And they have correlated this with gender features in the language, just like the ones you were talking about. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. And he started by asking Russian-speaking students to personify days of the week. FEB 27, 2023; Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button . Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. That kind of detail may not appear. And what's cool about languages, like the languages spoken in Pormpuraaw, is that they don't use words like left and right, and instead, everything is placed in cardinal directions like north, south, east and west. And some people would say it's a lot more because it's, you know, irrecoverable and not reduplicated elsewhere. 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. 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. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. That was somehow a dad's fashion, and that I should start wearing flat-fronted pants. And this is NPR. VEDANTAM: So all this raises a really interesting question. 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. He's a defender of language on the move, but I wanted to know if there were things that irritated even him. And, I mean, really, it sounds exactly like that. VEDANTAM: In the English-speaking world, she goes by Lera Boroditsky. We always knew that certain species of animals had abilities to orient that we thought were better than human, and we always had some biological excuse for why we couldn't do it. 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. 585: In Defense of Ignorance - This American Life So we did an analysis of images in Artstor. 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. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. Which I think is probably important with the reality that this edifice that you're teaching is constantly crumbling. And what he noticed was that when people were trying to act like Monday, they would act like a man. edit transcripts, Improve the presence of your podcasts, e.g., self-service, If you share your Listen Notes page and at-mention. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. And it's sad that we're not going to be able to make use of them and learn them and celebrate them. L. Gable, et. 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. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not in your textbooks but when you're hanging out with friends. He's a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and the author of the book "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". They shape our place in it. 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. Hidden Brain: The NPR Archive : NPR - NPR.org 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. 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. VEDANTAM: I understand there's been some work looking at children and that children who speak certain languages are actually quicker to identify gender and their own gender than children who are learning other languages in other cultures. And when I listen to people having their peeves, I don't think, stop it. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, by Adam Grant, 2021. : A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, by Lawrence S. Krieger and Kennon M. Sheldon, George Washington Law Review, 2015. It goes in this pile. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. How to Foster Perceived Partner Responsiveness: High-Quality LIstening is Key, by Guy Itzchakov, Harry Reis, and Netta Weinstein, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2021. But as Bob Cialdini set out to discover the keys to influence and persuasion, he decided to follow the instincts of his childhood. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. And then when I turned, this little window stayed locked on the landscape, but it turned in my mind's eye. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. 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? Growing up, I understood this word to mean for a very short time, as in John McWhorter was momentarily surprised. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. VEDANTAM: Many of us have dictionaries at home or at work, John. There's been a little bit of research from economists actually looking at this. 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, 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. 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. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking foreign language). UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) If you're so upset about it, maybe you can think of a way to help her. VEDANTAM: Time is another concept that is also central to the way we see and describe the world. Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, by Philip Tetlock, Psychology Review, 2002. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. 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. BORODITSKY: Yeah. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. Parents and peers influence our major life choices. Could this affect the way, you know, sexism, conscious or unconscious, operates in our world? VEDANTAM: The word chair is feminine in Italian. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. We use a lot of music on the show! 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. VEDANTAM: If you have teenagers or work closely with young people, chances are you'll be mystified by their conversations or even annoyed. 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. 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. GEACONE-CRUZ: It describes this feeling so perfectly in such a wonderfully packaged, encapsulated way. If you're bilingual or multilingual, you may have noticed that different languages make you stretch in different ways. 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. 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. 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. But things can be important not just because they're big. I saw this bird's-eye view, and I was this little red dot. Special thanks to Adam Cole, who wrote and performed our rendition of "The Hokey Pokey." 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. The categorization that language provides to you becomes real, becomes psychologically real. 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. The fun example I give my students is imagine playing the hokey pokey in a language like this. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. The phrase brings an entire world with it - its context, its flavor, its culture. In many languages, nouns are gendered. VEDANTAM: My guest today is - well, why don't I let her introduce herself? 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. Imagine how we would sound to them if they could hear us. And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. It should be thought of as fun. And I don't think any of us are thinking that it's a shame that we're not using the language of Beowulf. This is HIDDEN BRAIN. GEACONE-CRUZ: It describes this feeling so perfectly in such a wonderfully packaged, encapsulated way, and you can just - it rolls off the tongue, and you can just throw it. 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. And why do some social movements take off and spread, while others fizzle? In this week's My Unsung Hero, Sarah Feldman thanks someone for their gift more than 20 years ago. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? VEDANTAM: How the languages we speak shape the way we think and why the words we use are always in flux. Not without written permission. 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. 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. You know, there's no left leg or right leg. Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button. Each generation hears things and interprets things slightly differently from the previous one. The fact is that language change can always go in one of many directions, there's a chance element to it. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. I had this cool experience when I was there. Language as it evolved was just talking to an extent that can be very hard for we literate people to imagine. Imagine this. Interpersonal Chemistry: What Is It, How Does It Emerge, and How Does it Operate? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaking foreign language). Additional Resources Book: 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. But time doesn't have to flow with respect to the body. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: (Speaking German). I know-uh (ph) is there, or something along the lines of babe-uh (ph). Accuracy and availability may vary. And then question 21 was, is this person a man or a woman? But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? If you, grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your. BORODITSKY: I had this wonderful opportunity to work with my colleague Alice Gaby in this community called Pormpuraaw in - on Cape York. So in terms of the size of differences, there are certainly effects that are really, really big. 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 : NPR 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. Language is something that's spoken, and spoken language especially always keeps changing. Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? Hidden Brain | Hidden Brain Media It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, by Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Kevin Ochsner, Psychological Science, 2008. VEDANTAM: Lera now tries to understand languages spoken all over the world. But what if it's not even about lust? 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. Hidden Brain - Transcripts (LAUGHTER) VEDANTAM: In the English-speaking world, she goes by Lera Boroditsky. If you liked . That is the most random thing. And it's not just about how we think about time. 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. It turns out, as you point out, that in common usage, literally literally means the opposite of literally. BORODITSKY: The way to say my name properly in Russian is (speaking foreign language), so I don't make people say that. FAQ | Hidden Brain Media Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where. 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. Maybe they like the same kinds of food, or enjoy the same hobbies. Hidden Brain on Apple Podcasts Evaluating Changes in Motivation, Values, and Well-being, Goal Striving, Need Satisfaction, and Longitudinal Well-being: The Self-Concordance Model, Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. They give us a sense that the meanings of words are fixed, when in fact they're not. How To Breathe Correctly For Optimal Health, Mood, Learning You can support Hidden Brain indirectly by giving to your local NPR station, or you can provide direct support to Hidden Brain by making a gift on our Patreon page. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. by Harry T. Reis, Annie Regan, and Sonja Lyubomirsky, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2021. All episodes of Hidden Brain - Chartable What do you do for christmas with your family? VEDANTAM: So I want to talk about a debate that's raged in your field for many years. and pick the featured episodes for your show. 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. VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. You can't know, but you can certainly know that if could listen to people 50 years from now, they'd sound odd.