And some people would say it's a lot more because it's, you know, irrecoverable and not reduplicated elsewhere. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking foreign language). This is NPR. 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. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. I'm Shankar Vedantam. But what if it's not even about lust? 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? So LOL starts out as meaning hardy-har-har (ph), but then it becomes something more abstract. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. 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. They are ways of seeing the world. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. So when the perfect woman started writing him letters, it seemed too good to be true. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: (Speaking foreign language). If you liked . Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. He's also the author of the book, "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". What we think of today as a word undergoing some odd development or people using some new construction is exactly how Latin turned into French. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Right. 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 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. But if you ask bilinguals, who have learned two languages and now they know that some genders disagree across the two languages, they're much less likely to say that it's because chairs are intrinsically masculine. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, What Do You Do When Things Go Right? Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. But she told me a story about a conversation she had with a native speaker of Indonesian. Hidden Brain Claim By Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam Podcasts RSS Web PODCAST SEARCH EPISODES COMMUNITY PODCASTER EDIT SHARE Listen Score LS 84 Global Rank TOP 0.01% ABOUT THIS PODCAST Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Another possibility is that it's a fully integrated mind, and it just incorporates ideas and distinctions from both languages or from many languages if you speak more than two. BORODITSKY: It's certainly possible. this is hidden brain I'm Shankar Vedantam in the classic TV series Star Trek Mister Spock has a foolproof technique for accurately reading the thoughts and feelings of others the Vulcan mind I am Spock you James our minds are moving closer most most here are kind of hard we have new technology that gives us direct access to the minds of others so Our team includes Laura Kwerel, Adhiti Bandlamudi and our supervising producer Tara Boyle. Many people have this intuition that, oh, I could never learn that; I could never survive in a community like this. You-uh (ph). al, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004. 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. Sociologist Lisa Wade believes the pervasive hookup culture on campuses today is different from that faced by previous generations. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. JENNIFER GEACONE-CRUZ: My name is Jennifer Geacone-Cruz. 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. And if you don't have a word for exactly seven, it actually becomes very, very hard to keep track of exactly seven. 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. If you're bilingual or multilingual, you may have noticed that different languages make you stretch in different ways. 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? 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. How does that sound now? There was no way of transcribing an approximation of what people said and nobody would have thought of doing it. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. For example, if you take seeds and put them in the ground, that's one thing. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. SHANKAR VEDANTAM, HOST:This is HIDDEN BRAIN. 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. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years. Stay with us. Growing up, I understood this word to mean for a very short time, as in John McWhorter was momentarily surprised. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. Are the spoken origins of language one reason that words so often seem to be on the move? It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. BORODITSKY: That's a wonderful question. The size of this effect really quite surprised me because I would have thought at the outset that, you know, artists are these iconoclasts. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways w, Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. 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. The phrase brings an entire world with it - its context, its flavor, its culture. 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. All of these are very subjective things. Listen on the Reuters app. So one possibility for bilinguals would be that they just have two different minds inside - right? But actually, that's exactly how people in those communities come to stay oriented - is that they learn it, (laughter) right? Which I think is probably important with the reality that this edifice that you're teaching is constantly crumbling. Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? Take the word bridge - if it's feminine in your language, you're more likely to say that bridges are beautiful and elegant. Additional Resources Book: Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. 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? In English, actually, quite weirdly, we can even say things like, I broke my arm. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. To request permission, please send an email to [emailprotected]. Which pile do you go in, right? If a transcript is available, youll see a Transcript button which expands to reveal the full transcript. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PARKS AND RECREATION"). If a transcript is available, you'll see a Transcript button which expands to reveal the full transcript. He didn't like that people were shortening the words. Psychologist Ken Sheldon studies the science of figuring out what you want. (Speaking Japanese). But if you seed a watermelon, nobody assumes that you're taking seeds and putting them in the watermelon, you're taking them out. Podcasters use the RadioPublic listener relationship platform to build lasting connections with fans. al (Eds. Imagine this. For more on decision-making, check out our episode on how to make wiser choices. So in English, I might say that Sam (ph) broke the flute. It's too high. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. So you can't know how the words are going to come out, but you can take good guesses. They are ways of seeing the world. 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. BORODITSKY: The way to say my name properly in Russian is (speaking foreign language), so I don't make people say that. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? Refusing to Apologize can have Psychological Benefits, by Tyler Okimoto, Michael Wenzel and Kyli Hedrick, European Journal of Social Psychology, 2013. 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? When language was like that, of course it changed a lot - fast - because once you said it, it was gone. You know, there's no left leg or right leg. 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. Shankar Vedantam, host of the popular podcast "Hidden Brain" has been reporting on human behavior for decades. VEDANTAM: (Laughter) All right, I think it might be time for me to confess one of my pet peeves. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. This week, in the final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes what happens when we stop to savor the beauty in nature, art, or simply the moral courage of those around us. 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. 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. We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness can seem more elusive the harder we chase it, and what we can do instead to build a lasting sense of contentment. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. We post open positions (including internships) on our jobs page. 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. 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. 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. There's not a bigger difference you could find than 100 percent of the measurement space. And when I listen to people having their peeves, I don't think, stop it. 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. So act like Monday. Rightly Crossing the Rubicon: Evaluating Goal Self-Concordance Prior to Selection Helps People Choose More Intrinsic Goals, by Kennon M. Sheldon, Mike Prentice, and Evgeny Osin, Journal of Research in Personality, 2019. 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. Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date. It's testament to the incredible ingenuity and complexity of the human mind that all of these different perspectives on the world have been invented. 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. Writing has come along relatively recently. The categorization that language provides to you becomes real, becomes psychologically real. 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. I'm Shankar Vedantam. This week on Hidden Brain, we explore how unconscious bias can infect a culture and how a police shooting may say as much about a community as it does about individuals. And then when I turned, this little window stayed locked on the landscape, but it turned in my mind's eye. 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. So you may start with moving your southwest leg in, but then you have to move your northeast leg out. MCWHORTER: Yeah, I really do. It's exactly how old English turned into modern English. 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? And you can just - it rolls off the tongue, and you can just throw it out. : A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? VEDANTAM: One of the things I found really interesting is that the evolution of words and language is constant. How do you balance the imperative of teaching correct usage? And it irritates people, but there's a different way of seeing literally. It can be almost counterintuitive to listen to how much giggling and laughing you do in ordinary - actually rather plain exchanges with people. We don't want to be like that. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. And very competent adults of our culture can't do that. And if people heard the sounds a little differently and produced them a little differently, if there were new meanings of words - very quickly whatever the original meaning was wouldn't be remembered. Well never sell your personal information. Parents and peers influence our major life choices, but they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. They give us a sense that the meanings of words are fixed, when in fact they're not. That's the way words are, too. : The Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Benefits of Sharing Positive Events, Perceived Partner Responsiveness as an Organizing Construct in the Study of Intimacy and Closeness, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. Whats going on here? BORODITSKY: Well, I think it's a terrible tragedy. VEDANTAM: So this begs the question, if you were to put languages on something of a spectrum, where you have, you know, languages like Spanish or Hindi where nouns are gendered and languages like English where many nouns are not gendered but pronouns are gendered, and on the other end of the spectrum, you have languages like Finnish or Persian where you can have a conversation about someone without actually mentioning their gender, it would seem surprising if this did not translate, at some level, into the way people thought about gender in their daily activities, in terms of thinking about maybe even who can do what in the workplace. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking foreign language). There's a lowlier part of our nature that grammar allows us to vent in the absence of other ways to do it that have not been available for some decades for a lot of us. So it's mendokusai. Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. It is a great, free way to engage the podcast community and increase the visibility of your podcasts. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, by Adam Grant, 2021. 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. 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. Just saying hello was difficult. something, even though it shouldn't be so much of an effort. Language is something that's spoken, and spoken language especially always keeps changing. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking foreign language). If it is the first time you login, a new account will be created automatically. And he started by asking Russian-speaking students to personify days of the week. We also look at how. BORODITSKY: Yeah. That kind of detail may not appear. ROB LOWE: (As Chris Traeger) Dr. Harris, you are literally the meanest person I have ever met. MCWHORTER: No, because LOL was an expression; it was a piece of language, and so you knew that its meaning was going to change. 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. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. 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. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS), by Harry T. Reis et. The Effects of Conflict Types, Dimensions, and Emergent States on Group Outcomes, by Karen Jehn et. And if you teach them that forks go with women, they start to think that forks are more feminine. Maybe they like the same kinds of food, or enjoy the same hobbies. We're speaking today with cognitive science professor Lera Boroditsky about language. And to arrive in a new place where you can't tell a joke and can't express an idea - oh, it's just really painful because you feel like your whole self is hiding inside and no one can see it. 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. VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often, untranslatable. MCWHORTER: Yes, that's exactly true. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where. 00:55:27 Hidden Brain Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button In this month's Radio Replay, we ask whether the structure of the languages we speak can change the way we see the world. This week, in the fourth and final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. There are signs it's getting even harder. VEDANTAM: I understand that if you're in a picnic with someone from this community and you notice an ant climbing up someone's left leg, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to tell that person, look, there's an ant on your left leg. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. So it's easy to think, oh, I could imagine someone without thinking explicitly about what they're wearing. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. But I find that people now usually use the word to mean very soon, as in we're going to board the plane momentarily. Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts are Influenced by Self-Esteem and Relationship Threat, by Shannon M. Smith & Harry Reis, Personal Relationships, 2012. Imagine you meet somebody, they're 39 and you take their picture. MCWHORTER: Oh, yeah, I'm a human being. VEDANTAM: I'm Shankar Vedantam. 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. You can find all Hidden Brain episodes on our website. Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, by Philip Tetlock, Psychology Review, 2002. out. Flight attendant Steven Slater slides from a plane after quitting. Official Website Airs on: SUN 7pm-8pm 55:27 Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button Feb 27 Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. Hidden Brain Feb 23, 2023 Happiness 2.0: Surprising Sources of Joy Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. 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. And then question 21 was, is this person a man or a woman? This is a database with millions of art images. BORODITSKY: Yeah, that's true. And if they were facing east, they would make the cards come toward them, toward the body. 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 - Transcripts Hidden Brain - Transcripts Subscribe 435 episodes Share Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. And then he would take a Polaroid of the kid and say, well, this is you. VEDANTAM: As someone who spends a lot of his time listening to language evolve, John hears a lot of slang. So we did an analysis of images in Artstor. 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? HIDDEN BRAIN < Lost in Translation: January 29, 20189:00 PM ET VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. But it is a completely crucial part of the human experience. 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. And after listening to you, I realize I might have to finally give in. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking foreign language). 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? 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. 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. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: (Speaking German). MCWHORTER: Thank you for having me, Shankar. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? There was no such thing as looking up what it originally meant. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. This week, we continue our look at the science of influence with psychologist Robert Cialdini, and explore how th, We all exert pressure on each other in ways small and profound. You know, we spend years teaching children about how to use language correctly. Transcript Podcast: Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. and pick the featured episodes for your show. 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). This week, in the final . We lobby a neighbor to vote for our favored political candidate. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, by Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Kevin Ochsner, Psychological Science, 2008. You're also not going to do algebra. There's been a little bit of research from economists actually looking at this. We love the idea of Hidden Brain helping to spark discussions in your community. Goal Striving, Need Satisfaction, and Longitudinal Well-being: The Self-Concordance Model, by Kennon M. Sheldon and Andrew J. Elliot, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999. All sponsorship opportunities on Hidden Brain are managed by SXM Media. . Yes! So there are some differences that are as big as you can possibly measure. In many languages, nouns are gendered. al (Eds. But if I give that same story to a Hebrew or an Arabic speaker, they would organize it from right to left. VEDANTAM: Time is another concept that is also central to the way we see and describe the world. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not. This week, in the fourth and final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes . For example, he might take a bunch of pictures of boys and girls and sort them and say, OK, this is a boy. 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. And what we find is that if you teach people that forks go with men grammatically in a language, they start to think of forks as being more masculine. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking foreign language). We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness Why do some companies become household names, while others flame out? It's part of a general running indication that everything's OK between you and the other person, just like one's expected to smile a little bit in most interactions. So I think that nobody would say that they don't think language should change. 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. 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. 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, in fact, they were reflecting this little quirk of grammar, this little quirk of their language and in some cases, you know, carving those quirks of grammar into stone because when you look at statues that we have around - of liberty and justice and things like this - they have gender. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: (Speaking Russian). UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking foreign language). UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #16: Not figuratively, it's literally MCWHORTER: Yeah. If you still cant find the episode, try looking through our most recent shows on our homepage. My big fat greek wedding, an american woman of greek ancestry falls in love with a very vanilla, american man. We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. It's inherent. 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. 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. People who breathe too much put their bodies in a hypoxic state, with not enough oxygen to the brain How breath moves in the body: air comes in through the nose and mouth; the larynx (rigid tube to avoid closing) brings air from the nose and mouth to the lungs Lungs can expand and contract to bring in or expel air
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