Good Life Project - Mind-Control, Daydreaming and Intelligence.

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

Good Life Riff: What if everything you knew to be truth and real was subject to complete manipulation?What if there was something anyone could do, in a relatively short matter of time, to lead you to first doubt your certainty and then eventually belief the complete opposite. Even if you'd been right, and there was zero proof to support what this other person was telling you?Turns out, there is something. It's a frighteningly simple cognitive bias or kink in our brain's wiring that is being used to manipulate beliefs in everything from civil discourse to advertising to politics. What it is, how it works and how to "protect" against it is what we're talking about in today's Good Life Project Riff.It's the second installment in our series on Cognitive Bias, aka, the wacky things our brains do to make us think we're rational, but lead us to delusion. And, if you're interested in the first installment in the series on the Anchoring Bias, you can find it here.Good Life Science: And, in our Good Life Science segment, we're diving into some fascinating new research on the connection between daydreaming, intelligence, creativity and having a more efficient brain around you. Turns out, if you've been a chronic daydreamer all your life, it might actually a sign of intelligence, not slackerdom! And, as always, for those want to go to the source, here's a link to the full study.Rockstar Sponsors: RXBAR Kids is a snack bar made with high-quality, real ingredients designed specifically for kids. It contains 7 grams of protein and has zero added sugar and no gluten, soy or dairy. Find at Target stores OR for 25% off your first order, visit RXBAR.com/goodlife.Are you hiring? Do you know where to post your job to find the best candidates? Unlike other job sites, ZipRecruiter doesn’t depend on candidates finding you; it finds them. And right now, GLP listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for FREE, That’s right. FREE! Just go to ZipRecruiter.com/good.Audible has the best audiobook performances, the largest library, and the most exclusive content. Learn more, start your 30-day trial and get your first Audible book free, go to Audible.com/goodlife. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So, you know, it's kind of funny doing some of the research on this current series in our Thursday updates on cognitive bias. It's just reminding me how completely random and irrational we really can be as human beings, how easily persuadable we are, even though we don't think we are. This week, we're diving into the second in our series on cognitive biases, the weird, wacky ways that our brains kind of delude us into thinking certain things are true when in fact they are not. Last week, we talked about something called anchoring. This week, we're talking about something called the illusory truth effect, also sometimes known as simply the truth effect. Then when we head into

our science update, we will be exploring some really fascinating new research that links daydreaming maybe to intelligence in a way that, oh, your high school teacher may not like what this science says. Anyway, excited to share all this with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So we're diving back into our series on cognitive bias. If this is the first Good Life update that you're listening to, this series began just last week. So you can, if you feel like it, jump back over there. Just continue to listen to this and then go check out last week's if you want to catch the whole series on Cognitive Bias,

the weird ways that our brains work and lead us to think and believe things that are completely irrational and not true and have no idea that we're thinking and believing these things. We think that we're, you know, just regular, ordinary, rational, intelligent, unpersuadable human beings, when in fact we're not. This week, we're exploring a bias that is known by various names in the original research. The researchers coined the term the illusory tooth effect. It's come to also be known as the tooth effect. Here's the way it works. And I'll give you a couple of examples because I think it's easier to understand this way.

Let's start with our own internal thoughts. Now, probably a lot of the things that we hear throughout the day, oddly enough, they're not things that people tell us. They're actually things that we tell ourselves. Yes, we have chatter going on in our noggins all day, pretty much every day, and oftentimes when we sleep as well. Witness the fact that so many people wake up in the middle of the night with deep conversations going on in their head, sometimes anxiety-provoking, sometimes calming, sometimes big ideas.

That tends to happen all day, every day in all of us. Our brain is constantly chattering at us. Now, here's the thing. Among all that chatter, there's some interesting stuff. There are some ideas. There are some big awakenings. But very often, we drop into a pattern. And that pattern is some level of compulsive repetition.

And for certain people, that can rise to a level of obsessive compulsive repetition, where it literally impedes on your ability to live life. But it's actually a pretty common phenomenon that many of us will latch onto something and just keep repeating it over and over. It's not uncommon for us to do that with things that have either happened in the past, where we are regretting or fretting over, or things that we anticipate might happen in the future. And here's the interesting thing, regardless of whether the thing, the original thing, if it happened in the past, was true or not, maybe it was something that

was said to you or about you, or you learned or discovered, or whether there's any real rational basis for it potentially happening in the future, if the thing that we repeat in our head says that it's true or it's likely to happen, then whatever the thing is that we keep telling ourselves, whatever the story is that we keep telling ourselves, the more we repeat it, the more we take that idea or story or thought and hit spin in our noggins, the more our brains begin to believe it is actually true, that it is our lived experience or ultimate truth or absolute outcome. even though it may have no basis in truth, in fact, and a very low likelihood of occurring if it's something in the future. This is the illusory truth effect.

It's our brain's default to believing things based on how often they're repeated to us, not based in any way on their actual connection to truth or fact. It's an illusion. Now, here's the thing. We've all experienced this when it comes to our own self-talk, right? Our own internal brain babble. And we know that we can talk ourselves into and out of pretty much anything we want to do or not do. And one of the ways we do that is we keep repeating something over and over and over until it becomes our inevitable truth. And that truth, even though it's a complete lie, will lead us to take or not take an action. So we do it to ourselves all day, every day. But here's the thing. This bias doesn't just happen as a result of the stories that we tell ourselves in our own brains. It also happens as a result of things that we're exposed to

outside. So the more we are exposed to something in our world, the more we tend to believe it's true. So some of the original research on this was done back in 1977 at Villanova University and its joint study with Temple University as well. And in that study, a whole bunch of students were taken, as often is the case with university studies. This is kind of fun, right? Because we're kind of getting a double dose of science today because our cognitive bias ties into it. And then we'll be talking about another cool, very recent study coming up in our science update. But for our purposes now, the researchers at Nova and Temple took a bunch of students and they showed them a series of 60 statements, right? It could be plausible, maybe not. It could be truthful, maybe not. Generally,

they were based on topics that it was assumed that these students really didn't know much about. So they wouldn't really have an easy way to validate or invalidate all of them. And they had all these 60 statements. A couple of weeks later, the same students were given a new set of cards. And in those cards, 20 of the original statements, 20 of the original 60, appeared again. Two weeks later, the students were again given another set of cards. And in that set of cards, those original 20 that were repeated on the second week were again repeated a third time. Now here's the interesting thing. When asked to actually sort of rank the truthfulness, the validity of all the different statements that were shown across all the different cards, the statements that appeared, the 20 statements that appeared on every set of cards every two weeks, the students said were much more likely to be true,

to be actual facts, regardless of whether they were in fact true, regardless of whether they knew anything about them or not. Now, interesting thing, in this research, it kind of shows us that, and this was the original study, and this work has actually been repeated in a lot of different ways over the last, I guess it would be four decades now, right?

So we know that this is an established bias, an established pattern. But the original research was really around things where the test subjects had no idea whether these statements were true or not. And it was assumed that if they really didn't know, if you just kept repeating them, that people would easily, just through repetition, somehow become more familiar with them and start to believe that they were true. But if people actually knew that those statements were not true from the beginning, this wouldn't work. Turns out, that is not necessarily the case. Even people who start out knowing that particular statement. So if I told you that all chopsticks come from Chinatown in New York City, and are then distributed throughout the world, right? And you look at me like, dude, please. That is a complete and utter lie.

Turns out that if I keep repeating that statement to you or you keep reading it or you're exposed to it on a daily or a weekly basis over and over and over and over, over time, your brain doesn't even realize it. It starts to believe it. Even if in the beginning you absolutely knew that it was a lie. This becomes your truth. This is a wacky way that our brains work. Our brains tend to be more influenced by repetition than by fact, which is a little bit scary when we think about the way that the world is going these days, especially when we think about the context of today's public discourse and how the ability to manipulate media and social media can actually allow anybody with the will and the budget to take any idea, any story, any message, regardless of whether it's based in fact or not, and have it presented

in front of a very well-defined group of people, demographic, over and over and over and over. And even if those folks knew in the beginning that it had no basis in fact, over time, the likelihood that they would start to believe it goes up dramatically. And if they didn't know whether it had any basis, in fact, in the beginning, then the likelihood of them believing it and having a stronger and stronger belief in it much more quickly goes up pretty dramatically, which makes it kind of really important to just understand this bias for our ability to make well-informed decisions in the world and start to realize that anytime you see something, that whether it's advertising or politics or public

discourse or really anything, and there's an idea or thought or story that is being presented to you in a substantially similar way over and over and over, and you feel like you're just, you know, like, yes, that completely makes sense. I believe that this is the truth. Maybe take a step back and ask yourself, huh, is this really the capital T truth? Is this really the capital F fact? Or is my brain being manipulated to simply believe something because it's been repeated a life that is as connected to capital T truth as we can be that is unhitched from illusion and hitched into reality. So if we start to understand these cognitive biases and we start to ask the questions and test them, we gain the ability to kind of step back and break the autopilot cycle of

assumptions and behaviors that happen in our brains and start testing these ideas and looking for contrary evidence. And that allows us to reconnect with reality, with truth, and in so doing, live a better life. So as always, I'm kind of fascinated by these cognitive weird things that we do. This is the second in our series on cognitive bias. We will be back next week with yet another quirky thing that we do in our brains

that we are very often completely unaware of that controls our decisions and behaviors in ways that we have no idea are being controlled. Now, today's science update, I'm really excited to share because we are going to dive into the power of daydreaming and maybe a little bit of breaking research that shows, you know what, it just might be a really good thing. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,

iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. And we're back with today's Good Life Science update. And today we're diving into some brand new research.

As always, if you're new to our weekly Good Life Science updates, then we will, in the show notes, include a direct link to the actual science, the study report. So for fellow citizen scientists, geeks, aka hobbyists, who just like to understand the weird things that happen in the world, you will be able to actually dive into the detailed science report if that, in fact, is interesting to you. What am I talking about today? Today, I'm talking about daydreaming. Turns out that if you were the kid in the class

who maybe spent a bit of time daydreaming and doodling, I'm raising my hand big time here, by the way. And maybe at some point the teacher was walking around and gave you, you know, the evil eye, like, what are you doing? That's not okay. Snap back. And you were led to believe that daydreaming, in fact, is not okay and is a sign of being out there or not connected, not tethered, maybe not intelligent, maybe unproductive. Turns out that may in fact all be the exact opposite of the reality. So a study that just came out from researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology shows that in fact daydreaming may be connected with not impairments or slow cognitive function,

but in fact, the exact opposite. In fact, daydreaming may be an interesting sign of higher intelligence and creativity, something called fluid intelligence. So here's what the researchers did. This was kind of cool because they worked on two levels, both actually measuring the brains using an fMRI so they can literally look into your head and see what's happening in your brain, and at the same time looking at behavior and using some other indicators.

What they did was this. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. They first used the MRIs to, in the researchers' words, quote,

cartilage brain regions gave us insight about which areas of the brain work together during an awake resting state. So they essentially peered into a hundred people's brains to find out what did it look like when they were awake and resting, focusing sort of gently on a single fixed point for somewhere around five minutes. And once they got that sort of baseline picture, then they did something kind of interesting. They gave these folks two different types of assessments, one about fluid intelligence, one about creativity. And they also asked them to fill out an additional assessment. And that asked them to rate how often their minds kind of wandered about, how often they daydreamed

while they're kind of moving through their lives on a daily basis. And they looked at all this research and what they found was something kind of fascinating. It turns out that the folks who reported that they spent more time daydreaming throughout the day actually had higher scores for intelligence and creativity. And when you looked at the way that the fMRIs sort of showed what was happening in the brain, they appeared to have what would be called a quote efficient or more efficient brain. And how does this all tie together? Well, the theory here is that potentially daydreaming is linked to increased intelligence and creativity because the thing that allows for daydreaming is that people's brains who tend to daydream more may actually learn and process

information more efficiently. And when that happens, they kind of get the lesson. They get the idea. They get the point faster than those around them. And that kind of creates the space for the brain to say, okay, I get it. I don't need the rest of the explanation, but either the teacher or the professor or the person running the meeting

or the facilitator in the group, they've got their agenda. They've got their plan. They're continuing to teach according to plan because we've got a larger group who learns at different paces. But I get it. It's in my head. You know, their brains are more efficient. So now they've got time on their hands. What do you do with that time?

Well, you could check your devices, but if you're in a room where that's kind of not socially okay, there's a good chance that you're going to fill that time by letting your mind wander, by daydreaming. So it turns out that what this research shows us is that there's a really interesting correlation between hyper-efficient brains, daydreaming, intelligence, and creativity. And it just may be that if you spend a lot of time daydreaming, you may also be one of those folks who test for higher fluid intelligence and creativity. And it may be correlated with your brain just being a bit more efficient than maybe some around you. So something to think about here.

And if anybody's told you, hey, stop daydreaming, ask yourself, am I daydreaming? Because whatever the point was, I already got it a long time ago. And I'm just using that excess capacity now to go wander off and do something fun or create something new or decode something in my head, which continues to hold my interest and curiosity?

Something to play with here. As always, we will link to the actual study so you can dive into much more detailed explanation. This is just kind of, you know, the big idea here. And we will be back next week with more fun stuff. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If the stories and ideas in any way moved you, I would so appreciate if you would take just a few extra seconds for two quick things. One,

if it's touched you in some way, if there's some idea or moment in the story or in the conversation that you really feel like you would share with somebody else, that it would make a difference in somebody else's life. Take a moment and whatever app you're using, just share this episode with somebody who you think it'll make a difference for. Email it if that's the easiest thing, whatever is easiest for you. And then, of course, if you're compelled, subscribe so that you can stay a part of this continuing experience. My greatest hope with this podcast is not just to produce moments and share stories and ideas that impact one person listening, but to let it create a conversation, to let it serve as a catalyst for the elevation of all of us together, collectively, because that's how we rise.

When stories and ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change happens. And I would love to invite you to participate on that level. Thank you so much, as always, for your intention, for your attention, for your heart. And I wish you only the best. I'm Jonathan Fields going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.