Something You Should Know - Why Coincidences Happen & Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

Have you ever wondered why pumpkins are associated with Halloween? After all, they aren’t particularly scary and have nothing to do with ghosts. This episode begins with an explanation of why pumpkins and Halloween go hand in hand. www.pumpkin-patch.com I am sure you have wondered things like: Why do coincidences happen? Why is it so hard to find a 4-leaf clover? What day is best to buy a lottery ticket? Why do traffic jams happen? These are just some of the fascinating life questions tackled by Rob Eastaway, author of the book Why Do Buses Come in Threes?: The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life (https://amzn.to/2FEWfib) When your “check engine” light comes on it means there is something wrong. However it may be something simple that you can fix yourself and there is a very easy way to find out. Listen and discover what it is. Source: Phil Edmonston author of The Lemon-Aid Car Guide (https://amzn.to/33wtJaC)  Some people are cautious while others seek danger and thrills. Why? Why do some people love the thrill of a wild rollercoaster or scary movie or even skydiving while other people would much rather stay home and read a book? Ken Carter has explored the minds of thrill seekers to discover what makes them seek danger and actually enjoy it while others dread the idea. Ken is a board certified clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Oxford College of Emory University and author of the book Buzz!:Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies (https://amzn.to/35FIwCn) 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, what's the connection between pumpkins and Halloween? Then, understanding why coincidences happen. And they happen a lot. We love the romance of coincidences, but they are bound to happen. And they happen a lot. We love the romance of coincidences, but they are bound to happen. And

it would always be an amazing coincidence if you went for 10, 15, 20 years and nothing really freaky or amazing happened to you in that time because something somewhere is destined to happen. Also, what's the first thing to check when your check engine light comes on? And thrill seekers, why do some people love roller coasters, scary movies, or skydiving, and others don't? These people that we think of as thrill-seekers or high-sensation-seekers

actually have lower levels of cortisol, but higher levels of dopamine, so they feel more pleasure, but less stress during those high sensation seeking activities. All this today on Something You Should Know. 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,

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Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. Just over the last couple of days, at least for me, it has started to feel a little more like fall. I don't know, there's just something in the air. And plus at the stores, you know, the pumpkin this and the pumpkin flavored that, those things have started to show up. And pumpkins symbolize fall, but they also symbolize Halloween. And it got me to thinking, what do pumpkins have to do with Halloween?

So I looked it up. Pumpkins have been grown and eaten in North America for centuries. They are native to this part of the world. But it was the Irish who made them a Halloween tradition. In Ireland, people carved turnips, potatoes, or gourds at Halloween and put them on porches to welcome deceased loved ones and to ward off evil spirits. Burning lumps of coal were used to light them from the inside.

700,000 Irish people came to the U.S. in the mid-1800s because of the Irish potato famine. They brought their traditions with them, but found that American pumpkins made a much better jack-o'-lantern than a turnip or potato. I can't even imagine a potato jack-o'-lantern. So anyway, the Irish made the switch, and pumpkins are now part of our Halloween celebration. And that is something you should know. We humans like to know the reason why. When something happens, we want to know how come. What caused it?

For example, why do coincidences happen? Why do traffic jams occur for no apparent reason? Why is it almost impossible to find a four-leaf clover in your front yard? And why is it so hard to get the temperature of your shower just right? Well, you are about to get some answers to these and other interesting life questions from Rob Eastaway. He's the author of the book, Why Do Buses Come in Threes? The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life. Hi, Rob. welcome. Thank you very

much. So let's start with the title, Why Do Buses Come in Threes? Explain that phenomenon. There is this tendency when you're waiting for public transport that you hang around for ages waiting for a bus to turn up and then not just one but two or three will come together and it's a big joke in london so why why aren't they spaced out why is this curious phenomenon happen and it turns out that what is behind buses bunching as that's the the term that tends to be used is it's kind of not anybody's fault really because even if you send out these buses, let's say they're going out regularly every 15 minutes from the terminus. Unfortunately, people aren't nicely spaced out and you just need to get a cluster of people waiting at a stop.

When the bus arrives, they all get on together. They slow that bus down slightly. So the bus behind has caught up a little bit. Then the buses move along. There's now less of a gap between the first bus and the second bus. So there's less time for customers or passengers to accumulate at the next stop. And meanwhile, the front bus has been slightly slowed down. And so more passengers have gathered waiting for it. So can you see there's a kind of almost like a magnetic force pulls buses together. It's buses being kept evenly apart. It's an unstable situation and buses are much happier when they're together. So there's no particular law that says buses will cluster in threes that we tend to notice threes, but will tend to to bunch up in groups of at least two

isn't that interesting and you just said that that we tend to notice threes what do you what do you mean i think in life there is lots of situations of the rule of three where i mean comedians use it as well actually um first time something happens okay you register it when it happens a second time you think oh okay i've noticed register it. When it happens a second time, you think, oh, okay, I've noticed it's happened. When it happens a third time, our brains are wired to think, right, there's a pattern here. Something happened. So you're kind of the third one is more significant. So when things happen in threes, generally, I think, as humans, we are curious to know what's going on.

And we assume there's a cause, even if there's not necessarily a cause. In the case of buses, they might come in twos, three or fours, but we joke about them coming in threes. Interestingly, if we talk about misfortunes in life, you know, unlucky things, oh, why do bad things always happen to me in threes? I mean, the truth is they don't, but we'll tend to notice them when they happen in threes, you know, so a friend might get ill. We might, you know, have some kind of scrape on the car and then we're almost looking out for bad things to happen. And we'll really notice that third thing. And we'll reinforce this myth that bad things happen in threes. Well, there's that old thing about celebrity deaths always happen in threes, but they actually don't. They don't, exactly. We're just reinforcing a myth we've all heard,

and it is just this innate way of humans counting of, you know, three is enough to be significant and to register in our brains. It's probably one of the most important numbers in terms of looking for things in life. So things happening in threes is intriguing. Why is it so hard to find a four-leaf clover? It's a classic thing that four-leaf clovers are the things you should be searching for. And in fact, if you look out in your yard or out in the park or whatever and are looking for flowers and count the petals or count the leaves on a daisy or whatever and are looking for flowers and count the petals or count the leaves on a daisy or

whatever there are certain numbers that seem to crop up form far more often than others in leaves and petals and a particularly common number is five but quite often you'll see three you might often see eight you might see 13 and there's a connection between these numbers. And it's a sequence known as the Fibonacci sequence. And it was known about and discovered way back in the 12th, 13th century when an Italian mathematician who got nicknamed Fibonacci first sort of published a story about it. But the pattern itself, you can recreate it by starting with the numbers one and one, you add them together, one and one makes two, then you take the previous two numbers. So now one and two makes three, two and three makes five, three and five makes eight. So you can see how i'm making each number by just adding the previous two and you could write this out five and eight is 13 now for very subtle reasons these fibonacci numbers turn out to have particular properties that make them crop up in natural

growing things in plants in particular in petals and uh it's a wonderful thing so you know five tends to be the most common number of petals on a flower and the reason why it's five and not four or six is because five is a fibonacci number you're going to sort of have to take my word for it that fibonacci numbers are connected to another beautiful thing in math, which is known as the golden ratio, which is a particular shape of rectangle, a particular ratios of the two sides of a particular rectangle, which has some very lovely and elegant properties and was known about by Leonardo da Vinci. And he, I think, probably made it most famous, most popular. He experimented with it. He felt it was the source of the most beautiful shapes. He drew a famous image of a man, which was where every part of the body was in the ratio of this so-called golden ratio, which is about 1.6 something. And the reason why it's linked with nature is because it's such an efficient ratio, it's a beautiful ratio, plants make use of it to space out petals to give themselves the best chance to get as much sunlight as possible.

And so four-leaf clovers, then, are just an anomaly. Yeah, if you found one, it's not a Fibonacci number, so nature isn't naturally going to produce things in fours unless it does so by splitting two twos, because two is an easy number to make, and it's also a Fibonacci number. So you say that it's better to buy a lottery ticket on Friday. I've bought plenty of tickets every day of the week. They never win. But why Friday? Well, it does depend. I know lottery draws happen on different days of the week.

So let's take the UK lottery, where I know that the draw happens on Saturday. The idea is not so much there's anything special about buying on Friday, but to just recognize that winning lotteries is extremely difficult. It is extremely unlikely you will win. And therefore, when something is so unlikely, you have to start thinking, well, look, what other things are more likely than this? And so if we go back to our original theme of buses, then not very many people in a year are knocked over by a bus, but it's got a one in two million chance or whatever happening to you over a 24 hour period. It's probably rather less than that. But the point is

there comes a point where if you buy your lottery ticket too early, then you're more likely to meet some gruesome end like being knocked over by a bus than you are to actually make it as far as picking up your winning numbers. So the tip is to wait as long as possible to buy your ticket so that at least you have a chance of if you do win it of celebrating and enjoying the experience so this has nothing to do with increasing your chances this just has that to do with surviving to celebrate exactly you can't increase your chances of winning a lottery. Unless you buy lots of tickets, of course. The more tickets you buy, the more chance you have of winning.

Although there is a tip for lotteries across the world, actually. One way of... You won't increase your chance of winning, but if you do win, you want to win and not have to share the jackpot with lots of other people. So the idea is to pick numbers that other people don't pick. And it seems to be a curiosity of the way people are that our lucky numbers tend to be linked with things like birthdays and months of the year and so on. So there's a disproportionate

number of people who pick numbers in the range 1 to 31, which is the maximum number of days there are in a month. So if your lottery happens to include numbers that are higher than 31, then picking a smattering of numbers that are bigger than 31 is good because it's numbers that are less likely to be picked by other people. So that's the secret, really. The other thing to point out with lottery numbers is, you know, some selections of lottery numbers look random. You know, if I picked 2, 8, 12, 21, 37, you might say, oh, yeah, that's good. That's nice and random. And if I picked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, you'd think, oh, yeah, that's good. That's nice and random. And if I picked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, you'd think, oh, that'll never turn up. I won't pick one with such a pattern.

Well, the truth is, both of those selections I just gave you are equally likely to happen. The reason why we never see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 come up is that it's millions to one against that it will but then it's also millions to one against that whatever i said two four twelve thirty one would come up too so we there's this sort of fallacy of thinking that certain patterns are more likely than others whereas they're all equally likely um so you can improve your chances by simply trying to not think like all other people think. There is one other thing I would say to that. I mentioned, oh, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 is just as likely as any other combination. There's a lot of mathematicians out there who know this, and they think, I'm going to be smart because I know 1 two three four five six is just as likely as anything else so i will pick those

numbers the trouble is if those numbers ever come up in a lottery anywhere in the world there will be tens of thousands of smart people out there who did the same thing so you'll end up sharing it with all those people and not getting much money yourself. So don't try to be too clever because there's other clever folk out there who will ruin it for you. We are talking about these fascinating little life questions and why they happen. And my guest is Rob Eastaway. He's author of the book, Why Do Buses Come in Threes? The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder

of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today.

Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson,

discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So Rob, what's the math behind why it is so hard to, like when you turn on the shower, to get the temperature just right? It's either too hot and then it gets too cold. It's really hard to get it just right. The reason why this is happening, you're getting this oscillating temperature and it's never right, is to do with the way you're reacting to something that happened a few seconds ago. There's a bit of a

time lag. You haven't waited until the right temperature got through the system. So hot and cold shower, over hot and over cold showers are part of a general phenomenon of systems and how systems behave and how we react to things. And it's a really interesting part of applied math because it explains a lot of what happens in the world. You know, we react to things thinking you start hearing that we're running low on toilet rolls because everyone's buying toilet rolls. So you go out and buy them and therefore other people start buying them. And suddenly the nation is short of toilet rolls as if there's a crisis well actually there's not a crisis it's just we're reacting too quickly to something rather than letting

the system settle down so um the way uh there's cause and effect and something that happens causes you to take another action which happens to to another action. All this knock-on effect is fascinating to model. And when you understand it, and when you step back and look at the often mathematical relationship between the way things are going up and down and so on, it can help you to take cooler and more reasoned decisions by just saying, okay, let's look at the big picture here, not just immediate things that I need to respond to straight away. Traffic jams, I find interesting. I'm not sure why. I guess because, you know, so often traffic jams happen for no reason, and then the traffic clears up, and it's very frustrating. Why does that happen? Who screwed this up? I imagine there's some interesting math or physics or something going on there.

It's because of a knock-on effect of you reacting to the person in front of you. You react too quickly and you put your brakes on too fast. The car behind catches up with you. And it can, in the wrong circumstances, just cause all the cars to stop. The ones at the front then start going again and they lead off and you can watch from the air it looks like this pulse is passing through the cars um as if it knows what's going on but actually this is just individual humans the way they react causing the whole system to flow or not flow um which is why sometimes we need traffic signals to tell us what to do, to control us, to say, don't try driving too fast, because if you all try and drive too fast,

ironically, you might all end up going much slower because you have a knock-on effect on each other. Well, something I've always wondered about that, I've been stuck in traffic jams, as I'm sure everyone has, where you're kind of creeping along for a long time and there's no reason for it. There's no accident. There's no nothing. But at some point it does just open up. And why does it open up there? What happened that all of a sudden now we can all go? There's so many things that could be causing it, but it might have been a temporary thing that caused a driver near the front of what became the jam to slow down slightly. Bizarrely, sometimes it's seeing an accident or seeing a police car that's pulled up or whatever. People stop to look.

But as soon as one person has slowed down, that pulse of slowing down is going to feed all the way back because the person at the front is now free to go again nothing ever nothing ever physically stopped them they just maybe slowed down a little bit so i think very often it will be caused by one individual not driving smoothly just just slowing down for whatever reason they might have been reaching over for a coffee cup or who knows what reason the knock-on effect of that can escalate so eventually behind them some people stop but of course we can see that that guy at the front never had anything that was actually stopping them so we're just releasing the pressure out again at the front and it works its way back through the jam so I want to change topics here and talk about coincidences, because I think they're so interesting,

because everybody experiences in their life amazing coincidences, and I think it's very human to want to find an explanation. Why did that happen? What does that mean? And so what does that mean well yeah we we love coincidences and i think most people have had some amazing coincidence happen to them um i've had several i think one that sticks in my mind was a time when i was with a friend and her daughter was there and i was drawing a little picture for the daughter and i drew a moon in the sky and I was making it up as I went along I said oh you can tell from the moon that the date must

be August the 17th I just completely made that up out of nowhere I don't know why I even said it and the mother said I can't believe you just said that because August the 17th is our daughter's birthday and it's my birthday and it's my husband's birthday and it was this like cold shudder of how this is just amazing it was meant to be and when we when we hear coincidences it comes back to this cause and effect thing we assume there was a reason why this happened uh something psychic, something whatever. But actually, the thing about coincidences, they are going to happen by chance. And one way to look at coincidences is to say, look, how many opportunities are there for a coincidence to happen in a day?

And you imagine, you know, I came home from work and just as I got home, I saw someone and, oh, their name was completely different from mine. And their number plate was completely unrelated to mine. So lots of non-coincidences are happening all the time. We don't notice them. And, you know, they happen in the hundreds and thousands and millions over a year. There are so many chances for coincidences to happen. We just don't notice the boring things where two unconnected things came together. When suddenly they're lined up, two names are the same.

It's a neighbor we see when we're on holiday, you know, someone in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't expecting to see you here. We notice those and they freak us out. But they are bound to happen. So one of the things, the interesting thing, I mean, in a way, we love the romance of that time because something somewhere is destined to happen just like rolling dice and getting three sixes come up um one of the my favorite coincidence examples sometimes math will actually throw up examples which give coincidences more often than you'd expect. And that is what's sometimes called the birthday paradox. You imagine you're in a group of 30 people,

which is about the size of a typical class at school or whatever. And you think, OK, well, I wonder what the chances are that in that group of 32 people have the same birthday. And there are 365 days in a year so you'd think well 30 people out of 365 two with the same birthday it kind of feels like a one in ten thing it doesn't sound like it's likely at all because that's not many people and that's a lot of birthdays now i'm going to state to you the fact that which is which is extremely counterintuitive. If there are 30 people in a room, then there's a way higher than 50-50 chance. It's like a 60% chance that there will be at least two people in that

room who have the same birthday. And I do this as a little stunt. If I've got a big audience, if I've got 50 or more people, I'll say, I feel an energy coming from you as a room. I think two of you got the same birthday. And I don't know who it is, but I can sense it now. And I go around the room and it always works. And the reason why it works, you think how many different combinations there are of those 30 people. There's 29 people could be paired with Annie and another 28 could be paired with Bert and so on. You add them all up and think, actually, there's hundreds of different possible pairs in this room. So maybe

we shouldn't be so surprised if one of those pairs of all this combination do have the same birthday. So it's the law of numbers and big numbers. In the end, coincidences happen. But in the end, as a coincidence phenomenon, it's one of my favorites because it feels so surprising and you can do it as a little stunt at parties or whatever. I bet there's two people in this room who have the same birthday and you can win bets on it. It's great fun. Talk about that black and white hat game that you play, because I've been thinking about

it ever since I read about it. It's really interesting it's a little game i play where i have two volunteers come and sit face facing each other on chairs in front of an audience and i have in a bag three hats two of them are black hats and one of them is a white hat and then coming from behind each of my volunteers, so they can't see, I put a hat on each of them. So they can't see what hat's on their own head, but they can see what hat is on the other person's head. And what they don't know is I put a black hat on each of their heads. So remember, there were two black hats, one white hat, and they're sitting there

looking at the other person, they can see a black hat and i say right uh i want you to put your hand up who will be the first of you who can predict with pure logic what hat is on your own head now this is a quite famous puzzle but i love what happens in the real world because with most adults in the real world what they do is they look at the other person. They think, right, they're wearing a black hat. I know there were two blacks and one white. So I'm either wearing a white or a black and I don't know which it is. And both of them think that way. And you can wait for 30 seconds, a minute, and they just sit there saying, I just don't know. But actually, what they should be able to do if they think about it a bit further is think, well, what is the other person thinking? If you go the

extra step and say, let's suppose I've got a white hat on. There's only one white hat. The guy opposite is not stupid. So if they can see a white hat, they'll put their hand up and say, I must be wearing a black hat. That has not happened. Why has that not happened? The only reason it has not happened over the last 30 seconds is because I must be wearing a black hat. So it should be possible to deduce that you're wearing a black hat in that game. And the puzzle books say that's what happens. The real life says it very rarely happens. And I just find that fascinating. And there's a broader principle of logic and life and statistics that I find really interesting with that game, because often we can deduce things not just from what we're told, but also from what we're not told. Well, this has been really fun, and it's answered some questions that I think everybody has because all these things happen to all of us and we always wonder why. And now we know why.

Rob Eastaway has been my guest. He's author of the book, Why Do Buses Come in Threes? The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life. And you will find a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you for coming on here, Rob. Thanks, Mike. That's been really fun. 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 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. Some people are very cautious. Other people take huge risks in life. And the rest of us are somewhere in the middle. So those people who take the big risks, who bungee jump and skydive and go on roller coasters, why do they do it?

Are they just different? Or do they really get joy and pleasure out of that risky behavior? Or maybe they just do it to say they did it. Here to discuss what makes thrill-seekers do what they do is Ken Carter. He's a board-certified clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Oxford College of Emory University. And he's author of the book, Buzz, Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies.

Hey, Ken. Thanks for having me. So there is this theory, I guess people have, that thrill seekers are basically adrenaline junkies. They do risky things. They go on scary rides because they like that adrenaline hit. Interestingly, it's not necessarily adrenaline. So there are two different chemicals in our body that control, that influence our stress reaction.

One is cortisol, that sort of stress hormone that a lot of people have heard about. It sort of initiates the fight or flight response. And then there's another neurotransmitter called dopamine, and that creates a sense of pleasure. And so these people that we think of as thrill seekers or high sensation seekers actually have lower levels of cortisol, but higher levels of dopamine. So they feel more pleasure, but less stress during those high sensation seeking activities. So physiologically, they those high sensation seeking activities. So they're,

so physiologically, they're a little bit different. Interestingly, though, people that I know that like roller coasters and like, you know, those kind of thrilling things that they do, it's not like they crave them. Like if they don't get, get it every day or every week that, that they start to Jones for it. It's just, they like it when they get it. Yeah. And so there are different sort of, you know, range of sensation seeking. So there are the low sensation seekers like you and me who beach book is all I need to, that's the most thrill I get. And then there are the average sensation seekers that sound like the people

that you know. And then there are these high sensation seekers that really crave that. And if they aren't getting those experiences, it's really tough for them. And so a lot of them that are not doing that right now are having a tough time because some of them can have a tough time with boredom. And so they start doing things to create chaos, because that's where that that's sort of the sweet spot for them is sort of chaotic excitement. So they do things like what? like bungee jumping or base diving, but there's some cheap ways to do it too, like driving really fast on the highway or sort of picking fights with people, things that might get them into trouble. But there are some other things they could do, for example, trying unusual foods or these sort of cultural experiences that are not necessarily dangerous, but high sensation seekers tend to downplay those risks, and so they can sometimes get themselves into trouble when they're looking

for those sensations. Do people who seek thrills, for example, they'll bungee jump, or they'll skydive, or they'll do some thrill-seeking behavior. Do they tend to seek out thrills in all areas of life or do they find a few things and they say, I like that? It sort of depends upon a little bit. There are two different aspects of that thrill-seeking personality in terms of the mix of things they like to do. Some are what are called thrill and adventure-seeking people and then there's another one that's called experience seeking.

These are people that like sensations of the mind and of the senses. These are the people that travel to unusual places and try unusual foods. And so there may be some people, like I met this woman who wanted to travel for 300 days all around the world couch surfing on other people's sofas. Nothing that I would ever do. But she hates roller coasters, right? And so there are different aspects that people tend to gravitate towards. And some high sensation seekers like both of those things, but they may find it in their jobs. Or if they don't, they're going to do it in their recreation. Is it safe to say that thrill seekers are generally risk takers? Yeah, interestingly, not necessarily.

So risk taking is really the price of admission to what they want to do. And so if you've looked online, you see these people that climb these big buildings and they take these incredibly scary photos. They want the sensation of being on top of the building. And the only way you can get there is to climb to the top of the building, right? And so they wouldn't do risky things just because they're risky. They do the risky things because it gets them the experience that they want. And the experience that they want is just that rush, that feeling. That sense of awe. We all enjoy that sense of awe, but things that bring awe are different for different people. For me, it's the beach, right? But for thrill seekers, they're going to want that experience that they can't get in any other way.

So they're not necessarily risk-taking for the sake of being risky. They're doing the risk because it gets them the experience that they desire. You know what I wonder, because this is so subjective, do thrill seekers see themselves as thrill seekers, or do they just see themselves as normal, and they see people who don't like the thrills they like as kind of dull? Yeah, it's an interesting sort of perception. So they did this study a couple of years ago where they put people on a track and they said, oh, follow the car in front of you. The low sensation seekers drove really far away from the target car and they were really anxious the entire time.

The high sensation seekers drove like really, really close to the person, but they were totally chill. But when they asked people how dangerous they thought the experiment was they said they rated it about the same and so what makes us think that something is dangerous is usually our body that's telling us what you're doing is dangerous stop doing it yeah that's that's really interesting because i wonder if that's one of the reasons that even though people know, for example, that texting and driving is dangerous, it doesn't necessarily feel dangerous when you're doing it. So it's like, yes, it's dangerous, but it's okay if I do it because it's not dangerous for me. Exactly, exactly. And the range of things that high sensation seekers feel is okay is much larger.

There was a guy that contacted me a couple of months ago that said that he was thinking about sea kayaking around Iceland and wanted to know what I thought of it. And I said, you know, I'm not the person to ask. I think everything is dangerous. Well, that brings up the question, and I think an important question that I hope you can answer, because there's this sense that people who don't like roller coasters, or who don't want a bungee jump, they need to try it. Yeah, it's going to be terrifying, but if it's not you,

then why would you try it? I mean, so do you get, if you do it a little bit, do you like it a little bit and then you like it a little bit more? Because that's not my experience. Yeah, you know, there's a psychological concept that's called habituation, which means the more you do something that's scary, the less scary it is. And so that might create lower levels of cortisol, that hormone that's related to fear, but I'm not going to like it more, right? And so I just tell people, I don't have the hardware to run that program, you know, so high sensation seekers do, they're going to feel awe and thrill and excitement at those things. And they want me to experience the world the way they do. But I can't.

You know, I'm not pumping out the same mix of chemicals as they are. I'm just going to feel terrified and overwhelmed. And I'd rather not feel that way. Yeah. And if you did it enough, you might feel less terrified and overwhelmed. But you're never going to feel pleasure because that's just not in you. Yeah, exactly. And so I say find the mix of things that are right for you.

But I understand it from their perspective. It's the thing that brings them so much pleasure and thrill, and they want me to experience that too. But I probably won't. Well, I remember hearing that advice many years ago that, you know, when you go to the amusement park and everybody wants to go on the roller coaster and they say, come on, no, you're going to love it. No, I'm not. And so I don't feel compelled to go because I've heard some of what you've been saying here that it's just not me and I don't enjoy it. So why would I do it? Yeah, I know the things that I enjoy.

And a lot of the high sensation seekers say to me, you know, I know I'm not made of glass. It's okay to get hurt if you're going to have a wonderful experience. But that's not on my list. Like if, you know, I was talking to one guy who said, when he's going to do something important, and he's doing some bouldering or those kinds of things, he'll try not to do something that's going to break a leg. And I thought, you know, I never do things that are going to be even remotely close to bringing me to breaking a leg. You know, that's just not my list of fun things to do. So is being a thrill seeker just different and they're wired differently and they do different things because that's what makes them happy? Or is there more to it than that? Are there some darker sides of thrill seekingseeking that people don't often consider? And, you know, breaking a leg might be one of them, but... Or is it just people are different? You know, it's people are different, but there are some influences that can change that over time.

You know, those chemicals in our body don't remain the same throughout our whole life. And we also have outside influences. And a lot of high sensation seekers tend to not be as high of sensation seeking as they get older. Usually for two different reasons. The chemicals change. And also there's more to lose. And so some of them, as they get older, will not do some of those thrill-seeking things because they want to protect their families or because they just don't feel like it as much because some of the chemicals have changed over time.

Is there any sense that thrill-seeking runs in families or doesn't run in families or it's just random or what? Yeah, it does tend to run in families. And researchers aren't quite sure whether or not it's because those really thrilling experiences bring high sensation seeking out in people, or there may be some genetic component to it as well. I talked to a food blogger a while ago who loves eating very unusual foods, which is typical of a lot of high sensation seekers. And so they're feeding their kids those unusual foods as well. And that might mean that they're going to be more adventuresome with foods as they get older. Or it might be because genetically they're similar and they're more likely to try those unusual things.

Well, that word adventuresome, does that define thrill seekers? And if you're a thrill seeker, you're probably more adventuresome in other areas of your life, like foods you eat or places you go or whatever. Yeah, it's interesting because I think a lot of people think of thrill seeking as something a person does, but I think of it as who a person is. It can affect their work. It can affect the foods they like, the things they do for fun, even the jokes they like to tell and what kind of traveling they like to do. You can see it in all different parts of a person's life.

So I sense you're, from the things you said, you're not a big thrill seeker, and yet you tackled this project on thrill seeking. Are you more of a thrill seeker? Happy not to be? Where are you? I thought that working on this project about thrill seeking would make me more of a thrill seeker, but it's actually made me embrace the things I've already done. You know, I might try an unusual thing every now and then,

sort of influenced by the people I've talked to. But it also makes me realize that a lot of the people who bungee jump or base dive or eat unusual foods, that they're not necessarily doing it because they have a death wish or those kinds of things. They're seeking that sense of awe that we all do, but just in a different way. I wonder, and this is one of the things that thrill seekers will tell people who typically haven't sought out thrills, that you have to try it. Do people who don't like thrill seeking, seems like most of them have probably tried roller coasters or something that they would get the message, nope, this isn't for me.

Yeah, yeah. And that happens relatively early on, where you sort of know the range of things that you want to experience. But a lot of those thrill-seekers, and you asked me about this earlier, some of it, they're just trying to get mastery over their own emotions. I talked to this one woman, she calls herself Slackline Girl. She does sort of tight roping across these big ravines. And for a while, she was doing it free solo, which means with no safety at all. And she did it because she wanted to create some mastery over her emotions in some way, which is something I would never do. And it seems incredibly dangerous, but it seemed really important to her to be able to control her

emotions in that way, which is really important for a lot of high sensation seeking activities. Yeah, see, I don't get that. I don't understand. I understand wanting to master your emotions, but not at the risk of death. Yeah, no. I do very little at the risk of death myself. But if your body's not telling you that it's dangerous, then your perception of it is going to be very different.

And I get that intellectually. It's tough for me to get emotionally. I wonder if there's a difference between the kind of thrill seekers like you just described where someone walks on a wire across ravines without a net. That's really thrill seeking. That's very dangerous versus people who like scary movies and roller coasters and things like that where they know they're safe they know it's scary but deep down inside they know they're not in danger yeah and so a lot of those people are

at that middle average range of sensation seeking. And since I'm at the very low range of it, I don't like scary movies. I just have to close my eyes and try to get through it. But a lot of people who are in that average range, they are pumping out a really nice mix of cortisol and dopamine. So they're experiencing that pleasure and thrill from it. But they're not necessarily going to do things that are dangerous, like Slackline Girl might. Yeah.

So if Slackline Girl does what she does, if she goes on some big roller coaster at Six Flags or something, does she go ho-hum? Or is that because it's a new experience that still might be scary to her, even though she's not risking her life? She would probably be able to yawn or do a crossword puzzle during a roller coaster. Yeah, she, you know, a lot of those sort of professional thrill seekers that are ice climbers and base jumpers, they might do roller coasters as a snack, but it's not going to be a main meal for them, probably. So this really should be of comfort to people, particularly people who aren't especially big thrill seekers, to know that it's not a question of, you know, you're chicken or you're not brave enough. It's not bravery. It's more of a physiological or fundamental difference. There are people who really enjoy it and there are people who don't. One of the goals of psychology is understanding ourselves and

understanding other people. And so I've gotten emails from people who say, you know, this really helps me to understand my brother or my son or my spouse in a way. I was trying to get them to stop doing that because I thought it was foolhardy. But they need it because it's part of their personality. And we need them. A lot of people who are first responders and firefighters and in the police and the military, these are high sensation seekers that are using their high sensation seeking to help the rest of us. So we need them in our society. But I also think we need people like you and me who are lookouts to tell people maybe we shouldn't do things that are that dangerous very much. Well, it's really interesting because it's not right or wrong or good or bad.

It's just either or. It's just some people like it, some people don't. And if you don't like it, why do it? And if you do like it, why not do it? Yeah, as long as it's safe and as long as you're not putting other people in danger, I think that's absolutely right. What about gender differences? I assume slackline girl is a female, but I would imagine that testosterone plays a role in this and that there are more male thrill seekers than women, right? Testosterone does play a role for both women and for men. And interestingly, for the 50 years of research in this area, we've seen sensation seeking levels get higher for women. I think because of the role of culture. You know, I think that a lot of people thought, you know, women shouldn't do these kinds of things. And so you would see higher levels of experience-seeking in women.

But over the last couple of years, that difference between men and women in terms of these thrill-seeking activities has actually gotten smaller. Well, there is also that pressure, though. When you're with a group of people and most, if not all, of the other ones want to go on the roller coaster and you don't, then, you know, they, ah, don't be a baby, come on, come on. But you're not going to like it. But there is that kind of like, you know, be a man, man up and do it. You know, it's really interesting, because we know that fear is something as a perception

from your environment, you know, the chemicals that you're, you know, pumping out. And the way you think about that environment tells you what's frightening or not. And so I tell people, it's the low sensation seekers that are the brave ones. You know, if I'm doing that roller coaster, I'm going to feel more terrified than an average and or high sensation seeker. You know, you know, it's not the high sensation seeker who's being brave if they don't feel that they're what they're doing is dangerous. Well, it's good to hear that. And I think it's good for low sensation seekers to hear that it's okay to say no, because there's no joy in it. There's just no, you're doing it and you're

going to close your eyes and grit your teeth and feel like you're going to throw up the whole time. What would be the point of that? And on the other hand, if you're a thrill seeker and you can engage that and satisfy those thrill seeking desires in a safe way, well, there's nothing wrong with that either. This has been really interesting. Ken Carter has been my guest. He's a board-certified clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Oxford College of Emory University, and he is author of the book, Buzz, Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers,

Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies. You'll find a link to his book in the show notes. Thank you, Kent. Yeah, thank you so much. It was really fun talking to you. If you've been driving a car for any length of time, sometime in your driving career, you've seen the check engine light come on. So what does it mean? What are you supposed to check? Well, according to automotive expert Phil Edmonston, the first thing you should

check is the gas cap. Because very often, if the gas cap wasn't put on correctly after the last time you filled up your car, it can trigger the check engine light. In fact, on one of our cars, there's even a little sticker on the gas cap warning that if you don't put it on right, it could trigger the check engine light to go on. Most of the time, you fix the gas cap and the light goes out. If the light for the ABS brake system comes on, or the airbag light comes on, the gas cap isn't going to fix that. You really need to get that checked out by a mechanic

as soon as possible. And that is something you should know. You know, like most businesses, our growth depends on referrals, people who like this podcast and tell other people so they can like this podcast. I'll bet you have some friends that you know that would like this podcast. After all, you do. I bet your friends would. So please share this podcast with them. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook,

where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced.

She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth.

Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times,

we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type.

With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.