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? 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. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. Toward Understanding Understanding:The Importance of Feeling Understood in Relationships, by Harry Reis, Edward P. Lemay Jr, and Catrin Finkenauer, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2017. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. 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? 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 so for example, if the word chair is masculine in your language, why is that? MCWHORTER: Yeah. 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. Those sorts things tend to start with women. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. And we teach them, for example, to say that bridges and apples and all kinds of other things have the same prefix as women. And so language changed just like the clouds in the sky. For example, he might take a bunch of pictures of boys and girls and sort them and say, OK, this is a boy. Those are quirks of grammar literally in stone. Because were a small team, we dont have a publicly-available list of every piece of music that we use. He's also the author of the book, "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". They can be small differences but important in other ways. I'm . VEDANTAM: Jennifer moved to Japan for graduate school. You know, it's Lady Liberty and Lady Justice. But if they were sitting facing north, they would lay out the story from right to left. Stay with us. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. Now, many people hear that and they think, well, that's no good because now literally can mean its opposite. Are the spoken origins of language one reason that words so often seem to be on the move? 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. 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. And then if you are going to be that elliptical, why use the casual word get? And dead languages never change, and some of us might prefer those. And so, for example, can I get a hamburger? Yes! For more of our Relationships 2.0 series, check out one of our most popular episodes ever about why marriages are so hard. BORODITSKY: I spoke really terrible Indonesian at the time, so I was trying to practice. People do need to be taught what the socially acceptable forms are. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. 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. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking foreign language). Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. Why researchers should think real-world: A conceptual rationale, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Daily Life, 2012. And there are all kinds of interesting, useful, eye-opening ideas that exist in all of the world's languages. 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: You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose on Apple Podcasts 51 min You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose Hidden Brain Social Sciences Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. And you suddenly get a craving for potato chips, and you realize that you have none in the kitchen, and there's nothing else you really want to eat. And it's sad that we're not going to be able to make use of them and learn them and celebrate them. Not without written permission. VEDANTAM: The moment she heard it, Jennifer realized mendokusai was incredibly useful. It's not something that you typically go out trying to do intentionally. In many languages, nouns are gendered. VEDANTAM: I'm Shankar Vedantam. What techniques did that person use to persuade you? Lots of languages make a distinction between things that are accidents and things that are intentional actions. 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. But if I give that same story to a Hebrew or an Arabic speaker, they would organize it from right to left. 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. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. Long before she began researching languages as a professor, foreign languages loomed large in her life. I'm Shankar Vedantam. You-uh (ph). Trusted by 5,200 companies and developers. It's inherent. 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. BORODITSKY: It's certainly possible. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. Newsletter: Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. BORODITSKY: Thank you so much for having me. We couldnt survive without the many public radio stations that support our show and they cant survive without you. 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). Young people have always used language in new and different ways, and it's pretty much always driven older people crazy. Bu We can't help, as literate people, thinking that the real language is something that sits still with letters written all nice and pretty on a page that can exist for hundreds of years, but that's not what language has ever been. 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. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: (Speaking Russian). You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. 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. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, by Robert A. Emmons, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986. MCWHORTER: Oh, yeah, I'm a human being. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. The phrase brings an entire world with it - its context, its flavor, its culture. But she told me a story about a conversation she had with a native speaker of Indonesian. There are different ways to be a psychologist. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? It turns out, as you point out, that in common usage, literally literally means the opposite of literally. And it sounds a little bit abrupt and grabby like you're going to get something instead of being given. But they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. I'm shankar Vedantam in the 2002 rom com. 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. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. But as Bob Cialdini set out to discover the keys to influence and persuasion, he decided to follow the instincts of his childhood. 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. 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? This week, we revisit a favorite episode from 2021, bringing you two stories about how easy it can be to believe in a false reality even when the facts dont back us up. And a girl goes in this pile. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? And I don't think any of us are thinking that it's a shame that we're not using the language of Beowulf. MCWHORTER: Exactly. 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. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. JENNIFER GEACONE-CRUZ: My name is Jennifer Geacone-Cruz. They often feel angry about it, and you think this anger is actually telling. Imagine how we would sound to them if they could hear us. The size of this effect really quite surprised me because I would have thought at the outset that, you know, artists are these iconoclasts. BORODITSKY: And when they were trying to act like Wednesday, they would act like a woman BORODITSKY: Which accords with grammatical gender in Russian. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: (Speaking German). 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. Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts are Influenced by Self-Esteem and Relationship Threat, by Shannon M. Smith & Harry Reis, Personal Relationships, 2012. Read the episode transcript. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. I know-uh (ph) is there, or something along the lines of babe-uh (ph). 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. We talk with psychologist Iris Mauss, who explains why happiness Why do some companies become household names, while others flame out? And then 10 years later when they're 49, you say, well, that picture of you at 39 is what you really are and whatever's happened to you since then is some sort of disaster or something that shouldn't have happened. You're not going to do any of the things that are seen as a foundation of our technological society. If you grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your native tongue without even thinking about it. Whats going on here? 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. 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. That's how much cultural heritage is lost. 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. These relationships can help you feel cared for and connected. And very competent adults of our culture can't do that. There are signs it's getting even harder. For example, when we started talking about navigation, that's an example where a 5-year-old in a culture that uses words like north, south, east and west can point southeast without hesitation. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, by Adam Grant, 2021. If you are a podcaster, the best way to manage your podcasts on Listen Notes is by claiming your Listen Notes 00:51:58 - We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. So some languages don't have number words. Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. 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. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. It goes in this pile. 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. 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. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. Imagine you meet somebody, they're 39 and you take their picture. But somehow they've managed, not just by randomly bumping into each other. As you're going about your day, you likely interact with family, friends and coworkers. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. He says there are things we can do to make sure our choices align with our deepest values. You can find the transcript for most episodes of Hidden Brain on our website. 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. VEDANTAM: Around the world, we often hear that many languages are dying, and there are a few megalanguages that are growing and expanding in all kinds of ways. VEDANTAM: John McWhorter, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. In English, actually, quite weirdly, we can even say things like, I broke my arm. If a transcript is available, you'll see a Transcript button which expands to reveal the full transcript. 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. 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. That said, if you hear one or two pieces of music that you really love, feel free to email us at [emailprotected] and well do our best to respond to your request. 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. 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. 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. 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. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. And one day, I was walking along, and I was just staring at the ground. So these speakers have internalized this idea from their language, and they believe that it's right. And if the word bridge is masculine in your language, you're more likely to say that bridges are strong and long and towering - these kind of more stereotypically masculine words. Each generation hears things and interprets things slightly differently from the previous one. So in English, I might say that Sam (ph) broke the flute. In this favorite 2021 episode, psychologist Adam Grant pushes back against the benefits of certainty, and describes the magic that unfolds when we challenge our own deeply-held beliefs. Thank you! This week, we continue our look at the science of influence with psychologist Robert Cialdini, and explore how these techniques can be used for both good and evil. 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? 4.62. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. 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? The dictionary says both uses are correct. But can you imagine someone without imagining their gender? This is HIDDEN BRAIN. VEDANTAM: The word chair is feminine in Italian. 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. I've always found that a very grating way to ask for something at a store. What do you do for christmas with your family? 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. How come you aren't exactly the way you were 10 years ago? If you take literally in what we can think of as its earliest meaning, the earliest meaning known to us is by the letter. You couldn't have predicted this I know-uh move-uh (ph). Which I think is probably important with the reality that this edifice that you're teaching is constantly crumbling. 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? BORODITSKY: Yeah. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. And what he noticed was that when people were trying to act like Monday, they would act like a man. So that's a measurement difference of 100 percent of performance. We're speaking today with cognitive science professor Lera Boroditsky about language. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not. And then he would take a Polaroid of the kid and say, well, this is you. If you still cant find the episode, try looking through our most recent shows on our homepage. 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. BORODITSKY: Well, there may not be a word for left to refer to a left leg. So you might say, there's an ant on your northwest leg. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy thats all around us. MCWHORTER: Yes, Shankar, that's exactly it. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. VEDANTAM: This episode of HIDDEN BRAIN was produced by Rhaina Cohen, Maggie Penman and Thomas Lu with help from Renee Klahr, Jenny Schmidt, Parth Shah and Chloe Connelly. 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. If you're like most people, you probably abandoned those resolutions within a few weeks. And I thought, wow, first of all, it would be almost impossible to have a conversation like that in English where you hadn't already revealed the gender of the person because you have to use he or she. 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. You know, we spend years teaching children about how to use language correctly. 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.