Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. If you're bilingual or multilingual, you may have noticed that different languages make you stretch in different ways. 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. Which I think is probably important with the reality that this edifice that you're teaching is constantly crumbling. VEDANTAM: Our conversation made me wonder about what this means on a larger scale. VEDANTAM: It took just one week of living in Japan for Jennifer to pick up an important new term. He says that buying into false beliefs, in other words, deluding ourselves can . If you are a podcaster, the best way to manage your podcasts on Listen Notes is by claiming your Listen Notes 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. But what most people mean is that there'll be slang, that there'll be new words for new things and that some of those words will probably come from other languages. podcast pages. And then question 21 was, is this person a man or a woman? In the final episode of our Relationships 2.0 series, psychologistHarry Reis says theres another ingredient to successful relationships thats every bit as important as love. He's also the author of the book, "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". 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. MCWHORTER: Thank you for having me, Shankar. Hidden Brain. Can I get some chicken? VEDANTAM: In the English-speaking world, she goes by Lera Boroditsky. You may link to our content and copy and paste episode descriptions and Additional Resources into your invitations. Language is something that's spoken, and spoken language especially always keeps changing. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS), by Harry T. Reis et. We call this language Gumbuzi. 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. You can run experiments in a lab or survey people on the street. So for example, if Sam grabbed a hammer and struck the flute in anger, that would be one description, like, Sam broke the flute. I'm Shankar Vedantam. 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. According to neuroscientists who study laughter, it turns out that chuckles and giggles often aren't a response to humorthey're a response to people. Hidden Brain Those are quirks of grammar literally in stone. Lera is a cognitive science professor at the University of California, San Diego. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) I'm willing to get involved. It turns out, as you point out, that in common usage, literally literally means the opposite of literally. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) If you're so upset about it, maybe you can think of a way to help her. They are ways of seeing the world. BORODITSKY: It's certainly possible. 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. But actually, that's exactly how people in those communities come to stay oriented - is that they learn it, (laughter) right? 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. Imagine this. In this month's Radio Replay, we ask whether the structure of the languages we speak can change the way we see the world. 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? Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live, by Kennon M. Sheldon, 2022. There was no way of transcribing an approximation of what people said and nobody would have thought of doing it. Newsletter: But does a person who says that really deserve the kind of sneering condemnation that you often see? No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. 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. Going the Distance on the Pacific Crest Trail: The Vital Role of Identified Motivation, by Kennon M. Sheldon, Motivation Science, 2020. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. The dictionary says both uses are correct. So act like Monday. It's never going to. MCWHORTER: No, because LOL was an expression; it was a piece of language, and so you knew that its meaning was going to change. And there are consequences for how people think about events, what they notice when they see accidents. Cholera and malnourishment await Somalis fleeing . If it is the first time you login, a new account will be created automatically. Google Podcasts - hidden brain In many languages, nouns are gendered. But somehow they've managed, not just by randomly bumping into each other. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. But if you seed a watermelon, nobody assumes that you're taking seeds and putting them in the watermelon, you're taking them out. 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. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking foreign language). 00:51:58 - We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. We convince a colleague to take a different tactic at work. 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: 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. FEB 27, 2023; Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button . Whats going on here? I'm shankar Vedantam in the 2002 rom com. And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. 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? NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. (LAUGHTER) VEDANTAM: In the English-speaking world, she goes by Lera Boroditsky. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaking foreign language). Psychologist Ken Sheldon studies the science of figuring out what you want. 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. This takes kids a little while to figure out, and he had all kinds of clever ways to ask these questions. 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? Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. Hidden Brain: You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose on Apple Podcasts 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. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. BORODITSKY: I had this wonderful opportunity to work with my colleague Alice Gaby in this community called Pormpuraaw in - on Cape York. We'll also look at how languages evolve, and why we're sometimes resistant to those changes. And they said, well, of course. Why researchers should think real-world: A conceptual rationale, by Harry T. Reis, in Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Daily Life, 2012. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. If you, grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your. I had this cool experience when I was there. But, you know, John, something gnaws at me every time I hear the word used wrong. So it's, VEDANTAM: The moment she heard it, Jennifer realized mendokusai was incredibly. Decoding Emotions - Transcripts 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. 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. There are different ways to be a psychologist. 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. You can't smell or taste time. My Unsung Hero: A belated thank you : NPR 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. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. 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. Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts are Influenced by Self-Esteem and Relationship Threat, by Shannon M. Smith & Harry Reis, Personal Relationships, 2012. The categorization that language provides to you becomes real, becomes psychologically real. And so for example, if the word chair is masculine in your language, why is that? 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. This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. 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. 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 if you don't have a word for exactly seven, it actually becomes very, very hard to keep track of exactly seven. BORODITSKY: I spoke really terrible Indonesian at the time, so I was trying to practice. For more of our Relationships 2.0 series, check out one of our most popular episodes ever about why marriages are so hard. For example, if you take seeds and put them in the ground, that's one thing. To request permission, please send an email to [emailprotected]. She once visited an aboriginal community in northern Australia and found the language they spoke forced her mind to work in new ways. 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. You know, I was trying to stay oriented because people were treating me like I was pretty stupid for not being oriented, and that hurt. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, by Adam Grant, 2021. Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. They can be small differences but important in other ways. BORODITSKY: The way to say my name properly in Russian is (speaking foreign language), so I don't make people say that. So I just think that it's something we need to check ourselves for. Trusted by 5,200 companies and developers. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Right. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. I just don't want to do it. 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. Please do not republish our logo, name or content digitally or distribute to more than 10 people without written permission. It has to do with the word momentarily. Hidden Brain Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam Science 4.6 36K Ratings; Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. But they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. And what he noticed was that when people were trying to act like Monday, they would act like a man. VEDANTAM: As someone who spends a lot of his time listening to language evolve, John hears a lot of slang. 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. 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. MCWHORTER: Yeah. And when I listen to people having their peeves, I don't think, stop it. What techniques did that person use to persuade you? BORODITSKY: Thank you so much for having me. 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. Transcript Podcast: Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? 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 you may start with moving your southwest leg in, but then you have to move your northeast leg out. We love the idea of Hidden Brain helping to spark discussions in your community. 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? There was no such thing as looking up what it originally meant. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. BORODITSKY: Actually, one of the first people to notice or suggest that this might be the case was a Russian linguist, Roman Jakobson. Welcome to HIDDEN BRAIN. It's never happened. Maybe it's, even less than 100 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, 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. Toula and Ian's different backgrounds become apparent on one of their very first dates. 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). They're more likely to see through this little game that language has played on them. 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. 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. 5.3 Misbehaving Hidden Brain NPR - HOURLY NEWS DONATE < Predictably But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. 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. 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? But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? 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. Are the spoken origins of language one reason that words so often seem to be on the move? You're also not going to do algebra. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. But can you imagine someone without imagining their gender? Evaluating Changes in Motivation, Values, and Well-being, by Kennon M. Sheldon and Lawrence S. Krieger, Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 2004. Hidden Brain Host Explains Why We Lie to Ourselves Every Day The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. June 20, 2020 This week on Hidden Brain, research about prejudices so deeply buried, we often doubt their existence. Later things are on the right. Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Whats going on here? Listen on the Reuters app. And I kind of sheepishly confessed this to someone there. VEDANTAM: (Laughter) All right, I think it might be time for me to confess one of my pet peeves. 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. 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. If you liked . Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. If you take literally in what we can think of as its earliest meaning, the earliest meaning known to us is by the letter. Read the episode transcript. 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. 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. I think language can certainly be a contributor into the complex system of our thinking about gender. 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. VEDANTAM: I want to talk in the second half of our conversation about why the meanings of words change, but I want to start by talking about how they change. 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. VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often, untranslatable. And we teach them, for example, to say that bridges and apples and all kinds of other things have the same prefix as women. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, by Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Kevin Ochsner, Psychological Science, 2008. 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. You know, endings are going to tend to drop off. VEDANTAM: Jennifer moved to Japan for graduate school. 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. That was somehow a dad's fashion, and that I should start wearing flat-fronted pants. MCWHORTER: Yes, Shankar, that's exactly it. 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. Copyright 2018 NPR. 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. So there are some differences that are as big as you can possibly measure. Imagine this. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. That kind of detail may not appear. al, Group Decision and Negotiation, 2008. In a lot of languages, there isn't. 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. 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 I would really guess that in a few decades men will be doing it, too. How do certain memes go viral? 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. If you prefer to listen through a podcast app, here are links to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher. 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. 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. And as soon as I saw that happen, I thought, oh, this makes it so much easier. Please note that your continued use of the RadioPublic services following the posting of such changes will be deemed an acceptance of this update. VEDANTAM: Lera now tries to understand languages spoken all over the world. And very competent adults of our culture can't do that. In The Air We Breathe : NPR So that's a measurement difference of 100 percent of performance. 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. I want everybody to have the fun I'm having. And so what that means is if someone was sitting facing south, they would lay out the story from left to right. 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? But what we should teach is not that the good way is logical and the way that you're comfortable doing it is illogical. Imagine how we would sound to them if they could hear us. 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. This is NPR. But it's so hard to feel that partly because our brains are on writing, as I say in the book. As soon as you move the leg, it becomes a different leg.