If the language stayed the way it was, it would be like a pressed flower in a book or, as I say, I think it would be like some inflatable doll rather than a person. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: (Speaking foreign language). Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. Perceived Partner Responsiveness Minimizes Defensive Reactions to Failure, by Peter A. Caprariello and Harry T. Reis, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2011. But I understand that in Spanish, this would come out quite differently. We don't want to be like that. So to go back to the example we were just talking about - people who don't use words like left and right - when I gave those picture stories to Kuuk Thaayorre speakers, who use north, south, east and west, they organized the cards from east to west. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. VEDANTAM: If you're bilingual or you're learning a new language, you get what Jennifer experienced - the joy of discovering a phrase that helps you perfectly encapsulate a feeling or an experience. I'm Shankar Vedantam. If I give you a bunch of pictures to lay out and say this is telling you some kind of story and you - and they're disorganized, when an English speaker organizes those pictures, they'll organize them from left to right. HIDDEN BRAIN < Lost in Translation: January 29, 20189:00 PM ET VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. You're not going to do any of the things that are seen as a foundation of our technological society. Opening scene of Lady Bird Flight attendant Steven Slater slides from a plane after quitting Transcript Podcast: Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. They know which way is which. You can search for the episode or browse all episodes on our Archive Page. It is a great, free way to engage the podcast community and increase the visibility of your podcasts. All rights reserved. You-uh (ph). No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where you started. And so for example, if the word chair is masculine in your language, why is that? The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. BORODITSKY: Yeah. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. It's just how I feel. It's exactly how old English turned into modern English. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Interpersonal Chemistry: What Is It, How Does It Emerge, and How Does it Operate? But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? So there are some differences that are as big as you can possibly measure. That was somehow a dad's fashion, and that I should start wearing flat-fronted pants. And they have correlated this with gender features in the language, just like the ones you were talking about. And you say that dictionaries in some ways paint an unrealistic portrait of a language. In many languages, nouns are gendered. Rightly Crossing the Rubicon: Evaluating Goal Self-Concordance Prior to Selection Helps People Choose More Intrinsic Goals, by Kennon M. Sheldon, Mike Prentice, and Evgeny Osin, Journal of Research in Personality, 2019. Trusted by 5,200 companies and developers. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. (Speaking Japanese). Now, many people hear that and they think, well, that's no good because now literally can mean its opposite. Welcome to HIDDEN BRAIN. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. GEACONE-CRUZ: It describes this feeling so perfectly in such a wonderfully packaged, encapsulated way, and you can just - it rolls off the tongue, and you can just throw it. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Today, we explore the many facets of this idea. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. Shankar Vedantam: This is Hidden Brain. For more of our Relationships 2.0 series, check out one of our most popular episodes ever about why marriages are so hard. So that's a measurement difference of 100 percent of performance. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: (Speaking Russian). Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. Hidden Brain Feb 23, 2023 Happiness 2.0: Surprising Sources of Joy Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. And one day, I was walking along, and I was just staring at the ground. Whats going on here? They believe that their language reflects the true structure of the world. And in fact, speakers of languages like this have been shown to orient extremely well - much better than we used to think humans could. Language was talk. - you would have to say something like, my arm got broken, or it so happened to me that my arm is broken. So when the perfect woman started writing him letters, it seemed too good to be true. And it ended up becoming less a direct reflection of hearty laughter than an indication of the kind of almost subconscious laughter that we do in any kind of conversation that's meant as friendly. So for example, if Sam grabbed a hammer and struck the flute in anger, that would be one description, like, Sam broke the flute. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. But actually, that's exactly how people in those communities come to stay oriented - is that they learn it, (laughter) right? In The Air We Breathe . What do you do for christmas with your family? This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. But it's a lovely example of how language can guide you to discover something about the world that might take you longer to discover if you didn't have that information in language. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: (Speaking foreign language). Psychologist Ken Sheldon studies the science of figuring out what you want. That is utterly arbitrary that those little slits in American society look elderly, but for various chance reasons, that's what those slits came to mean, so I started wearing flat-fronted pants. So there are these wonderful studies by Alexander Giora where he asked kids learning Finnish, English and Hebrew as their first languages basically, are you a boy or a girl? So I think it's something that is quite easy for humans to learn if you just have a reason to want to do it. Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, by Robert A. Emmons, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986. And I would really guess that in a few decades men will be doing it, too. VEDANTAM: Many of us have dictionaries at home or at work, John. And they suggest that differences across languages do, in fact, predict some of these measures of gender equality across countries. There are many scholars who would say, look, yes, you do see small differences between speakers of different languages, but these differences are not really significant; they're really small. If you're like most people, you probably abandoned those resolutions within a few weeks. * Data source: directly measured on Listen Notes. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. This week, in the final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes what happens when we stop to sav, Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. But what we should teach is not that the good way is logical and the way that you're comfortable doing it is illogical. I'm . : A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? And one thing that we've noticed is that around the world, people rely on space to organize time. And you can just - it rolls off the tongue, and you can just throw it out. And it irritates people, but there's a different way of seeing literally. And that is an example of a simple feature of language - number words - acting as a transformative stepping stone to a whole domain of knowledge. Official Website Airs on: SUN 7pm-8pm 55:27 Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button Feb 27 Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. al (Eds. Goal Striving, Need Satisfaction, and Longitudinal Well-being: The Self-Concordance Model, by Kennon M. Sheldon and Andrew J. Elliot, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999. This week on Hidden Brain, we revisit a favorite episode exploring what this culture means Jesse always wanted to fall in love. BORODITSKY: Thank you so much for having me. And it's sad that we're not going to be able to make use of them and learn them and celebrate them. And if you teach them that forks go with women, they start to think that forks are more feminine. And it's not just about how we think about time. The phrase brings an entire world with it - its context, its flavor, its culture. VEDANTAM: How the languages we speak shape the way we think and why the words we use are always in flux. Just saying hello was difficult. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. For example, he might take a bunch of pictures of boys and girls and sort them and say, OK, this is a boy. So it's mendokusai. Many people have this intuition that, oh, I could never learn that; I could never survive in a community like this. If it is the first time you login, a new account will be created automatically. You're not going to do trigonometry. VEDANTAM: One of the points you make in the book of course is that the evolution of words and their meanings is what gives us this flowering of hundreds or thousands of languages. MCWHORTER: Exactly. BORODITSKY: Actually, one of the first people to notice or suggest that this might be the case was a Russian linguist, Roman Jakobson. But does a person who says that really deserve the kind of sneering condemnation that you often see? MCWHORTER: Thank you for having me, Shankar. All of these are very subjective things. But then you start writing things down and you're in a whole new land because once things are sitting there written on that piece of paper, there's that illusion. MCWHORTER: Yeah, I really do. But, in fact, they were reflecting this little quirk of grammar, this little quirk of their language and in some cases, you know, carving those quirks of grammar into stone because when you look at statues that we have around - of liberty and justice and things like this - they have gender. This week, in the final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes what happens when we stop to savor the beauty in nature, art, or simply the moral courage of those around us. He says there are things we can do to make sure our choices align with our deepest values. This is NPR. Lera said there's still a lot of research to be done on this. Of course, eventually, the Finnish kids also figured it out because language isn't the only source of that information, otherwise it would be quite surprising for the Finns to be able to continue to reproduce themselves. And as soon as I saw that happen, I thought, oh, this makes it so much easier. So I just think that it's something we need to check ourselves for. Later things are on the right. BORODITSKY: My family is Jewish, and we left as refugees. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? This is a database with millions of art images. You may also use the Hidden Brain name in invitations sent to a small group of personal contacts for such purposes as a listening club or discussion forum. VEDANTAM: Still don't have a clear picture? Women under about 30 in the United States, when they're excited or they're trying to underline a point, putting uh at the end of things. You know, I was trying to stay oriented because people were treating me like I was pretty stupid for not being oriented, and that hurt. He's a defender of language on the move, but I wanted to know if there were things that irritated even him. al, Group Decision and Negotiation, 2008. In English, actually, quite weirdly, we can even say things like, I broke my arm. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. This week, in the fourth and final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes . Everyone wants to be loved and appreciated. Lera is a cognitive science professor at the University of California, San Diego. Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date. In the United States, we often praise people with strong convictions, and look down on those who express doubt or hesitation. VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. How big are the differences that we're talking about, and how big do you think the implications are for the way we see the world? She once visited an aboriginal community in northern Australia and found the language they spoke forced her mind to work in new ways. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. When we come back, we dig further into the way that gender works in different languages and the pervasive effects that words can play in our lives. If you grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your native tongue without even thinking about it. VEDANTAM: So this begs the question, if you were to put languages on something of a spectrum, where you have, you know, languages like Spanish or Hindi where nouns are gendered and languages like English where many nouns are not gendered but pronouns are gendered, and on the other end of the spectrum, you have languages like Finnish or Persian where you can have a conversation about someone without actually mentioning their gender, it would seem surprising if this did not translate, at some level, into the way people thought about gender in their daily activities, in terms of thinking about maybe even who can do what in the workplace. And what's cool about languages, like the languages spoken in Pormpuraaw, is that they don't use words like left and right, and instead, everything is placed in cardinal directions like north, south, east and west. He didn't like that people were shortening the words. That's because change is hard. As someone who works in media, I often find that people who can write well are often people who know how to think well, so I often equate clarity of writing with clarity of thought. But actually, it's something that's not so hard to learn. The Effective Negotiator Part 1: The Behavior of Successful Negotiators and The Effective Negotiator Part 2: Planning for Negotiations, by Neil Rackham and John Carlisle, Journal of European Industrial Training, 1978. VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often, untranslatable. We'll also look at how languages evolve, and why we're sometimes resistant to those changes. So you have speakers of two different languages look at the same event and come away with different memories of what happened because of the structure of their languages and the way they would normally describe them. Bu These relationships can help you feel cared for and connected. For more on decision-making, check out our episode on how to make wiser choices. So you might say, there's an ant on your northwest leg. Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. The phrase brings an entire world with it - its context, its flavor, its culture. You can run experiments in a lab or survey people on the street. Hidden Brain: You, But Better on Apple Podcasts 50 min You, But Better Hidden Brain Social Sciences Think about the resolutions you made this year: to quit smoking, eat better, or get more exercise. MCWHORTER: Yes, Shankar, that's exactly it. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: (Speaking Italian). (LAUGHTER) VEDANTAM: In the English-speaking world, she goes by Lera Boroditsky. MCWHORTER: No, because LOL was an expression; it was a piece of language, and so you knew that its meaning was going to change. The dictionary says both uses are correct. MCWHORTER: Those are called contronyms, and literally has become a new contronym. You can support Hidden Brain indirectly by giving to your local NPR station, or you can provide direct support to Hidden Brain by making a gift on our Patreon page. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. How else would you do it? If you dont see any jobs posted there, feel free to send your resume and cover letter to [emailprotected] and well keep your materials on hand for future openings on the show. It goes in this pile. Please do not republish our logo, name or content digitally or distribute to more than 10 people without written permission. It seems kind of elliptical, like, would it be possible that I obtained? I'm Shankar Vedantam. I decided it was very important for me to learn English because I had always been a very verbal kid, and I'd - was always the person who recited poems in front of the school and, you know, led assemblies and things like that. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Not without written permission. And you can even teach people to have a little bit of fun with the artifice. And when I listen to people having their peeves, I don't think, stop it. Because it was. We love the idea of Hidden Brain helping to spark discussions in your community. BORODITSKY: The way to say my name properly in Russian is (speaking foreign language), so I don't make people say that. So one possibility for bilinguals would be that they just have two different minds inside - right? How to Foster Perceived Partner Responsiveness: High-Quality LIstening is Key, Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale (PPRS), Toward Understanding Understanding:The Importance of Feeling Understood in Relationships, Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts are Influenced by Self-Esteem and Relationship Threat, Perceived Partner Responsiveness Minimizes Defensive Reactions to Failure, Assessing the Seeds of Relationship Decay: Using Implicit Evaluations to Detect the Early Stages of Disillusionment. Newsletter: Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. And, I mean, just in terms of even sounds changing and the way that you put words together changing bit by bit, and there's never been a language that didn't do that. You would never know, for example, that - give you an example I've actually been thinking about. We'd say, oh, well, we don't have magnets in our beaks or in our scales or whatever. What techniques did that person use to persuade you? There's not a bigger difference you could find than 100 percent of the measurement space. VEDANTAM: If languages are shaped by the way people see the world, but they also shape how people see the world, what does this mean for people who are bilingual? We call this language Gumbuzi. And you suddenly get a craving for potato chips, and you realize that you have none in the kitchen, and there's nothing else you really want to eat. It should be thought of as fun. VEDANTAM: Jennifer moved to Japan for graduate school. Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, by Philip Tetlock, Psychology Review, 2002. VEDANTAM: So I find that I'm often directionally and navigationally challenged when I'm driving around, and I often get my east-west mixed up with my left-right for reasons I have never been able to fathom. So for example, you might not imagine the color shirt that he's wearing or the kinds of shoes that he's wearing. The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. When language was like that, of course it changed a lot - fast - because once you said it, it was gone. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. If you can speak more than one language, does this mean that you're also simultaneously and constantly shifting in your mind between different worldviews? NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. He's a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and the author of the book "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". I think it's a really fascinating question for future research. There are different ways to be a psychologist. That is exactly why you should say fewer books instead of less books in some situations and, yes, Billy and I went to the store rather than the perfectly natural Billy and me went to the store. Parents and peers influence our major life choices, but they can also steer us in directions that leave us deeply unsatisfied. You know, it's Lady Liberty and Lady Justice. VEDANTAM: Time is another concept that is also central to the way we see and describe the world. podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9rd1djMGxoZg==, open.spotify.com/show/20Gf4IAauFrfj7RBkjcWxh. Yes! Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? al, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004. to describe the world. We always knew that certain species of animals had abilities to orient that we thought were better than human, and we always had some biological excuse for why we couldn't do it. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the challenges we all face at various stages of life. MCWHORTER: Language is a parade, and nobody sits at a parade wishing that everybody would stand still. GEACONE-CRUZ: It describes this feeling so perfectly in such a wonderfully packaged, encapsulated way. So if you took a bunch of those tendencies, you could make up, say, the English of 50 years from now, but some of the things would just be complete chance. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Right. If you're just joining us, I'm talking to John McWhorter. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. VEDANTAM: Jennifer moved to Japan for graduate school. Subscribe to the Hidden Brain Podcast on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. JENNIFER GEACONE-CRUZ: My name is Jennifer Geacone-Cruz. BORODITSKY: Well, there may not be a word for left to refer to a left leg. Evaluating Changes in Motivation, Values, and Well-being, Goal Striving, Need Satisfaction, and Longitudinal Well-being: The Self-Concordance Model, Personal Strivings: An Approach to Personality and Subjective Well-being, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. And I kind of sheepishly confessed this to someone there. So we did an analysis of images in Artstor. If you're bilingual or multilingual, you may have noticed that different languages make you stretch in different ways. Imagine how we would sound to them if they could hear us. If a transcript is available, youll see a Transcript button which expands to reveal the full transcript. You would give a different description to mark that it was not intentional. Just go to the magnifying glass in the top right corner, click on it, and use the search function at the top of the page. So in terms of the size of differences, there are certainly effects that are really, really big. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's this phrase that describes something between I can't be bothered or I don't want to do it or I recognize the incredible effort that goes into something, even though it shouldn't be so much of an effort. How to Foster Perceived Partner Responsiveness: High-Quality LIstening is Key, by Guy Itzchakov, Harry Reis, and Netta Weinstein, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2021. and pick the featured episodes for your show. According to neuroscientists who study laughter, it turns out that chuckles and giggles often aren't a response to humorthey're a response to people. VEDANTAM: So I want to talk about a debate that's raged in your field for many years. But that can blind us to a very simple source of joy that's all around us. And so somebody will say, well, who was it who you thought was going to give you this present? This week, we're going to bring you a conversation I had in front of a live audience with Richard Thaler, taped on Halloween at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D. Richard is a professor of behavioral sciences and economics at the University of Chicago and is a well-known author. Lera is a cognitive science professor at the University of California, San Diego. Please note that your continued use of the RadioPublic services following the posting of such changes will be deemed an acceptance of this update. All of the likes and, like, literallies (ph) might sometimes grate on your nerves, but John McWhorter says the problem might be with you, not with the way other people speak. So that, again, is a huge difference. VEDANTAM: John McWhorter, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. Happiness 2.0: The Reset Button. I said, you know, this weird thing happened. See you next week. Because were a small team, we dont have a publicly-available list of every piece of music that we use. But might we allow that there's probably a part of all human beings that wants to look down on somebody else. VEDANTAM: Languages seem to have different ways of communicating agency. Look at it. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not. So when I ask you to, say, imagine a man walking down the street, well, in your imagery, you're going to have some details completed and some will be left out. Languages are not just tools. Lera, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. If you missed it, Think back to the last time someone convinced you to do something you didn't want to do, or to spend money you didn't want to spend. BORODITSKY: I had this wonderful opportunity to work with my colleague Alice Gaby in this community called Pormpuraaw in - on Cape York. But is that true when it comes to the pursuit of happiness? Many of us rush through our days, weeks, and lives, chasing goals, and just trying to get everything done. Are the spoken origins of language one reason that words so often seem to be on the move? And then 10 years later when they're 49, you say, well, that picture of you at 39 is what you really are and whatever's happened to you since then is some sort of disaster or something that shouldn't have happened. Let's start with the word literally. When we come back, we dig further into the way that gender works in different languages and the pervasive effects that words can play in our lives. So the word for the is different for women than for men, and it's also different for forks versus spoons and things like that. He's also the author of the book, "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).".