Something You Should Know - What to Say to Get What You Want & How We Judge People Based on How They Talk

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Blue jeans have been in fashion for a very long time. How did that happen? After all, they started out as work clothes. This episode begins by exploring the origins of jeans and how they became so popular. Source: James Sullivan, author of Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon (https://amzn.to/2F0wyID) How often have you looked back on a conversation and wish you had said something different – something brilliant? Well now you can. Listen to my guest Phil M. Jones, author of the book Exactly What to Say: The Magic Words for Influence and Impact (http://amzn.to/2vGIR2R). Phil is one of the world’s top sales trainers and he has researched and studied what words and phrases work in what situations to help you get the outcomes you want in all areas of your life. Laughing is so good for you and so is crying. Even better if you can do them both at the same time. Listen as I explore the fine line between laughing and crying and the benefits of both. https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/07/curious-behvaior-provine/ You make judgments about people based on the way they speak. And people judge you the same way. Certain accents or dialects cloud or view of people both in good ways and bad ways. But is it fair? Why should we judge someone based on their speech pattern and why do we do it in the first place? Joining me to discuss that is Katherine Kinzler a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and author of the book How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do and What it Says About You (https://amzn.to/3lSvZkU) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, how did blue jeans, which are basically work clothes, become so fashionable? Then, ways to explain your ideas so people actually listen. For example, first asking people how open-minded they are.

So by asking people how open-minded they would be, gives you almost a rejection-free way of being able to introduce your idea to somebody without them saying no, because the only way they can say no is by admitting to be closed-minded, which is like admitting to be an idiot. Then, the benefits of laughing and crying, and the interesting ways we judge people and treat them differently based on how they speak. Well, not everybody, but many people are unaware of how people who speak in a way that other people don't like or that's considered a non-standard dialect, how they might be treated more poorly by individuals and by institutions.

All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool.

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The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers Hi, welcome You know, it's amazing to think about how many men women boys and girls all over the world Wear blue jeans every day or some kind of jeans every day

For the most part blue jeans are thought of as all-American, although technically denim work clothes were worn in Europe over 200 years ago. In 1873, Levi Strauss came out with the first pair of American blue jeans. It was the copper rivets that made them unique and very durable. But how did work clothes become so fashionable? Well, jeans became fashionable because of Western movies. Now, the early movie cowboys wore a lot of fringe and frills, but in the 1930s and 40s, actors like John Wayne began wearing denim because they thought it was more authentic, and that started a fashion trend that continues till today.

By the way, the most money ever paid for a pair of blue jeans was $46,532. It was paid by the Levi Strauss Company for a pair of miner's jeans from the 1880s. And that is something you should know. How many times have you looked back on a conversation you had recently and said, oh, I wish I'd said that, or I should have said this? Salespeople do that a lot, and I think we all do it when you look back,

especially on conversations where you're trying to influence someone or get them to do something. The hindsight is always great and you always wish you'd said something better. So what if instead of leaving it to chance and hoping you say the right words at the right time, what if you had them all prepared? That's the premise of the book, Exactly What to Say, The Magic Words for Influence and Impact. The author is Phil M. Jones. Phil is one of the world's top sales trainers. He's trained more than 2 million people across five continents in more than 50 countries. And he joins me now. Welcome, Phil. Delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. So I like this idea of putting all the right words and phrases to influence people,

to put them in a book so people have them. But isn't that kind of like the sales equivalent to a magician writing a book and explaining how all his tricks are done? Yeah, what a great question. I have been in the world of working with sales professionals and people in general that have been looking to gain a decided outcome from a conversation ahead of time their whole entire life. And I've been involved in this space my entire life. And when I studied it and looked at all the conversations that I've been a part of, plus

the two million plus people that I've trained. The one commonality between those that would get great results and those that would do so-so is the people who really got it were the ones who knew exactly what to say, when to say, and how to make it count. They made every single one of their words deliver them the right kind of results. And it was more than just a great attitude and great product knowledge and great skill sets. And then I study it further and you see it appear in all other areas of life. You know, the guy that gets the girl, the girl that gets the job, wherever it might be, it's having the ability to articulate through words to get more of the things that we want. And it started to

make me look for what were the absolute triggers? What were the precise exact words that people were saying that were getting them these outcomes? And how could I do more of it? And then the more I put it into practice, the more I'd see success for myself, the more I'd share it with others, the more I'd see success through them and figured there must be something to this. So was it just trial and error? Well, I'll try this this time and see if that works better

than the thing I tried last time. It's more reverse engineering. So having trained lots of teams around the world for a variety of different ways, you'd start to look at successful people. I've listened to your podcast for some time, Mike, and one of the things that is a recurring theme is that success leaves clues. And the exact same thing is true here. You'd start to look at why is that person achieving better results when they have the same products, the same service, the same skill set,

the same demographic, and one is getting demonstrably different results? It would come down to the words. I guess people think, or some people think, that they like to believe they can think on their feet, that in a situation they'll know what to say at the right time, and that in fact that's really the test of a great salesperson, is to be able to think on their feet in the moment. And that's a fascinating point, because the worst time to think about the thing you're going to say is in the moment when you're saying it. Yet still, we leave it very much to that point. In our daily lives, anybody who's in any kind of job will be doing repetitive exercises. You may even have repetitive documents. I'm pretty sure that even setting up interview

guests towards what you do with your show bike is that you are asking people similar sets of questions or that the process to be able to get them to a point of being able to confirm a time is somewhere like the same. Yet our conversations we have in daily basis could be somewhere like the same if we could only distill them as such. And I think many people could think about, say, the questions they're asked. Common question that everybody's asked is, so what do you do? You know you're going to be asked it. Wouldn't it make sense to have an answer? I do business with a giant number of hearing care practices. A common question that comes into every practice around the world is how much are hearing aids? Yet still very few clinics have a pre-programmed answer.

What I'd ask your listeners to do right now is what are the things they know they're going to need to talk about? What are the questions they know they're going to be asked? And wouldn't it make sense to have something that says, when this happens, I'm ready for it? Okay, let's dive in with some specific examples. And I'll let you take the lead on this as to some of the ones that resonate with people the best to give people a taste of what you're talking about here. Well, let's lift a couple of fun ones from the book. And I think one of my favorite sets of words is probably the one that's had the biggest impact on my life in social circumstances and business circumstances of getting people who are stuck in indecision. So when somebody's stuck in indecision, they don't like to be told what to do. People

don't like to be told what to do, but they kind of really do. Coupled with that same thought, though, is people are a little bit like sheep. We take safety and confidence in the fact that people like us have enjoyed certain experiences in the past. This is why reviews and ratings are so paramount in decision-making today, is that we get confidence from the fact that other people have experienced good things in the past. Take those two pieces of psychology together, and what you can then do is influence all of that power by just utilizing two magic words. See if I wanted to tell somebody what to do,

particularly somebody who I didn't know so well, then what I would do is I'd just talk in terms of most people. I'd say look what most people would do in your circumstances is this, this and this. The little subconscious voice hears at that moment in time, well, I'm most people. So if that's what most people should do, then chances are, then that might be a good safe path for me to travel on to. It brings collective responsibility towards it. Perfect. So another one. Question I'm going to ask of you is if say you were in a seminar hall with a thousand people in it, and I was to ask the question to a thousand people, who in this room would be open-minded, how many hands do you think would shoot up? Everybody.

Somewhere like everybody. So let's use that other base level assumption in conversation to get collective agreement ahead of time. So if I was to say to somebody, how open-minded would you be to, and then insert my idea behind that, what is the only thing you can say back in the other direction? Okay. Right. No is not a choice anymore. And people are so fearful of no. If you present your ideas where no is no longer a choice, at least you get the chance to explore it. We get time to spend in maybe, which then allows us to be able to influence maybes to yeses. So by asking people how open-minded they would be gives you almost a rejection-free way of being able to introduce your idea to somebody

without them saying no, because the only way they can say no is by admitting to be closed-minded, which is like admitting to be an idiot. Another one. How about a rejection-free way of introducing just about anything to just about anybody? And this is a fun thing because, again, what we are fearful of when we introduce an idea is the other person saying no. I hear this from salespeople all the time. We're so scared of a no. So I wonder what we could do if we could make it rejection-free. And we do this by introducing an idea to the left or the right of somebody.

See, if I said to you right now, look, I'm not sure if it's for you. Well, a few things go through your mind. Firstly, the thought that goes through your mind is, well, let me be the judge of that. The second thing that goes through your mind is I wonder what it is. It fires up curiosity within your human emotion. It makes you lean in. Now, if I build on that set of words and add another three-letter word, I can change what the subconscious hears. If I add the word but, let's consider what the word but does to just about every other set of circumstances. If you were, say, receiving some feedback from your employer at some point who said, look, I love what you do. You're really energetic and charismatic and most of the customers like you,

but the only thing you then listen to is the thing that follows the but. Let's bring that towards this conversation, knowing that but pretty much negates what was said prior to it. I can introduce just about anything to just about anybody completely rejection free by saying, I'm not sure if it's for you, but what we've now got is the ability for them to hear in their mind's eye, you might want to look at this. Talk about, I like the one, before you make up your mind. Okay. Well, we've all been in situations where you know that somebody is kind of hankering towards this is not going the way that you want it to be.

So say if it was on a scale of 1 to 10 ten where ten is that you've got everything you wanted and one is this is not going the way you wanted you've got maybe somebody who's at a two or a three and you're thinking that this is the slippery slope for me leaving this conversation promptly and quickly you can bring it back to a five six or a seven by introducing a new idea prefaced with the words before you make your mind up if i was to say look before you make your mind up why don't we just look at a few more of the facts now what i've done is i've taken a conversation that was closing in the wrong direction and now i've reopened it back up again by inserting some new pieces of evidence that means that they can't form the same conclusion

that we could foresee they were perhaps previously forming i'm speaking speaking with Phil Jones. We're talking about how to use the right words to influence and impact other people. Phil is author of the book Exactly What to Say, The Magic Words for Influence and Impact. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolph Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children.

The heresies of Redolph Buntwine, wherever podcasts are available. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career

choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Phil, how likely is it do you think people would say, wait a minute, I know what you're up to here. You're trying to use words to sway me, and I know exactly what you're doing, and it's not going to work on me. Okay. Well, let me just think about this for a second, and maybe you could help me out.

Is there any chance you could do me a small favor? Sure. Well, look, I just used an example of some words from my book that you responded to unanimously and i know that will happen time and time again by gaining people the opportunity to agree to take an action before they even know what the action is it is like a literally a reflex reaction that in the same way if somebody nudges you on your side your arm pokes pokes up so there isn't this choice of i now know what you're doing to me. But also know that you have to use this power with integrity. This isn't about manipulation. This isn't about helping getting people to do things that they shouldn't be doing.

This is helping assist people through the decision-making process. And I'm 100% certain that everybody listening in right now, yourself included, knows things better than other people for other people in certain circumstances what do you mean well what i mean is let's take for example that you were in a position that you could deliver somebody some advice about hosting a podcast chances are you'd know a lot more about this thing than most people that you'd be talking to and that you could use that knowledge and experience to be able to guide them towards what the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do is. This is what we should be thinking towards with any of our language patterns is that we're not steering somebody towards something in order to create some superior outcome for ourselves. We're steering somebody towards something because

we feel it will give them more of what they said that they wanted. It's all about, you know, I hear things in sales that, you know, he's so good that he could sell, you know, ice to a polar bear. Polar bears don't need ice. They're going to wake up disappointed. We have a responsibility when you know how to be able to influence decision to use it for good reasons and not for bad reasons and use it to help people through the decision-making process. And most people are, they don't like making decisions. They like somebody to help them through that process. And I see this mistake happen all the time, particularly in big retail stores right now. Now, I wonder if this has ever happened to anybody coming into a store is you're thinking,

well, I need a new washing machine. And you're really hoping that somebody with some expertise will help navigate you and guide you through that process but instead they say you know how many programs do you want i'm like i don't know i've got no idea ask a better question and we might get a better result but instead what happens is for people being fearful of getting involved in the decision making process they ask dumb questions no questions or give advice that was unsolicited. And that's what turns people off. Yet instead, what we could be doing is listening to people,

help use our expertise and navigate them more towards the decisions that are the right outcomes for them. I just have this mental picture of that polar bear waking up so disappointed because he bought the ice. Yeah, and what would Mrs. Polar Bear be saying to him for like spending their hard-earned savings. We have plenty of ice. We have ice all over. We got this.

What did you buy more for? He's got to feel like such a jerk. But it seemed like such a – We get celebrated today. And I think I just want to build on that. There's still far too many people that celebrate salesmanship on the day that the ice is sold to the polar bear. The celebration should be for anybody in a business context is, you know, when the polar bear wakes up realizing he doesn't need any more ice. It's when the consumer gets the win that was anticipated.

So success, and I do a lot of work with salespeople as well as other areas in life, is we should shift the goalpost. The goalpost is never the yes decision. The goalpost is achieving the outcome that the consumer was promised at the point of transaction. That's where we should be celebrating. And I think utilizing the right tools in helping people through that process means that we don't just sign more orders. It means we end up with happy people long ways down the track, and then that builds reputations too. One or two more. Okay. Do you remember being a kid and that you knew one of the greatest times ever is when an adult might say to

you the words once upon a time? Sure. See, when you hear the words once upon a time, you think this is going to be good. I can open my mind up. I'm going to go to a happy place and somebody's going to insert thoughts that are going to make me think happy things. So we got triggered into this and we quite like it. Now, we also have to understand that decisions are continually made in pictures. I don't know whether you ever found yourself saying the words to yourself, words like, I cannot see myself doing that. It's a physical thing. Every decision that's ever been made has been made at least twice, once in reality, but prior to that, hypothetically in your mind. So if you can help somebody see themselves doing something, then the chances of getting them to do that thing or do the thing that gets them away from the thing

that they've just seen become significantly higher. Now I can paint pictures, I can tell stories, I can get things to happen in people's minds with the words once upon a time, providing I'm speaking to somebody under the age of six. Ad gets a little harder yet what we can do instead is we can preface a conversation or a statement with the words just imagine and we cannot help but picture things just imagine six months on from now that you're sat in your favorite beach home enjoying your favorite cocktail you cannot help but see it and by having the ability to paint the pictures that you want somebody to move towards or away from just by utilizing that simple two-word preface gives you a fair advantage in almost every conversation everybody knows that when they're

trying to convince somebody influence them get them to something, there's always going to be objections. And one of the things you say is to say, what makes you say that? Talk about that because I think that's bound to come up. Okay. Now, objections exist in every area of life. And what we have to do is firstly understand what an objection really is. Now, objection is a number of things. It could be a request for more information. It could be a polite way of saying no. But what it definitely is, is a challenge to your control in a conversation. And who's in control of the Jimmy Fallon show? Well, it's Jimmy Fallon, right? Why? Not because it's his show, but because he's the guy that's asking the questions. The person asking the questions is the one who's always in control of the conversation. Understanding that an objection is nothing more than a challenge to your control,

the first thing you need to do is to get control back. Let's take a business objection like, wow, that sounds expensive. You could immediately jump to the back foot and start to be able to argue this. The trouble with an argument is an argument ends up with a winner and a loser. This means that if you're the winner, what's the other person? Not only that, in this argument, you feel desperate. You come across desperate. If you were to visualize it, just imagine being like a turtle or a tortoise on their back with their legs. This is what I picture when I see people trying to defend an argument this way around. What you're far better to do is to regain control of the conversation with a question. Now, for every objection, I could write a million different

questions, one for each one that comes up, or I could give one question that works with every single objection. And that's the question that you mentioned a second ago. Customer says, wow, that sounds expensive. You say, what makes you say that? Customer says, I need to speak to my partner before making a decision over that. You say, what makes you say that? It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. That question puts you back in control and it helps you find the condition of their indecision. Yes. And by asking that question and maybe asking it multiple times, you find out what's really going on. You may find out if you keep asking what makes you say that, you may find out that the person isn't buying anything. And then that's okay. And I think what happens by alternative

here is if you're not brave enough to be able to get to that fact in the information that there might be more to it, then what ends up happening is that people in that situation is the salesperson sounds overly salesy because they spend the next 22 minutes chewing the guy's ear off as to the hundred reasons why they should do business with him. Yet he's got no interest in listening. What we have is we've been presented with a condition of no. We are within our rights to be able to explore that condition and find out if that's the only condition. If it is, then we can look to be able to build value from that position. But let's build value from a position of fact rather than build value from a position of naivety. But you know that you can put your head on the pillow at night saying, I can't say I lost that sale because there was no sale to be had.

Guy wasn't shopping today. He was just shopping around. Well, clearly words matter. Saying the right words at the right time can really make a difference in how influential and impactful you are. And you've put all those words in a book, Exactly What to Say, The Magic Words for Influence and Impact by my guest phil jones

there's a link to his book at amazon in the show notes for this episode of the podcast and if people want to contact you phil how do they do that if you're struggling to find me in any way head to phil m jones.com needs the m otherwise you find a manchester united football player and that's football the game you play with your. And you'll also find all of my social networks linked across from my web page too. And I'd be delighted to join in the conversation with anybody who's listened in today. Well, I appreciate your time. Thanks, Phil. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me on. It's been a pleasure. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan,

the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events.

Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Since I talk for a living and listen to other people talk for a living, I'm really aware of how people speak, how they say what they say. It makes a huge difference. I mean, I'll even tell you that I sometimes interview people for this podcast, and those people sometimes have a really interesting message on paper, but the way they say it, the way they talk about it, doesn't really bring the message through in an interesting or compelling or even easy to comprehend way. And I consequently don't use that interview.

How you talk and how other people talk says so much. And here to explain how and why this is so important is Katherine Kinsler. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and author of the book, How You Say It, Why You Talk the Way You Do, and What It Says About You. Hi, Catherine. Welcome. Thanks so much. I'm really excited to be here. Explain what you mean by the way you talk, what it says about you, perhaps using some examples,

just to make people understand what it is we're talking about. I think when people think about language, you think a lot about, you know, I said this thing, it's out in the world, now you're going to hear my content and understand what I said. But language is so much more than the content of the words or, you know, the literal communication. It's also about the way you say something. It's about the language you use. It's about your accent. It's about the way your words sound,

which reflects all the voices that you've heard speaking to you throughout your lifetime. So in that sense, it's really giving you a sense of not just what you're saying, but also who you've been talking to. And isn't it also true that it's not just what you say and how you say it, it's how other people hear it? That's right. And so it's both sides.

When you talk, you're releasing all these voices that you've heard reflected in your speech, but then you're also walking around the world, kind of, you know, whether you're aware of it or not, judging other people based on their speech. And so when someone sounds like you do, it's really easy to think, oh, that person's like me. But of course, the flip side is that when someone sounds different, it's easy to see them as being different from you in some sort of a meaningful way. So give me some examples of what you're talking about. Let's take American English, right? So there isn't just one kind of American English. There's English that's spoken differently all over the country. Sometimes people say, well, why don't we just all, you know, speak in one way?

Wouldn't that be really easy? But the thing about language is that it morphs and changes with different people and different groups of people. So because language is so social, when people come together, their voices come together. And when people, you know, develop different cultures, their voices sound different. So let me give you some examples in the US. Now, a lot of research has looked at where people think the, you know, kind of the fault lines and language lie. Now, actually, a lot of dialects are continuous across different groups. So it's not to say that, you know, you're here in the city, and then you move one step outside the city boundary,

everybody sounds different. But you could take often people call standard American English. Now, of course, standard is probably a pretty loaded term, and some people don't like using that. But the idea would be the kind of speech you might hear in parts of the Midwest and the East Coast that you might hear on the news. And then, of course, in New York, people speak differently. You can imagine a Brooklyn English, the kind of the coffee talk kind of is the typical idea. You can think about Southern American English. Now, of course, there's many different aspects of Southern American English. There's not just one kind,

you can go to different states and hear different varieties. You can think about African American English, which again, there's different varieties. But you see groups of people who have different varieties of Native American English. No dialect is better or worse than any other, but you can hear differences in how people talk across the U.S. And those differences that we hear and that we say, that's important why? What's the point of all this? The point of all of this is that language is critical for how we connect with each other and also how we feel prejudiced

and divide ourselves, and yet people aren't aware of it. And so people may think that when they speak, they're just communicating, and they are just communicating, but also language is this underappreciated aspect of our social lives that has huge implications for how people live together and who you might, you know, who you might accept and who you might not accept. And there's just a tremendous amount of underappreciated prejudice based on language that I think we really need to reckon with and become aware of in ourselves. Well, I think people have a sense of this. I mean, I certainly do. I know there are certain accents and certain ways that people speak that I don't like, that are hard for me to listen to, and I probably therefore make judgments about those people. But I know that. I mean, I'm aware of those prejudices that I have about certain accents. So what do i do with that so i think there's two things and what you just said that i think probably many listeners have that same kind of impression and so you know i like what you just said so one thing is that you might not realize where the feeling of like oh i just don't like

this accent where that comes from right so you might think that there's something kind of inherent in the signal of it so it's like well this one is just more pleasing on the ear and this other one doesn't sound as good. But actually, people's judgments about different accents and different dialects and languages are absolutely informed by other kinds of cultural stereotypes and prejudices about different groups of speakers. People may be completely unaware of this in themselves too. So I'll give you one example that was kind of a one example of a really famous set of linguistic

studies going back to the 1960s in Montreal, where there was a lot of language politics at the time. And in many ways, English speakers, you know, had more economic opportunities than did French speakers at the time. And people would hear voices and they would actually be the same person speaking in two different ways. And people would think, oh, the guy who's speaking English just sounds a lot nicer and smarter and taller than the guy speaking French, when in fact it was actually the same individual recording the voices. So the idea is that prejudice about different groups of speakers come out when we're evaluating someone's speech. Another take-home message you might have from this is the idea, so in addition to saying, okay, when I'm biased against somebody's speech, you know, that might

reflect other cultural biases that I have. The second thing to take home is that this has huge implications for things like whether somebody can get a house, whether somebody can get a job, how they're treated by teachers in school, and that I think we're really unaware of the weight of linguistic bias in our society, that it's not just something like, ah, I kind of like the way this one person speaks and not this other person, but actually it has tremendous implications for how we live together. And so is the recommendation to change the way you talk? So what do we do with this? Yeah. So I think the recommendation, the first thing that we do with this is we become aware of it.

And so I think that when we're thinking, we're grappling with issues about who has privilege and who doesn't and how we treat each other, we're completely unaware, or many people, not everybody, but many people are unaware of how people who speak in a way that other people don't like, or that's considered a non-standard dialect, how they might be treated more poorly by individuals and by institutions. So say, in a legal setting that their voices might be treated as less truthful, less credible. So there's a lot of studies showing that when people speak in a way that's not considered standard, the content of their speech is treated as less true, even though of course that's not fair or right. So I think awareness is one thing.

And then another thing I think we can do as a bigger cultural shift is thinking about the value of, it's less taxing on the cognitive system. And it turns out that that's not right, that humans are perfectly capable of learning multiple languages. And I think that we need to shift a focus in education and more generally in terms of thinking of the value of multiple languages for our children. So it sounds like what you're saying is we need to be understanding that people speak in different languages, they have different accents, they have different dialects, and we shouldn't jump to conclusions or make judgments about them based on the way they speak. And I understand that, but I think there's a flip side to this too. I mean, if you don't speak what is considered, quote, good English, and you walk into an office in the United States of America and apply for a job, and you just butcher the

language and nobody can really understand what you're talking about, you're not going to get the job. And you can say, well, that's not fair. You're making a judgment based on the way they speak. Well, maybe, but they're still not going to get the job. I do think that's actually something we could change. You know, one thing that people don't understand is how communication is two sided. So when we think about how we talk, we often think, you know, something like, okay, I said my thing. Now, you know, I did it perfectly. Now it's up to you to understand it. And so then you get this kind of intuition, like someone came in to apply for my job.

Maybe that person spoke in a way that I found hard to understand and my customers will find it hard to understand. And so, okay, I'm not going to hire that person. Now, the problem here is that a lot of biases and just the kind of biases that employment law aims to protect against seep into people's judgments of what you can and can't understand. So there's all sorts of elegant studies in psychology showing that people can shut down their listening. And so somebody could say something and it's not the case that it's just out there in the world perfectly there. But if the listener is not, you know, not paying attention or feels like they don't understand, they don't want to understand you, then they actually stop understanding you. Or likewise, people can think that they understood something. So their subjective assessments of whether or not somebody was clear in speaking can be completely different from their actual objective measures of comprehension did they understand it. So my point is that employment law protects against biases, you know, racism, prejudice in all sorts of ways. And this prejudice against speech can really be prejudice

as opposed to an actual failure of communication. People, however, have prejudices against all kinds of things. People can walk into a job and be discriminated against because they're too short, because they're too fat, because they don't dress right. People have these biases that it sounds like you're trying to engineer out, but I don't think you can engineer them out. So I don't think you can engineer out all of human preferences for sure. I think I understand what you're saying there. I think language is this really, really big critical one. So when we think about how people, when we look at how people evaluate each other, a lot of social psychology research says, okay, you meet someone new. What do you

pick out about them? You might notice their gender, their race, their age. And these are the kind of factors indeed that we try to protect against in employment discrimination law. And what I'm saying is that when you meet somebody new, their language and their dialect and their accent, that's up there with those other really big primary categories that we use to divide the world. And we find that really even early in life, kind of right away, babies, in some of my research, I find that babies hear how somebody sounds, and that's how they're starting to carve up the world into different groups, that language can really be a primary variable for how we evaluate other people.

Yeah. So if they're doing it as babies, I mean, it seems pretty inherent in human nature to take that into consideration. Yeah. So when I think about what it means for, you know, what does it mean when a baby does it, does it mean, okay, this is how it is? Does it mean this is something that's really strongly part of our human cognition and it's important to understand it? And what I think it means in this case is that babies come into the world with the predisposition to see language as marking and dividing groups. So it's like babies and young kids start to see the way you speak, it really matters a

lot. Now, what they don't have there are stereotypes and prejudice about different groups of speakers. And so that's something that really develops with age. And so you could have this inclination to think that language matters for figuring out who's who, but you don't necessarily have to be in a world where you learn that some ways of talking are better than others. Some are prestigious and some aren't. That that's kind of the societal biases that are layering on top of your early thinking about language. You know, maybe I can give you one kind of tangible example from my own research. Sure. So, you know, I do find that early

in life kids like people who sound familiar or native, which I think, you know, I do find that early in life kids like people who sound familiar or native, which I think, you know, could make a lot of sense. And that doesn't necessarily mean that they're prejudiced in any way. Now, when they get older, they start to kind of absorb the messages that society has to give them. So in one study, we wanted to see how kids started to think about Northern versus Southern American English. And there's a lot of stereotypes out there among adults about different ways of speaking in the

North versus the South. And so we tested a group of kids in the North and a group of kids in the South, and they heard voices from both places. And basically what we found was that in kindergarten, five-year-olds, you know, liked what was familiar. So in the North, they liked the Northern speech. In the South, they actually liked both types of speech. And I think they're probably exposed to both, particularly if you consider the media. But by the time kids were in fourth grade, so around nine or 10, kids in both places started to think that the Northerners sounded smarter and the Southerners sounded nicer. And so they're absorbing these stereotypes. And, you know, it seems like it's really something that it's both they're gaining knowledge that society has, but it's not something that they might attracted? We know that people like people like me, that I'm just drawn to people who are more like me

than people who are very different than me. That's just how humans operate. I think there's absolutely a lot of that at the basis of this. And I think the problem is that it's not such a far leap to go from, I like people like me to, I'm going to exclude somebody who's not like me, or I'm going to exclude an entire group of people in our society or see them as less valued. And so that's kind of the, you know, it's a fine line. And it's not to say that connecting with people who speak like you or who are like you can't

be a wonderful aspect of human connection. Absolutely, it can be. But I think we also just have to be aware in ourselves of our instinct to exclude people who are different. Okay. But it almost sounds like what you're saying is, you know, in the past, when people come to this country and they don't speak English, they've always been encouraged to learn it. Because if you're going to apply for a job or you need to communicate with people, it's going to be a lot easier if you speak English. It almost sounds like what you're saying is, no, no, no, no. You people have to understand this. The Spanish speaking person coming in, don't ask them to learn English. You need to understand their Spanish.

Yeah. So that's, so what I'm saying is multilingualism is a great thing. And so for somebody coming to the U.S., absolutely. Learning English is a great thing. And I think that we could do a lot more to support in schools, English language learners. So kids who don't speak English as a first language at home, we could do a lot more to help them learn English. And I agree, absolutely, that learning English is a really great thing. But then I also think for kids who only speak English, being exposed to people who speak different languages, seeing multilingualism in general as something that's valued is helpful. So it's not saying something

like everybody speak their own language and nobody learn English. Instead, it's saying learning English is great, but also for kids who only hear English, being exposed to other languages is positive for them too. But aside from multi languages, multiple languages, just people who mumble. If you want to get a job here, we need to speak clearly. Don't ask me to hire a mumbler when I don't, I can't use a mumbler, just because that's how they speak and I'm being prejudiced against them. They're mumbling. We need people who speak clearly in this organization. So I think that I don't, I don't, I have to be honest that I don't have a particular stance or any research on mumbling in specific. But it could be somebody, it could be just somebody who just speaks some kind of very bizarre dialect of English that just doesn't, you know, it isn't going to work here.

Because we have to communicate with people, you know, it isn't going to work here because we have to communicate with people, you know, very clearly. And I don't know what you're talking about, so I can't hire you. So I guess, like, let's imagine that we lined up all the dialects of English, okay? And some, I don't know that we could really do this, but let's pretend that we could in some way that made them closer or further from your dialect in terms of what you understand. Okay. So like, let's imagine this hypothetical dialect continuum of how close they are to you and how much you understand them. What I'm saying is that probably for many people, your judgments of somebody who say speaks in British English, even if it's further in terms

of the understand dimension, you'd say, oh, yeah, that's a dialect I could have around my job. Like that sounds pretty smart and cool, versus somebody who speaks in a dialect that's seen as less prestigious, even if you can understand them better, you're going to be more likely to pass them over because something about it isn't going to feel right. And I'm saying that's not actually about understanding. That's about something else. Well, I imagine awareness is a good first step because I think we don't even think about how we make judgments about people based on the way they speak, but we do. A linguist called a bunch of people who are offering apartments, apartment landlords, I guess, and either made his voice sound like he spoke Spanish, like he spoke in a way that's traditionally seen as white,

or like he spoke in a way that's traditionally seen as black. And he said the same thing. He was just asking if this apartment was available. There was really nothing social about it. And then he gets dramatically different responses for the same apartment about whether or not they want somebody, whether or not they want him to live there. So again, like what's coming out in your voice can matter. Another study looked at, these were potential buyers for homes, and they varied whether somebody sounded like they had, I guess it was a slight foreign

accent in English versus a heavier foreign accent in English. And again, they reach really different successes and whether or not a bank wanted to lend them money. And so it's the kind of thing where people, you know, can face really different, even if even if you know, even if what you're saying is exactly the same, based on how standard your voice sounds or people perceive your voice, you can face really different odds at just accomplishing basic things in this country. Well, I think it's an important topic because I don't think anybody can say that they don't make judgments about people based on the way they speak. I mean, it's kind of a knee-jerk reaction when somebody talks a certain way that conjures up something that makes you make a judgment about them. And in a lot of cases, it's probably not fair. Katherine Kinsler has been my guest. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago,

and her book is called How You Say It, Why You Talk the Way You Do, and What It Says About You. There's a link to her book in the show notes for this episode. Thank you, Catherine. Thanks so much, Mike. It was really fascinating talking with you. And it's really an honor to be on your show.

You know, there's a fine line between laughing and crying. You can even do both of them at the same time. The late psychologist Robert R. Provine explained that laughing and crying are similar psychological reactions. Both occur during states of high emotional arousal. Both laughter and tears have some lingering effects. And neither one can be sincerely turned on or off at will. Human tears are actually triggered by a variety of emotions,

pain, sadness, and even joy. And if you can manage to laugh and cry simultaneously, you're actually getting a double dose of stress relief. Both emotional outbursts counteract the effects of cortisol and adrenaline. So go ahead, laugh till you cry, or cry till you laugh. And that is something you should know. If you're stuck at home, you're locked down, can't go out, nowhere to go, well, I've got something you could do. It'll only take a few minutes, and that would be to leave a rating and review for this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. I'm Mike Hurr Brothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of

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