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? 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. All rights reserved. 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. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: (Speaking Russian). BORODITSKY: Well, you would be at sea at first. Hidden Brain: The NPR Archive : NPR - NPR.org Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. And so what that means is if someone was sitting facing south, they would lay out the story from left to right. This week, we launch the first of a two-part mini-series on the scie, If you think about the people in your life, it's likely that they share a lot in common with you. And you've conducted experiments that explore how different conceptions of time in different languages shape the way we think about the world and shape the way we think about stories. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. Lera said there's still a lot of research to be done on this. VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often untranslatable. Could this affect the way, you know, sexism, conscious or unconscious, operates in our world? How so? 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. to describe the world. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Speaking foreign language). If you're like most people, you probably abandoned those resolutions within a few weeks. You're not going to do any of the things that are seen as a foundation of our technological society. Read the episode transcript. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. You know, we spend years teaching children about how to use language correctly. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. Which I think is probably important with the reality that this edifice that you're teaching is constantly crumbling. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. If you, grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your. And nobody wishes that we hadn't developed our modern languages today from the ancient versions. Look at it. Hidden Brain: The Easiest Person to Fool on Apple Podcasts If you still cant find the episode, try looking through our most recent shows on our homepage. You would never know, for example, that - give you an example I've actually been thinking about. 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 the reason that it seems so elusive is because we don't really think about the, quote, unquote, "meaning" of things like our conversation-easing laughter. Listen on the Reuters app. Today's episode was the first in our You 2.0 series, which runs all this month. VEDANTAM: Many of us have dictionaries at home or at work, John. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. 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. If you are a podcaster, the best way to manage your podcasts on Listen Notes is by claiming your Listen Notes 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? So you can't see time. How do you balance the imperative of teaching correct usage? That's because change is hard. So if you took a bunch of those tendencies, you could make up, say, the English of 50 years from now, but some of the things would just be complete chance. And the way you speak right is not by speaking the way that people around you in your life speak, but by speaking the way the language is as it sits there all nice and pretty on that piece of paper where its reality exists. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, What Do You Do When Things Go Right? It has to do with the word momentarily. BORODITSKY: My family is Jewish, and we left as refugees. It's how we think about anything that's abstract, that's beyond our physical senses. Happiness 2.0: The Only Way Out Is Through. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. 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. I saw this bird's-eye view, and I was this little red dot. BORODITSKY: Thank you so much for having me. HIDDEN BRAIN < Lost in Translation: January 29, 20189:00 PM ET VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. You would give a different description to mark that it was not intentional. The Effective Negotiator Part 1: The Behavior of Successful Negotiators and The Effective Negotiator Part 2: Planning for Negotiations, by Neil Rackham and John Carlisle, Journal of European Industrial Training, 1978. And why do some social movements take off and spread, while others fizzle? So LOL starts out as meaning hardy-har-har (ph), but then it becomes something more abstract. Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, by Robert A. Emmons, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986. VEDANTAM: Our conversation made me wonder about what this means on a larger scale. MCWHORTER: Yes, Shankar, that's exactly it. Whats going on here? Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. 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. 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. 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. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. This is HIDDEN BRAIN. He says there are things we can do to make sure our choices align with our deepest values. Subscribe: iOS | Android | Spotify | RSS | Amazon | Stitcher Latest Episodes: Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button They believe that their language reflects the true structure of the world. He didn't like that people were shortening the words. And I would really guess that in a few decades men will be doing it, too. Maybe it's even less than a hundred 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. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not in your textbooks but when you're hanging out with friends. 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. So in terms of the size of differences, there are certainly effects that are really, really big. If you're a monolingual speaker of one of these languages, you're very likely to say that the word chair is masculine because chairs are, in fact, masculine, right? We lobby a neighbor to vote for our favored political candidate. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy. Whats going on here? Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Those sorts things tend to start with women. 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. 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. We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. Whereas speakers of a language like Spanish might not be quite as good at remembering who did it when it's an accident, but they're better at remembering that it was an accident. Shankar Vedantam, host of the popular podcast "Hidden Brain" has been reporting on human behavior for decades. And we teach them, for example, to say that bridges and apples and all kinds of other things have the same prefix as women. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. So I just think that it's something we need to check ourselves for. That's how much cultural heritage is lost. And then he would take a Polaroid of the kid and say, well, this is you. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. And as soon as I saw that happen, I thought, oh, this makes it so much easier. 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. So it's mendokusai. al, Group Decision and Negotiation, 2008. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, by Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Kevin Ochsner, Psychological Science, 2008. You know, endings are going to tend to drop off. 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. Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. And the answer should be, north, northeast in the far distance; how about you? But they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. Only a couple hundred languages - or if you want to be conservative about it, a hundred languages - are written in any real way and then there are 6,800 others. Flight attendant Steven Slater slides from a plane after quitting. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: (Speaking foreign language). There's not a bigger difference you could find than 100 percent of the measurement space. This week on Hidden Brain, we revisit a favorite episode exploring what this culture means Jesse always wanted to fall in love. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. VEDANTAM: How the languages we speak shape the way we think and why the words we use are always in flux. We couldnt survive without the many public radio stations that support our show and they cant survive without you. So for example, for English speakers - people who read from left to right - time tends to flow from left to right. Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at Hidden Brain telling the stories of . Perspectives on the Situation by Harry T. Reis, and John G. Holmes, in The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012. 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. VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often, untranslatable. But if they were sitting facing north, they would lay out the story from right to left. So the way you say hi in Kuuk Thaayorre is to say, which way are you heading? It's not something that you typically go out trying to do intentionally. 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. You can't know, but you can certainly know that if could listen to people 50 years from now, they'd sound odd. Additional Resources Book: We'll also look at how languages evolve, and why we're sometimes resistant to those changes. Interpersonal Chemistry: What Is It, How Does It Emerge, and How Does it Operate? In a lot of languages, there isn't. You can run experiments in a lab or survey people on the street. BORODITSKY: I had this wonderful opportunity to work with my colleague Alice Gaby in this community called Pormpuraaw in - on Cape York. Newer episodes are unlikely to have a transcript as it takes us a few weeks to process and edit each transcript. And if you can enjoy it as a parade instead of wondering why people keep walking instead of just sitting on chairs and blowing on their tubas and not moving, then you have more fun. Trusted by 5,200 companies and developers. 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. If you missed it, 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. Hidden Brain: You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose on Apple Podcasts 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. Hidden Brain - Google Podcasts If a transcript is available, you'll see a Transcript button which expands to reveal the full transcript. So we've done a lot of studies looking at how speakers of Spanish and German and Russian actually think about objects that have opposite grammatical genders. 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. We'd say, oh, well, we don't have magnets in our beaks or in our scales or whatever. I just don't want to do it. 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? Language is something that's spoken, and spoken language especially always keeps changing. 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. 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. Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, by Robert A. Emmons, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986. BORODITSKY: So quite literally, to get past hello, you have to know which way you're heading. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. So for example, grammatical gender - because grammatical gender applies to all nouns in your language, that means that language is shaping the way you think about everything that can be named by a noun. If you grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your native tongue without even thinking about it. This week on Hidden Brain, psychologist Adam Grant describes the magic th And in fact, speakers of languages like this have been shown to orient extremely well - much better than we used to think humans could. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. Does a speaker of a language, like Spanish, who has to assign gender to so many things, end up seeing the world as more gendered? Watch Your Mouth | Hidden Brain : NPR Later things are on the right. I'm Shankar Vedantam. VEDANTAM: For more HIDDEN BRAIN, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS), by Harry T. Reis et. Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts are Influenced by Self-Esteem and Relationship Threat, by Shannon M. Smith & Harry Reis, Personal Relationships, 2012. Sociologist Lisa Wade believes the pervasive hookup culture on campuses today is different from that faced by previous generations. So that, again, is a huge difference. 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. So it's easy to think, oh, I could imagine someone without thinking explicitly about what they're wearing. Which pile do you go in, right? But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? - so one skull but two different minds, and you shift from one to the other. Hidden Brain. We use a lot of music on the show! For more on decision-making, check out our episode on how to make wiser choices. The size of this effect really quite surprised me because I would have thought at the outset that, you know, artists are these iconoclasts. 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. And then question 21 was, is this person a man or a woman? 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. 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. Persuasion: Part 1 - Transcripts