. Reis, Annie Regan, and Sonja Lyubomirsky, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2021. That kind of detail may not appear. So I think it's an incredible tragedy that we're losing all of this linguistic diversity, all of this cultural diversity because it is human heritage. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. All rights reserved. And so I was trying to keep track of which way is which. LERA BORODITSKY: The categorization that language provides to you becomes real - becomes psychologically real. Toward Understanding Understanding:The Importance of Feeling Understood in Relationships, by Harry Reis, Edward P. Lemay Jr, and Catrin Finkenauer, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2017. Marcus Butt/Getty Images/Ikon Images Hidden Brain Why Nobody Feels Rich by Shankar Vedantam , Parth Shah , Tara Boyle , Rhaina Cohen September 14, 2020 If you've ever flown in economy class. When the con was exposed, its victims defended the con artists. And, of course, you always have to wonder, well, could it be that speakers of these different languages are actually seeing different kinds of bridges? In this favorite 2021 episode, psychologist Adam Grant pushes back against the benefits of certainty, and describes the magic that unfolds when we challenge our own deeply-held beliefs. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. And all of a sudden, I noticed that there was a new window that had popped up in my mind, and it was like a little bird's-eye view of the landscape that I was walking through, and I was a little red dot that was moving across the landscape. It seems kind of elliptical, like, would it be possible that I obtained? So there are some differences that are as big as you can possibly measure. And it's not just about how we think about time. VEDANTAM: Many of us have dictionaries at home or at work, John. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Speaking foreign language). So even if I'm speaking English, the distinctions that I've learned in speaking Russian, for example, are still active in my mind to some extent, but they're more active if I'm actually speaking Russian. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. Transcript - How language shapes the way we think by Lera Boroditsky.docx, The Singapore Quality Award requires organisations to show outstanding results, The following lots of Commodity Z were available for sale during the year, b The authors identify 5 types of misinformation in the abstract but discuss 7, 17 Chow N Asian value and aged care Geriatr Gerontol Int 20044521 5 18 Chow NWS, Writing Results and Discussion Example.docx, A 6 month old infant weighing 15 lb is admitted with a diagnosis of dehydration, ng_Question_-_Assessment_1_-_Proposing_Evidence-Based_Change.doc, The Social Security checks the Government sends to grandmothers are considered A, 03 If a covered member participates on the clients attest engagement or is an, AURETR143 Student Assessment - Theory v1.1.docx. But I don't think that it's always clear to us that language has to change in that things are going to come in that we're going to hear as intrusions or as irritating or as mistakes, despite the fact that that's how you get from, say, old Persian to modern Persian. It's just how I feel. Let's start with the word literally. Because it was. And then when I turned, this little window stayed locked on the landscape, but it turned in my mind's eye. Later things are on the right. She shows how our conversational styles can cause We all know casual sex isn't about love. But might we allow that there's probably a part of all human beings that wants to look down on somebody else. GEACONE-CRUZ: And you're at home in your pajamas, all nice and cuddly and maybe watching Netflix or something. So some languages don't have number words. It's never happened. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. BORODITSKY: One thing that we've noticed is this idea of time, of course, is very highly constructed by our minds and our brains. This is Hidden Brain. And dead languages never change, and some of us might prefer those. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, by Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Kevin Ochsner, Psychological Science, 2008. I think that the tone that many people use when they're complaining that somebody says Billy and me went to the store is a little bit incommensurate with the significance of the issue. That is the direction of writing in Hebrew and Arabic, going from right to left. You-uh (ph). al (Eds. MCWHORTER: Oh, yeah, I'm a human being. There's a way of speaking right. And so for me, that question was born in that conversation of are there some languages where it's easier to imagine a person without their characteristics of gender filled in? And so somebody says something literally, somebody takes a point literally. Sociologist Lisa Wade believes the pervasive hookup culture on campuses today is different from that faced by previous generations. We use a lot of music on the show! VEDANTAM: It took just one week of living in Japan for Jennifer to pick up an important, VEDANTAM: There isn't a straightforward translation of this phrase in English. VEDANTAM: I understand there's been some work looking at children and that children who speak certain languages are actually quicker to identify gender and their own gender than children who are learning other languages in other cultures. And we're all going to have feelings like that. podcast pages. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. VEDANTAM: My guest today is - well, why don't I let her introduce herself? In this favorite episode from 2021, Cornell University psychologist Anthony Burrow explains why purpose isnt something to be found its somethi, It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. I decided it was very important for me to learn English because I had always been a very verbal kid, and I'd - was always the person who recited poems in front of the school and, you know, led assemblies and things like that. Each language comprises the ideas that have been worked out in a culture over thousands of generations, and that is an incredible amount of cultural heritage and complexity of thought that disappears whenever a language dies. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. VEDANTAM: If languages are shaped by the way people see the world, but they also shape how people see the world, what does this mean for people who are bilingual? GEACONE-CRUZ: And you're at home in your pajamas, all nice and cuddly and maybe, watching Netflix or something. Hidden Brain. Those sorts things tend to start with women. In the final episode of our Relationships 2.0 series, psychologistHarry Reis says theres another ingredient to successful relationships thats every bit as important as love. And you say that dictionaries in some ways paint an unrealistic portrait of a language. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. Which I think is probably important with the reality that this edifice that you're teaching is constantly crumbling. We convince a colleague to take a different tactic at work. And so, for example, can I get a hamburger? Hidden Brain - You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose Hidden Brain Aug 2, 2021 You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose Play 51 min playlist_add Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the. Newer episodes are unlikely to have a transcript as it takes us a few weeks to process and edit each transcript. So I think that nobody would say that they don't think language should change. And you can even teach people to have a little bit of fun with the artifice. And I can't help surmising that part of it is that the educated American has been taught and often well that you're not supposed to look down on people because of gender, because of race, because of ability. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? Whats going on here? I had this cool experience when I was there. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. And you suddenly get a craving for potato chips, and you, realize that you have none in the kitchen, and there's nothing else you really want to, eat. He says there are things we can do to make sure our choices align with our deepest values. 4.62. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) I'm willing to get involved. In this episode, we explore how long-term relationships have changed over time and whether we might be able to improve marriage by asking less of it. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. It should be thought of as fun. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Hidden Brain: You, But Better on Apple Podcasts 50 min You, But Better Hidden Brain Social Sciences Think about the resolutions you made this year: to quit smoking, eat better, or get more exercise. - you would have to say something like, my arm got broken, or it so happened to me that my arm is broken. But if I give that same story to a Hebrew or an Arabic speaker, they would organize it from right to left. It's not necessarily may I please have, but may I have, I'll have, but not can I get a. I find it just vulgar for reasons that as you can see I can't even do what I would call defending. We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness Why do some companies become household names, while others flame out? Of course, if you can't keep track of exactly seven, you can't count. MCWHORTER: Yes, that's exactly true. A free podcast app for iPhone and Android, Download episodes while on WiFi to listen without using mobile data, Stream podcast episodes without waiting for a download, Queue episodes to create a personal continuous playlist, Web embed players designed to convert visitors to listeners in the RadioPublic apps for iPhone and Android, Capture listener activity with affinity scores, Measure your promotional campaigns and integrate with Google and Facebook analytics, Deliver timely Calls To Action, including email acquistion for your mailing list, Share exactly the right moment in an episode via text, email, and social media, Tip and transfer funds directly to podcastsers, Earn money for qualified plays in the RadioPublic apps with Paid Listens. And if that is true, then the educated person can look down on people who say Billy and me went to the store or who are using literally, quote, unquote, "wrong" and condemn them in the kinds of terms that once were ordinary for condemning black people or women or what have you. And it's sad that we're not going to be able to make use of them and learn them and celebrate them. So that's a measurement difference of 100 percent of performance. But we have plenty of words like that in English where it doesn't bother us at all. But I think that we should learn not to listen to people using natural language as committing errors because there's no such thing as making a mistake in your language if a critical mass of other people speaking your language are doing the same thing. Please do not republish our logo, name or content digitally or distribute to more than 10 people without written permission. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: (Speaking foreign language). But they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. He's also the author of the book, "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". Well, if you have a word like that and if it's an intensifier of that kind, you can almost guess that literally is going to come to mean something more like just really. You know, we spend years teaching children about how to use language correctly. You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. Just go to the magnifying glass in the top right corner, click on it, and use the search function at the top of the page. Follow on Apple, Google or Spotify. Imagine how we would sound to them if they could hear us. Read the episode transcript. It is the very fabric, the very core of your experience. VEDANTAM: If you have teenagers or work closely with young people, chances are you'll be mystified by their conversations or even annoyed. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Speaking foreign language). What turns out to be the case is that it's something in between - that bilinguals don't really turn off the languages they're not using when they're not using them. VEDANTAM: So I want to talk about a debate that's raged in your field for many years. Just saying hello was difficult. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. In many languages, nouns are gendered. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. I'm Shankar Vedantam. How to Foster Perceived Partner Responsiveness: High-Quality LIstening is Key, by Guy Itzchakov, Harry Reis, and Netta Weinstein, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2021. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. And we teach them, for example, to say that bridges and apples and all kinds of other things have the same prefix as women. You can find the transcript for most episodes of Hidden Brain on our website. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) If you're so upset about it, maybe you can think of a way to help her. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. Not without written permission. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: (Speaking foreign language). I'm Shankar Vedantam. Welcome to HIDDEN BRAIN. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. Languages are not just tools to describe the world. And this is NPR. Maybe it's, even less than 100 meters away, but you just can't bring yourself to even throw your, coat on over your pajamas, and put your boots on, and go outside and walk those, hundred meters because somehow it would break the coziness, and it's just too much of, an effort, and you can't be bothered to do it, even though it's such a small thing. This week, in the second installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Todd Kashdan looks at the relationship between distress and happiness, and ho, Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. If you prefer to listen through a podcast app, here are links to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher. But what we should teach is not that the good way is logical and the way that you're comfortable doing it is illogical. So for example, English speakers, because they're very likely to say, he did it or someone did it, they are very good at remembering who did it, even if it's an accident. But what if it's not even about lust? And it ended up becoming less a direct reflection of hearty laughter than an indication of the kind of almost subconscious laughter that we do in any kind of conversation that's meant as friendly. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. And we looked at every personification and allegory in Artstor and asked, does the language that you speak matter for how you paint death, depending on whether the word death is masculine or feminine in your language? Cholera and malnourishment await Somalis fleeing . We lobby a neighbor to vote for our favored political candidate. VEDANTAM: How the languages we speak shape the way we think and why the words we use are always in flux. BORODITSKY: Well, there may not be a word for left to refer to a left leg. So you can't know how the words are going to come out, but you can take good guesses. And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. Special thanks to Adam Cole, who wrote and performed our rendition of "The Hokey Pokey." Think back to the last time someone convinced you to do something you didn't want to do, or to spend money you didn't want to spend. They're more likely to say, well, it's a formal property of the language. We'd say, oh, well, we don't have magnets in our beaks or in our scales or whatever. What do you think the implications are - if you buy the idea that languages are a very specific and unique way of seeing the world, of perceiving reality, what are the implications of so many languages disappearing during our time? That was somehow a dad's fashion, and that I should start wearing flat-fronted pants. Perceived Partner Responsiveness as an Organizing Construct in the Study of Intimacy and Closeness, by Harry T. Reis, et. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not in your textbooks but when you're hanging out with friends. Lots of languages make a distinction between things that are accidents and things that are intentional actions. I think language can certainly be a contributor into the complex system of our thinking about gender. That's how much cultural heritage is lost. But then you start writing things down and you're in a whole new land because once things are sitting there written on that piece of paper, there's that illusion. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy. We always knew that certain species of animals had abilities to orient that we thought were better than human, and we always had some biological excuse for why we couldn't do it. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. native tongue without even thinking about it. Why researchers should think real-world: A conceptual rationale, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Daily Life, 2012. I think that it's better to think of language as a parade that either you're watching, or frankly, that you're in, especially because the people are never going to stand still. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. And as odd as that sounds, I can guarantee you if you watch any TV show with women under a certain age or if you just go out on an American street and listen, you'll find that that's a new kind of exclamatory particle. This week, a story about a con with a twist. And so even though I insist that there is no scientific basis for rejecting some new word or some new meaning or some new construction, I certainly have my visceral biases. What techniques did that person use to persuade you? UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking foreign language). HIDDEN BRAIN < Lost in Translation: January 29, 20189:00 PM ET VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. How big are the differences that we're talking about, and how big do you think the implications are for the way we see the world? Lera said there's still a lot of research to be done on this. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. We're speaking today with cognitive science professor Lera Boroditsky about language. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. It's never going to. Well never sell your personal information. Yes! The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. That's because change is hard. You're also not going to do algebra. So for example, for English speakers - people who read from left to right - time tends to flow from left to right. VEDANTAM: I want to talk in the second half of our conversation about why the meanings of words change, but I want to start by talking about how they change. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Right. You would never know, for example, that - give you an example I've actually been thinking about. So new words are as likely to evolve as old ones. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: (Speaking Russian). VEDANTAM: One of the ultimate messages I took from your work is that, you know, we can choose to have languages that are alive or languages that are dead. Perspectives on the Situation by Harry T. Reis, and John G. Holmes, in The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years. There's not a bigger difference you could find than 100 percent of the measurement space. Those are quirks of grammar literally in stone. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. It's how we think about anything that's abstract, that's beyond our physical senses. So they've compared gender equality, gender parity norms from the World Health Organization, which ranks countries on how equal access to education, how equal pay is, how equal representation in government is across the genders. Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live, by Kennon M. Sheldon, 2022. But if they were sitting facing north, they would lay out the story from right to left. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. And one day, I was walking along, and I was just staring at the ground. This week, in the final . If the language stayed the way it was, it would be like a pressed flower in a book or, as I say, I think it would be like some inflatable doll rather than a person. Shankar Vedantam: This is Hidden Brain. Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. It's not something that you typically go out trying to do intentionally. You know, it's Lady Liberty and Lady Justice. So if the word for death was masculine in your language, you were likely to paint death as a man. For example, he might take a bunch of pictures of boys and girls and sort them and say, OK, this is a boy. All episodes of Hidden Brain - Chartable Hidden Brain Episodes Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. But also, I started wondering, is it possible that my friend here was imagining a person without a gender for this whole time that we've been talking about them, right? Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. to describe the world. BORODITSKY: And when they were trying to act like Wednesday, they would act like a woman BORODITSKY: Which accords with grammatical gender in Russian. And as you point out, it's not just that people feel that a word is being misused. That is exactly why you should say fewer books instead of less books in some situations and, yes, Billy and I went to the store rather than the perfectly natural Billy and me went to the store. BORODITSKY: Yeah. And if it was feminine, then you're likely to paint death as a woman. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. That's the way words are, too. And what he found was kids who were learning Hebrew - this is a language that has a lot of gender loading in it - figured out whether they were a boy or a girl about a year sooner than kids learning Finnish, which doesn't have a lot of gender marking in the language. But actually, it's something that's not so hard to learn. Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. We'll be back momentarily. And they asked me all kinds of questions about them. But what if there's a whole category of people in your life whose impact is overlooked? Dictionaries are wonderful things, but they create an illusion that there's such thing as a language that stands still, when really it's the nature of human language to change. You have to do it in order to fit into the culture and to speak the language. It is a great, free way to engage the podcast community and increase the visibility of your podcasts. Now, in a lot of languages, you can't say that because unless you were crazy, and you went out looking to break your arm, and you succeeded - right? MCWHORTER: Language is a parade, and nobody sits at a parade wishing that everybody would stand still. She once visited an aboriginal community in northern Australia and found the language they spoke forced her mind to work in new ways. I saw this bird's-eye view, and I was this little red dot. And what's cool about languages, like the languages spoken in Pormpuraaw, is that they don't use words like left and right, and instead, everything is placed in cardinal directions like north, south, east and west. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. But if he just bumped into the table, and it happened to fall off the table and break, and it was an accident, then you might be more likely to say, the flute broke, or the flute broke itself, or it so happened to Sam that the flute broke. BORODITSKY: Actually, one of the first people to notice or suggest that this might be the case was a Russian linguist, Roman Jakobson. I'm Shankar Vedantam. This week, in the final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes what happens when we stop to sav, Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill.