But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not in your textbooks but when you're hanging out with friends. Hidden Brain Feb 23, 2023 Happiness 2.0: Surprising Sources of Joy Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. VEDANTAM: You make the case that concerns over the misuse of language might actually be one of the last places where people can publicly express prejudice and class differences. To request permission, please send an email to [emailprotected]. I've always found that a very grating way to ask for something at a store. We'll be back momentarily. And you say that dictionaries in some ways paint an unrealistic portrait of a language. 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. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. BORODITSKY: I had this wonderful opportunity to work with my colleague Alice Gaby in this community called Pormpuraaw in - on Cape York. So I think that nobody would say that they don't think language should change. If you, grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your. MCWHORTER: Yes, Shankar, that's exactly it. He says there are things we can do to make sure our choices align with our deepest values. The best Podcast API to search all podcasts and episodes. Take the word bridge - if it's feminine in your language, you're more likely to say that bridges are beautiful and elegant. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. (LAUGHTER) VEDANTAM: In the English-speaking world, she goes by Lera Boroditsky. So act like Monday. After claiming your Listen Notes podcast pages, you will be able to: Respond to listener comments on Listen Notes, Use speech-to-text techniques to transcribe your show and 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. This is HIDDEN BRAIN. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Speaking foreign language). In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. You have to do it in order to fit into the culture and to speak the language. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. So - but if I understand correctly, I would be completely at sea if I visited this aboriginal community in Australia because I have often absolutely no idea where I am or where I'm going. Shankar Vedantam, host of the popular podcast "Hidden Brain" has been reporting on human behavior for decades. VEDANTAM: If you're bilingual or you're learning a new language, you get what Jennifer experienced - the joy of discovering a phrase that helps you perfectly encapsulate a feeling or an experience. And this is NPR. The phrase brings an entire world with it - its context, its flavor, its culture. In many languages, nouns are gendered. 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. Whats going on here? VEDANTAM: As someone who spends a lot of his time listening to language evolve, John hears a lot of slang. What techniques did that person use to persuade you? And it irritates people, but there's a different way of seeing literally. And one day, I was walking along, and I was just staring at the ground. It is a great, free way to engage the podcast community and increase the visibility of your podcasts. We'd say, oh, well, we don't have magnets in our beaks or in our scales or whatever. There's not a bigger difference you could find than 100 percent of the measurement space. Of course that's how you BORODITSKY: And so what was remarkable for me was that my brain figured out a really good solution to the problem after a week of trying, right? 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. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Women under about 30 in the United States, when they're excited or they're trying to underline a point, putting uh at the end of things. Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? You know, we spend years teaching children about how to use language correctly. And so somebody says something literally, somebody takes a point literally. You-uh (ph). 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? You know, endings are going to tend to drop off. BORODITSKY: Yeah. VEDANTAM: The word chair is feminine in Italian. VEDANTAM: Lera now tries to understand languages spoken all over the world. MCWHORTER: Oh, yeah, I'm a human being. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. And so he suggested it might be the case that the arbitrarily assigned grammatical genders are actually changing the way people think about these days of the week and maybe all kinds of other things that are named by nouns. 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. But it is a completely crucial part of the human experience. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking foreign language). I'm Shankar Vedantam. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live, Going the Distance on the Pacific Crest Trail: The Vital Role of Identified Motivation, Athletic Scholarships are Negatively Associated with Intrinsic Motivation for Sports, Even Decades Later: Evidence for Long-Term Undermining, Rightly Crossing the Rubicon: Evaluating Goal Self-Concordance Prior to Selection Helps People Choose More Intrinsic Goals, What Makes Lawyers Happy? It's as if you saw a person - I'm not going to say at 4 because then the person is growing up, and if I use that analogy then it seems like I'm saying that language grows up or it moves toward something or it develops. All rights reserved. BORODITSKY: I spoke really terrible Indonesian at the time, so I was trying to practice. BORODITSKY: Well, there may not be a word for left to refer to a left leg. We're speaking today with cognitive science professor Lera Boroditsky about language. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. Sociologist Lisa Wade believes the pervasive hookup culture on campuses today is different from that faced by previous generations. When we come back, I'm going to ask you about why languages change and whether there are hidden rules that shape why some words are more likely to evolve than others. My big fat greek wedding, an american woman of greek ancestry falls in love with a very vanilla, american man. And then when I turned, this little window stayed locked on the landscape, but it turned in my mind's eye. So the word for the is different for women than for men, and it's also different for forks versus spoons and things like that. BORODITSKY: One thing that we've noticed is this idea of time, of course, is very highly constructed by our minds and our brains. And it sounds a little bit abrupt and grabby like you're going to get something instead of being given. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking foreign language). So for example, if Sam grabbed a hammer and struck the flute in anger, that would be one description, like, Sam broke the flute. It's never happened. 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. So some languages don't have number words. It can be almost counterintuitive to listen to how much giggling and laughing you do in ordinary - actually rather plain exchanges with people. You couldn't have predicted this I know-uh move-uh (ph). Lera, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. If you dont see any jobs posted there, feel free to send your resume and cover letter to [emailprotected] and well keep your materials on hand for future openings on the show. So you might say, there's an ant on your northwest leg. Please note that your continued use of the RadioPublic services following the posting of such changes will be deemed an acceptance of this update. I'm Shankar Vedantam. It takes, GEACONE-CRUZ: It's this phrase that describes something between I can't be, bothered or I don't want to do it or I recognize the incredible effort that goes into. 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. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Speaking foreign language). UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: (Speaking German). 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. And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. So it's mendokusai. 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. But, if you dig a little deeper, you may find that they share much more: they might make the same amount of money as you, or share the, We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. Perceived Partner Responsiveness as an Organizing Construct in the Study of Intimacy and Closeness, by Harry T. Reis, et. Welcome to HIDDEN BRAIN. There was no such thing as looking up what it originally meant. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. And it's not just about how we think about time. A brief history of relationship research in social psychology, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of the History of Social Psychology, 2011. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. But I understand that in Spanish, this would come out quite differently. But if they were sitting facing north, they would lay out the story from right to left. JENNIFER GEACONE-CRUZ: My name is Jennifer Geacone-Cruz. So bilinguals are kind of this in-between case where they can't quite turn off their other languages, but they become more prominent, more salient when you are actually speaking the language or surrounded by the language. So what happens is that once literally comes to feel like it means really, people start using it in figurative constructions such as I was literally dying of thirst. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where. Cholera and malnourishment await Somalis fleeing . Those sorts things tend to start with women. Why researchers should think real-world: A conceptual rationale, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Daily Life, 2012. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? You're not going to do trigonometry. 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. Accuracy and availability may vary. Could this affect the way, you know, sexism, conscious or unconscious, operates in our world? Physicist Richard Feynman once said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." One way we fool ourselves is by imagining we know more than we do; we think we are experts. 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. Yes! Newsletter: Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. So to give you a very quick wrap-up is that some effects are big, but even when effects aren't big, they can be interesting or important for other reasons - either because they are very broad or because they apply to things that we think are really important in our culture. And so I set myself the goal that I would learn English in a year, and I wouldn't speak Russian to anyone for that whole first year. VEDANTAM: I asked Lera how describing the word chair or the word bridge as masculine or feminine changes the way that speakers of different languages think about those concepts. So you can think about an un-gendered person in the same way that I might think about a person without a specific age or specific height or specific color shirt. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. 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. native tongue without even thinking about it. VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often untranslatable. Parents and peers influence our major life choices, but they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. MCWHORTER: Yeah. And MIT linguist Ken Hale, who's a renowned linguist, said that every time a language dies, it's the equivalent of a bomb being dropped on the Louvre. What Do You Do When Things Go Right? And we teach them, for example, to say that bridges and apples and all kinds of other things have the same prefix as women. But it turns out humans can stay oriented really, really well, provided that their language and culture requires them to keep track of this information. Language was talk. Special thanks to Adam Cole, who wrote and performed our rendition of "The Hokey Pokey." 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. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. I said, you know, this weird thing happened. We love the idea of Hidden Brain helping to spark discussions in your community. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. VEDANTAM: So I find that I'm often directionally and navigationally challenged when I'm driving around, and I often get my east-west mixed up with my left-right for reasons I have never been able to fathom. BORODITSKY: The way to say my name properly in Russian is (speaking foreign language), so I don't make people say that. 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. And there are consequences for how people think about events, what they notice when they see accidents. You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. 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. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. So you have speakers of two different languages look at the same event and come away with different memories of what happened because of the structure of their languages and the way they would normally describe them. It is the very fabric, the very core of your experience. 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. Additional Resources Book: UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking foreign language). Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. But what I am thinking is, you should realize that even if you don't like it, there's nothing wrong with it in the long run because, for example, Jonathan Swift didn't like it that people were saying kissed instead of kiss-ed (ph) and rebuked instead of rebuk-ed (ph). 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. And you can even teach people to have a little bit of fun with the artifice. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. 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? It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, What Do You Do When Things Go Right? Growing up, I understood this word to mean for a very short time, as in John McWhorter was momentarily surprised. But can you imagine someone without imagining their gender? VEDANTAM: (Laughter) All right, I think it might be time for me to confess one of my pet peeves. VEDANTAM: The moment she heard it, Jennifer realized mendokusai was incredibly useful. But might we allow that there's probably a part of all human beings that wants to look down on somebody else. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? 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. 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. 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. 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. But, you know, John, something gnaws at me every time I hear the word used wrong. So for example, for English speakers - people who read from left to right - time tends to flow from left to right. We also look at how. They're more likely to see through this little game that language has played on them. It should just be, here is the natural way, then there's some things that you're supposed to do in public because that's the way it is, whether it's fair or not. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaking foreign language). VEDANTAM: John McWhorter, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. So that's an example of how languages and cultures construct how we use space to organize time, to organize this very abstract thing that's otherwise kind of hard to get our hands on and think about. There are different ways to be a psychologist. Refusing to Apologize can have Psychological Benefits, by Tyler Okimoto, Michael Wenzel and Kyli Hedrick, European Journal of Social Psychology, 2013. But they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. What do you do for christmas with your family? And that is an example of a simple feature of language - number words - acting as a transformative stepping stone to a whole domain of knowledge. You can run experiments in a lab or survey people on the street. Thank you! Imagine how we would sound to them if they could hear us. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years. Well never sell your personal information. Of course, if you can't keep track of exactly seven, you can't count. VEDANTAM: Our conversation made me wonder about what this means on a larger scale. That's how much cultural heritage is lost. And so language changed just like the clouds in the sky. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. Hidden Brain. You can find all Hidden Brain episodes on our website. If it is the first time you login, a new account will be created automatically. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. 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. We post open positions (including internships) on our jobs page. MCWHORTER: It's a matter of fashion, pure and simple. They shape our place in it. Listen on the Reuters app. As someone who works in media, I often find that people who can write well are often people who know how to think well, so I often equate clarity of writing with clarity of thought. Because were a small team, we dont have a publicly-available list of every piece of music that we use. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. It's too high. 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. Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. You would never know, for example, that - give you an example I've actually been thinking about. And I kind of sheepishly confessed this to someone there. FEB 27, 2023; Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button . People do need to be taught what the socially acceptable forms are. In this favorite 2021 episode, psychologistAdam Grantpushes back against the benefits of certainty, and describes the magic that unfolds when we challenge our own deeply-held beliefs. VEDANTAM: For more HIDDEN BRAIN, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. VEDANTAM: Still don't have a clear picture? But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? But actually, that's exactly how people in those communities come to stay oriented - is that they learn it, (laughter) right? Lera is a cognitive science professor at the University of California, San Diego. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. VEDANTAM: One of the things I found really interesting is that the evolution of words and language is constant. BORODITSKY: Thank you so much for having me. That is utterly arbitrary that those little slits in American society look elderly, but for various chance reasons, that's what those slits came to mean, so I started wearing flat-fronted pants. BORODITSKY: And Russian is a language that has grammatical gender, and different days of the week have different genders for some reason. So LOL starts out as meaning hardy-har-har (ph), but then it becomes something more abstract. Long before she began researching languages as a professor, foreign languages loomed large in her life. MCWHORTER: You could have fun doing such a thing. Follow on Apple, Google or Spotify. So LOL was an internet abbreviation meaning laugh out loud or laughing out loud, but LOL in common usage today doesn't necessarily mean hysterical laughter. Parents and peers influence our major life choices. Copyright 2018 NPR. Psychologist Ken Sheldon studies the science of figuring out what you want. 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. The only question was in which way. But what if there's a whole category of people in your life whose impact is overlooked? There's been a little bit of research from economists actually looking at this. And as you point out, it's not just that people feel that a word is being misused. I just don't want to do it. Psychologist Ken Sheldon studies the science of figuring out what you want. That hadn't started then. Imagine this. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. And very competent adults of our culture can't do that. SHANKAR VEDANTAM, HOST:This is HIDDEN BRAIN. It's just how I feel. Languages are not just tools. You may link to our content and copy and paste episode descriptions and Additional Resources into your invitations. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. How else would you do it? So when I ask you to, say, imagine a man walking down the street, well, in your imagery, you're going to have some details completed and some will be left out. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: (Speaking Italian). MCWHORTER: Exactly. She once visited an aboriginal community in northern Australia and found the language they spoke forced her mind to work in new ways. One study that I love is a study that asked monolingual speakers of Italian and German and also bilingual speakers of Italian and German to give reasons for why things are the grammatical genders that they are. to describe the world. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. We use a lot of music on the show! I'm Shankar Vedanta. 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. VEDANTAM: If you have teenagers or work closely with young people, chances are you'll be mystified by their conversations or even annoyed. If you are a podcaster, the best way to manage your podcasts on Listen Notes is by claiming your Listen Notes If you still cant find the episode, try looking through our most recent shows on our homepage. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. You can find the transcript for most episodes of Hidden Brain on our website. And as soon as I saw that happen, I thought, oh, this makes it so much easier. Let's start with the word literally. Hidden Brain Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam Subscribe Visit website Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our. 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. 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. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, direct support to Hidden Brain by making a gift on our Patreon page, sponsorship opportunities on Hidden Brain. And there are all kinds of interesting, useful, eye-opening ideas that exist in all of the world's languages. 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. Perspectives on the Situation by Harry T. Reis, and John G. Holmes, in The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? Read the episode transcript. In this favorite episode from 2021, Cornell University psychologist Anthony Burrow explains why purpose isnt something to be found its something we can develop from within. You know, there's no left leg or right leg. (Speaking Japanese). UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking foreign language). So in English, I might say that Sam (ph) broke the flute. VEDANTAM: Would it be possible to use what we have learned about how words and languages evolve to potentially write what a dictionary might look like in 50 years or a hundred years? 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?
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