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The Gullibility Episode · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and we're flying solo again, which means we hopefully
0:17
Speaker 2: won't crash this joint. And this is stuff. That's right,
0:22
Speaker 2: that's right. How are you man? You're still sick? Huh?
0:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and this is kind of I mean,
0:29
Speaker 1: I don't like playing it this close, but it's kind
0:30
Speaker 1: of fun to be a little more current with like
0:33
Speaker 1: listener mails and updates and stuff.
0:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it keeps us on the edge where we need
0:37
Speaker 2: to be.
0:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this will be out on Tuesday, I guess.
0:40
Speaker 1: And in real time, this is the day after the
0:43
Speaker 1: automat Oyster stewed debacle.
0:46
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was a debacle that turned
0:48
Speaker 2: out to be a pretty good.
0:49
Speaker 1: App and Aaron Cooper already came through.
0:52
Speaker 2: Oh good, I haven't seen it yet.
0:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. I'm okay. You know, things subside in
0:57
Speaker 1: the early afternoon, so I'm actually feeling a little better
0:59
Speaker 1: than it was like twenty minutes ago even.
1:01
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's crazy.
1:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I gotta go to the doctor and
1:04
Speaker 1: just get it over with, you do.
1:07
Speaker 2: I heard that there's a really bad neurovirus going around,
1:10
Speaker 2: and that's gotta be what you got man going around
1:13
Speaker 2: Mexico City, going around the world.
1:16
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, Mexico City is included. This feels bacterial
1:20
Speaker 1: diverticulitis related.
1:22
Speaker 2: Oh that's true. I forgot you got that. Yeah, well,
1:24
Speaker 2: there's still a neurovirus going around, so don't catch that too.
1:28
Speaker 1: I'll try, but I'm hanging in there. I am working
1:32
Speaker 1: on less than three hundred calories a day for five
1:35
Speaker 1: days now, so I am a shell of a human.
1:38
Speaker 2: You're gonna look lean and mean, have you been doing
1:41
Speaker 2: push ups?
1:42
Speaker 1: I can't do one push up right now, there's no way.
1:45
Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, I guess it's entirely possible since I haven't
1:48
Speaker 2: seen you, I've just you know, been talking to you. Yeah,
1:52
Speaker 2: while we record, I have no idea whether you're actually
1:55
Speaker 2: sick or not. And it's entirely possible that you're fooling
1:58
Speaker 2: me right now. Oh and if you are, I would
2:02
Speaker 2: argue that doesn't make me gullible because I generally believe
2:05
Speaker 2: you're trustworthy. There's no reason to believe that you're not sick.
2:11
Speaker 2: So really, you'd just be a shameful, dirty liar, and
2:14
Speaker 2: I would be the hero in this situation.
2:17
Speaker 1: That's right. This is on gullibility and this you know,
2:22
Speaker 1: we were just talking offline that there are I think
2:25
Speaker 1: a hundred different ways to approach this kind of topic,
2:27
Speaker 1: and sometimes that's like freeing, and sometimes that's really frustrating,
2:33
Speaker 1: and I think this one was a little frustrating. Lvia
2:35
Speaker 1: put together a great article, I think, but it's just
2:38
Speaker 1: a hard one. When I pitched it to her, I
2:40
Speaker 1: was like, you know what I feel like, especially here
2:43
Speaker 1: in America, we're at peak gullibility as a nation, and
2:47
Speaker 1: like I just wondered, like, is there any science of that,
2:50
Speaker 1: or like there are people more gullible than others? And
2:52
Speaker 1: can science be gullible? And this is what we came
2:55
Speaker 1: up with.
2:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, Interestingly, yes, science can be gullible. On the other hand,
3:01
Speaker 2: you could argue that Americans aren't more gullible than usual,
3:05
Speaker 2: that there's actually just different factors involved that make people
3:09
Speaker 2: want to believe things. Maybe it's a it's it's weird.
3:13
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons why it's so hard
3:14
Speaker 2: to wrap our head around is social psychologists are still
3:18
Speaker 2: trying to wrap their head around it.
3:20
Speaker 1: Totally.
3:20
Speaker 2: And and you know what happens when social psychologists get
3:23
Speaker 2: a hold of something.
3:24
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's an oyster stew party.
3:26
Speaker 2: It's a little unsteady as they figure it out. That's right,
3:29
Speaker 2: it's an oyster stew party. So I think it's not
3:32
Speaker 2: it's not us, as what I'm trying to say. And you,
3:34
Speaker 2: dear listener, if you're like, what is going on, it's
3:37
Speaker 2: not you either. It's social psychology.
3:39
Speaker 1: That's right. I guess we can start by talking about
3:42
Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to talk about a different a
3:44
Speaker 1: lot of different people, a lot of different people that
3:46
Speaker 1: study this kind of stuff, a lot of different studies,
3:49
Speaker 1: some of which make more sense than others. But this guy,
3:52
Speaker 1: Stephen green Span, is an author. He wrote a book.
3:55
Speaker 1: He wrote the book on it, Annals of Gullibility Colon
4:00
Speaker 1: Why we are duped and how to avoid it. And
4:03
Speaker 1: one sort of important thing he does upfront is say, hey,
4:05
Speaker 1: there's a difference between credulity and gullibility. Credulity is if
4:10
Speaker 1: you know you'll believe something just without looking at all
4:13
Speaker 1: the evidence, and gullibility means you have an active response
4:18
Speaker 1: to perhaps being conn.
4:21
Speaker 2: I take issue with us right out of the gate.
4:23
Speaker 1: I kind of think too.
4:24
Speaker 2: I think that's a terrible distinction because I think you
4:27
Speaker 2: can totally fall for something and be duped. Yeah, and
4:32
Speaker 2: you be the only person who knew that. Who knows it.
4:34
Speaker 2: You know, somebody could say something that duped you, and
4:37
Speaker 2: they don't stop and focus to get like that that
4:41
Speaker 2: that question of whether they duped you or not answered.
4:44
Speaker 2: They just keep going on. But you know you've been duped.
4:46
Speaker 2: You don't have to respond to a Nigerian prints email
4:50
Speaker 2: or send somebody a bunch of Walmart cards to get
4:52
Speaker 2: out of some random federal case that's against you. To
4:57
Speaker 2: have been gullible, you just have to believe, and usually
5:02
Speaker 2: in the absence of any kind of supporting evidence, and
5:06
Speaker 2: sometimes in the presence of contradictory evidence. That's gollibility in
5:11
Speaker 2: my in my understanding. Thanks You're you're believing something without
5:17
Speaker 2: bothering to go check it out, and that to me
5:21
Speaker 2: is the baseline of gollibility.
5:23
Speaker 1: I totally agree. I thought that definition was really weird,
5:26
Speaker 1: and I'm glad both are in here though, because sometimes
5:28
Speaker 1: it's a nice contrast. But along the lines of what
5:30
Speaker 1: you were saying, there's a group of researchers social psychologists
5:36
Speaker 1: from McQuary University. There can be a lot of Aussie's
5:39
Speaker 1: in this.
5:40
Speaker 2: You can say that name better than that McQuary.
5:43
Speaker 1: Oh like Ausie style, Yeah, McQuary.
5:48
Speaker 2: Although anytime you do that you sound like Murray from
5:50
Speaker 2: Flight to the Concord.
5:51
Speaker 1: Murray present Alessandra k Tenise.
5:57
Speaker 2: Maybe that's what I'm going to find it.
5:59
Speaker 1: Much in the way you and I would, and I
6:00
Speaker 1: think a lot of people would, which is simply the
6:02
Speaker 1: propensity to accept a false premise in the presence of
6:05
Speaker 1: un trustworthy clues. That's it. That's it. You don't have
6:11
Speaker 1: to act on it.
6:12
Speaker 2: No, you could just believe and no one in the
6:16
Speaker 2: world could know besides you that you believed, and you're
6:19
Speaker 2: still gulible in that sense. The thing that I really
6:22
Speaker 2: stood out to me that we'll talk about a lot more, though,
6:24
Speaker 2: is you could make a really good case that people
6:27
Speaker 2: aren't as gullible as other people think they are. And
6:32
Speaker 2: I found that kind of reassuring. We'll talk about that later,
6:34
Speaker 2: but I don't want anybody to get the impression that
6:37
Speaker 2: we're just like, Yep, people are generally stupid, yeah, and
6:40
Speaker 2: here's how they fall for stupid stuff now and you're
6:43
Speaker 2: probably stupid too. That's not actually what the science of
6:46
Speaker 2: gollibility is turned up.
6:48
Speaker 1: No, And there's a lot of factors, And this is
6:50
Speaker 1: where I think Greenspan did kind of hit on something
6:52
Speaker 1: his four factors of gullibility. Situational like if there's a
6:57
Speaker 1: lot of if everyone else is doing it, and there's
6:59
Speaker 1: a lot of social pre sure, like all the bros
7:01
Speaker 1: are investing in the same cryptocurrency and it's at a
7:05
Speaker 1: great price, and you're like, oh man, I got to
7:06
Speaker 1: get in there. All the guys are right, you know,
7:07
Speaker 1: everyone's in on that. So there's social pressure where you
7:10
Speaker 1: can fall for something. Cognitive issues like well, as we'll
7:15
Speaker 1: get to later with you know, our senior friends. Sometimes
7:18
Speaker 1: there's like legit brain cognitive issues that's a different thing
7:22
Speaker 1: than this. But this is just lacking expertise, and you know,
7:26
Speaker 1: you can't evaluate what you're being told because you're just
7:29
Speaker 1: not I don't want to say smart enough, you're just
7:32
Speaker 1: not an expert in whatever that is.
7:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not informed enough in that particular thing.
7:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, what else.
7:38
Speaker 2: Personality is another one. If you're impulsive, this is a
7:40
Speaker 2: big one, big one. If you're lowing curiosity and you're like,
7:44
Speaker 2: I don't care, Just tell me what difference. I'm too
7:46
Speaker 2: lazy to go figure it out myself. Uh huh, I
7:49
Speaker 2: got better things to do than think. Or if you
7:52
Speaker 2: have a high need for independence, And this struck me
7:55
Speaker 2: quite a bit because if you were, if you're independence minded,
7:59
Speaker 2: you don't need smarty pants, pencil neck college boys telling
8:04
Speaker 2: you what's right or what's wrong, or what's true or
8:08
Speaker 2: what's false. You can figure it out yourself. And those
8:11
Speaker 2: people are actually a high risk of being duped, which
8:14
Speaker 2: is really surprising, but if you stop and think about it,
8:17
Speaker 2: it makes total sense. They're overconfident and that's a huge
8:21
Speaker 2: factor in being gullible.
8:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally think it makes sense, you know, because
8:26
Speaker 1: it happened to his cousin.
8:29
Speaker 2: That's right.
8:31
Speaker 1: Emotion can play a big factor in a lot of ways,
8:34
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about some of those with some studies
8:36
Speaker 1: later on, but one way is, like, let's say we're
8:40
Speaker 1: specifically talking about being conned. If it gives you a
8:42
Speaker 1: positive feeling, whether it's a somebody catfishing you and making
8:46
Speaker 1: you feel loved, or you know, some sort of financial
8:50
Speaker 1: thing that you think might provide for your long term
8:52
Speaker 1: security or like, man, no one else knows about the
8:56
Speaker 1: steal but me, I'm so smart for getting in on
8:58
Speaker 1: the ground floor here that kind of thing.
9:02
Speaker 2: Right, and as strangely ironically, almost as if he did
9:06
Speaker 2: it on purpose, because it supports everything he wrote about.
9:09
Speaker 2: Stephen Greenspan, the author of that book about golibility, he
9:13
Speaker 2: finished his book and shortly afterward he was informed by
9:16
Speaker 2: I guess his stockbroker that he had lost a bunch
9:18
Speaker 2: of a bunch of money by investing in Bernie Madoff's contest.
9:22
Speaker 1: Scheme with the ironies. Huh.
9:24
Speaker 2: So he was like, even the guy that researched this
9:26
Speaker 2: and wrote the book on golibility can fall for it.
9:29
Speaker 2: That's a really great little tidbit. Yeah, but I think
9:33
Speaker 2: it also goes to show just how specific golibility is,
9:39
Speaker 2: because I don't get the impression that Stephen Greenspan was like,
9:42
Speaker 2: this madeoff guy is making a lot of really great
9:44
Speaker 2: points and this is incredibly high risk, but I'm going
9:48
Speaker 2: to go along with it anyway, Like he went through
9:50
Speaker 2: a stockbroker and everything. So, yeah, there's only a certain
9:52
Speaker 2: amount of golibility.
9:53
Speaker 1: It's just.
9:55
Speaker 2: Bernie Madoff is like shorthand for fooling people, you know
9:59
Speaker 2: what I mean, not to pick on Stephen green Span
10:03
Speaker 2: or anything like that.
10:04
Speaker 1: Now I feel very bad for him despite his poor definition.
10:08
Speaker 2: Right. So some other people have said, well, we really
10:13
Speaker 2: want to show off as social psychologists, we're going to
10:15
Speaker 2: create a gibility scale, and in fact, Alessandra to Nie
10:19
Speaker 2: from Macquarie University, I'm not even gonna try that one.
10:24
Speaker 2: But it's Australian for university. Sorry, Australians. There's this beer
10:30
Speaker 2: called Fosters that here in America we think you drink
10:34
Speaker 2: a lot of. And in America the ad campaign says Fosters,
10:38
Speaker 2: it's Australian for beer.
10:41
Speaker 1: I love that you barely use an accent. You just
10:43
Speaker 1: say it seriously and that gets the point across.
10:47
Speaker 2: It makes people pay attention.
10:49
Speaker 1: Australian for beer.
10:52
Speaker 2: That's the best I can do. That's how I think
10:54
Speaker 2: Australians talk.
10:56
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. So this gullibility scale was self report did
11:01
Speaker 1: basically like do you self reported, meaning do you think
11:05
Speaker 1: others do you perceive yourself as gullible? And do you
11:07
Speaker 1: think others perceive you as gullible? And then they you know,
11:11
Speaker 1: they filled in with some other questions like how persuadable
11:14
Speaker 1: are you? And stuff like that, and it actually for
11:16
Speaker 1: a self reported study, which you know a lot of
11:19
Speaker 1: those can be tough. This seemed to work out pretty
11:22
Speaker 1: good for them, don't you think it did?
11:25
Speaker 2: Because they backed it up. They I can't remember what
11:28
Speaker 2: it's called, but they tested the validity. They tested the
11:32
Speaker 2: validity of this self reporting panel and found that the
11:37
Speaker 2: people who reported themselves or scored the highest on gullibility
11:42
Speaker 2: on this test were more likely to click a link
11:45
Speaker 2: on a phishing email than people who scored low. Right,
11:48
Speaker 2: So it seems like a valid test. And one of
11:51
Speaker 2: the things I went and looked at up Chuck, and
11:53
Speaker 2: one of the questions wasn't even a question. It was
11:55
Speaker 2: you are very persuadable, And the only option to check
11:59
Speaker 2: was yes, Ah, what I'm kidding?
12:03
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is so upciting.
12:06
Speaker 2: That's all right, You're not at one hundred percent at all.
12:08
Speaker 1: I didn't think you would take advantage of this today.
12:11
Speaker 2: It was more of the joke. I wasn't trying to
12:14
Speaker 2: take advantage of you, although I realize now that I didn't.
12:17
Speaker 1: It's okay. All for the show. On that scale, they
12:22
Speaker 1: found some traits that were common among those that scored
12:25
Speaker 1: high in gullibility. Social intelligence was one of them that'll
12:29
Speaker 1: keep coming back over and over. Vulnerability, emotionality, which we've
12:33
Speaker 1: talked about a little bit, a weak sense of self
12:36
Speaker 1: which also comes up in different ways. I think you
12:40
Speaker 1: found an article about how parents can wreck kids by
12:43
Speaker 1: not giving them self confidence, right, and they'll end up gible.
12:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much, and depending on And it doesn't even
12:49
Speaker 2: have to be like you're such a stupid kid every day.
12:51
Speaker 2: It can just be things like where your opinion is
12:54
Speaker 2: not really heard or validated, or just all sorts of
12:57
Speaker 2: little missteps that parents can make that make parenting a
12:59
Speaker 2: lit nightmare you can carry on as an adult. And
13:03
Speaker 2: it can make you doubt your own opinion, so you're
13:06
Speaker 2: not gonna speak up. It can make you be afraid
13:08
Speaker 2: of looking stupid, so you don't ask questions because you
13:12
Speaker 2: don't want to seem like I don't I didn't immediately
13:14
Speaker 2: get it, so I'm gonna look dumb if I ask
13:16
Speaker 2: these questions. There's like it just sets you up for
13:20
Speaker 2: being more likely to be a victim of being duped
13:23
Speaker 2: than somebody who has a lot of confidence.
13:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a good friend who had a pretty
13:29
Speaker 1: bad stepfather, and the abuse in this situation was exclusively
13:34
Speaker 1: he made him feel stupid at every opportunity.
13:37
Speaker 2: That is so wrong, Like I should be in jail.
13:40
Speaker 1: He's passed on now. But it's I can't think of
13:44
Speaker 1: any I mean, there are all kinds of things that
13:46
Speaker 1: are worse, obviously, but something so damaging for such a
13:50
Speaker 1: small person to do that to a child. Yeah, and
13:54
Speaker 1: literally like oh you think so, like you know, just
13:56
Speaker 1: that's how he was talked to it his whole life
13:58
Speaker 1: growing up. It's awful. That is rough and he's super gullible.
14:03
Speaker 2: Oh is he really?
14:03
Speaker 1: No? Actually, I don't know.
14:05
Speaker 2: Oh, you got me back there. You should just do
14:08
Speaker 2: that to one another, like every d or too.
14:10
Speaker 1: One thing we should mention though, because this pops up
14:12
Speaker 1: a couple of times and I think it's super fascinating.
14:15
Speaker 1: Is another trait they found on the gullibility scale if
14:17
Speaker 1: you're very gullible, was belief in paranormal activity. Yeah, just
14:22
Speaker 1: park it right there.
14:24
Speaker 2: But I guess that depends on whether paranormal activity is
14:26
Speaker 2: real or not.
14:27
Speaker 1: You know, well, I guess so.
14:29
Speaker 2: I mean that's described from a point of view where
14:32
Speaker 2: you're just like that's all fake anyway. So yeah, duh.
14:36
Speaker 2: One of the things about social intelligence that's worth pointing out.
14:39
Speaker 2: So that's basically a package that you can have. Some
14:44
Speaker 2: people are much better at it than others, but basically
14:47
Speaker 2: everyone alive in a society has some degree or other
14:51
Speaker 2: of this package of skills that forms social intelligence, Like
14:55
Speaker 2: whether or not you're good at conversation, whether you are
14:58
Speaker 2: good at effective listening, what your knowledge of like social
15:02
Speaker 2: roles and social scripts are, and then awareness of like
15:06
Speaker 2: what make other people tick, and then what people think
15:09
Speaker 2: of you. And you put all this together, and if
15:11
Speaker 2: you have like high emotional or social intelligence, you're going
15:14
Speaker 2: to be able to navigate interactions with other people much
15:19
Speaker 2: better than somebody with low intelligence. Part of that is
15:22
Speaker 2: not getting scanned by somebody by being able to be like,
15:25
Speaker 2: you're a scammer and I'm not going to send you
15:27
Speaker 2: a Walmart gift card now.
15:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's a trade I think that you can't
15:32
Speaker 1: necessarily teach, but is really beneficial to have as a human.
15:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. I admire people with high social intelligence because it's
15:38
Speaker 2: not just you know, being able to spot a scammer,
15:42
Speaker 2: it's being able to see the best in other people,
15:45
Speaker 2: and I think to bring out the best in other
15:46
Speaker 2: people and let them bring out the best in you.
15:48
Speaker 2: And that's just it's maybe in another life, maybe in
15:52
Speaker 2: the next lifetime.
15:53
Speaker 1: Oh buddy, I think you're great. They did another study
15:57
Speaker 1: at the University of Leicester where they found that childhood
16:02
Speaker 1: traumas can really affect you later in life in terms
16:05
Speaker 1: of gullibility, like any kind of bullying, death of a
16:08
Speaker 1: family member or something like that. It leads you more
16:12
Speaker 1: susceptible to fall for tricks later in life. And apparently
16:16
Speaker 1: they say it could be because that kind of trauma
16:19
Speaker 1: just makes it hard to trust your own judgments and
16:22
Speaker 1: you know, I guess everyone else's intent.
16:25
Speaker 2: For sure, and then some people because it's actually kind
16:28
Speaker 2: of counterintuitive if you think if you've gone through the
16:30
Speaker 2: school of hard knocks, I think is the way that
16:33
Speaker 2: the study put it. Yeah, you could think that they'd
16:35
Speaker 2: come out like much more world wary and like suspicious
16:40
Speaker 2: of people, and so they'd be less likely to fall
16:41
Speaker 2: first game. But no, instead, like you said, they just
16:44
Speaker 2: they question their own judgment for having gone through what
16:47
Speaker 2: they went through.
16:47
Speaker 1: So that's terrible.
16:49
Speaker 2: It is, It is very terrible. Childhood is just fraught.
16:52
Speaker 1: You know, it really is.
16:54
Speaker 2: It's a wonder any of us can function in any
16:57
Speaker 2: like real way.
16:58
Speaker 1: Oh I know. I mean we're pretty good parents, but
17:01
Speaker 1: I often think like, how are we messing her up?
17:04
Speaker 1: Because I know we are in some way.
17:06
Speaker 2: Yep, I mean I can't I can't imagine, Like that's
17:09
Speaker 2: got to just keep you up at nights sometimes if
17:10
Speaker 2: you think about it too much. You know, I sleep
17:13
Speaker 2: pretty good good you just wake up to throw up
17:16
Speaker 2: every hour.
17:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, just try to limit that stuff as
17:20
Speaker 1: a parent, Like, there's you can't be perfect. I mean,
17:22
Speaker 1: my brother is a perfect parent, but there's only there's
17:24
Speaker 1: only one.
17:28
Speaker 2: Scott.
17:29
Speaker 1: Another thing I thought was interesting, and this makes total sense,
17:31
Speaker 1: is if you rely on your intuition a lot, you're
17:34
Speaker 1: a lot more vulnerable, vulnerable to being duped by something,
17:37
Speaker 1: just like you know, some people have a good gut,
17:41
Speaker 1: and some people think they have a good gut but
17:43
Speaker 1: do not.
17:45
Speaker 2: Yes. Another one that really stood out to me though
17:48
Speaker 2: that this this I would not have predicted, is the
17:50
Speaker 2: more cynical you are. Studies have found like this that
17:54
Speaker 2: the likelier you are to be gullible or duped. And
17:58
Speaker 2: the reason why actually makes time sense. Again, if you're cynical,
18:02
Speaker 2: you think you've got everything figured out, like you're just
18:05
Speaker 2: you think the world sucks and everybody's trying to take
18:07
Speaker 2: advantage of you, and the government's constantly screwing you over,
18:11
Speaker 2: and everyone's going to try to get an angle on you.
18:15
Speaker 2: That's cynicism, right, at least in the modern sense. And
18:20
Speaker 2: it's actually a lazy shortcut to experiencing reality because on
18:24
Speaker 2: the one hand, you lose out an opportunity costs you
18:27
Speaker 2: miss a lot of great stuff, Like you might not
18:29
Speaker 2: make friends that you could have made because you were
18:32
Speaker 2: suspicious of this stranger chatting you up at the outset
18:35
Speaker 2: or something like that.
18:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, But as far.
18:37
Speaker 2: As gullibility goes, if somebody comes along and talks to
18:42
Speaker 2: you in your language, they can pull one over on
18:45
Speaker 2: you much more easily because they are tapping into your cynicism,
18:49
Speaker 2: which again is just lazy shorthand for experiencing reality. It's
18:54
Speaker 2: based largely on intuition and supposition and not necessarily taking
18:58
Speaker 2: each experience and looking at it based on the facts.
19:02
Speaker 2: Is a unique thing. It all has this one cast
19:05
Speaker 2: to it that's the same, and that's just not how
19:08
Speaker 2: the world actually works.
19:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you know, that kind of suggests
19:12
Speaker 1: that if there's like a country with an authoritarian leader
19:17
Speaker 1: in place, like the simple sort of easy to understand
19:21
Speaker 1: radical solutions that are pitched out oftentimes in those situations
19:25
Speaker 1: are very easy to fall for if you're a gullible person,
19:28
Speaker 1: because that itself is a mental shortcut. Well, we we
19:32
Speaker 1: just got to do.
19:32
Speaker 2: This for sure. And then conversely too, not being cynical
19:38
Speaker 2: requires way more brain power and thought and just participation
19:45
Speaker 2: than being cynical does. Like you have to actually like
19:48
Speaker 2: ask yourself like, is this true? What kind of source
19:53
Speaker 2: is this coming from? I might need to go do
19:55
Speaker 2: some research. I might need to ask people. It's just
19:58
Speaker 2: so much easier to be like, nope, there's screw me over.
20:00
Speaker 2: I don't even need to bother to look into that,
20:03
Speaker 2: because you're also defending yourself at the same time from
20:05
Speaker 2: getting taken advantage of again until somebody comes along and
20:09
Speaker 2: is talking your language, and then you will oftentimes fall
20:12
Speaker 2: for whatever they're saying.
20:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, should we take a break, Yeah, all right, we'll
20:18
Speaker 1: take a break and talk about mood right after this.
20:47
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. We promise to talk a little
20:49
Speaker 1: bit about mood because The fact is you are not
20:53
Speaker 1: always gullible or always not gullible. Everybody could get due
20:58
Speaker 1: to that anytime from you know, that changes from day
21:01
Speaker 1: to day, sometimes from hour to hour, depending on a
21:03
Speaker 1: lot of factors, like mood. If you're really really tired,
21:06
Speaker 1: if you're super distracted, if you're upset, you may not
21:11
Speaker 1: notice something that can, you know, make you fall for
21:14
Speaker 1: a scam. Also, the same holds if you're in a
21:17
Speaker 1: really good mood. You know, if you're just feeling great
21:20
Speaker 1: about everything, you're like, yeah, yes to life, Yes to everything.
21:25
Speaker 1: There was a study in nineteen thirty eight by a
21:26
Speaker 1: researcher named Gregory Razran who found that giving a free
21:31
Speaker 1: lunch made people more receptive to a political message. And
21:35
Speaker 1: apparently that is sort of where like the sales lunch started.
21:40
Speaker 1: Taking people out to sell them something and feeding them
21:43
Speaker 1: you're more likely to close a deal. And I'm sure
21:45
Speaker 1: the same thing like golf course sales. Things like the
21:50
Speaker 1: salesperson's not out, they're beating the person in golf that
21:52
Speaker 1: they're selling to. I guarantee it. I don't know how
21:55
Speaker 1: that works, but I imagine you're letting them win and feel
21:58
Speaker 1: good about stuff.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, think about how good you have to be to
22:02
Speaker 2: purposely lose at golf.
22:05
Speaker 1: Oh, I could play bad golf on purpose and I'm not.
22:07
Speaker 2: Really Yeah, okay, well I take that one back and
22:11
Speaker 2: on accident. So yes. But on the contrary, if you
22:16
Speaker 2: are an upset, if you're sad, if you're depressed, if
22:20
Speaker 2: you're mad, if you're in a low mood, you are
22:25
Speaker 2: actually more likely to pay attention to granular things. I
22:28
Speaker 2: think it actually kind of ties into rumination. You're just
22:32
Speaker 2: thinking about stuff. You're turned inwards. So if somebody comes
22:35
Speaker 2: along and tries to sell you something, yeah, that makes sense,
22:38
Speaker 2: it's going to be harder to slip it past you
22:39
Speaker 2: because you're paying attention more than somebody who's like, yeah, whatever,
22:43
Speaker 2: let's have another round.
22:45
Speaker 1: Right. So overall, if you think about people who might
22:50
Speaker 1: be goable, you might think, and you know, if you're
22:53
Speaker 1: going to stereotype it, like people like kids, very young people,
22:58
Speaker 1: very old people, and people that aren't very well educated obviously,
23:02
Speaker 1: but it's not necessarily true. What There is a lot
23:08
Speaker 1: of factors, one of which I mentioned earlier. You can
23:12
Speaker 1: get you know, a lot of skewed studies about the
23:14
Speaker 1: gullibility of someone who's older, because if you're older, you're
23:18
Speaker 1: more likely to have a cognitive ability that's literally keeping
23:21
Speaker 1: you from being able to determine whether something is true.
23:25
Speaker 1: But they've also conversely found that sometimes they're a little
23:28
Speaker 1: more protected because they're constantly have their children and everyone
23:31
Speaker 1: else saying like, no, no, no, watch out for scams. They're
23:34
Speaker 1: trying to scam you. Everyone's trying to scam you.
23:36
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so it's like a self fulfilling prophecy that
23:39
Speaker 2: they are less likely to be scammed because they're so vigilant.
23:43
Speaker 2: That's amazing to me.
23:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:46
Speaker 2: So there was this one study that kind of backed
23:48
Speaker 2: all this up from the University of Tirana, and they
23:53
Speaker 2: found they looked at adults sixty to ninety who handled
23:56
Speaker 2: their own finances. They didn't have any diagnosed cognitive issues
24:00
Speaker 2: use and they found that people who had reported being
24:05
Speaker 2: victims of a fraud, there was nothing that really happened,
24:10
Speaker 2: or there was no characteristic demographically anything like that that
24:15
Speaker 2: made them different from anybody else. The only thing that
24:20
Speaker 2: seemed to really kind of stick out was that they
24:24
Speaker 2: the people who had been scammed before were low had
24:29
Speaker 2: low conscientiousness one of the big five. They were less honest, humble,
24:35
Speaker 2: which is another another kind of personality trait from a
24:39
Speaker 2: different scale, and that from what I could see, the
24:44
Speaker 2: honesty thing means. They explained it like, you're if you
24:49
Speaker 2: are low on honesty, you're more likely to try something
24:53
Speaker 2: that might be a scam because you might get rich
24:56
Speaker 2: quick or something like that. You're more willing to take
24:58
Speaker 2: a shortcut, say, than somebody who would score higher on honesty,
25:02
Speaker 2: which you put you at greater risk. But that was
25:05
Speaker 2: about it. There wasn't like, you know, the older you
25:08
Speaker 2: get or the less educated you are in this group,
25:11
Speaker 2: you're more likely to get scammed. It was some other
25:13
Speaker 2: stuff entirely. But they found also that people who do
25:20
Speaker 2: experience cognitive decline do tend to get taken advantage of more,
25:26
Speaker 2: which is really messed up, sad, but it's true. And
25:30
Speaker 2: as a matter of fact, they've started to some people
25:33
Speaker 2: have started to push this idea like, if you fall
25:35
Speaker 2: for a scam, you should immediately be tested for Alzheimer's
25:39
Speaker 2: or dementia because there's a high correlation with getting scammed
25:44
Speaker 2: as an older person and the early early developments of
25:48
Speaker 2: cognitive decline. Yes, you got to feel terrible. I mean,
25:51
Speaker 2: it's bad enough to feel like you're getting scammed, but
25:53
Speaker 2: then to stop and be like, well, is this it
25:56
Speaker 2: for me in my mind?
25:58
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean thankfully, nothing like that's ever happened
26:01
Speaker 1: to my parents. But it's you hear the stories all
26:05
Speaker 1: the time, and it's just you know, it's tragic and
26:07
Speaker 1: shameful for sure. There was a study in twenty eighteen
26:11
Speaker 1: that I thought was pretty interesting a woman named Monica
26:13
Speaker 1: t Witty, another Aussie when we talk about like being catfish,
26:20
Speaker 1: which is if I guess I threw that word out,
26:22
Speaker 1: assuming everyone knows that that's like when you get scammed
26:24
Speaker 1: in a sort of a romantic thing online by someone
26:29
Speaker 1: who's pretending to be someone they're not.
26:30
Speaker 2: Generally, we should do an episode on that sometimes because
26:33
Speaker 2: I just don't I don't. I mean I get it,
26:36
Speaker 2: but I don't understand like where it started or anything
26:38
Speaker 2: like that.
26:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's put that down. That would be super interesting. Okay,
26:42
Speaker 1: do you remember the Notre Dame football player?
26:44
Speaker 2: Yeah? I thought he was. Isn't he like the Dolphins quarterback.
26:47
Speaker 1: Now or no?
26:48
Speaker 2: He?
26:49
Speaker 1: I don't think he's in the league anymore. He played
26:50
Speaker 1: the NFL for a little while, but he was a
26:52
Speaker 1: linebacker for Notre Dame that oh gotcha was famously catfished
26:55
Speaker 1: and like, you know, smart, handsome, young athlete guy. So
26:59
Speaker 1: it's not like just you know, the lonely loser in
27:02
Speaker 1: the basement that falls for stuff like that.
27:04
Speaker 2: Have you heard about the lonesome loser?
27:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, he still keeps on trying, man, little riverman so good.
27:13
Speaker 1: At twenty eighteen, Monica Whitty did one on sort of
27:16
Speaker 1: catfishing but really just romance scams is what they called it,
27:19
Speaker 1: and she said, if you fall for something like that,
27:21
Speaker 1: you obviously will be a little more impulsive in sensation seeking.
27:26
Speaker 1: And so if someone's building up about all these great
27:28
Speaker 1: stories and these big travels, and you know, it's always
27:31
Speaker 1: it's never just like wow, I just kind of sent
27:33
Speaker 1: around at home like they always present themselves as offering
27:36
Speaker 1: some new, exciting life, it seems like. But she also
27:40
Speaker 1: found that they were more highly educated than average, and Lvia,
27:45
Speaker 1: I think is on the money, kind of speculates that
27:47
Speaker 1: could be, and I think it's true. When we did
27:50
Speaker 1: our thing on online dating, it's generally people that are
27:52
Speaker 1: college educated that participate in online dating a little more statistically,
27:57
Speaker 1: But also maybe that if you're more educated. You just
28:01
Speaker 1: think like, I'm not going to fall for countfishing. I
28:04
Speaker 1: know all about that, and this is not that right,
28:06
Speaker 1: over confidence, right, and then you're on that hook.
28:10
Speaker 2: And then another thing about being online too. The Better
28:12
Speaker 2: Business Bureau back in twoy fifteen, I think they looked
28:15
Speaker 2: at a I guess a bunch of their like scam
28:20
Speaker 2: complaints that came in just to see who reported them,
28:24
Speaker 2: and they found that people between twenty five and thirty
28:27
Speaker 2: five were more likely to lose money on a scam
28:31
Speaker 2: than older people, which is totally contrary to what people
28:35
Speaker 2: think of when they think of people who get scammed.
28:37
Speaker 2: And one of the explanations that they came up with is,
28:41
Speaker 2: in part, younger people are just online more so they're
28:45
Speaker 2: just more likely by the numbers, to have scams presented
28:50
Speaker 2: to them, which means that they're more likely to probably
28:52
Speaker 2: go for a scam than say, people who are online
28:55
Speaker 2: less right.
28:57
Speaker 1: I agree with that in the old days. I think
28:59
Speaker 1: that's changing because I've never seen a generation as phone
29:02
Speaker 1: addicted as boomers are smart.
29:05
Speaker 2: Oh really good?
29:06
Speaker 1: Oh man, they have a lot of boomers, do you
29:09
Speaker 1: They have gen Z beat every boomer I know, just
29:13
Speaker 1: obsessively stares at their phone and looks things up and.
29:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought they all had like flip phones that
29:21
Speaker 2: only dial numbers.
29:23
Speaker 1: No, no, no, they want to show you all the
29:26
Speaker 1: information in the moment.
29:28
Speaker 2: I got it.
29:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got in the middle of dinner at a
29:30
Speaker 1: nice restaurant. Even.
29:31
Speaker 2: I guess I've not experienced.
29:33
Speaker 1: That, but I do think that that generally is true. Okay,
29:39
Speaker 1: I just want to take a shot at boomers.
29:41
Speaker 2: Well, then that makes it, That makes it even less
29:44
Speaker 2: understandable that twenty five to thirty five year olds would
29:47
Speaker 2: be more likely to be scammed. I don't know, maybe
29:50
Speaker 2: that generation is just more trusting these days or something
29:53
Speaker 2: like that, or I actually I got to take that back, because,
29:56
Speaker 2: as we'll see, trusting, being trusting is not necessarily corely
30:00
Speaker 2: with being gullible.
30:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I think we'll get to in a minute
30:04
Speaker 1: before or after the next break. But can we talk
30:06
Speaker 1: about science, because this is one thing. When I sent
30:09
Speaker 1: Livit the idea, I was like, I think I read
30:12
Speaker 1: an article about scientists being gullible, and I was like, no,
30:16
Speaker 1: not scientists. But it turns out they very much can
30:19
Speaker 1: be because a lot of times when you are that's
30:25
Speaker 1: well versed in a field, you might you might kind
30:29
Speaker 1: of think you know it all and like, oh, no,
30:32
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing, and so you might be
30:35
Speaker 1: more apt to believe a result that isn't accurate because
30:40
Speaker 1: you think you did it the right way. Like that's
30:43
Speaker 1: just one aspect of it.
30:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, Another aspect is, like you said, people people in
30:48
Speaker 2: science typically know a tremendous amount about their field, but
30:51
Speaker 2: they can make a mistake and think that that understanding,
30:55
Speaker 2: that depth of understanding will just apply to other fields
30:58
Speaker 2: as well if they just don't know as much about Yeah,
31:01
Speaker 2: and that's another way they can fall prey to it.
31:04
Speaker 2: But also scientists like to be right as much as
31:07
Speaker 2: anybody else. And you know, I don't remember what episode
31:11
Speaker 2: we did this, and I think it was about the
31:14
Speaker 2: the just reproducibility crisis in science papers if I remember correctly.
31:20
Speaker 2: But just how like the scientists don't set up experiments
31:25
Speaker 2: to disprove their hypothesis. They set them up to prove
31:28
Speaker 2: their hypothesis. That's how you get published, that's how you
31:31
Speaker 2: get celebrated. Like nobody wants to hear about you failing,
31:35
Speaker 2: even though that's what science is meant to be. That's
31:39
Speaker 2: a that's a part of it as well, just wanting
31:41
Speaker 2: to be right. So if somebody comes along, it's like, yep,
31:43
Speaker 2: you're right, let's let's uh, let's use that to explain
31:47
Speaker 2: this other thing that's actually not true. The scientists might
31:50
Speaker 2: go along with it because if it is true, then
31:52
Speaker 2: it will prove their their hypothesis and make them very famous,
31:56
Speaker 2: and they'll probably end up having an HBO movie made.
32:01
Speaker 1: Well, that was probably a scientific method. Huh.
32:04
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe, but I mean we definitely talked about papers
32:08
Speaker 2: just being some of them just being outright fraudulent because
32:12
Speaker 2: their experiments are set up incorrectly. It could have been
32:14
Speaker 2: scientific method.
32:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like the little student in Rushmore that faked
32:19
Speaker 1: the results.
32:21
Speaker 2: I remember that part.
32:23
Speaker 1: You know, Max has his sort of little budding girlfriend
32:26
Speaker 1: at the end and he says something about she won
32:29
Speaker 1: some science award and I think she had to give
32:31
Speaker 1: it back or something, and she said, He's like why,
32:33
Speaker 1: she said, I faked the results. It didn't work, so
32:35
Speaker 1: I faked it.
32:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought that was so her line where she
32:39
Speaker 2: tells Bill Murray that she won't dance with them, it
32:42
Speaker 2: was a little out of nowhere.
32:44
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah, I get that.
32:47
Speaker 2: A little harsh. I think is what I'm trying to say.
32:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, who didn't want to dance with Bill Murray?
32:52
Speaker 2: I do.
32:54
Speaker 1: You? And Lucy Lou?
32:56
Speaker 2: All right, wait, Lucy Lou doesn't or does want to
32:59
Speaker 2: dance with Bill Murray.
33:00
Speaker 1: No, I don't think she does. They were on Charlie's
33:02
Speaker 1: Angels together and had some words.
33:04
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, I remember that.
33:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I doubt she's dancing with Bill. Okay, all right,
33:09
Speaker 1: should we take a break? Wait?
33:10
Speaker 2: I just before we go to a break, I was
33:12
Speaker 2: saying I would like to dance with Bill Murray. Oh yeah, okay,
33:15
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure that no one walks
33:16
Speaker 2: away to this ad break thinking that I don't want
33:19
Speaker 2: to dance with Bill Murray.
33:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was being sort of a opposite with my
33:23
Speaker 1: Lucy lu joke. Okay, this, you know I'm not firing
33:26
Speaker 1: on all cylinders. I'm doing my best.
33:28
Speaker 2: I'm not either, apparently.
33:30
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back and Josh will lead
33:32
Speaker 1: off with a little bit on trust.
34:00
Speaker 2: Okay, we're back, everybody. And I mentioned before that trust
34:04
Speaker 2: is not necessarily correlated with gullibility, and I love that.
34:08
Speaker 2: That just makes me feel good about the world again.
34:11
Speaker 1: You know, you can trust people and think the best
34:15
Speaker 1: of people and still not be gullible.
34:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we'll kind of explain why. But there
34:20
Speaker 2: have been study after study after study that basically say, yeah,
34:24
Speaker 2: that's actually true, Like you can have a high level
34:26
Speaker 2: of trust, be tested for that kind of thing, and
34:28
Speaker 2: you are not more likely to be gible. And in fact,
34:31
Speaker 2: it seems that if you are a higher trusting person,
34:35
Speaker 2: you're actually less likely to be gible compared to say,
34:39
Speaker 2: like the cynic right, Like, there's this researcher named Toshio
34:43
Speaker 2: Yamagishi who's considered one of the most prominent researchers in
34:48
Speaker 2: glibility and trust out of Kaido University. I know how
34:53
Speaker 2: to say, Hokkaido. I don't know why I had trouble
34:55
Speaker 2: with that at first, but one of the things that
34:58
Speaker 2: Yamagishi did in the nineteen nineth these was to tell
35:02
Speaker 2: people who scored high in trusting this and other people
35:05
Speaker 2: who scored low about the story of Bill and Chuck.
35:10
Speaker 2: I think you should take it because Bill's got a
35:11
Speaker 2: great story.
35:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. I kind of understand this, but not one hundred percent,
35:16
Speaker 1: but I think I get it. So what he would
35:17
Speaker 1: say is Bill, your friend. Bill stated at a hotel
35:20
Speaker 1: for a week, he was only charged one day. Do
35:24
Speaker 1: you think he would tell the cashier about this even
35:26
Speaker 1: though there's like no chance, let's say there's no chance
35:28
Speaker 1: of him getting caught later on, do you think he
35:31
Speaker 1: would do that? And people who scored high on their
35:34
Speaker 1: trustworthy score, like people who were trustworthy, they were more
35:38
Speaker 1: likely to say that Bill would do the honest thing.
35:41
Speaker 1: But when he added in a twist here, which is
35:44
Speaker 1: to tell them some negative things about Bill, like by
35:47
Speaker 1: the way, just want to let you know, Bill also
35:50
Speaker 1: cut in line. The other day.
35:51
Speaker 2: He also makes his steps on feel stupid.
35:53
Speaker 1: He also makes his steps on feel stupid. But if
35:57
Speaker 1: the added in a couple of nuggets like that negative
35:59
Speaker 1: things about Bill, the people who had high trust in
36:02
Speaker 1: people generally put a lot more weight on that additional
36:06
Speaker 1: information than the other people did the people that were
36:10
Speaker 1: low and trustworthiness.
36:12
Speaker 2: Right, But the bottom line was even with positive information
36:16
Speaker 2: like Bill litard, but he also cut in line. If
36:20
Speaker 2: you took all of the tallies, you would see that
36:22
Speaker 2: people who are low in trusting others and people who
36:25
Speaker 2: are high in trusting others they had about the same scores.
36:28
Speaker 2: So this research from yam Magishi and others shows that
36:33
Speaker 2: you can trust other people and it doesn't open you
36:36
Speaker 2: up to being taken advantage of. And that just doesn't
36:40
Speaker 2: make any sense because just the idea of being gullible
36:44
Speaker 2: means that you're trusting what somebody else is saying. That's
36:47
Speaker 2: the popular conception of it. But as we've seen, really
36:51
Speaker 2: the idea of gullibility is trusting what somebody says because
36:55
Speaker 2: you either don't care enough to go figure it out yourself,
36:58
Speaker 2: because you don't feel like thinking for yourself, because what
37:02
Speaker 2: they're saying confirms your biased beliefs, not that you just
37:07
Speaker 2: trust people in general. And the explanation that I saw
37:11
Speaker 2: that really kind of drives it home for me, Chuck,
37:14
Speaker 2: is that people who have high trust are also more discerning,
37:21
Speaker 2: so they would have probably a better social intelligence than
37:24
Speaker 2: people who don't trust as much. And that makes sense
37:27
Speaker 2: because if you don't trust people like the cynic, you're
37:29
Speaker 2: actually protecting yourself. You're guarding yourself. You know that you
37:33
Speaker 2: are probably not as discerning as other people, and so
37:37
Speaker 2: rather than get yourself into trouble time and time again,
37:40
Speaker 2: you just keep people at arms length, you don't really
37:42
Speaker 2: trust them, whereas if you are high trusting you are
37:46
Speaker 2: better at discerning, And that either means that because you're
37:50
Speaker 2: good at discerning, you have the freedom to trust other
37:53
Speaker 2: people because you can be confident in your judgment of
37:56
Speaker 2: other people and you're probably not going to be taken
37:59
Speaker 2: advantage of. Or if you are just a trusting person
38:02
Speaker 2: by nature, you have to have a higher discernment or
38:05
Speaker 2: else you're going to be taken advantage of. Either way,
38:08
Speaker 2: high discernment and high trust go hand in hand.
38:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that can be a very freeing thing. And
38:13
Speaker 1: that's how Yamagishi sort of thought about it when he
38:15
Speaker 1: talked about his emancipation theory, which is, if you're trusting,
38:21
Speaker 1: you're kind of or if you're untrusting, I guess you're
38:24
Speaker 1: kind of shackled in a way because you'll you may
38:27
Speaker 1: just be stuck in a place because why why hire
38:31
Speaker 1: a different person to do it, because they're just going
38:33
Speaker 1: to be a scammer two and so you can get
38:36
Speaker 1: stuck in this cycle. But if you free yourself from
38:39
Speaker 1: that with his emancipation theory, and you break those shackles
38:42
Speaker 1: and you start trusting people, it makes you much more
38:45
Speaker 1: apt to make a positive change in life because you
38:48
Speaker 1: trust somebody or something or some situation.
38:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, because at base, you can go through life not
38:55
Speaker 2: trusting other people, and you can make it all the
38:57
Speaker 2: way to old age and die at pretty much the
39:00
Speaker 2: the same age that you would have had you trusted people.
39:04
Speaker 2: But you're again, you're missing out. There's opportunity costs to
39:08
Speaker 2: not trusting other people that people who do trust other
39:11
Speaker 2: people are not missing out on, and you're just not
39:15
Speaker 2: connected as socially, and research after research after research shows
39:19
Speaker 2: that social connections are like the number one predictor of
39:22
Speaker 2: living to a healthy older age. So you're actually robbing
39:26
Speaker 2: yourself by just not trusting other people. But again, it's
39:29
Speaker 2: kind of understandable if you were taught that your judgment
39:33
Speaker 2: is questionable, either through trauma, through a jerk stepdad, or whatever,
39:37
Speaker 2: it's understandable. And I'm not sure if that's something that
39:41
Speaker 2: you can learn to break out of, although I sincerely
39:44
Speaker 2: hope it is.
39:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, there are people that think we are
39:48
Speaker 1: actually not as gullible as everyone thinks. There's this writer,
39:52
Speaker 1: Hugo Mercier, who wrote a book in twenty twenty called
39:56
Speaker 1: Not Born Yesterday. Great title for a book like that,
40:00
Speaker 1: and he's like people are less gullible than we think,
40:05
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of like criteria people used
40:07
Speaker 1: to work out if they're if they believe something or not,
40:11
Speaker 1: and we're better at it than we all think. We
40:13
Speaker 1: are like a lot most people, or I guess in
40:17
Speaker 1: his idea, most people are actually looking for well informed
40:23
Speaker 1: or well intentioned information, or if it's a has logic
40:28
Speaker 1: to it, if it's logically strong, or you know. Maybe
40:32
Speaker 1: people are less like this, which is I'm just going
40:36
Speaker 1: to accept something or I'm sorry, I'm not going to
40:39
Speaker 1: accept something as a new piece of information because it's
40:42
Speaker 1: not something that I have found to be true. He
40:45
Speaker 1: argues that people are less like that than they say.
40:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and people also judge other people to be more
40:53
Speaker 2: likely to be duped than they are more gullible than
40:56
Speaker 2: they are. But yeah, his whole message is like, no,
40:58
Speaker 2: we're actually as a as a group, as a species,
41:01
Speaker 2: not all that gulible. What appears to be gullibility is
41:06
Speaker 2: actually just somebody not caring enough to argue a point,
41:09
Speaker 2: or they're accepting information but they're hanging on to it loosely. Olivia,
41:15
Speaker 2: I thought this is awesome. She pointed out that if
41:18
Speaker 2: you are shown like an AI generated baby peacock that
41:22
Speaker 2: looks super cute and has huge eyes and is colorful,
41:25
Speaker 2: and it is nothing like what a baby peacock really
41:27
Speaker 2: looks like. If you're not like a peacock researcher or
41:32
Speaker 2: your job doesn't depend on positively identifying baby peacocks, it
41:36
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter if you think that that's what they
41:39
Speaker 2: look like, because you're holding onto it loosely enough that
41:43
Speaker 2: if somebody comes along and it says that's not what
41:45
Speaker 2: baby peacocks actually look like, you're not going to like,
41:48
Speaker 2: that's not the hill you're going to die on. You're
41:50
Speaker 2: going to be like, oh, that's crazy what AI can do?
41:53
Speaker 2: Or oh it got me, or or just be like, great,
41:56
Speaker 2: I now know what baby peacocks look like. And that's
42:00
Speaker 2: his point is that's not gullibility. That's just not stopping
42:04
Speaker 2: to analyze, you know, whether it's true or not, because
42:06
Speaker 2: it just isn't that important, right.
42:08
Speaker 1: Then, Yeah, exactly. He also points out in the book
42:12
Speaker 1: when it comes to like propaganda, that propaganda isn't something
42:15
Speaker 1: that can usually really completely change someone's mind. What propaganda
42:20
Speaker 1: is good at is taking someone who already has those
42:23
Speaker 1: beliefs and putting them on turbo speed and reinforcing them
42:27
Speaker 1: even like the Nazi propaganda machine. You know, he contends,
42:31
Speaker 1: probably wasn't making someone anti semitic, but if you were
42:36
Speaker 1: anti Semitic, then it really drove you down that road
42:39
Speaker 1: at a pretty fast pace.
42:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it came at your beliefs and said, yep,
42:44
Speaker 2: go for it. Like that's what that's the official line now,
42:47
Speaker 2: is anti semitism.
42:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also similarly, political ads don't really work.
42:55
Speaker 1: That's what they say.
42:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that makes me wonder though, if that's just
42:58
Speaker 2: being suspicious of the messenger because of polarization, that you're
43:02
Speaker 2: not gonna be like, hmmm, let's hear what this opposing
43:06
Speaker 2: political party has to say about medicare I'm really interested.
43:09
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep an open mind. No, it's like this
43:11
Speaker 2: message is from the opposing party. I'm just gonna laugh
43:14
Speaker 2: at it because it's just so full of it.
43:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think political ads are terrible and
43:20
Speaker 1: ridiculous and so over valued, but I feel like these
43:24
Speaker 1: days it's less like it's more just beating that drum
43:27
Speaker 1: of like aren't you mad? Aren't you mad? Go vote?
43:29
Speaker 1: Go vote?
43:30
Speaker 2: I know, man.
43:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
43:31
Speaker 2: The thing is, though, is this. None of this is
43:33
Speaker 2: to say that they're like, people don't get scammed. There's
43:38
Speaker 2: a group called the Global Anti Scam Alliance, which sounds
43:42
Speaker 2: like a scam itself. They came up with the report,
43:45
Speaker 2: doesn't it. They came up with a report that found
43:48
Speaker 2: that worldwide, people lose a trillion dollars to scams every year. Man,
43:54
Speaker 2: that's a lot of money. But some of these same
43:56
Speaker 2: researchers are like, hey, there's actually some short like easy
44:00
Speaker 2: stuff you can walk around in your head with to
44:04
Speaker 2: use to apply to new information to protect from being
44:08
Speaker 2: gold which is actually a word.
44:10
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Do you have a list?
44:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of them is. The first step is to
44:14
Speaker 2: admit that you're as susceptible to being scammed as anybody else.
44:18
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, just a reality check. Yeah.
44:20
Speaker 2: Well, it also puts the kibosh on being overconfident, which
44:23
Speaker 2: again can increase your chance of being duped.
44:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
44:26
Speaker 2: Don't make emotional decisions like we talked about, keep a
44:30
Speaker 2: lid on impulsivity. Don't respond to like act now supplies
44:35
Speaker 2: are running out kind of like come ons. Don't respond
44:38
Speaker 2: to false scarcity, like remember people hoarding toilet paper. Yeah, oh, Yeah,
44:43
Speaker 2: those are emotional decisions. You want to just say cool
44:46
Speaker 2: and level headed. Another one is asked questions, ask for
44:49
Speaker 2: more information, don't be afraid to look dumb. That's a
44:53
Speaker 2: that's a big one. Yeah, that's a big one. And
44:55
Speaker 2: then consider the source. Is there any supporting information? And
44:59
Speaker 2: when you put all together, you are probably going to
45:02
Speaker 2: come up with a good decision or understanding. And if
45:06
Speaker 2: you're being gold by somebody that's a real word, you
45:11
Speaker 2: are probably going to say, I don't believe what you're saying. You, sir,
45:15
Speaker 2: are a cad and a scoundrel. Right, please get out
45:18
Speaker 2: of my face before I smack you with my glove
45:20
Speaker 2: and we.
45:20
Speaker 1: Have to duel. We get I'm sure anyone who works
45:25
Speaker 1: where big companies get these, and maybe even small companies
45:27
Speaker 1: do this. But when they send out the the test,
45:29
Speaker 1: like the test phishing emails, and then like the next day,
45:34
Speaker 1: you'll get an email that's like did you fall for it?
45:36
Speaker 2: Right?
45:37
Speaker 1: It's always I'm always nervous. I'm like, oh God, did
45:39
Speaker 1: I click on that thing that you know from you know,
45:42
Speaker 1: Facebook dot gold dot au. It's usually there in the
45:48
Speaker 1: email address, you know.
45:50
Speaker 2: Well, at least the next day when they send out
45:52
Speaker 2: the email. They ask if you fell for it. They
45:54
Speaker 2: don't show like a list with.
45:55
Speaker 1: Prices of all the people who did command for it.
45:57
Speaker 1: They should do that, just pictures of everyone.
46:01
Speaker 2: You got anything else?
46:02
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I think you know we did
46:04
Speaker 1: a pretty good job on this one.
46:06
Speaker 2: I agree, and that is no fooling. And if you
46:10
Speaker 2: want to know more about gullibility, go do some research
46:13
Speaker 2: yourself on it. That's kind of the point of not
46:15
Speaker 2: being gold, which is a real word. And since I
46:18
Speaker 2: said that, it's time for listener mail.
46:22
Speaker 1: This is a great current listener mail from yesterday's I'm
46:25
Speaker 1: Sorry Thursday is rather episode yesterday to us on automats right, Hey, guys,
46:31
Speaker 1: two friends and I gave each other a graduation present
46:33
Speaker 1: from high school in nineteen seventy and spent a week
46:35
Speaker 1: by ourselves in New York where we went to the Automat.
46:39
Speaker 1: And it was still great in seventy four years later.
46:41
Speaker 1: This gets so good. Four years later, as a senior
46:44
Speaker 1: in college, a group of us did an independent study
46:46
Speaker 1: in humor and music as an excuse to do a
46:49
Speaker 1: concert of Bach stuff. I got to be the soloist
46:53
Speaker 1: in the Concerto for horn and hard art nice and
46:57
Speaker 1: he sent a video. Unfortunately it was just audio. I
46:59
Speaker 1: mean it sound like a hoot, and really it was great,
47:01
Speaker 1: but I wanted to see everything because here's what they did.
47:04
Speaker 1: This piece is for orchestra and also a table filled
47:07
Speaker 1: with various household items to play. Ideally they should have
47:11
Speaker 1: been picked out of an automat on stage in order
47:14
Speaker 1: to play them. However, this is beyond our set construction abilities.
47:18
Speaker 1: We did have the recommended We did at least have
47:21
Speaker 1: the recommended banner overhead reading in Latin, less work for
47:25
Speaker 1: mother along with trying to master the rather challenging music.
47:29
Speaker 1: It involved me running around Gettysburg with a pitch pipe,
47:32
Speaker 1: trying to find bell's pots, uga horns, and lots of
47:37
Speaker 1: other items that played specific notes. This is so great.
47:41
Speaker 1: Thanks for speaking those wonder sparking those wonderful memories. I
47:44
Speaker 1: discovered you during COVID and have been an extremely faithful
47:47
Speaker 1: listener ever since. And that is from the Reverend doctor
47:51
Speaker 1: Mark Oldenburg steck Miller, Professor Emeritus of the Art of
47:57
Speaker 1: Worship and the music chair at Getty's United Lutheran Semmetary.
48:02
Speaker 1: Pronounce him wow.
48:04
Speaker 2: Also the most interesting person we know.
48:06
Speaker 1: Now totally Reverend Mark. Write in more please the doctor,
48:11
Speaker 1: Reverend Mark, the doctor Reverend esquire the Reverend doctor.
48:15
Speaker 2: Sorry either way.
48:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty impressive.
48:18
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Mark. I'm just gonna call you Mark
48:20
Speaker 2: for now because I feel like we're on a first
48:22
Speaker 2: name basis. That was a train email. Great story and
48:25
Speaker 2: if you want to see if you can top Mark,
48:28
Speaker 2: you can send us an email too. Send it off
48:31
Speaker 2: to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
48:37
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
48:40
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48:44
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