Of course, if you can't keep track of exactly seven, you can't count. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. Well never sell your personal information. BORODITSKY: Yeah. HIDDEN BRAIN < Lost in Translation: January 29, 20189:00 PM ET VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. He. VEDANTAM: Many of us have dictionaries at home or at work, John. out. Transcript Speaker 1 00:00:00 this is hidden brain. Languages are not just tools. Whats going on here? podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9rd1djMGxoZg==, open.spotify.com/show/20Gf4IAauFrfj7RBkjcWxh. She once visited an aboriginal community in northern Australia and found the language they spoke forced her mind to work in new ways. Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. It's never going to. Language was talk. So the way you say hi in Kuuk Thaayorre is to say, which way are you heading? Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. 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. All episodes of Hidden Brain - Chartable BORODITSKY: Well, you would be at sea at first. The dictionary says both uses are correct. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. But I understand that in Spanish, this would come out quite differently. 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. Hidden Brain Feb 23, 2023 Happiness 2.0: Surprising Sources of Joy Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. And then question 21 was, is this person a man or a woman? 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? Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. We convince a colleague to take a different tactic at work. And this is NPR. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? Hidden Brain. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. 5.3 Misbehaving Hidden Brain NPR - HOURLY NEWS DONATE < Predictably That is the direction of writing in Hebrew and Arabic, going from right to left. Lera, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. 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. But she told me a story about a conversation she had with a native speaker of Indonesian. I had this cool experience when I was there. Hidden Brain : NPR No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where. That is the most random thing. We'll begin with police shootings of unarmed Black men. Reframing Your Reality: Part 1 | Hidden Brain Media And I don't think any of us are thinking that it's a shame that we're not using the language of Beowulf. Evaluating Changes in Motivation, Values, and Well-being, by Kennon M. Sheldon and Lawrence S. Krieger, Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 2004. Languages are not just tools to describe the world. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. MCWHORTER: Language is a parade, and nobody sits at a parade wishing that everybody would stand still. For example, when we started talking about navigation, that's an example where a 5-year-old in a culture that uses words like north, south, east and west can point southeast without hesitation. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live, by Kennon M. Sheldon, 2022. BORODITSKY: The way to say my name properly in Russian is (speaking foreign language), so I don't make people say that. How do you balance the imperative of teaching correct usage? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking foreign language). Let's start with the word literally. ), The Sourcebook of Listening Research: Methodology and Measures, 2018. VEDANTAM: Languages orient us to the world. I know-uh (ph) is there, or something along the lines of babe-uh (ph). 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. 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. It's how we think about anything that's abstract, that's beyond our physical senses. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, Refusing to Apologize can have Psychological Benefits, The Effects of Conflict Types, Dimensions, and Emergent States on Group Outcomes, Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, The Effective Negotiator Part 1: The Behavior of Successful Negotiators, The Effective Negotiator Part 2: Planning for Negotiations, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. You may also use the Hidden Brain name in invitations sent to a small group of personal contacts for such purposes as a listening club or discussion forum. Hidden Brain - Transcripts It might irritate you slightly to hear somebody say something like, I need less books instead of fewer books. So maybe they're saying bridges are beautiful and elegant, not because they're grammatically feminine in the language, but because the bridges they have are, in fact, more beautiful and elegant. 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. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. In this week's My Unsung Hero, Sarah Feldman thanks someone for their gift more than 20 years ago. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) I'm willing to get involved. VEDANTAM: Our conversation made me wonder about what this means on a larger scale. I'm shankar Vedantam in the 2002 rom com. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. GEACONE-CRUZ: And you're at home in your pajamas, all nice and cuddly and maybe watching Netflix or something. You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. June 20, 2020 This week on Hidden Brain, research about prejudices so deeply buried, we often doubt their existence. It's inherent. GEACONE-CRUZ: It describes this feeling so perfectly in such a wonderfully packaged, encapsulated way. So that, again, is a huge difference. But it is a completely crucial part of the human experience. We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness Why do some companies become household names, while others flame out? The only question was in which way. And what he noticed was that when people were trying to act like Monday, they would act like a man. BORODITSKY: It's certainly possible. VEDANTAM: Languages seem to have different ways of communicating agency. Refusing to Apologize can have Psychological Benefits, by Tyler Okimoto, Michael Wenzel and Kyli Hedrick, European Journal of Social Psychology, 2013. Now I can stay oriented. And to our surprise, 78 percent of the time, we could predict the gender of the personification based on the grammatical gender of the noun in the artist's native language. 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. BORODITSKY: Yeah. So to go back to the example we were just talking about - people who don't use words like left and right - when I gave those picture stories to Kuuk Thaayorre speakers, who use north, south, east and west, they organized the cards from east to west. Cholera and malnourishment await Somalis fleeing . 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. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking foreign language). Hidden Brain (podcast) - Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam - Listen Notes And there are all kinds of interesting, useful, eye-opening ideas that exist in all of the world's languages. They shape our place in it. 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? If you are a podcaster, the best way to manage your podcasts on Listen Notes is by claiming your Listen Notes And, I mean, just in terms of even sounds changing and the way that you put words together changing bit by bit, and there's never been a language that didn't do that. The phrase brings an entire world with it - its context, its flavor, its culture. But I find that people now usually use the word to mean very soon, as in we're going to board the plane momentarily. If you still cant find the episode, try looking through our most recent shows on our homepage. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. John, you've noted that humans have been using language for a very long time, but for most of that time language has been about talking. How else would you do it? They often feel angry about it, and you think this anger is actually telling. When the con was exposed, its victims defended the con artists. Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, by Philip Tetlock, Psychology Review, 2002. This week, in the final . Interpersonal Chemistry: What Is It, How Does It Emerge, and How Does it Operate? And as you point out, it's not just that people feel that a word is being misused. BORODITSKY: Yeah, that's true. See you next week. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: (Speaking foreign language). I'm Shankar Vedantam. Perspectives on the Situation by Harry T. Reis, and John G. Holmes, in The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, by Adam Grant, 2021. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. For more of our Relationships 2.0 series, check out one of our most popular episodes ever about why marriages are so hard. Going the Distance on the Pacific Crest Trail: The Vital Role of Identified Motivation, by Kennon M. Sheldon, Motivation Science, 2020. He's a defender of language on the move, but I wanted to know if there were things that irritated even him. Look at it. They shape our place in it. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. VEDANTAM: I understand that there's also been studies looking at how artists who speak different languages might paint differently depending on how their languages categorize, you know, concepts like a mountain or death. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? So if the word for death was masculine in your language, you were likely to paint death as a man. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Right. So earlier things are on the left. So some languages don't have number words. When we come back, we dig further into the way that gender works in different languages and the pervasive effects that words can play in our lives. 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. I saw this bird's-eye view, and I was this little red dot. Something new will have started by then, just like if we listen to people in 1971, they sound odd in that they don't say like as much as we do. But what if there's a whole category of people in your life whose impact is overlooked? VEDANTAM: This episode of HIDDEN BRAIN was produced by Rhaina Cohen, Maggie Penman and Thomas Lu with help from Renee Klahr, Jenny Schmidt, Parth Shah and Chloe Connelly. But things can be important not just because they're big. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. You know, lots of people blow off steam about something they think is wrong, but very few people are willing to get involved and do something about it. Hidden Brain on Apple Podcasts They're more likely to say, well, it's a formal property of the language. (LAUGHTER) VEDANTAM: In the English-speaking world, she goes by Lera Boroditsky. There are different ways to be a psychologist. 585: In Defense of Ignorance - This American Life Writing has come along relatively recently. So act like Monday. Because were a small team, we dont have a publicly-available list of every piece of music that we use. In the second episode of our "Relationships 2.0" series, psychologist Do you ever struggle to communicate with your mom? What do you do for christmas with your family? It seems kind of elliptical, like, would it be possible that I obtained? This is a database with millions of art images. So for example, if Sam grabbed a hammer and struck the flute in anger, that would be one description, like, Sam broke the flute. VEDANTAM: John McWhorter, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. If you take literally in what we can think of as its earliest meaning, the earliest meaning known to us is by the letter. ROB LOWE: (As Chris Traeger) Dr. Harris, you are literally the meanest person I have ever met. VEDANTAM: Around the world, we often hear that many languages are dying, and there are a few megalanguages that are growing and expanding in all kinds of ways. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. You know, I was trying to stay oriented because people were treating me like I was pretty stupid for not being oriented, and that hurt. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #16: Not figuratively, it's literally MCWHORTER: Yeah. How to Foster Perceived Partner Responsiveness: High-Quality LIstening is Key, Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS), Toward Understanding Understanding:The Importance of Feeling Understood in Relationships, Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts are Influenced by Self-Esteem and Relationship Threat, Perceived Partner Responsiveness Minimizes Defensive Reactions to Failure, Assessing the Seeds of Relationship Decay: Using Implicit Evaluations to Detect the Early Stages of Disillusionment. Athletic Scholarships are Negatively Associated with Intrinsic Motivation for Sports, Even Decades Later: Evidence for Long-Term Undermining, by Kennon M. Sheldon and Arlen C. Moller, Motivation Science, 2020. Young people have always used language in new and different ways, and it's pretty much always driven older people crazy. They're supposed to be painting something very personal. Hidden Brain: You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose on Apple Podcasts And a girl goes in this pile. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. So LOL starts out as meaning hardy-har-har (ph), but then it becomes something more abstract. There are many scholars who would say, look, yes, you do see small differences between speakers of different languages, but these differences are not really significant; they're really small. So there are some differences that are as big as you can possibly measure. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? If you can speak more than one language, does this mean that you're also simultaneously and constantly shifting in your mind between different worldviews? MCWHORTER: Yeah, I really do. Hidden Brain. John is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness can seem more el, When we want something very badly, it can be hard to see warning signs that might be obvious to other people. And it really is an illusion that what language is, is something that sits still. Everyone wants to be loved and appreciated. But it's exactly like - it was maybe about 20 years ago that somebody - a girlfriend I had told me that if I wore pants that had little vertical pleats up near the waist, then I was conveying that I was kind of past it. Not without written permission. Lera said there's still a lot of research to be done on this. 00:51:58 - We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. So it's mendokusai. Those sorts things tend to start with women. This is HIDDEN BRAIN. There was no such thing as looking up what it originally meant. I'm Shankar Vedanta. VEDANTAM: Jennifer moved to Japan for graduate school. What techniques did that person use to persuade you? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking foreign language). And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. BORODITSKY: I spoke really terrible Indonesian at the time, so I was trying to practice. So when the perfect woman started writing him letters, it seemed too good to be true. Of course, eventually, the Finnish kids also figured it out because language isn't the only source of that information, otherwise it would be quite surprising for the Finns to be able to continue to reproduce themselves. In a lot of languages, there isn't. VEDANTAM: Time is another concept that is also central to the way we see and describe the world. I'm Shankar Vedantam. This week, we're going to bring you a conversation I had in front of a live audience with Richard Thaler, taped on Halloween at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D. Richard is a professor of behavioral sciences and economics at the University of Chicago and is a well-known author. They are ways of seeing the world. But actually, that's exactly how people in those communities come to stay oriented - is that they learn it, (laughter) right? And if they were facing east, they would make the cards come toward them, toward the body. VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, What Do You Do When Things Go Right? Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. When she was 12, her family came to the United States from the Soviet Union. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: (Speaking Russian). Because it was. 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? VEDANTAM: I love this analogy you have in the book where you mention how, you know, thinking that a word has only one meaning is like looking at a snapshot taken at one point in a person's life and saying this photograph represents the entirety of what this person looks like. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. MCWHORTER: Yeah. How does that sound now? This week, in the second installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Todd Kashdan looks at the relationship between distress and happiness, and how to keep difficult emotions from sabotaging our wellbeing. Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, by Amy Edmondson, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999. Language is something that's spoken, and spoken language especially always keeps changing. It can be almost counterintuitive to listen to how much giggling and laughing you do in ordinary - actually rather plain exchanges with people. I want everybody to have the fun I'm having. And so I was trying to keep track of which way is which. VEDANTAM: Lera now tries to understand languages spoken all over the world. And so what that means is if someone was sitting facing south, they would lay out the story from left to right. 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. So I think it's something that is quite easy for humans to learn if you just have a reason to want to do it. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. It's just how I feel. I just don't want to do it. Many people have this intuition that, oh, I could never learn that; I could never survive in a community like this. But, you know, John, something gnaws at me every time I hear the word used wrong. and pick the featured episodes for your show. Watch Your Mouth | Hidden Brain : NPR Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. We lobby a neighbor to vote for our favored political candidate. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years.