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  • Lec 1 | MIT 9.00SC Introduction to Psychology, Spring 2011

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    Watch at: 00:00 / 00:00:20The following content is provided under a CreativeCommons license.Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare continue tooffer high quality educational resources for free.To make a donation or view additional materials fromhundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare atocw.mit.edu.Watch at: 00:20 / 00:40PROFESSOR: Good afternoon.Congratulations for braving it through what's now become aweekly snow disaster.This week's maybe three of them or something.My name's John Gabrieli.This is Introductory to Psychology, 9.00.Watch at: 00:40 / 01:00This is a course about you.The entire course is what do we understand in a scientificway about human nature--how people's minds work, how people's brains work thatsupports their mind.This entire course is about what's a scientific way tounderstanding how people feel, think, and act in the world.Watch at: 01:00 / 01:20And so we're trying to say that we constantly think youmust in your everyday life think about why do you haveyour preferences, your desires?What's easy for you?What's hard for you?What's delightful for you?Why do other people behave the way they do?How do they think?How do they feel?Watch at: 01:20 / 01:40And so there's a lot of realms of this that are tough to getto by science.But what we're going to focus on this semester is where thescientific approach has shed light in the way that we usedto think about experiments and evidence,about how humans tick.And as we go through this semester, we'll talk about thebrain, we'll talk a fair bit about chapters from this book,Watch at: 01:40 / 02:00The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, from Oliver Sacks.It was a bestseller even when it wasn't [? a ScienceWare ?]course.It's a great book.You'll enjoy it.Short, really fun chapters.We'll talk about how we perceive the world; how wesee; especially, a little bit, how we hear; how we think; howwe feel; personality; how we differ from one to the other;Watch at: 02:00 / 02:20and what we're sort of like; and how we behave in theworld; development from childhood and infancy throughadolescence, through young adulthood, where you aremostly, through getting older, where I am; socialinteraction, how we behave in groups and think about otherpeople; and variation in the mental health orWatch at: 02:20 / 02:40psychopathology.And increasingly, we understand that there's a hugenumber of people who, at some moment in their life oranother, struggle with some aspect of mental health.And then we'll focus a lot on, not only the psychologicalaspects of what we study in terms of behavior, but alsothe brain basis of that, and think a little bit about toWatch at: 02:40 / 03:00what extent the mind is what the brain does, to what extentthe mind is what the brain does.And so for every dimension of being a human being that we'lltalk about, we'll also talk about what we understandcurrently from the neurological andneuroscientific literature about how the human brainsupports and contributes to differentaspects of being a person.Watch at: 03:00 / 03:20OK.So everybody who works in a certain field thinks thattheir field is really, really, really special, right?So here's why psychology is really,really, really special.So it's really, really special, I think, most of all,because every endeavor that we undertake at a university orWatch at: 03:20 / 03:40in society as a whole--it's about people, right, except for when we think aboutthe rest of nature.But people study biology, chemistry, and physics.And they think, right, that the sun orbits the earth forsome period of time.And then they think it's the other wayaround currently, right?OK, so people come up with these conclusions.Watch at: 03:40 / 04:00Even though we're trying to understand nature, it's peoplewho make certain investments in economics or behave in acertain way or vote in a certain way.It's people who make music and appreciate music, make art andappreciate art, read and write literature, right?So in all these dimensions, there's something veryWatch at: 04:00 / 04:20fundamental about what it is about the human mind thatgives birth to these areas of inquiry and how those areas,domains of human experience, are enacted.So my only goal today is to try to convince you in anumber of different ways that we're not simple video camerain our minds between our ears, recording the world in someWatch at: 04:20 / 04:40objective, simple way, that even the simplest, mostobvious things are interpretations of the worldaround us at many different levels of thought and feelingand perception.And then our minds, the way our minds are constructed,determines the world that we experience, that we see, thatwe act upon.And even very simple things that we think are prettyobjective and simple, right in front of our eyes, areWatch at: 04:40 / 05:00determined by inferences and deductions that our mindmakes, weighing sources of evidence in the world andcoming to conclusions about what's around us, what wehear, what we see, and how we think.So let's start with seeing.If your vision is reasonable, we say we see something, webelieve it, right?Watch at: 05:00 / 05:20So let's start with something very simple--these lines.So one of the tough things about psychology is ever sincethe Internet came into existence, people know everycool thing there is to know, right?OK.I can tell you when I began teaching, people said, oh mygosh, I've never seen such a thing.It's unbelievable!And then now, it's like two thirds of the class is like,Watch at: 05:20 / 05:40yeah, I've got that on my computer at home.We did that in third grade or whatever.So all I'm saying is enjoy the ones you haven't seen before,don't ruin it for your neighbors today, because it'sharder and harder to surprise the worldin a nice way, right?OK, but let's look at these lines for a moment here.And perhaps you'll have the sense, and maybe-- is itglaring up there, sir?Watch at: 05:40 / 06:00Let's see.OK, is that better?OK.Maybe not.So you might have the sense that this line is a differentlength than this line.And this might be somewhere intermediate, right?Watch at: 06:00 / 06:20Now you know, because of psychology, it's all a trick.But what's simpler than the length of a line?What's more objective in some sense thanthe length of a line?But if we look at the actual lengths, they'reall literally identical.But that center part looks different.So what does it mean for it to look different?It means our minds are determining as simple a thingas how long a line is depending on the otherWatch at: 06:20 / 06:40information surrounding it.It's an interpretation in context.If we're simply looking, the lines will look the same.Let's try another one.It's remarkable that those two lines are identical in length.[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: OK, all right.It's OK to test the limits of the credibility of theWatch at: 06:40 / 07:00audience, right?All right.Yeah.Of course, if our visual system were ludicrously off,we'd be constantly walking into walls and falling outwindows and things like that, right, if we weremisestimating at that length.So the idea where we have visual illusions-- and I'llshow you some more that I think you'll be impressed by--it's not that our visual system is messed up or thatWatch at: 07:00 / 07:20psychologists think it's hilarious to trick us.It's that lots of things our visual system is a brilliantat, but it's brilliant by having certain laws orprinciples that it follows.And we can show this following those principles by seeingthat when we mess with the typical circumstances, thoseprinciples calculate the wrong answer.Watch at: 07:20 / 07:40So here's another one.So, to most people, which line looks bigger, the one in themiddle or the one on the side?I know you know it's all a trick, right?OK.What could be more obvious than that this is longer?It's just a simple line, but if we draw red lines on top ofit then move them over here, they're dead identical.The central circle--Watch at: 07:40 / 08:00does one of them, the middle circle, looklarger than the other?Now you already know, intellectually, that it willturn out those two circles in the middle will be the same.But you have to convince yourself that it still lookslike they're different.Here there in red.Here they are next to each other.They're identical.Again, this is evidence that, even for a simple thing likethe size of a circle, your mind is making inferences.Watch at: 08:00 / 08:20And there are principles and laws that it's following thatdetermine what it is you think that you see.Here is two monsters chasing each other.But in fact, they're identical in size.The perspective cues make the more distantone look much bigger.This is from Ted Adelson.This is a beautiful demonstration of an illusion.Watch at: 08:20 / 08:40Ted Adelson's in the psychology department.There's a letter A here.And believe it or not, there's a letter B there.Let's see if this looks any better when it goes like this.It doesn't.All right.So one of the important things about illusions,demonstrations in this class-- and you will learn this as weWatch at: 08:40 / 09:00go along-- is occasionally they fail, and we come backand discover what the lesson of that is.So I'm just telling you it's showing you on mymonitor much brighter.It always has before.We'll adjust that.So I'm going to skip this, but I'll show you another time,because it's so good.And I'm going to feel bad about this.OK.Now, let's see.Watch at: 09:00 / 09:20This'll work.All the same shade of grey, right?Watch at: 09:20 / 09:40[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: Did that work reasonably from where you sat?We'll try a few more.Maybe.Watch at: 09:40 / 10:00For some reason, my connection'salways like this, sorry.Watch at: 10:00 / 10:20Does that one look lighter than that one that way?Yeah.Watch at: 10:20 / 10:40Now they look radically different, right?It's the same grey constantly.But again, the context is hugely determining how toWatch at: 10:40 / 11:00bright you see that grey.There it is.Watch at: 11:00 / 11:20Two boxes equal grey.Watch at: 11:20 / 11:40So things as simple as how bright something is or howlong something is depend on interpretation.Here's an illusion from Roger Shepard.It's kind of great.So here's two kind of differentWatch at: 11:40 / 12:00looking tables, right?But they're not that different.And watch.There goes one tabletop.You're not impressed that those are identical tables?OK.Watch at: 12:00 / 12:20Want me to do it again?That's the identical tabletop.To me, the one on the left looks pretty rectangular andthe one on the right looks pretty square-ish.You're not easy to impress, are you?[LAUGHTER]Watch at: 12:20 / 12:40PROFESSOR: You see that those two bars are moving togetherat the same time.Does it look like they're little steps?It'll show you.All right, fine.It's just like that, but now you add those bars.Does it look like little steps?[LAUGHTER]Watch at: 12:40 / 13:00PROFESSOR: One more of this kind.This is kind of fun.You see the way that the mask is turning?Watch at: 13:00 / 13:20It always looks like it's towards you, even though I'm--one of the rotations-- it's because of the way you'reinterpreting the light is influencing how youinterpreting what's--OK.So that's simply a consequence, as far as peopleunderstand that, that the source of the illumination isnot where you're used to, so you're misinterpreting whereWatch at: 13:20 / 13:40the illumination is coming from for the depth of theface, what's front and what's back, whether the nose issticking in or sticking out.OK.So again, the point in these illusions is, even for verysimple things our, minds make certain assumptions about howWatch at: 13:40 / 14:00we interpret the world.And that drives everything that we see and how we actupon what we see.So at a slightly higher or more conceptuallevel, I need your help.Now, there's lots of these things we'll do this semesterwhere you get to participate.The fun thing about--I said this course was about you-- when you could havethought that was a bit rhetorical, it's not.Watch at: 14:00 / 14:20It's truly about you.So you get to be your own laboratory.We get to share a laboratory sitting here.And what I'm going to do is ask for you to participate.You don't have to do any of these things sitting at yourseat, but I think it's usually fun to do them.So what's going to happen is I'm goingto show you a drawing.Watch at: 14:20 / 14:40If the people to my left--so about in the middle, but you can decide for yourself--about this way, let's have you be Group A if you're willingto be that way.All right.Because of that, I can't call you--I was going to call you guys Group B, but I already seeWatch at: 14:40 / 15:00that's getting me in trouble.So we'll call it Group B, but that really means equals A.But I'll just call it B, OK?So A and B, OK?So what I need is Group B--B for best, A for awesome, OK.[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: --Group B to close your eyes for a moment.Watch at: 15:00 / 15:20Group B, if you want to have fun with this, close your eyesfor a moment.Group A, you're gonna see some instructions, and read themsilently to yourself.And then I'll ask you a question about the picture.OK, Group A, you're now reading.Group B has your eyes closed.So read the instructions silently to yourself.Watch at: 15:20 / 15:40OK?Now Group A, close your eyes.Everybody has their eyes closed for a moment.Everybody has their eyes closed.Now Group B, look at your instructions.So A has their eyes closed, B is reading instructions.Watch at: 15:40 / 16:00OK?Everybody's eyes are open now.Everybody's eyes are open.Here's your picture.Take it in and I'm going to ask you a fewquestions about it.Look at it for a moment and inspect it.OK, here we go, ready?So just out loud--was there an automobile in the picture?AUDIENCE: No.PROFESSOR: OK.See, this is a smart class.Watch at: 16:00 / 16:19We're gonna have a--Was there a man in the picture?AUDIENCE: Yes.PROFESSOR: Was there a woman in the picture?AUDIENCE: Yes.AUDIENCE: No.PROFESSOR: OK.This side again, woman in the picture?AUDIENCE: No.PROFESSOR: All right, all right.OK, a child?AUDIENCE: No.PROFESSOR: An animal?Watch at: 16:19 / 16:40AUDIENCE: No.AUDIENCE: Yes.PROFESSOR: Ah.OK.And now it gets a little wild.OK?A whip?AUDIENCE: Yes.PROFESSOR: OK.A sword?AUDIENCE: Yes.PROFESSOR: All right, a man's hat?AUDIENCE: Yes.PROFESSOR: A ball?AUDIENCE: Yes.AUDIENCE: No.PROFESSOR: A fish?AUDIENCE: Yes.PROFESSOR: All right, so there's disagreement.And that's--we're a democracy, right?Watch at: 16:40 / 17:00So all these things are big setups, right?So here's what happened.Group A was told they were gonna look at a picture of atrained seal act.And Group B got the identical instructions, but they weretold you're gonna look at a costume ball.So you had an expectation of what you were going to see.That expectation drives your interpretation of the veryWatch at: 17:00 / 17:20thing you see next, which is this picture.OK?[LAUGHTER][CHATTER]PROFESSOR: OK, is that all right?Watch at: 17:20 / 17:40All right.And this is just for fun, right?It's a set up.You're participating nicely.But in the world, when groups that are arguing with eachother about things like peace settlements, read a document,or make a statement, how much do you think the perspectivethey start with guides the interpretation of what theyWatch at: 17:40 / 18:00read or what they hear?Because you didn't have big stakes in this.You weren't going, I believe in fish and if I don't see afish, I know things aren't just and my group will be nottreated fairly.You're not emotionally invested in, probably, whetherthere was a fish present.So your interpretation, your beliefs guide tremendouslyWatch at: 18:00 / 18:20what you think you see and how you interpret the situation--for complicated things or even easy thingslike lines or squares.And here's another kind of an example where you wouldinterpret that as a B for "baker" or13 if it's in numbers.Again, the context is driving a lot of the interpretation.Watch at: 18:20 / 18:40OK.Now this is one of those examples that, again, when--some number of years ago, it was a huge hit.And now, mostly people say, can't you come up withsomething better that we haven'tall seen on the internet?So if you know this, don't ruin it for the otherindividuals.Watch at: 18:40 / 19:00But what I need is a few volunteers--you'll be facing me this way-- who arewilling to count something.And it's MIT, we're pretty good at counting.Watch at: 19:00 / 19:20So what's the message of that?The message is--we've talked about what we perceive, what we see byexpectations in context.But it's also we have very limited what psychologistscall attentional resources.Watch at: 19:20 / 19:40We can pay attention to a limited numberof things at a time.And even when those things can be right in front of us, ifour attention is focused or occupied by something else,like counting the passes in a difficult scene--it wouldn't work if there was one or two passes only,because you would notice it.But when your mind is focused on identifying all the passesWatch at: 19:40 / 20:00among the players-- and the white shirts are moving,they're weaving with the other players and so on--then your attention is absorbed by that, and some ofit is not left over to notice what's right in front of you.And we'll talk more about that.But it's a huge thing with humans that we can payattention pretty well, on average, to a thing at a timeWatch at: 20:00 / 20:20under many circumstances.And the other things escape us completely, even if they'reobviously present if we were looking at them or payingattention to them.So here's another example of how our minds make our world--what we see and what we don't see, what we pay attention toand what we don't pay attention to.And that's something to do with how we hear.Watch at: 20:20 / 20:40OK, so I'm going to replay this.So listen to what the guy is saying.Watch at: 20:40 / 21:00Take a look, and just tell he--he's saying some letters, OK, just not a word.What is it?OK, most people think he's saying "da." "Da da, da da, dada." Now let's try that again.Watch at: 21:00 / 21:20I'm going to turn off the sound and I'm going torun the same film.What does his mouth look like it's saying?"Ga ga." OK?But now we'll do one more thing, which is turn the soundback on, have you close your eyes, and listenWatch at: 21:20 / 21:40to what he's saying.What's he saying?AUDIENCE: "Ba."PROFESSOR: Yeah.So it doesn't work for everybody every time.But the basic idea is most people think they hear theword "da" coming from the speaker.Watch at: 21:40 / 22:00And in fact, in their mind they do because that's howthey interpret what they're hearing.But in reality, the film clip is a film clip of the personsaying "ba ba ba." And then an audio recording of the personsaying "ga ga ga." Your mind intertwines across modalitieswhat you hear and what you see, integrates them in someWatch at: 22:00 / 22:20way below your level of consciousness.You're not thinking about it.And you come up with a different interpretation ofwhat you hear.Right?So what you see would be this one thing.What you hear is another thing.When your eyes are open and your ears are open, they meldtogether and produce something--a third thing that's entirely different.Again, your mind interpreted what you hear, not your earWatch at: 22:20 / 22:40interpreting what you hear, in a simple sense.OK.How about things that we know?So let's think about this.If somebody were to ask you which is farther east, closerto the Atlantic--San Diego, California, or Reno, Nevada?Watch at: 22:40 / 23:00Who likes San Diego as being farther east?A few hands.Who likes Reno as being farther east?OK.So, here's the mental map most people have-- the mental map--which is we know California's right next to the ocean withArnold Schwarzenegger protecting us on that side ofthe country, right?Watch at: 23:00 / 23:20And then Nevada's a little bit more towards Boston, right?OK.That's a mental map that most people have.And that's how the hands went up.This is the actual map.And the only actual map you've ever seen, ever-- on a globe,on a map, anything.Because California takes a big turn on the south, San Diego'sfurther east than Reno.Watch at: 23:20 / 23:40Why do we imagine, and most people do, that Reno isfurther east, when you've never seen a map or globethat's shown you that?Never ever, ever.Yeah.PROFESSOR: Because it's farther from the ocean,Watch at: 23:40 / 24:00because in our mind we go, California's way out there.There's nothing--Hawaii is the only one out there further west, right?So our mind makes this answer despite that.And that's what we think we might know.Now, we might not be totally certain.We might not bet the farm on that.Which is farther north--Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or Rome, Italy?Watch at: 24:00 / 24:20So start to think-- how would you think about that?It's not something you know.Nobody memorizes it, right?But how would you begin to think which isprobably more northern?What's your first gut?How many people like Philadelphia being more north?How many people like Rome being more north?There's kind of a mixture of hands.The answer is that Rome is north of Philadelphia.Watch at: 24:20 / 24:40Mostly people will answer that Philadelphia is north.Why they do that is they think the US and Europe, they'reboth sort of above the equator, below Antarctica,kind of a aligned, even historically, culturally.So they think, well, Rome is pretty south in Europe.Watch at: 24:40 / 25:00And it is.It's in Italy.Philadelphia's reasonably north in the US.It gets winters and all that kinds of stuff.So a northern city in the US has got to be north of asouthern city in Europe.But in fact, Europe is-- the whole continent is shifted upcompared to the US.So you won't-- wait until get your mind around this.Which is further north, Atlanta or Chicago?Watch at: 25:00 / 25:20[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: All right, all right.Sorry.It's sort of a joke.Because sometimes when you do this, people go like, wait aminute, all my assumptions are off.Like, where am I?What's reality?[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: OK.Here's one more-- two more.Watch at: 25:20 / 25:40Which is further north, Portland or Toronto?Now you are already learning the lesson go opposite.Whatever I thought, go opposite, right?But why do you think most people will answer thatToronto is further north?Canada is up there, US is below it, but in fact--that's the mental map in the colors.But in fact, Portland in Oregon isactually north of Toronto.Watch at: 25:40 / 26:00We'll do one last one.Which is further west?Which is further west, Miami, Florida-- which that's all theway towards the Atlantic Ocean--or Santiago, Chili-- which is towards the Pacific Ocean.Further west.So most people have a mental map that North America andSouth America are kind of lined up like that.Watch at: 26:00 / 26:20And so you say well, Miami is further east and Santiago'sfarther west.But in fact, South America is fairly shifted compared toNorth America.And Santiago is actually more eastern or Miami is morewestern, one relative to the other.Because in our head, we kind of think, North and SouthAmerica-- they're kind of lined up even though we neverWatch at: 26:20 / 26:40saw a global map like that.So again, some of our knowledge guides how we thinkabout the world and what we believe we know.So what's the point of this?It's what used to be called telephone, right?Watch at: 26:40 / 27:00Their story keeps changing.And it's hard to remember details in a story.People remember a nugget, or what we call a gist inpsychology, a little point.And second, what you take as a point is how you then tell thenext person, the way you interpret the story,something like that.Thanks very much, that was good.[APPLAUSE]Watch at: 27:00 / 27:20PROFESSOR: Again, two things-- our memory for precise detailsis surprisingly modest.And how we interpret things matter changes things a lot.So now, you had four brave students demonstrating some ofthe limits and properties of memory.So now, here's an exercise you can do in your own seat.Watch at: 27:20 / 27:40OK, you're just knowing yourself how youdid, but here we go.I'm going to read you some words.And then just give you-- don't have to write anything down.If you write it down, it's no good.And then I'm going to ask you on a recognition test, whetheryou heard a word or not.Watch at: 27:40 / 28:00Ready?So here's the list.So just listen and then I'll test your memoryfor it right after.Here's the list.Sour, candy, sugar, bitter, good, taste, tooth, nice,honey, soda, chocolate, heart, cake, tart, pie.Watch at: 28:00 / 28:20OK?All right, how many people heard theword "sour?" All right.Yeah, excellent, thank you."Chair." "Candy." Hey."Honey." "Building." "Sweet." Every hand up there, you havea false memory.Watch at: 28:20 / 28:40[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: Now, it's a set up OK?Because here's the way they make these lists, it's a setup, but there's a huge lesson.And in fact, you may hear debates about what are realmemories, what are false memories, in court cases, inclinical cases.This is a laboratory experiment that's been thetesting ground for lots of ideas about how we make realWatch at: 28:40 / 29:00memories and how we end up with false memories.So here's the way they made the list.They took the word "sour." And they took a lot of studentsbasically like you and said, what's the first word youthink of that goes with sour?And people came up with this kind of a list.Candy, sugar, bitter, good, taste, tooth, nice, honey,soda, chocolate, heart, cake, tart, pie.Watch at: 29:00 / 29:20But they left out one word that peoplecame up with a lot.The word "sweet." OK?So your mind interpreted the list.You said, hey, this is all about things that are relatedto sweet things in one way or another-- sweet sugar, sweetcandy, sweet and sour, honey is sweet, chocolate is sweet.Watch at: 29:20 / 29:40So your mind imagined it heard the word "sweet." And themajority of you put your hand up that you actually heard theword "sweet." Your mind imagined it was there becausethat was generally what was going on.That was the gist of the experience, OK?So this idea is it's very easy, because of the wayWatch at: 29:40 / 30:00memory works, we remember the gist of things because that'swhat's the important part.It's hard to remember the details.But that gist is an interpreted gist.The gist was it's sweet things.So the word "sweet" feels like it was part of the memory.And we'll come back to that later on in the course.So one of the themes we'll talk about a lot in the courseWatch at: 30:00 / 30:20is both an amazing power of the human mind and an amazingperil of the human mind.And it's what psychologists call automaticity.It's that our mind, in order to be efficient and quick,does things automatically without thought, withoutconsciousness.It lets us walk without thinking a lot aboutwhere our feet are.It lets us speak quickly without thinking about theWatch at: 30:20 / 30:40syntax and the vocabulary, right?It lets us do a lot of things.So that's the power of it.The peril is when something becomes automatic, we losecontrol of it within ourselves.So I need somebody at their seat who's willing to readaloud something as fast as they can when they see it onWatch at: 30:40 / 31:00the computer monitor.If I can get a volunteer at your seat.OK, all the way back there, OK.And then I'll come to you for the second one.Ready?Here it comes.As fast as you can, go.AUDIENCE: One way not do enter.PROFESSOR: OK, then, you got it.I couldn't trick you.OK.But you might imagine a person might mistake that, right?Was there another one?Watch at: 31:00 / 31:20Was it you?OK, ready?Here we go.Go.AUDIENCE: Paris in spring.PROFESSOR: Ah.I got you on that.[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: Because your mind is automatically reading.We have lots of evidence in psychology that you're barelylooking at words like "the." You'reassuming over those things.They're almost invisible to you there even though they'reWatch at: 31:20 / 31:40physically present, because your mind is looking for thebig content, right?Who cares about the word "the?" Your mind is going forthe essential information, and it becomes literally blind towhat's in front of you, because it knows what it'slooking for.Here's a fun one.You've seen things like this before, but it'salways fun to try.It's the same principle.How many letter F's do you find in this display?Watch at: 31:40 / 32:00Can I get some numbers?Watch at: 32:00 / 32:20AUDIENCE: 6.AUDIENCE: 4.AUDIENCE: 5.PROFESSOR: 4, 5, 6.Those are all good.We're not an exact science.[CLAMORING]PROFESSOR: Some of you may have missed one or two F's.Watch at: 32:20 / 32:39Again, it's because your mind is automatically--typical readers read at spectacular speeds.And the way you read at a spectacular speed is you don'tlook for little details.You get the big words and the big ideas and you zoom throughfor the big meaning.And you're leaving behind what you consider to be details.Yeah.AUDIENCE: So if you ask this question to a society thatWatch at: 32:39 / 33:00pronounces "of" just like "off,"would that change anything?PROFESSOR: The question was if we asked a society that didn'tpronounce F's or something like that.AUDIENCE: That didn't pronounce F's as F's.In America, we pronounce it "of."PROFESSOR: "Of," you mean like a "v" sound orsomething like that.Does that matter for this?Yes.It also matters a lot that words like "of" are littleWatch at: 33:00 / 33:20preposition words that we don't think much about.So this is a set up.Like "finish," most people get.Or the beginning of a word you're more likely to get.I think the pronunciation probably matters.I don't know that for sure.That's a very good thought.And certainly, hiding it in words that seem low in contentfor interpreting a sentence is about the best way we did it.Watch at: 33:20 / 33:39That's why the second "the" disappeared too.It's sort of a low content word forprocessing a sentence.OK.This is an example that you know, but it's a nice exampleand we can come back to it a couple times.So let me think about this for one second.Watch at: 33:39 / 34:00Maybe we'll do it this way-- that we'll ask somebody attheir seat who has typical color vision.If you're color blind, this one is not a good one for you.Some percentage are.Is somebody willing at their seat to read aloud stuff theysee on a monitor?OK, thank you.Watch at: 34:00 / 34:20Here we go.So you're gonna see words that are printedin different colors.Your job is to name aloud the color of the ink that it'sprinted in.Does that make sense?So like on this F, you would say it's red onthat F. Is that OK?Here we go.So start here and just go.Watch at: 34:20 / 34:40AUDIENCE: Red, orange.PROFESSOR: As fast as you can, just keep going.AUDIENCE: Green, brown, pink, green, blue, yellow, red.PROFESSOR: Great, excellent.Same thing.Read the color of the ink exactly like you were doing.Go.AUDIENCE: Green, blue, red, blue, red, yellow, red.Watch at: 34:40 / 35:00PROFESSOR: Ah, you're pretty good.OK.It's supposed to slow you down when you get the ink in thewrong colors.And it usually does.But you were very good.All right.Again, if you know this from courses and the internet,don't ruin it for others, but think about it for yourself.Watch at: 35:00 / 35:20So now we're gonna turn to thought.There's 30 people in a room.Just imagine you sat-- there' just groups of 30 here.You get the month and date of each person's birthday.So it's not the year they were born, but it could be December1 or February 5 or something like that.What is the approximate probability that two peoplewill have the exact same birthday?Watch at: 35:20 / 35:40I can tell you the vast majority of people underslightly less suspicious circumstances of this willanswer about 10%.That's the vast majority.The correct answer is--OK?Why do you think--Watch at: 35:40 / 36:00this is work from Kahneman and Tversky.We'll come back to this.Why do you think people tend to answer 10%, some 30%?Very few people give you the mathematicallycorrect answer of 70%.Why do they do that?Because they tend to think, how often have I met somebodyWatch at: 36:00 / 36:20who has my exact birthday?And you go, not that often.It's not like every 30 people I meet, somebody says, youwere born on March 3.I was born in March 3.And then you go have lunch and you go, hey, I wasborn on March 3.And you go have dinner with another group and they go, Iwas born on March 3.It's not something that happens a lot, right?So you go, well, in real life it doesn't seemto happen very often.Watch at: 36:20 / 36:40That's what we call a heuristic-- a simple way tothink about it.Because your experience is kind of like that.But why is that incorrectmathematically for this question?Because the math depends on not that's exactly yourbirthday, but any pair of birthdays among the 30 people.And then it goes way up.In fact, it goes to 70%.Watch at: 36:40 / 37:00And if it's 24 people, it's 50%.If you're a group of 36 people, there's a 90% chance,just mathematically, that two people willshare the same birthday.Because when we face things that are hard to think about,because there's no easy answer, humans tend to takeshortcuts and say, what's the gist of my experience, andWatch at: 37:00 / 37:20that's what I think the answer is.Even when a calculable answer is available.It's human nature to make a shortcut based on your senseof your experience.So there's a very interesting line of work--Dan Gilbert of Harvard is a leading figure--about this idea of thinking about your future.Watch at: 37:20 / 37:40Now, thinking about our future is a big thing, right?We're thinking about what's it like in this course, what's itlike in college, what's our friendship like, relationswith parents, what's our future career paths, what kindof life will we lead, right?Our future is something that's hugely on our mind, I think,very powerfully when you're a college studentor a graduate student.Watch at: 37:40 / 38:00What's my future?And a big question that people have is what will make mehappy in a deep sense?What will make me happy in a deep sense?Because that's the life I want to lead--the values I want to have, the kind of career choices andpersonal choices I want to make, where I will devote mytime on this earth.So most people, first of all, tend to think about goodWatch at: 38:00 / 38:20things, positive things.Actually, I can tell you what comes later in the course.It's good to think that lots ofpositive things are happening.It's kind of a nice place to be in terms ofbeing a happy person.But it turns out that people have done studies like this.So now this is particularly sensitive for a facultyWatch at: 38:20 / 38:40member, but it could work for any sports team you've triedout or anything you've tried out for in your life.So what happens when we get reviewed for tenure?And you hear a bit about that.This was an easy study for a psychologist to do.What they did is they called up people in the fall who werebeing reviewed for tenure.And you get tenure or you don't.And it's a bit of a sad process if you don't, right,Watch at: 38:40 / 39:00because you don't get tenure, and then you don't feel happyabout that.And you have to call your parents and say, I didn't gettenure, and your parents go, come on, if you just sleptbetter, you would've gotten tenure.[LAUGHTER]PROFESSOR: Remember the piano lessons you didn't take.So it's a bit of a nuisance, right?On top of that--because weirdly, in academics, we tend to be superspecialized-- you have to move out of town.Watch at: 39:00 / 39:20You don't have to, but typically, a person whodoesn't get tenure will get a job somewhere else.There's plenty of stories of people who don't get tenure atawesome places who were geniuses in history.The tenure decisions are often wrong.But still, you'd rather get it than not.You'd rather get into the medical school than not.You'd rather make a sports team you wantto be on than not.Watch at: 39:20 / 39:40So here's what they found out.If they asked them what happens if you don't gettenure, everybody says, oh, it's gonna be awful.It's gonna be miserable.I'm gonna be such an unhappy person.Two years later, the average happiness of people who didn'tget tenure was equal to the average happiness of peoplewho did get tenure.So you can say, well, tenure-- onlyprofessors care about tenure.Watch at: 39:40 / 40:00Well, how about winning the lottery?What if I won hundreds of thousands of dollars?There' been a lot of psychology on this, actually.In about a year to two, the average happiness of a lotterywinner who won a substantial amount of money is rated thesame by him or her as it was the population as a whole.Yeah?AUDIENCE: How did they go aboutWatch at: 40:00 / 40:20measuring average happiness?PROFESSOR: Yeah, so we'll come back to this,but I'll tell you.You can like this or not like this.In some parts of psychology, we measure things likereaction time to the millisecond.That's good data, right?Our brain activation, that's good data.When you ask a person how happy they are, the only thingwe can do is have you basically fill a scale fromone to seven.Watch at: 40:20 / 40:40How happy are you?And you could go, well I'm a little worried about that,because sometimes people say, I hope that it makes you happyor something.So you could say, how much can we trustsubjective reports of happiness?And that's a very good question.On the other hand, it's hard to know what wouldbe better than that.If we measure your pulse, is that abetter measure of happiness?Watch at: 40:40 / 41:00Your pulse could be racing because you're sad or happy,scared or enthusiastic.So we don't have a better one that we can think of.But psychologists do worry that sometimes people willjust say what they're supposed to say.Or they'll pretend they're happy or things like that.We have to worry about those things.So you could worry deep down, but a year or two later,people who win huge amounts of money don't report themselvesWatch at: 41:00 / 41:20as any happier than people around them.And kind of amazingly--but I think it's deep about life--accidents leading to quadriplegia or paraplegia,accidents that, before you had such an accident you wouldimagine that it would be something extremely difficult.Watch at: 41:20 / 41:40And it can be in many ways.But by self report, ratings of happiness return to typicalaverage populations of the same agein about three months.So what's a huge lesson here in happiness research--a huge surprise.It's two things.We're kind of bad at predicting what will make ushappy or sad, which is kind of weird, right?Watch at: 41:40 / 42:00We're kind of bad at predicting it.Here's all these things where we think they would make ushappy or make us not so happy.It turns out we're wrong when this is studied at allscientifically.So we'll come back to that later on, because it's a verydeep thing about being a human--what makes you happy and your wrong guessessometimes about what does.Watch at: 42:00 / 42:20So let me end with a last experiment.So we've really haven't done experiments until right now.And this is now a sensitive and difficult issue, which isproblems we have in dealing with racism.And here's a study that did the following.It said, well, in North America, certainly, Canada,the US-- a study was done in Canada--Watch at: 42:20 / 42:40racism is widely condemned, as I think most of usbelieve it should be.But examples of blatant racism still occurred.One recent poll said that about a third of whiteindividuals reported hearing anti-black slurs in theworkplace in the last couple years--to pick one thing.So how does this happen in a society that speaks so muchWatch at: 42:40 / 43:00about not being racist, about treating everybody equally andfairly and kindly?How does it happen that we still struggle.And it's such a very deep, difficult question about humannature and the world we live in.But here's something again that's a hint about why it'shard to get society to change some of its behaviors.Watch at: 43:00 / 43:20So here's the experiment--so it's an actual experiment.So they took two groups of college undergraduates andrandomly assigned one to be in the forecaster group.That's a group that tells you how they think they would feeland how they think they would act under certaincircumstances.And then an experiencer group--that's a group who actually undergoes an experience, andWatch at: 43:20 / 43:40I'll tell you what that is now.So in the experiencer group, pretend you were theirresearch participant.You walk into a room, and you see in that room a black maleand a white male.Now those two are what psychologists, for somereason, have called confederates.Those are role players.They know what they're doing.Watch at: 43:40 / 44:00They have a plan of what they're going to do.They're going to put on a little show for you.But you don't know that.And the black male stands up and leaves the room to get hiscell phone, and he gently bumps the white male's knee.This is all set up.You're just sitting there and you see that little bump.And now, there's three different groups.One group, that's it.Nothing else happens--Watch at: 44:00 / 44:20A small bump, and the person leaves.A second group--as you sit there, the black individual leaves the room andthe white individual says, quote, "Typical, I hate itwhen black people do that." It's meant to be obviouslyprovocative and racist.And then what they consider an extreme slur--the white person in the room playing this role uses theWatch at: 44:20 / 44:40derogatory word that's meant to be an extreme slur.So there's one more thing you need to know.Now, you're sitting there, and you're either in the controlgroup where there's been the slight bump, or there's been amoderate slur, or an extreme slur in their words.The black male returns.Don't forget, he's in on it, and so is that white male.Watch at: 44:40 / 45:00But you're not in on it.You just think there was a bump, and something else mayhave happened, depending on which condition you're in.And the experimenter then gives you a survey about howyou feel right now.Sort of like the happiness, but it's not that.It's like, how do you feel right now?And then asks you to pick between those two people apartner for an anagram experiment thatyou're about to do.Watch at: 45:00 / 45:20So they're going to ask you--this is sort of this question you have.What's the difference or similarity between what yousay you're feeling is and what you really do?Both things are important, but do they line up, dothey not line up?So here's the results.Here's a graph.And here's how this works.Negative emotional distress the higher the bar, the moreWatch at: 45:20 / 45:40you say, I feel really bad about what's just happened.I just heard this comment or no comment.So let's take a look, the higher the bar.If you heard no comment, here's how you begin.So let's start with the forecasters.All of you are forecasters, because you're pretendingyou're in the situation but you're not in it.So here is there was no comments.Watch at: 45:40 / 46:00That's sort of average or something.And then you said if you heard a racial sluryou would feel terrible.You would feel terrible.But look at the other students who are randomly picked.So we don't think it's a difference among students.Look at these grey bars.They're pretty flat.The person on the spot is somehow not processing this.Watch at: 46:00 / 46:20And they're filling out, I feel average.You see the split--the split between the values that the person thinks theywould have, and the values that are responded to on thespot in the moment.And what we'll talk about later on in social psychologyis there's a tough gap, often, between the values we espouseWatch at: 46:20 / 46:40and how we act when there's especially unexpected,difficult things.And very often--if you've had any experience like this-- afterwards, yougo, oh, what I should have done is this.Or I wish I would've said that.But that moment is not happening at that moment,probably because you're kind of weirded outby the whole thing.What's going on?Why would the person say this?Watch at: 46:40 / 47:00Something doesn't seem right.I can't sort it out.And so people tend to shrink in terms of making a strongconclusion of what's going on if something seems unusuallyprovocative.And you could say, well, OK, that's their attitudes.But how about their action?Who do they pick to be their partner?And again, the people forecasting said, if I was inthis situation, I would never pick that racist white personWatch at: 47:00 / 47:20to be my partner, because that person stinks--if I was in that situation.But if the people are in the situation--look at the grey bars--pretty flat.It's a if on the spot, in the moment, they can't quiteprocess the values they feel and the actionWatch at: 47:20 / 47:40they're going to take.And we'll talk about that.And it's very hard, often, in part, to be braveand stand up to things.It turns out there's a lot of evidence for this.It's a human nature thing.It's very hard to be brave and stand up to things when thingsare kind of weird, because almost everybody at firstthinks, I don't want to make a fool of myself.Watch at: 47:40 / 48:00I don't want make trouble.Maybe I'm not getting the whole picture on this.And we shrink back from acting in a way that aligns with thevalues that are clearly shown here.So this, again, is something about humannature that's very weird.And it's powerful to come into social psychology.And that's why it's very hard to stand up to things likeoppression and bias.Watch at: 48:00 / 48:20It's very hard to do, because we tend to not act on ourvalues when we're in complicatedsituations on the spot.And there's a tremendous amount of evidence for that.So again, how we interpret the situation--very different in our mind when we imagine we're there,and when we actually sit there.And so what these researchers say is this is partly why it'sWatch at: 48:20 / 48:40been hard to eradicate some vestiges of stereotypes andracism, because people have a hard time clamping down on itin the moment.So that's a tough topic, but we know we want to deal bothwith things that are less controversial but also thingsthat touch people's lives in the real worldWatch at: 48:40 / 49:00that we live in.So we talked about a scientific studyof the human nature--mind and behavior--how what we see and hear is determined so much but how ourmind interprets the world around us; how we rememberthings like word lists or stories, that's hugelyinfluenced by what we expect to see, like in the picture;how we think we know things like where Reno is compared toWatch at: 49:00 / 49:20San Francisco; how we think about things like theprobability that somebody else will have the same birthday,that somebody else will in a group; and the relationshipbetween how we feel and how we act.The very feelings we have are often disconnected for actionsin the moment.And sometimes that has a sort of a difficult consequence.And so we'll explore all these things through the semester,Watch at: 49:20 / 49:40all the different facets that we could possibly get throughin one semester of what it is to be human, and where sciencehas showed us something about human nature, themind, and the brain.