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What is terror management theory? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. Hi. I'm Josh Clark. That was Chuck Brian
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Speaker 1: who just said, Hi, good times. When you put the
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Speaker 1: two of us together, you're gonna get something called stuff.
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Speaker 1: You should know. It's like mixing baking soda and vinegar
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Speaker 1: and chest hair. Oh god, that's stuff you should know.
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Speaker 1: It's explosive. All right, it is, um, Chuck, Yes, are
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Speaker 1: you okay? Yeah? Great? Okay? Does that that sound convincing?
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Speaker 1: And I know that you won't be okay By the
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Speaker 1: time we finished this one. I thought this is very
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Speaker 1: interesting and well written. Thank you very much. I would
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Speaker 1: agree with very interesting. No, of course, well written. I
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Speaker 1: had your fingers doing the typing. Thank you, Chuck. I
1:05
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Um, you want to do this one? Okay?
1:09
Speaker 1: So Chuck, there was a study UM released in a
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Speaker 1: little known journal called Conservation Letters. You may have heard
1:18
Speaker 1: of it. I hadn't until I read this. I hadn't
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Speaker 1: either until I found it. UM. But it was by
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Speaker 1: Conservation Internationals Will Turner and a couple other people from
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Speaker 1: that group, and Um. The point of this paper was
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Speaker 1: to point out that even though we may try to
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Speaker 1: mitigate climate change, we're still screwing things up. By trying
1:43
Speaker 1: to mitigate it, and by not preparing for the worst
1:48
Speaker 1: e g. Climate change, We're ultimately going to screw things
1:52
Speaker 1: up after the Earth is already screwed up. Let me
1:55
Speaker 1: give you a couple of examples. First, is um, one
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Speaker 1: fifth of all the world's tropical forests lie within a
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Speaker 1: few kilometers of areas that would be totally underwater if
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Speaker 1: sea levels rose by just one meter, right, Yes, thirty
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Speaker 1: one miles of heavy human population would be underwater. Thirty
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Speaker 1: one the forest are within thirty one heavy human populations, right,
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Speaker 1: And so these human populations aren't just gonna sit there
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Speaker 1: and drown one and take one for the Earth. Now,
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Speaker 1: we're gonna move upward, and as they move upward, they're
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Speaker 1: gonna encounter these forests, and they're gonna say, Hey, that
2:35
Speaker 1: bird looks delicious. Hey, I can burn this tree and
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Speaker 1: cook this bird. Hey, mama, let's get it on. That's
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Speaker 1: gonna be all sorts of weird things said in these
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Speaker 1: forests after climate change takes place, right, Yeah, these untouched
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Speaker 1: forests will now be touched and plundered. Right and um,
2:53
Speaker 1: by the way, these this same one five of the
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Speaker 1: forests are home to exactly half of all of the
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Speaker 1: Alliance for Zero Extinction sites, which means that these are
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Speaker 1: sites where animals that are filled with animals that are
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Speaker 1: on the verge of extinction. Humans show up. It's over right.
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Speaker 1: So that's if climate change happens and we don't figure
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Speaker 1: out what we're going to do for shelter and fuel
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Speaker 1: and food ahead of time, that's just natural. The other
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Speaker 1: scenario is, Okay, we're trying to mitigate climate change now
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Speaker 1: before some sort of disaster happens in the future. Right,
3:30
Speaker 1: So say hydroelectric power, Yeah, let's build a dam, and
3:34
Speaker 1: why not because that's a clean and green When you
3:38
Speaker 1: release water, it makes turbines move, which generates electricity, completely
3:43
Speaker 1: claim cleanly, right, So how can you go wrong? Chalk? Well, Uh,
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Speaker 1: it didn't say so in this particular paper, but I
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Speaker 1: remember a little podcast we did about the reservoir in
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Speaker 1: due seismicity, and a Science Channel short film we did
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Speaker 1: on that where building dams can potentially cause instability and
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Speaker 1: tectonic plates from the heavy water and then no water,
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Speaker 1: and if you build one too close to a dam,
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Speaker 1: it could cause an earthquake, cause an earthquake. So that's
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Speaker 1: one way. That's one way. Another way is that when
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Speaker 1: you build a day m that river backs up and
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Speaker 1: creates a lake in an area that wasn't ever really
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Speaker 1: supposed to be a lake in all of the deer
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Speaker 1: and the squirrels and the koala bears and the plants
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Speaker 1: are in big trouble. Right. Um. What's more, you also
4:29
Speaker 1: affect the fresh water downstream of the dam, and basically
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Speaker 1: you screw up the environment. Right. This sounds like a
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Speaker 1: you're darned if you do, you're darned if you don't
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Speaker 1: kind of thing, right, So chuck, Somebody reading a news
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Speaker 1: report about this paper, right could say, what's the point,
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Speaker 1: why do anything? Right? Just let me eat my hungry
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Speaker 1: man dinner. And I don't care anymore. I don't care,
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Speaker 1: like I can't do anything about it. And this that
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Speaker 1: the very understandable and reasonable reaction, is kind of caused
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Speaker 1: for concern among a lot of critics of the media,
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Speaker 1: because well, let's talk about whether or not science believes
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Speaker 1: that anthropogenic or man made climate change is real. Uh,
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Speaker 1: Josh National Academy of Sciences, who we actually know some
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Speaker 1: people there, very nice people. They did great work. We
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Speaker 1: do Hey Rick Hey, Rick um Hey Marty. Thirteen hundred
5:28
Speaker 1: and seventy two scientists were pulled by the proceedings of
5:32
Speaker 1: the National Academy of Sciences and agreed that an anthropogenic
5:38
Speaker 1: climate change is a real thing. And they even went
5:41
Speaker 1: so far as to say, what's up with you? Three like,
5:44
Speaker 1: what what do you what do you think? And they
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Speaker 1: kind of found out that they didn't have the expertise
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Speaker 1: to really determine that, right, they went back and shamed them. Yeah,
5:52
Speaker 1: based on the that three percent citation and publication rates.
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Speaker 1: They said, these these people are basically stick it, which
6:00
Speaker 1: is why they don't believe in manmade climate change. Right,
6:03
Speaker 1: So this pole at least indicates that science says, yeah,
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Speaker 1: manmade climate change is happening. It's a real thing. Okay.
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Speaker 1: So you have science on the one hand saying yes,
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Speaker 1: there's a problem people, and you have the public on
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Speaker 1: the other hand saying, all right, um, I don't want
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Speaker 1: to drown and I don't want to drive these species
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Speaker 1: out of extinction. What can I do? What can I do? Mr?
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Speaker 1: Scientists and The group that serves to connect these two,
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Speaker 1: the people who know there's a problem and maybe have answers,
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Speaker 1: and the people who can actually create change by carrying
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Speaker 1: out these these solutions is the media. And it's about
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Speaker 1: here where that disconnect comes about, especially when there's doomsday scenarios. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: let me read you another stat which feels a little
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Speaker 1: awkward because you found the stat a gallop pole. Last year,
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Speaker 1: the Future UH of Americans said they believe that the
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Speaker 1: seriousness of global warming is quote generally exact adgerated. And
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Speaker 1: that was a seventeen percent rise from when we supposedly
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Speaker 1: have a lot more information probably over that time period.
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Speaker 1: And you hit the nail on the head. It is
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Speaker 1: because of something called alarmism, thanks to something called the media, right,
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Speaker 1: and part of it, part of it is alarge alarmism.
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Speaker 1: Another part is that there's such a thing as professional
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Speaker 1: climate skeptics, bloggers, reporters, media influencers who are like, no, no,
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Speaker 1: it's not real and then take money from pr companies. Sure,
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Speaker 1: but part of it is alarmism. There's there's if you
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Speaker 1: put enough problems onto a person, they're going to just
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Speaker 1: throw up their hands and give up. Well, there's also
7:42
Speaker 1: a British study that you found that, um, the think
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Speaker 1: tank Institute for Public Policy Research. They did a review
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Speaker 1: of more than six d news articles in the UK
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Speaker 1: this is just in the UK right on climate change,
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Speaker 1: and they found we should read some of these. This
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Speaker 1: is the language, alarmist language being used by some of
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Speaker 1: these uh six articles. The climate of fear, serious climate
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Speaker 1: change is now inevitable. That was James Lovelock, for the
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Speaker 1: person who came up with the gaia theory. He also said,
8:15
Speaker 1: the same guy said the Earth has passed the point
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Speaker 1: of no return. He also called for the temporary suspension
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Speaker 1: of democracy until we can handle climate change. Yeah. Um.
8:26
Speaker 1: Another one said we're headed for Dodo status. Words like
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Speaker 1: point of no return, civilizational collapse, global chaos and Malcolm
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Speaker 1: Gladwell's favorite tipping point, your favorite person. Um. So that
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Speaker 1: was the alarmist language, right, And it creates the sense
8:43
Speaker 1: of enormity, right, And that sense of enormity creates a
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Speaker 1: reasonable distancing from the problem, like there's something I can
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Speaker 1: do about this, there's nothing any of us can do
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Speaker 1: about this. Yeah. But again to my hungry man dinner,
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Speaker 1: I have to admit, well, it's a pretty normal human
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Speaker 1: thing to do. Well. Basically you're kind of being charged
9:04
Speaker 1: with like save the planet now, or humans will be
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Speaker 1: extinct in the blink of an eye, right, and who
9:10
Speaker 1: was not going to shrink from that a little bit
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Speaker 1: and say where's my hungry man? Right? But they also
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Speaker 1: found that there are two other large categories that climate
9:18
Speaker 1: change reporting language can be put into. There's also, um
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Speaker 1: non pragmatic optimism, which is basically like, it's not gonna
9:27
Speaker 1: happen in our lifetime. Who cared? Right? Um? And then
9:31
Speaker 1: there's pragmatic optimism, which is like you can change your
9:34
Speaker 1: light bulbs and make a difference. We we can save ourselves,
9:39
Speaker 1: but we have to do something. That's pragmatic optimism. But
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Speaker 1: what they found was far and away the most common
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Speaker 1: type was alarmism, right because it sells uh, you know, headlines,
9:51
Speaker 1: It sells headlines, it sells headlines, sales papers, it does,
9:53
Speaker 1: but there really aren't papers anymore. So exactly so, Chuck Josh,
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Speaker 1: the guys who from this British thing tank what wasn't
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Speaker 1: uh the Institute for Public Policy Research, They they they
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Speaker 1: I don't think they meant to, which is fine to
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Speaker 1: say that they failed to show causation like you've got
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Speaker 1: alarms language. You have people who don't care about climate
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Speaker 1: change any longer, are afraid of the problems, aren't thinking
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Speaker 1: about it. Um. They didn't show that one caused the other.
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Speaker 1: They just show that they're correlated. But other studies have
10:30
Speaker 1: shown that if you manipulate the public in a certain way,
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Speaker 1: you're gonna have a counterproductive reaction from him, right, yeah,
10:37
Speaker 1: not the reaction that you're intending, right, which I thought
10:40
Speaker 1: this was really interesting. The Northwestern study you cited in
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Speaker 1: two thousand ten in Canada, they did a public service
10:48
Speaker 1: announcement a that said, uh, he beinge drinking has uh
10:54
Speaker 1: is a bad thing. You shouldn't bene drink. You should
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Speaker 1: feel guilt and shame for binge drinking. But what happened, well,
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Speaker 1: they found that people who were already exposed to send
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Speaker 1: to the feelings guilt and shame, and then we're shown
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Speaker 1: this tended to drink too, were likelier to go bench
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Speaker 1: drink within the next two weeks than people who were
11:16
Speaker 1: exposed to these ads, and we're had some sort of
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Speaker 1: neutral emotion going on, right, that's right. And even scarier,
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Speaker 1: there was one in two thousand nine in the Journal
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Speaker 1: of Experimental Social Psychology, which is a fun read um
11:30
Speaker 1: cigarette packs. They found that said really blatant aggressive messages
11:35
Speaker 1: like smoking can kill you actually increased smoking in some people. Right,
11:40
Speaker 1: very specific set of people. But if you're trying to
11:43
Speaker 1: get people across the board to quit smoking, it would
11:46
Speaker 1: be a good idea to not use these death related messages.
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Speaker 1: You want to go for death neutral messages. Is that
11:52
Speaker 1: what it's called. That's what it's called. Really Yeah, So,
11:55
Speaker 1: um that that study, that two thousand nine study from
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Speaker 1: the Journal of experiment Social Psychology UM was carried out
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Speaker 1: conducted by some terror management theorists. Chuck, that's right. Terror
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Speaker 1: management theory is the coolest sounding theory of all time.
12:12
Speaker 1: Has nothing to do with terrorism. So all of you
12:15
Speaker 1: who are listening to this podcast hoping for one on terrorism,
12:19
Speaker 1: you can now be officially disappointed. Yeah. And when I
12:22
Speaker 1: first saw terror management theory, the first thing I thought
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Speaker 1: it was terrorism. I think of terror. You know what
12:27
Speaker 1: I see in my mind? I see like a seventies
12:31
Speaker 1: horror anthology paperback cover terror management. Yeah, right, like um yeah,
12:37
Speaker 1: like maybe a red skull or maybe the the cover
12:41
Speaker 1: to Stephen King's Dense Maccabre. I've never seen that. Yeah,
12:45
Speaker 1: nice reference. Cep quab uh what queik way you had
12:51
Speaker 1: that great funny line at the end of that one podcast,
12:54
Speaker 1: which it was one that just came out recently. When
12:57
Speaker 1: I was doing the q A for the episode, I
13:00
Speaker 1: genuinely like was cracking up at my desk. That is awesome,
13:03
Speaker 1: It's very good. Okay, that happens all the time though,
13:06
Speaker 1: um so, where are we? Terror management theory? This was
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Speaker 1: created in the nineteen eighties by psychologists at the University
13:13
Speaker 1: of Miszoo go uh tigers tigers, Prairie tigers, Prairie tigers,
13:21
Speaker 1: Go prairie tigers, and based on the work of Ernest Becker,
13:25
Speaker 1: who was the author of Denial of Death, which a
13:27
Speaker 1: lot of you may have heard of, and we've talked
13:29
Speaker 1: about him before plenty. I think we've talked about him,
13:32
Speaker 1: and I think definitely, is there a worse way to die?
13:36
Speaker 1: He came up big time. Um. But he was an
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Speaker 1: anthropologist who basically said, um, okay, all culture is created
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Speaker 1: to distract us from being obsessed with our inevitable death.
13:51
Speaker 1: I think he was obsessed with death. He definitely was,
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Speaker 1: but through his obsession he managed to free himself. I imagine.
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Speaker 1: So that's what he thinks. It's a big distraction. Everything
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Speaker 1: from sports on TV, television, probably war is used as
14:08
Speaker 1: a distraction and to create meaning in life. Well, actually
14:11
Speaker 1: one of them, the war was a big one that
14:14
Speaker 1: he used. He used the the I can't remember what
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Speaker 1: it's called. It's not thanatology. That's like the study of death.
14:21
Speaker 1: Becker's was more like the obsession with death. Um. But
14:25
Speaker 1: basically he was saying, we we are aware innately that
14:30
Speaker 1: we do create culture to distract ourselves from death. So
14:33
Speaker 1: when we encounter another culture that's totally foreigner, alien to us,
14:38
Speaker 1: and we look at their culture, we see how ridiculous
14:41
Speaker 1: it appears, that their belief systems just appear ridiculous to us.
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Speaker 1: That it reminds us that we're we do the same thing.
14:50
Speaker 1: Our beliefs are ridiculous. And then we start thinking about
14:53
Speaker 1: our own deaths. So we want to destroy this culture
14:55
Speaker 1: that we encounter because it's reminding us of our own
14:57
Speaker 1: death and we hate it. How does that fit the
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Speaker 1: cultural relativism, wonder, that's the opposite of it. Cultural relativism
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Speaker 1: is is also flawed. You know, we we figured out
15:08
Speaker 1: to a certain extent because it just allows absolutely anything
15:11
Speaker 1: you know, wholesale. But it's the opposite of of what
15:14
Speaker 1: I just described cultural relativism is. But terror management theory
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Speaker 1: takes Becker's ideas and introduces them from anthropology to psychology
15:23
Speaker 1: and has really kind of started to standardize them. So
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Speaker 1: the idea is that you are afraid of your own
15:29
Speaker 1: demise and so you cling like uh mad to the
15:32
Speaker 1: culture that you most identify with and you've come to
15:34
Speaker 1: identify with. Yeah, and and they keep finding and study
15:37
Speaker 1: after study that this this theory holds up. And that's
15:40
Speaker 1: called what distal defense. Yes. Interesting, So let me give
15:45
Speaker 1: you an example of a study. There were there were
15:49
Speaker 1: a bunch of judges that were that were used in
15:51
Speaker 1: a study UM and I guess they chose prostitution to
15:55
Speaker 1: use it as like a it's the same case, same offense.
15:59
Speaker 1: It was easily standardized. Maybe, but they took some judges
16:03
Speaker 1: and basically were like, hey, you know you're gonna die
16:06
Speaker 1: eventually to one group. Then they did another group where
16:10
Speaker 1: they give him some activity that basically guaranteed um death
16:16
Speaker 1: saliency I believe, where they weren't thinking about death at all,
16:20
Speaker 1: And they sent both groups out to handle their prostitution cases,
16:24
Speaker 1: and the judges have been reminded their mortality tended to
16:27
Speaker 1: throw the book at prostitutes, and they the researchers theorized
16:32
Speaker 1: or postulated that the reason these guys through the book
16:36
Speaker 1: at prostitutes was because this was there they were buying
16:40
Speaker 1: into their culture. They were clinging to their culture morals
16:43
Speaker 1: and laws and what they believed in. And if you
16:46
Speaker 1: think about it, it makes perfect sense. Chuck. You've been hungover,
16:48
Speaker 1: like tragically hungover before, right, Uh, so you don't want
16:53
Speaker 1: to take any risks whatsoever. You kind of feel like
16:55
Speaker 1: you're at death store. You're on some sort of edge
16:58
Speaker 1: right there where you're really hanging out there and you're
17:00
Speaker 1: really vulnerable and like you you maybe you know my
17:03
Speaker 1: alwe notice makes you cry while you're watching it on
17:06
Speaker 1: the couch, or like you really need to be around
17:08
Speaker 1: Emily and have our support right then, right, Yeah, I
17:11
Speaker 1: think that's the that's the that's the root of it,
17:14
Speaker 1: that's the basis of it. When we're reminded of death,
17:16
Speaker 1: we cling to what we find comfort in, and we
17:18
Speaker 1: tend to find comfort in the charade of society or
17:22
Speaker 1: culture that we create. And I bet you you could
17:24
Speaker 1: even trickle it down a little bit, even beyond death,
17:27
Speaker 1: when you're feeling most fragile and vulnerable, which obviously death
17:31
Speaker 1: would be the ultimate invulnerable vulnerability exactly. But that's when
17:36
Speaker 1: you need to support most and you cling to what
17:37
Speaker 1: you know most, right. But I mean like, if you
17:39
Speaker 1: got fired from a job or you know something, there
17:43
Speaker 1: was some disruption to your normal life, You're you're going
17:47
Speaker 1: to cling to it. So that's distal. That's the distal defense.
17:50
Speaker 1: There's also proximal and this this is what regards the
17:54
Speaker 1: climate change. Yeah, and that's when you downplay the seriousness
17:56
Speaker 1: of something like, um that that's kind of me. I
18:00
Speaker 1: don't think about death much, and I'm one to really
18:02
Speaker 1: like play it down probably like, oh, you know, you're
18:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die when I'm old like everybody, but I
18:08
Speaker 1: don't want to think about that. You just downplay the
18:10
Speaker 1: significance of it, right, I wonder though, I mean, like,
18:13
Speaker 1: is that the best you can hope for, what to
18:15
Speaker 1: die when you're old? No, to to just kind of
18:18
Speaker 1: downplay it and not like genuinely not worry about it.
18:21
Speaker 1: Like is that really flawed? I hope not. I never
18:24
Speaker 1: think about death, but I guess what I asked, because
18:28
Speaker 1: I have the same approach, Like I tend to think, well, okay,
18:31
Speaker 1: I'm aware that I'm going to die one day. Um
18:35
Speaker 1: you know, I'm aware of death. I don't think about it.
18:37
Speaker 1: I'm not obsessed with that, especially not my own. Um,
18:41
Speaker 1: but I wonder sometimes, like in that last few minutes,
18:44
Speaker 1: am I going to freak out? Because people do? Yeah,
18:49
Speaker 1: you don't see that in the movies. Emily is a
18:52
Speaker 1: is very preoccupied with death. Yeah, she didn't talk about
18:56
Speaker 1: it much, but she's she's kind of a very dark side,
18:59
Speaker 1: like I'm driving home and I could easily slip off
19:03
Speaker 1: the road and hit that tree, or there's a tornado
19:06
Speaker 1: watch in the area and a tree is gonna fall
19:08
Speaker 1: in our house and kill us all in her sleep
19:10
Speaker 1: where I don't think about that stuff. But how does
19:12
Speaker 1: she react to that? Um, I think there's a low
19:16
Speaker 1: level of anxiety. Probably, Yeah, she would probably agree with that. Yeah,
19:20
Speaker 1: she didn't listen to the show. That's fine, see whatever
19:23
Speaker 1: you want now. Um, So you've got proximal and distal
19:27
Speaker 1: defense mechanisms when reminded to mortality, right, Yeah, and imagine
19:30
Speaker 1: both can probably happen to right, not one or the
19:33
Speaker 1: other right. Um, but with with the doomsday scenario and
19:36
Speaker 1: climate change, it seems like terror management can't explain that,
19:39
Speaker 1: um through the the proximal defense where you just downplay
19:43
Speaker 1: it and they're like, Okay, well, who cares, it's not
19:45
Speaker 1: that big of a deal. It's not gonna happen in
19:47
Speaker 1: our lifetime, that kind of thing. Um. So I guess
19:51
Speaker 1: if we were to uh give advice to the media,
19:54
Speaker 1: which we never do in an article. Yeah, and media
19:57
Speaker 1: doesn't listen to us anyway, even though we're sort of
19:59
Speaker 1: a part of it. Are I don't know if we
20:01
Speaker 1: are media fully concluded that yeah, yeah, Um, it would
20:04
Speaker 1: be to basically adopt the more pragmatic, optimistic approach I
20:10
Speaker 1: think tends to work. But it doesn't look like the
20:13
Speaker 1: media is gonna do it. Chucked because tell him about CFLs. Yes, Josh, CFLs. UM.
20:19
Speaker 1: When they first came out, it was all the rage
20:23
Speaker 1: in green living and as soon as everyone was like, yeah,
20:26
Speaker 1: you know what, I can deal with the fact that
20:27
Speaker 1: it looks a little funny and I'm not used to
20:29
Speaker 1: this whiter light. Um, I'm gonna do it because I'm
20:32
Speaker 1: gonna do my part, my very small part like I
20:35
Speaker 1: can't exact change against climate change. And then the media
20:39
Speaker 1: all of a sudden started reporting stories about mercury. Is
20:43
Speaker 1: it mercury in CFLs and you're gonna die if you
20:47
Speaker 1: used them exactly? Alarmist language. It's just sensationalism. Man. It's
20:52
Speaker 1: been around since the first words were printed, extra extra
20:56
Speaker 1: read all about it is like you're going to die
20:58
Speaker 1: from the plague, and it's still still around. In this case,
21:02
Speaker 1: it's climate change, and it's making people shrink under their
21:05
Speaker 1: couch instead of doing small things that can actually make
21:08
Speaker 1: a difference. Prescription. Dr Bryant, Um, You know what I
21:13
Speaker 1: do is I don't read. I don't watch local news.
21:16
Speaker 1: I don't watch I don't watch any news really, no no, no, no,
21:20
Speaker 1: no no no do you uh no, now that I
21:25
Speaker 1: think about it, not really. I mean I watch selective
21:28
Speaker 1: stuff like if if there's like a good video or something,
21:31
Speaker 1: I'll watch it. But I think I get most of
21:33
Speaker 1: mine news from Twitter or magazines. Yeah. I get most
21:36
Speaker 1: of mine from the Internet, and a lot of times
21:38
Speaker 1: not from you know, leading sources on the Internet. You
21:41
Speaker 1: can usually get an honest truth if you seek out
21:44
Speaker 1: some of these other websites. Okay, I wish I could
21:48
Speaker 1: think of one. So terror management theory and Ernest Becker
21:51
Speaker 1: makes another cameo. Thank you Dr Becker for showing up.
21:56
Speaker 1: Be Um. If you want to learn more about dooms, stay,
22:00
Speaker 1: climate scenarios, terror management theory, tobacco warnings. This article's got
22:05
Speaker 1: it all. You can type in doomsday and climate change
22:11
Speaker 1: and I think it'll bring this article up. And handy
22:13
Speaker 1: search bar brings up listener mail. That's right, Josh, we're
22:19
Speaker 1: gonna call this. Uh, these kids are ripping us off.
22:23
Speaker 1: Is this catholic stuff you should know? Now? This tongue
22:26
Speaker 1: in cheek? Um, so Josh, so Chuck. We are teachers, so, Jerry.
22:31
Speaker 1: We are teachers at Mountain Ridge Middle School in Colorado
22:34
Speaker 1: Springs at the base of America's Mountain Pike's Peak. We
22:38
Speaker 1: were inspired by your podcasts over the years and became
22:40
Speaker 1: regular listeners and decided our eighth grade class should write
22:43
Speaker 1: podcasts in the style of stuff you should know, record them,
22:46
Speaker 1: and edit them. Sounds like good conclu Yeah, cool exercise.
22:50
Speaker 1: So we shared portions of some of your podcasts with
22:52
Speaker 1: the kids, asked them to develop the plan and rubric
22:56
Speaker 1: and based on the elements they based on the elements
22:58
Speaker 1: that they heard in your show. The Chuck and Josh
23:01
Speaker 1: is ms, jazzy theme song, jokes, and stats, demonstrating a
23:05
Speaker 1: thorough understanding listener mail the whole soup to nuts nasically. Um.
23:12
Speaker 1: The students were permitted to choose their topics. We encourage
23:14
Speaker 1: them to find out what's the deal with whatever they
23:16
Speaker 1: were curious about. Topics range from hovercrafts to grilled meat
23:22
Speaker 1: and carcinogens to hypoglycemia. So these are some smart kids. Um.
23:27
Speaker 1: The sound quality isn't as crisp obviously, but you think
23:29
Speaker 1: you'll get a kick out of it. You should have
23:31
Speaker 1: heard our first one before we got microphones. Um. The
23:36
Speaker 1: most interesting aspect, though, guys, was you're really surprised who excelled.
23:40
Speaker 1: One pair of students didn't have a history of being
23:42
Speaker 1: the most academically motivated, but their delivery was really smooth
23:46
Speaker 1: and professional, and the emo kids were surprisingly funny. They
23:51
Speaker 1: seem to get the Chuck and Josh banner and uh
23:54
Speaker 1: could become excellent radio personalities one day awesome. Another group, um,
23:58
Speaker 1: shall we say, is not the most so really proficient
24:00
Speaker 1: face to face, but behind the microphone they really came
24:03
Speaker 1: alive and had a fluid delivery and we're animated that
24:07
Speaker 1: the chemistry was amazing between them. So that is from
24:10
Speaker 1: Emily and Sewn, who are the t A G Coordinator
24:13
Speaker 1: and IB coordinator at Enrichment Team Enrichment Team leaders, and
24:18
Speaker 1: we have a clip. They sent us a clip and
24:20
Speaker 1: we're gonna play just a little snippet right now. Guys think,
24:27
Speaker 1: hey from Colorado Springs, Colorado. It's just like mother used to.
24:32
Speaker 1: And here zerost with the face for radio decode. Dim
24:39
Speaker 1: Sum originated from the older tradition of tea tasting. When
24:42
Speaker 1: people discovered the tea health digestion, they began adding food
24:46
Speaker 1: to tea time, giving them dim sum. Dim Sum is
24:50
Speaker 1: a dish that involves small individual portions of food, usually
24:54
Speaker 1: served in a steam basket or on a plate. Dim
24:58
Speaker 1: Sum is typically served as a breakfast. This usually includes vegetables, steam, dumplings,
25:03
Speaker 1: roasted chicken and rice, and noodles. Awesome, pretty cool, huh Yeah,
25:08
Speaker 1: little emulators, yes, little rip off artists. Yeah, I know,
25:11
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding you. Guys will be hearing from our lawyers.
25:14
Speaker 1: That was an excellent job and we want to tell
25:15
Speaker 1: the whole class way to go, and that's really cool
25:18
Speaker 1: that your teachers did this. Yeah, so thank you Emily
25:20
Speaker 1: and Sean for letting us know about this. We appreciate it.
25:22
Speaker 1: You guys, keep on keeping on, keep doing all sorts
25:25
Speaker 1: of cool things. Don't be so judgment all of the
25:27
Speaker 1: emo kids people too. If you have a cool theory
25:33
Speaker 1: that you'd like us to hear of, I'm always down
25:35
Speaker 1: for cool theories, aren't you send it to us via
25:39
Speaker 1: email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
25:47
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
25:50
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
25:53
Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
25:55
Speaker 1: of our homepage. The house Stuff Works iPhone app has
25:58
Speaker 1: a ride. Download it to day on iTunes, brought to
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Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,
26:07
Speaker 1: are you