Hidden Brain - Episode 8: Back Up Plans

Episode Date: November 10, 2015

This week on Hidden Brain, researcher Katy Milkman explains why backup plans may make us less motivated, Dan Pink is back to discuss moral hazard, and NPR's Adam Cole ties it all together with a song.

This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanthan. On this week's episode, we're talking about backup plans. Research Akiti Milkman shares her study on why it's not always a good idea to have a plan B. It may make you less motivated to pursue your primary goals. Dan Pink is here for another round of stopwatch science. So these are glorious times for scholars who research moral hazard. And we invited Matthew McConaughey to talk about the importance of backup plans in the movie Interstellar.

Some kind of vehicle, uh, space station, both, and I, how do you get it off the ground? That's why there's Plan B. But Matthew was a little busy, so we went with our Plan B and invited my friend Adam Cole from NPR Science Desk instead. Hello, having some real flashbacks to junior prom right now.

Just getting at him, you were always plan A. That sounds a lot better, yeah. Adam, just like the last time, I want you to listen to all the ideas in this episode and come up with a song that ties it all together. Do you think you could do that? Well, I'll try, but if I can't do it, do we have some sort of backup plan in place? Here's the thing, Adam, we don't. And to understand why we don't,

you need to listen to this next set of ideas. The research of Katie Milkman, at the University of Pennsylvania, was very interested in what happens when we have backup plans. Here she is. We have this sense that having a security blanket or a backup plan B is a strategy that will be helpful to us.

It'll make us more emotionally comfortable with our plans. It will make us feel like we're taking less risk. Katie Milkman tells me that there is a surprising downside to having that kind of safety net. Here she is again. It may make you less motivated to pursue your primary goals, so because you know that all your eggs aren't in this one basket, you may feel more confident and comfortable relaxing and letting up and not

pushing as hard toward your primary goal, since you know things will be okay, you can always go with your backup plan. They used a couple of different methods to figure this out. The first method, which absolutely does not prove cause and effect, but does provide some tantalizing evidence, was to simply survey people in a train station. So Adam, when Katie Milkman told me that the first part of her study was at a train station, we decided we would try and replicate this ourselves, and we ran down to Union Station

in Washington, D.C., a producer and I, and ran a little experiment ourselves. What is your name? Fiona. While walking through Union Station, we came across Fiona. She's a young woman from Kenya who was in Washington visiting her family. Her Romanian boyfriend was down the hall buying bus tickets to New York. Fiona and Razvan are planning on moving to the United Kingdom together but it's challenging for them to get the right visa. Plan A is that you just get the visa and get to the UK.

And get a job there. And get a job there, it really goes there. What's Plan B? Plan B is maybe Germany or something? Close enough, because I have family in Germany. So it might be easier to be German. You are keeping a lot of options open. Lots of options, because with visas you never know. So I need like Plan A to Z.

So here's the question. When you have so many options, do you think that it actually distracts you from focusing on Plan A? That having Plan B, CD, E, F, G, that it actually makes it less focused on Plan A? Because you have all those other things at the back of your head. I'm very focused on Plan A, hoping it works. But you know, I'm trying to be pessimistic so that I'm very focused on Plan A, hoping it works, but you know I'm trying to be pessimistic so that I'm not disappointed in Plan A doesn't work out. Okay, full back plan, full back plan.

It just makes me more calm. In case of anything going wrong in Plan A, I know I have a busy year. So with everything in my life, I always have, you know, other plans on the site. You have backup plans. Yes. Let me backup plans? Yes. Let me ask you a question. Has there ever been a time in your life when you've not had a plan B or C because you've just said,

this is the only thing that I want. There's nothing else that's going to be acceptable. And therefore, I'm not going to have plan B, CD, or E. I'm just just planning and nothing else. For me, no, I think my boyfriend works with that. I mean, he just works with one plan. I'm the one who's trying to teach him how to have millions of plans inside. I mean, even with boyfriend, I really so.

I hope I don't have to go to Plan B and see if it's good to have a plan. You know, okay, if we don't work out, this is what I'll do, you know. Your boyfriend, before he comes, before he's here, let me ask you. So if he doesn't work out, what's the plan B? Every girl has People that maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe every girl even she does You love them person, but something doesn't work out. There's that guy possible possible possible Everyone has that I don't know about men But you actually have this list of people in your head

Possibly and you basically said this person right now that you're aware this is 80% But there's a 75% chance or someone Some of them even 40% but still in the line. Yes, you keep them in the line better than zero You know, yes Is this your birthday? Yes We were just talking about NPR reporters and we're doing a story that looks at how people make plans and how they think about their plans.

And she was talking about the different strategies and approaches that you both have in your personalities. So when you're making plans, do you often have a plan B and say, if this doesn't work out, that's going to work out? She was saying that you just are very focused on the things that you want to do. Yeah. This is, I don't want to be in a situation when I feel vulnerable, especially in another country when I travel, if it's a traveling plan. So every time I look at other options, the worst

case scenario. Oh, so you actually do keep options? Yeah, but it's more focused on planning. Yeah, I focus because I also don't accept failure. My plan, everything has to go according to the plan. So in general, for the big things in your life, not when you know how to get to Philadelphia and which bus to get, but for the big things in your life where you're going to work and who you're going to marry and do you actually have very clear ideas of what you want and say this is what's going to happen and I'm going to stick to that. I'm trying to impose this philosophy of life I think before I believed in more natural and things just happened,

but I am thinking lately I took this approach. I need to know what I want because otherwise it would not just come to me. I need to be to step up, take decisions and go with it, not let it just come with karma. So nowadays I feel I'm imposing myself this philosophy of knowing what I want. I want this, why do I want this and stick to it. So in terms of romantic life, do you have a plan B if she doesn't work out? Or are you saying this is the one and I'm not going to think about any other plans and options. What's the good question? Very good question.

I don't have a plan B. I'm sticking to plan A. I'm sticking to my decision and I'll make it work. If I start with a plan B in a relationship, I think he's... yeah I'm thinking of the worst case scenario but alcohol would get me through that. I don't need another plan B but now I'm sticking to plan A because I think I'm doing a much more decision. At the moment I hope I'm doing it. So I'm fascinated because you're actually saying that having a plan B can affect how much you focus on planning. I'm not planning.

That's why I guess maybe first when I talked about focusing and when I'm traveling maybe I look like a control freak. But I also think plan B makes you relax and think yeah whatever, let's just have a drink and if we miss the bus, we take the second one. Let's just not give her all the attention because if it's not going to work, there's plenty of fish in the sea. But this will just make you relax and maybe not focus enough because the Plan B is also comfortable. Plan B is always the comfort zone. You go back there, plenty of buses, there are plenty of girls, there's plenty of this.

It's back to the comfort zone where you don't have to step up, look at the time, bring flowers, give kisses. Well, I think that Razzvan has just written the song himself. That was very poetic. But what's the science behind that? So Adam Katie Milkman wanted to find out the evidence as well. very poetic. But what's the science behind that? So Adam Katie Milkman wanted to find out the evidence as well.

She decided to take her research out of the train station and into the laboratory. And what we did is we gave participants a shared goal. They all had the same goal, which was to achieve high performance on a task we designed to them. And in one study, we told them that if they achieved that high performance, they would get to finish up five minutes early.

So they'd get the same pay that they were expecting to receive, but they'd have five extra minutes in their day to do with whatever they pleased. And one group, we asked them before they pursued this task to think about another way that they could save five minutes today if they didn't achieve the goal of getting five minutes back in our study. A second group we asked to simply brainstorm about what one could do with five minutes to hold brainstorming constant, and then a third group was a control group and they had no initial instructions they just began the task. And what we found is that the group had thought about a backup

plan about another way that they could save five minutes today, achieve significantly less success on the task we assign them. They worked less hard, they solved fewer puzzles, and this was significantly fewer than people in either of our control groups. So this is actually a disturbing finding in some ways, because it really suggests that this very normal and perhaps even wise course of action, which is to have a plan B to have a safety net when you're marking on something difficult and dangerous, really has a downside.

I mean, there's a real tension here. That's right. I think there is a really important tension here. And again, what I don't want to say is that it means we should be done with backup plans because they provide real value. And all we're trying to show here is that there's a downside we might not be appreciating and that we should try to find ways to stay equally motivated even if we do want to provide a safety net for ourselves. How do we go about doing that? I mean this has been found in similar studies if you look at people wearing helmets for example when they go

bicycling they take more risks and as they're bicycling if you ask people to wear seatbelts and cars, they now drive a little bit faster than if they were not wearing seatbelts. And I don't think, as you're saying, the implication is we should eliminate seatbelts and ask people not to wear helmets, but how do we get around this human tendency to say, I'm protected, and therefore I can take a chance. That's an absolutely fabulous question. I think it's the big question that the study raises. And unfortunately, we don't know the answer, but I do think awareness is always a good start.

So recognizing that there is this downside, that there is this risk of feeling too comfortable, feeling too confident, at least hopefully that can begin to combat it. I'm wondering in your own life, Kitty, do you make backup plans? I absolutely make backup plans. Give me an example of backup plans that you make. Oh gosh, that's a good question. I'm trying to think of my latest backup plan. So Ghaschen was a doctoral student here at the University of Pennsylvania at the Wharton School and she was preparing to go on the academic job market, hoping to find a fabulous faculty job. And she came into my office and said she was a bit worried about having a backup plan,

making a plan B in case she didn't get that job because she was worried it might demotivate her. Maybe one interesting implication is to think about whether or not you can outsource the job of backup plan. So as a student's advisor, for instance, perhaps they can focus solely on the primary plan of getting a job and let the advisor worry about the backup plan of where we'll find them a postdoctoral scholarship if they don't find

a faculty position. Maybe that's the best of both worlds. The students today is motivated and feels that they only have a plan A, no plan B, but the advisor's taking care of offsetting the risk by worrying about the plan B in the background. I think for this plan to work, you have to have an advisor that sends signals that they may be unreliable. And that would send a message that the advisor actually can't be trusted to come up with a proper backup plan,

which would motivate you to really focus on your primary goal. That's right, or you could simply have an advisor who's very quiet and doesn't signal one way or the other, and hopefully that will provide enough uncertainty that the student will work very, very hard. Thank you so much for talking with me today. My pleasure, thank you. So Shunker, have you been coming up with a backup plan secretly in case I fail? You know, Adam, I think the point of Katie Merkman's research is I shouldn't tell you if I have a backup plan

because if I do, it's going to make you slack off and think that you have a safety net. So, absolutely not, Adam. Wow, my heart rate is rising as we speak. I guess I'll furiously take more notes. Wonderful. Now, we're going to take a short break. When we come back, I'm going to play a game of stopwatch science with my friend Daniel Pink. Dad and I will talk about a phenomenon called moral hazard. And the idea of moral hazard is that when you think you have a safety net, when you know that you have a backup plan, a plan B,

you will take plan A less seriously, and as a result, all talks about things happen. Welcome to another edition of Stopwatch Science. I'm joined by Senior Stopwatch Science correspondent Daniel Pink. Hi, Dan. Hey, Shankar. Now, in addition to his role here on the Hidden Brain, Dan is also an author and a commentator. In Stop What Science, Dan and I challenge each other to present two pieces of research

in under a minute each. Today, we're presenting studies about moral hazard. This is the idea that safety nets can sometimes cause us to take unnecessary risks, they change our behavior. There's no safety net here on Stop What Science, just a timer timer and a buzzer Dan can you tell me what sound I'm gonna hear if I exceed my one minute well. I've chosen the old car horn sound like this That sounds a little like a rooster doesn't it? I have decided that the sound that I'm gonna play for Dan when he exceeds his time is this What is that that's the sound of a chimpanzee, Dan. Okay. Thank you. All right.

Dan Pink, your first minute starts right now. So these are glorious times for scholars who research moral hazard. There's nothing like a financial crisis. It's really the full employment act for moral hazard scholars, including Michael Acklin and Andreas Kern, while one is from Pitt, one is from Georgetown, and they did something really interesting. They had a theory that they decided to back up looking at some numbers, and they found a ghost straight to the punch line, that if you want to predict which countries are going to have a financial crisis,

look to see where US troops are deployed. Now, the reason for this is once again moral hazard the thinking is that hey if there troops in a particular country and the country goes south financially big brother uncle sam is going to step up and bail the country out now they also tested something they say well you wait maybe we put troops in countries that are at risk of financial crisis not the same come on this is so interesting i'm actually going to let you go on keep going what troops in countries that are at risk of financial crisis uh... not the same come on this is so interesting i'm actually gonna let you go on keep going we do we put troops in places that are risk of financial stability and the

answer is no because there are other markers when u.s. troops go there that actually indicate financial help what it suggests is that when we deploy troops out there it makes countries say hey we're protected we can take some risks and that's pretty much to stand a definition of moral risks. And that's pretty much the standard definition of moral hazard. You got it. I think that's pretty amazing, Dan. Thank you. So speaking of moral hazard, I'm going to turn on my stop watch here, and I'm

going to give you one minute. Now remember, the car horn will sound if you exceed your one minute. So get ready, right? Now. Alright, I'm going to be talking about bicycles and bicycle helmets and a very interesting experiment that was run in England some years ago. This is a study by Ian Walker who's in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath or Bath. I'm not quite sure how they pronounce it. Anyway, what he did was he rode on a stretch of highway either with his helmet on or with his helmet off and then measured using a camera how close cars came to him

When he was wearing the helmet and when he was not wearing the helmet and what moral hazard predicts is that when he seems to be Protected because he's wearing a helmet Car drivers feel like they can take more risks because they feel that if I get close enough and he topples over He's not gonna die. He's wearing a helmet. And that's exactly what he found. When he was wearing a helmet, car drivers actually came closer to him, they drove closer. One of the interesting things he also found

is that when he wore a woman's wig, fewer people came close to him because they had the stereotype that women drivers, or women, women, they honked at him because he was wearing a wig. That's probably exactly what they did. But in this case, they honked at him because he was wearing a wig. That's probably exactly what they did. But in this case, they honked from some distance because their stereotype was women bicyclists

were a little less stable than male bicyclists. Very interesting. So I guess Shankar's messaged all your kids out there is, don't wear a helmet, just put on a woman's wig. I'm not sure I would say that, but I'm not going to say more on that because I know Dan is just trying to buy time instead of paying attention to the fact that his one minute starts right now.

Okay, so we talked about Uncle Sam. Now we're going to talk about in even higher power, God. There's some great research out of Stanford showing that when people hear references to God, they're willing to take bigger risks, but only certain kinds of risks. So here's what they did. They said to people, do you want for a fee, stare into this bright light that might harm your eyes? People who were reminded of God beforehand were more likely to do it. Now, they also did tested this with things that had moral content to them. So they said, do you want to learn how to bribe people?

Do you want to learn how to parasail people? Do you want to learn how to parasail? And when people were faced with the opportunity to learn how to bribe people, something that had moral content, they were actually less likely to take that risk. So what this shows is that when it comes to physical risk, not anything that involves values, that being exposed to God, seeing things like, in God we trust, seeing something like the Ten Commandments can make people chirp like a chimpanzee. But that was really interesting. So, because people feel protected, people feel protected by God, so they'll take more risk.

Now, Shankar, I have to say in this case, you're not protected by God, or by the United States military, or by a wig. So you are all on your own, starting right now. I'm happy to report that the study that I'm just about to tell Dan is going to destabilize him to the extent that he's probably going to forget about the stopwatch. Okay. Because it has to do with how parents with college going kids behave and Dan has kids who are just about ahead off to college. And this is

researched by Laura Hamilton who looks at what the effect is of parents paying for their children when they go to college. And what Laura Hamilton finds is that the more money parents pay for their kids, the less kids are required to sort of stand on their own in college, the worse the kids perform in terms of their GPA. It's not a huge effect, but what it finds is that when kids don't have to feel like their performance in college is actually on them, that there's somebody who's carrying them,

that someone who's gonna give them money, it makes them say, I'm just gonna take it easy, I'm gonna go to the bar, I'm just gonna hang out with my friends, I'm gonna pay less attention to my study. So I don't know how this is gonna change your behavior of these over your kids, Dan, but I'm gonna tell you that it might be a good idea just to cut your kids off, just like you're cutting me off right now.

Yeah, wow, that's actually quite fascinating. It makes me want to call my daughter and say, Sophia, it's been nice knowing you, but next fall, you're completely on your own. Good luck. I'm just trying to avoid moral hazard, darling. If you do that then, just make sure you didn't tell her the idea came from me.

No, I won't. moral hazard, darling. If you do that then, just make sure you didn't tell the idea came from me. No, I won't. I'm back in the studio now with Adam Cole, producer, reporter, extraordinary from NPR Science Desk, and we've challenged Adam to come up with a song that stitches all the ideas in this podcast episode together. Adam, have you gotten any ideas? I've written down the downside to safety nets, lack of focus on primary goals,

the Kenya Romaniah, Germany, UK, couple, moral hazard, plenty of girls, plenty of buses. Writing a song is going to be a breeze for you. That's right, I'm just going to go back to the skunk bear cave and will see what i come up alright everyone adam is now out of the skunk bear cave was this a success i well i came up with something i know that you're a huge fan of pop punk and so of course famously so what we've got here is a pop punk garage band entitled Moral Hazard with two Zs. Hazard with two Zs, I love it. I don't need a plan B.

I say it no way I don't need the security. My old man won't pay for university, And Uncle Sam won't prop up my economy. No backup plan, those backups can distract me from my goal today. No safety, not my out of bed begins and ends with A. I don't need no plan B, no plan B, I don't need no plan B Yeah, yeah, it's not risk free, but it's a good philosophy I don't need no plan B, no plan B

When I bike, don't wear a helmet on my head Cause I like to wear this wig instead I realize I'm no maximum connoisseur. I fly from Kenya to the UK. Around the world there's lots of girls, but there is just one us. You make me feel like I'm a real man. All around the world there's lots of girls but there is just one us. You make me flip your loves a trip and I won't miss that bus. I don't need no plan B, no plan B, I don't need no plan B. Yeah, yeah, there's other fish in the sea, but you're the only one for me.

I don't need no plan B, no plan B. I got my eggs in one basket, my money in one place. Every day's fantastic, because I get to see your face. But I know what's on your mind, stupid, Steve, and Stanley. Forget those other guys, you don't need no plan B, you don't need no plan B Yeah, I can't, there's other fish in the sea But surely all they want for me, you don't need no plan B You don't need no plan B, you don't need no plan B

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