UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) I'm willing to get involved. You can't touch time. It's too high. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. 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. If you, grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your. But actually, it's something that's not so hard to learn. GEACONE-CRUZ: And you're at home in your pajamas, all nice and cuddly and maybe, watching Netflix or something. JENNIFER GEACONE-CRUZ: My name is Jennifer Geacone-Cruz. John is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. This is HIDDEN BRAIN. In the second episode of our "Relationships 2.0" series, psychologist Do you ever struggle to communicate with your mom? Transcript The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. 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. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaking foreign language). We convince a colleague to take a different tactic at work. And the answer should be, north, northeast in the far distance; how about you? Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, by Robert A. Emmons, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. Everyone wants to be loved and appreciated. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Speaking foreign language). It has to do with the word momentarily. Those sorts things tend to start with women. Psychologist Ken Sheldon studies the science of figuring out what you want. Lots of languages make a distinction between things that are accidents and things that are intentional actions. You can find the transcript for most episodes of Hidden Brain on our website. I'm Shankar Vedantam. But it's a lovely example of how language can guide you to discover something about the world that might take you longer to discover if you didn't have that information in language. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? And they said, well, of course. 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. 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. JENNIFER GEACONE-CRUZ: My name is Jennifer Geacone-Cruz. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PARKS AND RECREATION"). Copyright 2023 Steno. BORODITSKY: Yeah. If you grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your native tongue without even thinking about it. And it irritates people, but there's a different way of seeing literally. They know which way is which. Because were a small team, we dont have a publicly-available list of every piece of music that we use. You can't know, but you can certainly know that if could listen to people 50 years from now, they'd sound odd. 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. But can you imagine someone without imagining their gender? You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: (Speaking Russian). But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? Lera said there's still a lot of research to be done on this. Bu 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).". You can find all Hidden Brain episodes on our website. But time doesn't have to flow with respect to the body. That is the most random thing. 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? It should be thought of as fun. If a transcript is available, you'll see a Transcript button which expands to reveal the full transcript. If it is the first time you login, a new account will be created automatically. They can be small differences but important in other ways. 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. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. : A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, by Lawrence S. Krieger and Kennon M. Sheldon, George Washington Law Review, 2015. And if you teach them that forks go with women, they start to think that forks are more feminine. It's never happened. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at Hidden Brain telling the stories of . So we did an analysis of images in Artstor. But actually, that's exactly how people in those communities come to stay oriented - is that they learn it, (laughter) right? This takes kids a little while to figure out, and he had all kinds of clever ways to ask these questions. All rights reserved. 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. Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, by Amy Edmondson, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999. What Makes Lawyers Happy? VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. VEDANTAM: So all this raises a really interesting question. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? But what if it's not even about lust? And you say that dictionaries in some ways paint an unrealistic portrait of a language. But what if there's a whole category of people in your life whose impact is overlooked? Whats going on here? But, you know, John, something gnaws at me every time I hear the word used wrong. MCWHORTER: Yes, Shankar, that's exactly it. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. I just don't want to do it. That is the direction of writing in Hebrew and Arabic, going from right to left. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Minimizes Defensive Reactions to Failure, by Peter A. Caprariello and Harry T. Reis, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2011. And we teach them, for example, to say that bridges and apples and all kinds of other things have the same prefix as women. edit transcripts, Improve the presence of your podcasts, e.g., self-service, If you share your Listen Notes page and at-mention. This is NPR. 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. 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. Growing up, I understood this word to mean for a very short time, as in John McWhorter was momentarily surprised. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. Take the word bridge - if it's feminine in your language, you're more likely to say that bridges are beautiful and elegant. The dictionary says both uses are correct. 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: One thing that we've noticed is this idea of time, of course, is very highly constructed by our minds and our brains. al (Eds. 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. 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 VEDANTAM: I love this analogy you have in the book where you mention how, you know, thinking that a word has only one meaning is like looking at a snapshot taken at one point in a person's life and saying this photograph represents the entirety of what this person looks like. We call this language Gumbuzi. ROB LOWE: (As Chris Traeger) Dr. Harris, you are literally the meanest person I have ever met. Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS), by Harry T. Reis et. If you're bilingual or multilingual, you may have noticed that different languages make you stretch in different ways. Women under about 30 in the United States, when they're excited or they're trying to underline a point, putting uh at the end of things. BORODITSKY: And Russian is a language that has grammatical gender, and different days of the week have different genders for some reason. So one possibility for bilinguals would be that they just have two different minds inside - right? Listen on the Reuters app. Shankar Vedantam, host of the popular podcast "Hidden Brain" has been reporting on human behavior for decades. No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. : A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? And I don't think any of us are thinking that it's a shame that we're not using the language of Beowulf. And I kind of sheepishly confessed this to someone there. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's a Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) If you're so upset about it, maybe you can think of a way to help her. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. So for example, for English speakers - people who read from left to right - time tends to flow from left to right. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. And after listening to you, I realize I might have to finally give in. 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. How come you aren't exactly the way you were 10 years ago? He says that buying into false beliefs, in other words, deluding ourselves can . It's as if you saw a person - I'm not going to say at 4 because then the person is growing up, and if I use that analogy then it seems like I'm saying that language grows up or it moves toward something or it develops. VEDANTAM: Jennifer moved to Japan for graduate school. 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. In this episode, we explore how long-term relationships have changed over time and whether we might be able to improve marriage by asking less of it. VEDANTAM: My guest today is - well, why don't I let her introduce herself? But if they were sitting facing north, they would lay out the story from right to left. So LOL starts out as meaning hardy-har-har (ph), but then it becomes something more abstract. And it's sad that we're not going to be able to make use of them and learn them and celebrate them. So there are these wonderful studies by Alexander Giora where he asked kids learning Finnish, English and Hebrew as their first languages basically, are you a boy or a girl? After claiming your Listen Notes podcast pages, you will be able to: Respond to listener comments on Listen Notes, Use speech-to-text techniques to transcribe your show and Transcript Speaker 1 00:00:00 this is hidden brain. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. Of course, if you can't keep track of exactly seven, you can't count. VEDANTAM: One of the points you make in the book of course is that the evolution of words and their meanings is what gives us this flowering of hundreds or thousands of languages. And so for example, if the word chair is masculine in your language, why is that? Long before she began researching languages as a professor, foreign languages loomed large in her life. People do need to be taught what the socially acceptable forms are. The Effective Negotiator Part 1: The Behavior of Successful Negotiators and The Effective Negotiator Part 2: Planning for Negotiations, by Neil Rackham and John Carlisle, Journal of European Industrial Training, 1978. The best Podcast API to search all podcasts and episodes. But it's exactly like - it was maybe about 20 years ago that somebody - a girlfriend I had told me that if I wore pants that had little vertical pleats up near the waist, then I was conveying that I was kind of past it. 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. GEACONE-CRUZ: It describes this feeling so perfectly in such a wonderfully packaged, encapsulated way. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Right. BORODITSKY: Thank you so much for having me. That hadn't started then. VEDANTAM: So I want to talk about a debate that's raged in your field for many years. The size of this effect really quite surprised me because I would have thought at the outset that, you know, artists are these iconoclasts. Interpersonal Chemistry: What Is It, How Does It Emerge, and How Does it Operate? Purpose can also boost our health and longevity. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy, by Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Kevin Ochsner, Psychological Science, 2008. 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. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, Refusing to Apologize can have Psychological Benefits, The Effects of Conflict Types, Dimensions, and Emergent States on Group Outcomes, Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, The Effective Negotiator Part 1: The Behavior of Successful Negotiators, The Effective Negotiator Part 2: Planning for Negotiations, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. We use a lot of music on the show! They shape our place in it. You may link to our content and copy and paste episode descriptions and Additional Resources into your invitations. So it's mendokusai. For example, if you take seeds and put them in the ground, that's one thing. 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. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. And then when I turned, this little window stayed locked on the landscape, but it turned in my mind's eye.