0:00

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

0:03

Philip Zimbardo grew up poor in New York

0:06

City, in the South Bronx. As

0:08

he went to school and played in his neighborhood,

0:11

he noticed something. There were lots of

0:13

ways for kids from poor families to

0:15

get into trouble. One of the

0:17

things about growing up poor is you're surrounded

0:19

by evil, meaning people whose job

0:22

it is to get good kids to do bad things

0:24

for money. And even as a

0:26

little kid, I was always curious about why some kids

0:28

got seduced and other kids like me were able to

0:30

resist. Were some kids

0:32

smarter? Tougher? Lots

0:35

of people might draw such conclusions, but from an

0:37

early age, Phil found

0:39

himself interested in another explanation.

0:42

The context in which a good kid would

0:45

do something bad. The situation.

0:49

At school, Phil

0:52

got close to a classmate who was interested

0:54

in the same questions. And it was a

0:57

little Jewish kid named Stanley Milgram. We

0:59

were in the same class. We sat side by side.

1:01

He was the smartest kid in the class. He

1:04

won all the medals at graduation, so obviously nobody

1:06

liked him because we were all envious of him.

1:08

But he was super smart and super serious.

1:14

If you know anything about psychology, you

1:16

will know that these teenagers went on

1:19

to become two of the most influential

1:21

psychologists in history. Phil

1:24

became famous for conducting the Stanford

1:26

Prison Experiment where he turned the

1:28

university's psychology department into a makeshift

1:30

prison. Stanley Milgram

1:33

made his mark with a study that

1:35

examined the power of situations to seduce

1:37

good people to do bad things. It

1:40

involved asking a volunteer to administer a

1:42

memory test to another person. If

1:45

the answers were wrong, the volunteer

1:47

was told to deliver a series

1:49

of electrical shocks as punishment.

1:53

The study has invited a great deal of

1:55

admiration and a great deal of criticism over

1:57

the years. We're

2:00

going to begin today's show by taking you

2:02

through this famous experiment. As

2:04

you listen, pay attention to how you're

2:06

responding to the scene that unfolds, what you

2:09

think about the different characters, and how you

2:11

relate to them. Once

2:13

it's done, we're going to talk

2:15

with a psychologist who realized that

2:17

most people overlook something in the

2:19

experiment. We so often sort of

2:21

simulate, if I was in that Milgram shock

2:24

experiment, what would I do if I was

2:26

the study participant, right? Would I actually stand

2:28

up and go against these directives and say

2:30

no? But we kind of flipped

2:32

that idea on its head. Today

2:38

on the show, we continue our Innovation 2.0

2:41

series by looking

2:43

at the underappreciated power we exert

2:45

on others and how this

2:47

knowledge can transform our relationships, both at

2:49

work and in our personal lives. Flipping

2:54

the script, this week on

2:56

Hidden Brain. Support

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for Hidden Brain comes from Alta Beauty. This AAPI

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Heritage Month, Alta Beauty is

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celebrating the joy of belonging.

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Belonging to a community composed

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of intricate connections. Belonging

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to the heritage and birthright that is beauty.

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Alta Beauty spotlights the AAPI community, passing

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tell their stories sent to them. centered

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on heritage, joy, and beauty. Shop

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AAPI owned and founded brands

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at Ulta Beauty Stores and

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ulta.com. Stanley

4:15

Milgram grew up in a world that

4:17

seemed bent on destroying itself. World

4:21

War II was raging in Europe and Asia, and by

4:23

the time he was eight, the U.S. was

4:25

swept up in the conflict. 1941,

4:27

a date which will live in infamy. The

4:44

fields of battle were far from Stanley's home,

4:47

but as he grew older, he couldn't stop

4:49

thinking about the war and its implications. Stanley

4:53

was consumed by some big questions. Why

4:56

did so many people willingly kill Jews in

4:58

the Holocaust? Was everyone

5:00

who followed Nazi orders inherently evil?

5:03

Here he is in an educational film. Phil

5:17

Zimbato remembers his classmate asking those

5:19

same questions at James Monroe High

5:21

School. The high school student

5:24

was worried that the Holocaust could happen again

5:26

in America. And everybody said, Stanley, that was

5:28

Nazi Germany, that was then, we're not that

5:30

kind of people. And he would

5:32

say, I'll bet they thought the same thing. And

5:35

at the bottom line, he says, how do you know how

5:37

you would act unless you're in the situation? How

5:40

do you know how you would act unless you're

5:43

in the situation? Stanley's

5:45

theory was that the context that

5:47

people found themselves in shaped their

5:49

behavior. This went for

5:51

Nazis, but it went for ordinary people too. Most

5:55

of us never get to find out if we will

5:57

behave like Nazis, because most of us

5:59

never find us themselves in situations where

6:02

we are asked to behave like Nazis. By

6:07

the early 1960s, as a psychology professor

6:09

at Yale, Stanley decided to

6:11

test this idea. Under what

6:13

conditions would a person obey authority who

6:16

commanded actions that went against conscience? These

6:18

are exactly the questions that I wanted

6:20

to investigate at Yale University. Stanley

6:23

wanted to put volunteers in a situation where

6:25

they would be asked to do something that

6:27

was clearly wrong. Would they do

6:29

it? Follow instructions?

6:32

Obey orders? He

6:35

came up with a scenario that was

6:37

simple, ingenious, and wildly

6:39

controversial. An experimenter

6:42

wearing a lab coat invited volunteers

6:44

into a room. The

6:46

volunteers were told they were part of

6:48

a study about learning and memory. Some

6:51

would play the role of teacher, while others

6:53

would play a student. What

6:56

you are going to hear next is a

6:58

recreation of the study using voice actors. The

7:01

dialogue is drawn from a 1962 documentary

7:04

that describes the experiment. Before

7:08

we begin, we should know that some listeners

7:10

may find this section upsetting because

7:12

it involves descriptions of someone inflicting

7:14

pain on another person. Also,

7:17

there are two liberties we have taken in this

7:20

recreation. First, in the real

7:22

version of this experiment, the student

7:24

responded to the teacher's questions by

7:26

silently flipping a switch. We

7:29

have given voice to those actions. Second,

7:33

we have imagined the internal monologues of

7:35

some of the people in the experiment.

7:38

Those inner voices sound different from the

7:40

things they say aloud, and

7:42

you will hear them both throughout the scene. So

7:45

that is the setup for the experiment.

7:48

Remember, there was an experimenter and two

7:50

volunteers, one playing the role of

7:52

teacher and the other playing the role of student. The

7:55

experimenter began by explaining the

7:57

purpose of the memory test. find

8:00

out just what effect different people have on

8:02

each other as teachers and learners and also

8:04

what effect punishment will have on learning in

8:07

this situation. The experimenter told

8:09

the person playing the role of student to

8:11

sit in a chair. The

8:13

experimenter strapped down the student's arms

8:16

and attached an electrode to his wrist.

8:19

The electrode, the student was told, was

8:21

connected to a shock generator.

8:24

Then the experimenter explained, the teacher will read

8:26

a list of word pairs to you like

8:29

these, blue, girl, nice

8:31

day, fat neck and

8:33

so forth. You are to try to remember

8:35

each pair. For the next time through, the

8:37

teacher will read only the first word or

8:39

the first half of the word pair. The

8:42

student was asked to remember the second half

8:44

of the word pair. The experimenter

8:46

made sure to ask. Do you have any questions now

8:48

before we go to the next room? No,

8:51

but I think I should say this. About

8:53

two years ago, I was at the Veterans

8:55

Hospital in West Haven and while there they

8:57

detected a heart condition. There's nothing

8:59

serious, but as long as I'm having these

9:01

shocks, how strong

9:03

are they? How dangerous are they?

9:06

Well, no, although they may be painful, they're

9:08

not dangerous. Next,

9:10

the experimenter ushered the volunteer playing

9:12

the role of teacher into another

9:14

room. He gave him

9:16

a set of instructions. You will read each

9:19

pair of words in this list once to

9:21

the learner until you've read the entire list.

9:23

Direct your voice toward the microphone as the

9:25

rooms are only partly soundproof. Now,

9:28

if he gives the correct answer, you say

9:30

correct and go on to the next line.

9:32

The correct answer is

9:34

indicated in the right margin. I see. All

9:36

right. Looks easy enough. The experiment got on

9:39

the way. Attention learner, your teacher

9:41

is about to begin the test. Try

9:43

and remember the word pairs. Ready?

9:46

Begin. Blue. Girl. Right

9:48

so far. Nice. I think day. Fat.

9:51

The person in the other room made a mistake.

9:53

Fat. Was it hat? No. Wet.

9:56

The volunteer playing the role of teacher will

9:58

tell the learner that he was... was wrong.

10:01

As punishment, he would administer

10:03

an electric jolt. Incorrect. You'll

10:05

now get a shock of 75 volts. Oh!

10:10

Seems nervous. The experimenter

10:13

in the lab coat, meanwhile, was observing

10:15

the process. Please continue.

10:18

Cool. Okay, I'm pretty sure it's

10:20

day. Wrong. It's head.

10:22

105 volts. Ow! Come

10:24

on, get it right. I don't want to shock

10:26

you. Future, please continue. What should I do? You gotta

10:28

keep going. I wonder how far it'll go. Wrong. 135

10:30

volts. Answer. The

10:33

students trapped at the chair in the other

10:35

room kept making the day. Wrong.

10:37

Each time, the experimenter urged the volunteer

10:39

playing the role of teacher to keep

10:42

going, to administer a

10:44

stronger jolt of electricity. Wrong.

10:46

It's harsh. 150 volts. Ow!

10:49

Experimenter, get me out of here. That's all. He wants to

10:51

quit. Get me out of here. I told

10:53

you I had heart trouble. My heart is starting to bother

10:55

me now. Get me out of

10:57

here, please. My heart is starting to bother

11:00

me. I refuse to go on. Let me

11:02

out. He refused to go on. You want

11:04

me to keep going? The experiment requires you

11:06

to continue, teacher. Please continue. The next word

11:08

is sad. Hi,

11:11

hello. Next word's sad.

11:14

Uh, I don't know. Day? Wrong.

11:18

I'm up to 180 volts. 180. You're

11:20

gonna stop. Please continue. As the

11:22

shocks increased, so did the pain.

11:25

And so did the protests coming from the next

11:27

room. He's got a heart condition in there. I'm

11:30

gonna go. Your choice. Please continue.

11:33

Now I got a shock. 180 volts.

11:36

Ow! I can't stand the pain. You can't stand

11:38

it. Let me out of here. So,

11:40

are you gonna keep shocking him? You hear

11:42

him hollering. Poor guy. He's in there screaming.

11:44

I said before, the shocks may be painful,

11:46

but they're not dangerous. But he's in there

11:48

hollering. So, stop. You can't stand it.

11:50

What if something happens? You don't have to keep going.

11:54

The volunteer being asked to administer electric shocks

11:56

is in a difficult position. The

11:59

experimenter is O.J. him to continue, even

12:01

as the person in the next room begs

12:04

to be spared. Should he

12:06

keep going or stop? The

12:08

experiment requires that you continue, teacher. Whether

12:10

the learner likes it or not, we

12:12

must go on until he's learned all

12:14

the word pairs. I refuse to take

12:16

responsibility of him getting hurt. I mean,

12:19

he's there calling. It's absolutely essential that

12:21

you continue, teacher. There is too many

12:23

of them left. Please, go on. Who's

12:25

going to take the responsibility if anything

12:27

happens to the gentleman? I'm responsible for

12:29

anything that happens here. Please

12:31

continue. As the experiment progressed, the memory

12:34

test became more demanding. Next one.

12:37

Slow, walk, dance, truck, music.

12:40

Come on. Answer please. Come

12:42

on, get this right. I know it's for science, but I don't want to

12:44

hurt you. Wrong. 195 bucks. Ow!

12:47

Let me out of here! Continue, please. Let me out

12:50

of here! I don't know. You have no

12:52

right to keep... The experiment requires... I know it does, sir, but I

12:54

mean, you do know what he's getting in for. He's up to 195

12:56

bucks. That's pretty high. After

13:01

the study reached about 330 volts,

13:04

the screams from the next room were

13:06

unhealed. If

13:10

the learner doesn't answer in a

13:12

reasonable time, about four or five

13:14

seconds, consider the answer wrong. And

13:17

follow the same procedures you had been

13:19

doing for wrong answers. Say, wrong, tell

13:22

them the number of volts, give him

13:24

the punishment. Go

13:27

on, please, with the experiment. Please continue.

13:29

He's freaking... Soft,

13:32

rug, pillow, hair,

13:35

grass. Answer, please. Go

13:39

on, teacher. 360 volts. I

13:43

think something's happened to that fellow in there. I didn't

13:45

get no answer. He was hollering

13:48

at less voltage. Can you check to see if

13:50

he's all right, please? Not once we've started. Please

13:53

continue, teacher. In

13:55

all, Stanley Milgram ran about 20 different iterations

13:57

of this study over a span of years.

14:00

of several years. In

14:02

this version, many of the volunteers

14:04

playing the role of teacher showed

14:06

discomfort but continued with the experiment.

14:09

More than half went all the way to 450 vols,

14:13

even when the screams from the next room went

14:15

silent and the student was

14:17

presumably unconscious. Why

14:19

didn't the volunteer stop? Stanley

14:22

later debriefs some of the volunteers. Why didn't

14:24

you stop anyway? I did stop but he

14:26

kept going, keep going. But

14:29

why didn't you just disregard what he said? He

14:32

says it's got to go on, the experiment. If

14:35

you're familiar with the study, you already know

14:37

that the student in the other room was

14:39

an actor and not actually

14:41

given electric shanks. The

14:44

screams and cries of protest were

14:46

carefully timed recordings. The

14:49

only target of the experiment were the volunteers

14:51

who played the role of teacher, the

14:54

people who had to administer the shanks.

15:00

Stanley Milgram's study generated enormous

15:02

attention and controversy. Admires

15:05

drew parallels between the experiment and

15:07

what happened in Nazi Germany. They

15:09

said, look, people are sheep. They

15:12

can be easily misled by demagogues

15:14

and dictators. Critics

15:17

of the study said, no, those

15:19

conclusions are vastly exaggerated.

15:22

They questioned whether the volunteers actually behave

15:24

the way the experiment suggested. Some

15:27

critics said that many volunteers simply

15:29

refused to go along. Beyond

15:34

the academic debates, the study prompted

15:36

an entire sub-genre of books and

15:38

movies. Even today,

15:40

people find the study fascinating and

15:43

they find it fascinating for one reason. How,

15:45

they ask, could people who know that

15:48

something is wrong go along with it?

15:51

Are such people typical? Is

15:53

everyone susceptible to such influence? Am

15:55

I? As

16:00

we listen to the details of the study, we

16:02

can't help but ask, what would I

16:05

do? Would I follow orders

16:07

and zap the person screaming in the other room?

16:17

But Vanessa Bonds, a psychologist at

16:19

Cornell University, realized there was

16:21

something no one was paying attention to. Everyone

16:25

was asking what was going on in the

16:27

minds of the volunteers and how difficult the

16:29

situation was for them. No

16:42

one was asking whether it was difficult

16:44

for the experimenter wearing the lab coat

16:47

to tell the volunteers to administer electric

16:49

shocks. To the extent

16:51

we think of the experimenter at all, we

16:54

might imagine someone who enjoyed putting people

16:56

in difficult situations, a sort of mad

16:58

scientist. Vanessa

17:00

asked a deceptively simple question.

17:08

Vanessa's insight was radical. What

17:11

if you looked at the experiment, not from the point

17:13

of view of the students screaming in the next room,

17:15

and not from the point of view of the

17:18

volunteer administering the shocks, but

17:20

from the point of view of the person giving the

17:22

instructions? Teacher, please continue.

17:29

What if you treated the experimenter as

17:31

the object of study? Get

17:33

me out of here. I told you I

17:35

had heart trouble. My heart is starting to

17:37

bother me now. Get me out of here,

17:40

please. My heart is starting to bother me.

17:42

The experiment requires you to continue, teacher. Please

17:44

continue. Please continue. I

17:47

said before, the shocks may be painful,

17:50

but they're not. So

17:52

are you going to keep on talking? Why

18:02

do so few of us put ourselves in the

18:04

shoes of the experimenter? Why

18:07

don't we ask how difficult it was for him to

18:09

issue those instructions? Why

18:12

is it, when we hear the story, we

18:14

automatically put ourselves in the shoes of

18:16

the volunteers, the people receiving

18:18

the instructions? Vanessa

18:21

realized that we all naturally gravitate to

18:23

the point of view of the volunteers

18:25

and not the point of view of

18:27

the experimenter because we all

18:29

instinctively know what it feels like to

18:31

have other people put us in uncomfortable

18:33

situations. We think

18:36

of our bosses, our partners, our co-workers,

18:38

and how they affect our lives and

18:40

change our moods. We

18:42

think of the aggressive driver next to us or

18:45

the other patrons at the restaurant who are

18:47

so loud and obnoxious that they ruin

18:49

our meal. We feel

18:51

buffeted and pushed and pulled by those around

18:54

us. So one

18:56

thing we don't ask, what

18:58

effect do I have on other

19:00

people? There's been a

19:03

long history of research on social influence and persuasion,

19:05

so we do know a lot about how

19:08

other people influence us, but we don't

19:10

know so much about how we experience

19:12

our influence of other people. When

19:16

we are intensely focused on how the world affects

19:18

us and not how we affect

19:20

the world, this can

19:22

have profound consequences for

19:24

both good and evil. You're

19:34

listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

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Support for Hidden Brain comes from T-Mobile. The

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slash now. This

20:33

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. When

20:35

Vanessa Bonds was a graduate student at

20:38

Columbia University, she worked on a study.

20:41

Every day she would leave her

20:43

apartment in the Morningside Heights neighborhood

20:45

and take the subway from 116th

20:47

Street to Penn Station. Penn

20:50

Station. Once she

20:52

was there, she had to do something she

20:54

found very difficult. Basically I would just

20:56

go up to random people in Penn Station, say,

20:58

hey we've got this questionnaire. Vanessa

21:01

no longer remembers what the questionnaire was

21:03

about, but she can still recall what it

21:05

felt like to make such requests

21:07

of total strangers. Yeah, I mean I

21:09

still have flashbacks of going down to Penn

21:11

Station because it was so distressing. I

21:14

would walk in, there'd be people kind of walking all

21:16

over the place, and then there'd be people just sitting

21:18

down waiting for their trains. So I'd

21:20

usually go up to the person who was sitting

21:22

there waiting for their train, you know, doing whatever

21:24

they do to kind of occupy their time, and

21:27

I would say, excuse me, will you

21:29

please fill out the survey? It felt

21:31

incredibly awkward, stepping into

21:34

someone's space, disturbing them, asking

21:36

them to stop doing what they were doing and

21:39

to do something she wanted them to do. As

21:43

Vanessa asked for help and waited for an answer,

21:45

her palms began to sweat. Her

21:48

heart started beating faster. It was a really

21:50

sort of palpable fear that they were going to

21:52

reject me or worse, right, say

21:54

something mean. I don't even know what, but

21:56

I expected them to say something terrible. Coming

22:00

back on the moment now, it reminds

22:02

her of another Stanley Milgram study, one

22:05

that's less famous than the obedience experiment.

22:07

He had his research

22:10

assistants go onto New York City subways and

22:12

ask people for their seat. Many

22:14

of his students couldn't complete the task. His

22:17

students started coming back to him saying, I can't do

22:19

this, this is just so upsetting, this is the most,

22:21

you know, distressing thing you've ever

22:24

asked me to do. And he was like,

22:26

you guys are being babies, I don't understand

22:28

why this is so upsetting. And

22:30

so, to prove his students wrong, the

22:32

famous researcher set out for the subway himself.

22:36

He would do what his students couldn't,

22:38

walk up to strangers and

22:40

ask them for their seats. He found

22:43

the experience so much more distressing than

22:45

he expected it to be, and all

22:47

of a sudden he understood why they had been complaining so much.

22:50

Why is it so hard to make such requests? Well,

22:53

one obvious explanation is that we know that

22:56

people will reject us and

22:58

that rejection is painful. Vanessa

23:01

remembers being hugely relieved when she was

23:03

done giving out questionnaires at Penn Station

23:06

and could head back to her lab at Columbia

23:08

University. Once there,

23:10

she and her professor, Frank Flynn, analyzed

23:13

the responses to the questionnaire. They

23:16

noticed something intriguing. Frank was like, I

23:18

can't believe how many people are actually saying yes to you.

23:21

Total strangers, disrupted from

23:23

reading their newspaper or eating a sandwich or

23:25

watching the crowds of people in the busy

23:27

station, they were like,

23:30

sure, I'll respond to

23:32

your questionnaire. We were really surprised by

23:34

how many people were agreeing in New York

23:36

Penn Station to do this survey. What

23:39

began as a simple observation turned

23:41

into something much more important, an

23:44

insight about our minds. Here's

23:47

the chain of thought that led to the discovery. The

23:50

reason Frank and Vanessa were surprised that so

23:52

many people said yes is

23:54

because the expected people to

23:57

say no. If

24:01

lots of people said yes, that meant that

24:03

Vanessa's fears about rejection were

24:06

misplaced. Her perception of

24:08

the influence she actually had on other

24:10

people was wrong. Like

24:13

most of us, Vanessa had long felt that others

24:15

had a big effect on her. As

24:18

she gazed at the data, she realized that

24:21

she had a big effect on other people.

24:24

If she was blind to this power, what

24:27

consequences could it have on her behavior?

24:32

As researchers, the first thing that Vanessa and

24:35

Frank decided to do was test if their

24:37

personal experience was

24:39

generalizable. We decided to bring participants

24:42

into the lab and have them do basically what

24:44

I had done on those number of days. So

24:47

we brought them into the lab, we said, hey, we're

24:49

going to have you go out and ask people to,

24:51

as our first step, fill out a survey, just like

24:53

I had done. How many people do you

24:55

think are going to say yes to you? We made them estimate

24:58

how many people they thought would agree, go out

25:00

and actually ask people. What

25:02

we found was that they really underestimated the

25:04

number of people who would agree to that

25:07

request. So it wasn't just

25:09

Vanessa and Frank. People

25:11

in general seemed to have a poor assessment

25:13

of their power over others. People

25:16

thought that others would find it easy to turn

25:18

down their requests. Vanessa

25:20

connected the seeming blind spot in our

25:23

thinking to Stanley Milgram's famous obedience study.

25:26

She realized this might be why everyone always

25:28

saw the experiment from the perspective

25:30

of the volunteers asked to administer

25:32

shocks, the people being

25:34

influenced. No one saw

25:37

the experiment from the point of view of the

25:39

experimenter, the person exercising

25:41

influence. We don't

25:43

ask, was it hard for him to issue

25:46

those crazy instructions because we

25:48

don't identify with people exercising such

25:50

influence. We think that kind

25:52

of person must be very different from us because

25:55

we don't feel we have such

25:57

power. people

26:00

going along with this crazy request he was making

26:02

of them. So it's interesting when

26:04

people think about the Stanley Milgram study,

26:06

and I think this is true for

26:08

myself as well, I always imagine myself

26:10

being in the role of the volunteer

26:12

in the experiment, hearing the instructions from

26:14

the experimenter saying, you must shock this

26:17

other person. I never put myself in

26:19

the shoes of the experimenter. Exactly.

26:21

So that was something that we

26:24

started to wonder about. So we so often

26:26

sort of simulate, if I was in that

26:28

Milgram shock experiment, what would I do if

26:31

I was the study participant? Would I actually

26:33

stand up and go against these directives and

26:35

say no? But we kind of

26:37

flipped that idea on its head. Vanessa

26:40

went back to her experience at Penn Station. It

26:43

felt difficult because she had seen the

26:45

interaction only from the point of view

26:48

of her own insecurities. She

26:50

hadn't seen the encounters through the point of view

26:52

of the people she was asking for help. From

26:55

their perspective, an anxious young woman was

26:58

asking for something trivial. They

27:00

had to weigh whether to put aside what they were

27:02

doing and help her for a few minutes.

27:04

If they said no, it could

27:06

make them look like jerks. It's this

27:08

really interesting phenomenon where you have these

27:11

two people interacting with one another, and

27:13

they're both so focused on their own

27:15

personal anxieties and insecurities and concerns with

27:17

embarrassment that they don't realize that the

27:20

other person is feeling that way too.

27:22

So it's this really interesting situation where

27:24

being so inwardly focused on your own

27:27

anxieties makes it so difficult for you

27:29

to recognize what the situation really is

27:31

for itself. People in

27:33

these encounters experience what psychologists call

27:36

an egocentric bias. They are so

27:38

consumed with their own perceptions that

27:41

they fail to see what the interaction feels

27:43

like for the other person. It's

27:47

absolutely true that many of us are

27:49

influenced by situations that many of us

27:51

will do things because the situation prompts

27:53

it. But there is

27:55

another problem too, and it might be a deeper

27:57

problem. The people who put

27:59

us in those situations, it's not

28:01

like they are all powerful gods. They

28:04

are humans just like us, and

28:06

they may not realize the extent of the power

28:08

they have over us. In

28:10

fact, they may be thinking, I'm

28:12

sure this portion is going to turn down my request. They

28:16

might assume, falsely, that it's

28:18

easy to refuse instructions. Vanessa

28:22

realized that this bias could have

28:24

all sorts of important consequences. So

28:27

what we started looking at about over a

28:29

decade now, ago, we started

28:31

to look at whether we recognize when

28:33

we're the ones who are influencing someone

28:35

else, when we recognize that someone else,

28:38

for example, can't say no to something

28:40

that we've asked them. Vanessa

28:48

is now a psychologist at Cornell

28:50

University. In a series

28:52

of experiments, she has demonstrated how people

28:54

are often oblivious to the power that

28:56

they have over others. In

28:58

one study, she asked volunteers, mostly college

29:01

students, to make a simple request of

29:03

others. We brought people into the lab,

29:05

and we told them, you're going to go out

29:07

into campus and ask people to borrow their phones.

29:10

She walked them through how to approach someone and

29:13

gave them instructions for what to do once

29:15

people agreed to let them use their phones.

29:17

They would call us back at the lab and say,

29:19

I have this person's phone, this is where I'm located.

29:22

We'd mark it down, and then they'd go on and ask

29:24

somebody else. Before the volunteers went

29:26

out to begin the study, Vanessa asked them

29:29

a question. How many people would

29:31

they have to ask to get

29:33

three people to say yes? At

29:35

this time, participants are kind of freaked out by

29:37

this whole thought. They are convinced everyone's going to

29:39

say no, they're not going to be able to

29:41

do the task. Before they actually go out into

29:44

campus to do the task, they often would ask

29:46

us, well, what if no one agrees? Do I

29:48

come back? What do I do? They have all

29:50

these concerns about not being able

29:52

to complete the task. What

29:54

Vanessa found was similar to her own experience

29:56

at Penn Station. Many

29:58

more people said yes. then the

30:00

volunteer is expected. They thought they had to ask a little

30:03

over 10. They actually had to

30:05

ask more like six. In

30:07

fact, every other person was agreeing

30:09

to this request. Maybe

30:11

you think the students had a high success

30:13

rate because they were requesting something trivial. But

30:17

Vanessa has also conducted a version of

30:19

the study where volunteers had to ask

30:21

for something more consequential, many.

30:24

For that study, she enlisted the help

30:26

of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Societies Team

30:29

in Training program. What people do

30:31

when they participate in a fundraising activity for

30:33

team in training is they ask

30:35

people for donations so that they can participate

30:38

in some sort of race, like a triathlon

30:40

or a marathon. They get

30:42

some training and some travel money to be able to

30:44

do that, and the rest of the money actually goes

30:46

to the organization. Vanessa asked participants

30:48

how many people they would have to

30:51

solicit to meet their fundraising goals, which

30:53

were typically thousands of dollars. They

30:56

estimated they would need to ask about 200 people

30:58

to meet the goal. What we found is

31:00

that they actually only had to ask about half that,

31:02

so they only had to ask about 100 people in

31:05

order to reach their fundraising goals. Justice

31:07

in Vanessa's phone study, her

31:09

participants doubled the number of people they thought

31:11

they had to ask to reach their goal.

31:14

Their egocentric bias caused them to focus

31:16

so much on their own anxieties that

31:19

they ignored the influence they actually had

31:21

over other people. You're thinking about what

31:23

you're asking. I'm asking this person for money. Will this

31:25

person give me money? What you're

31:27

not doing is thinking about what if

31:30

you were sitting there, potentially

31:32

in your cubicle, and

31:35

a coworker came up to you and said, hey, I'm

31:37

participating in a race. Would you be willing to sponsor

31:39

me? If you were sitting there,

31:41

it'd be really hard to say no to

31:43

your coworker. It'd be really hard to let

31:45

them down. It'd be really awkward. What would

31:47

you even say? And so people are kind

31:49

of put on the spot and they find

31:52

it really difficult to say no, so they go

31:54

ahead and agree. Thank you. At

32:00

the University of Chicago, economist John

32:02

List has also studied the relationship

32:04

between social pressure and

32:06

charitable giving. John ran

32:09

a study where experimenters knocked on the doors

32:11

of some 8,000 houses in

32:13

the Chicago area. They

32:15

were trying to raise money for a children's

32:17

hospital. John asked me

32:19

to imagine the scenario from the point of view

32:22

of the person receiving the request. Let's

32:24

say it's a Sunday afternoon. I've

32:27

just made myself something to eat. I'm

32:29

relaxed. You're sitting on the couch watching a

32:31

football game and you hear somebody

32:33

knocking on the door and

32:36

you think, okay, should I get up or should

32:38

I stay watching the football games? Of course, a

32:40

lot of people get up and answer the door.

32:43

But once they see that there's a solicitor

32:45

at the door, they say,

32:48

oh my God, I wish I would have

32:50

stayed on the couch watching the football game.

32:52

Too late. If they tell the

32:54

solicitor no, then they

32:56

have this very negative or disutility

32:58

from letting someone down. So

33:01

they're weighing that off versus just

33:04

giving them $20 and having them go on

33:06

their way. John

33:08

added a very interesting twist to the study. Some

33:11

households were told ahead of time that a

33:13

fundraising volunteer would come and knock on the

33:15

door. Others

33:17

were not told ahead of time. They

33:19

just received an unexpected knock. What

33:22

we find is that when we warn them, of

33:24

course, many people just stay on the couch or

33:26

they leave the house. They never answer the door.

33:30

The people who do answer the door,

33:32

they do tend to give money. And

33:35

much of that is because of altruistic

33:37

reasons. But the

33:39

people who we do not warn, they end

33:42

up answering the door more often and they

33:44

give more. Put

33:46

another way, people understand how they're going

33:48

to feel when they're put on the spot.

33:51

They often will go to great lengths to

33:54

avoid getting in such situations. What

33:57

this also means is that some significant

33:59

portion of the money that charities

34:01

raise might not come from

34:03

altruism. In the case of

34:05

the Children's Hospital fundraiser, for example, What

34:08

you find is that roughly three-quarters

34:10

of the dollars given are due

34:14

to social pressure, and a

34:16

quarter of the dollars given is

34:18

actually due to altruism. So a

34:20

very small component of what we

34:22

observe in our door-to-door fundraising drive

34:24

is actually driven by altruism. John's

34:28

research reminds Vanessa of a classic study

34:31

where researchers set up two booths on

34:33

a college campus. One

34:35

booth was clearly asking people for something,

34:37

while the other did not ask for

34:39

anything. What the researchers

34:41

found was similar to John's donation study.

34:44

They measured how far away people walked from the

34:46

booth as they walked by this path, and if

34:48

people knew that they were going to be asked

34:50

for something, their distance from the booth was much

34:53

further than if they didn't think they were going

34:55

to be asked for something. We just kind of

34:57

avoid any chance of having to say no to

34:59

somebody. We've

35:04

seen how egocentric bias can cause us

35:06

to act in helpful ways to others. We

35:09

lend phones to people who need them, or donate

35:11

money to charity. Unfortunately,

35:13

though, there's another side to the

35:15

story. They grabbed that

35:17

headset and they threw it across

35:19

the room. When

35:22

we come back, the sinister side of

35:24

our inability to recognize our power over

35:27

other people. You're listening

35:29

to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

35:55

When we interact with others, we are

35:57

often intensely focused on how we feel.

36:00

Our anxieties, our embarrassments,

36:03

our fears. As a

36:05

result, we're often blind to the effect

36:07

we have on others, their

36:10

anxieties, their embarrassments, and

36:12

their fears. Psychologist

36:15

Vanessa Bons has studied how such

36:17

egocentric bias can keep people from

36:20

asking for help. But

36:22

that's not the whole story. There's kind of

36:24

the happy story, which is that people will help

36:27

us more than we think, and

36:29

then there's kind of the darker story, that people

36:31

will do a lot of other things for

36:34

us more so than we think. We've

36:36

run some studies where we started out

36:38

asking people if they could get someone

36:40

to lie for them. Our

36:43

original studies involved just filling something out. We

36:45

said, what if we just have

36:47

them ask if they'll sign their name to

36:49

something saying that you gave them a pitch

36:52

that you didn't actually give them, just kind

36:54

of a white lie. Once

36:56

again, we had people guess how many

36:58

people they would have to make this

37:00

request of before a certain number

37:03

said yes. They went out onto campus. They asked people,

37:05

you know, I'm supposed to be doing this pitch. I

37:07

really don't feel like doing it. Will you just sign

37:09

this thing that I gave you the pitch? And

37:12

again, most people wound up signing it, even though

37:14

our participants thought that most people would say no.

37:18

As Vanessa says, the volunteers were

37:20

asking people to tell a trivial lie. And

37:23

perhaps you could say, what's the big deal

37:25

in signing a note that says someone gave you

37:27

a pitch that they didn't? There

37:29

are no real moral consequences. So

37:32

Vanessa raised the stakes. So

37:35

what we did is we created these fake library

37:37

books. We took a bunch of books off my

37:39

bookshelf and just, you know, put some library

37:42

codes on them. And

37:44

we gave them to participants and we said, we're

37:46

going to have you go into the libraries on

37:48

campus and ask people to vandalize

37:50

these library books. And so

37:52

they were to tell people, I'm playing a prank on

37:55

my friend, but they know my handwriting. Will you please

37:57

just write Pickle in this library book and pen? and

38:00

they left it at that and looked at

38:02

whether or not people agreed. And

38:04

what we found is that the people they approached, so

38:06

they kept track of sort of the things that people

38:08

said when they made this request of them, and

38:11

people would say things like, this is wrong,

38:14

you shouldn't be doing this, we could

38:16

get in trouble. They were clearly uncomfortable

38:18

with the prospect of vandalizing this purported

38:20

library book, but

38:22

they still did it. And

38:27

again, that finding went completely against

38:29

the intuitions of the volunteers doing

38:31

the asking. People

38:33

significantly underestimated how much influence

38:35

they possessed to get others

38:38

to do something unethical. So

38:40

our participants, before they went out and started asking people,

38:42

they thought about 28% of people would agree to do

38:44

this, right? So they thought the

38:46

vast majority of people would say no. But

38:49

when they actually went out and made this request of people,

38:51

64% of the majority of

38:53

the people they asked actually agreed to

38:55

vandalize this library book. I

38:58

mean, that's actually pretty astonishing that 64% of people would

39:00

say yes. I mean, I would not have predicted it

39:02

would be as high a number as that. Yeah,

39:05

I mean, this was a task we designed and

39:07

we were like, this is never going to work,

39:09

right? There's no way people are actually going to

39:11

agree to do this. And we ourselves were completely

39:13

surprised that people did agree. As much

39:16

as it was uncomfortable for them to do

39:18

this unethical thing and vandalize a library book,

39:20

it was way more uncomfortable for them to

39:22

say no to the person who was asking.

39:28

The scenarios in which egocentric bias could

39:30

play a role in our behavior seem

39:32

endless. We share the

39:34

answers to our homework with a friend who asked

39:36

to see our work. We

39:38

don't push back when a colleague suggests bending the

39:41

rules on a timesheet. We

39:43

agree to keep a friend's infidelity a secret,

39:46

even when it makes us uncomfortable. Listening

39:49

to Vanessa made me realize why there is

39:52

a vast gulf between what we predict we

39:54

might do and what we actually

39:56

do when we are confronted with

39:58

problematic behavior. look as

40:00

outsiders at the situation and we say, why would you

40:02

tolerate this? Why wouldn't you just stand up and say,

40:04

I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to

40:07

hurt another person. I need to be able to do

40:09

my job and you're affecting my ability to do my

40:11

job. But in fact, the

40:13

social pressure, the

40:15

concern about offending another person, the

40:18

social anxiety in that situation is

40:20

so palpable to that individual that

40:22

it feels almost impossible for them

40:24

to stand up and say

40:26

something about it and reject the sort of

40:29

behavior that they're encountering. Hidden

40:32

Brain listener Anna Abou-Rouze called in

40:34

with a story that illustrates how

40:36

egocentric bias can affect workplace behavior.

40:39

She was training to be an air

40:42

traffic controller and saw examples of bullying

40:44

and harassing behavior all around her. She

40:47

says the trainers had a

40:49

clear message for trainees. Don't

40:51

be soft or you

40:54

know, you got to have thick skin

40:56

to survive in air traffic. That was a

40:59

common one for sure. You have to have

41:01

thick skin to survive in air traffic. I've

41:03

heard that over a hundred times. Anna

41:05

recalled one painful incident. There

41:08

was a trainee that was trying to

41:10

clear an aircraft for landing and

41:13

the trainer in that moment

41:16

grabbed the headset of the

41:18

trainee and this headset is

41:20

plugged in to the radar

41:23

and they grabbed that headset and

41:26

they threw it across the room,

41:28

which would fly off of the

41:30

head of the trainee. They

41:33

would actually tell them, hey, hurry

41:35

up and go grab it so that you

41:37

can plug back in and clear this aircraft

41:39

for landing. Anna

41:42

says seeing such incidents made her fearful.

41:45

She didn't feel she could complain since

41:47

such behaviors appear to be the norm.

41:50

Who could she complain to? The people

41:52

who were themselves acting badly? They

41:55

would just say things like, what the f*** are you

41:57

doing? If you do that, again,

42:00

I swear to God. One time

42:02

when she was directing aircraft, this was in real

42:04

life not a simulation, she found

42:06

herself sitting next to one of the

42:09

trainers who she says had acted abusively

42:11

toward trainees. By

42:13

this point, Anna was no longer a trainee. She

42:16

was directing two aircraft. One

42:19

was a thousand feet above the

42:21

other. I got the names of

42:23

the aircraft mixed up. And

42:27

I, because I was so nervous, I think, and

42:30

I descended the wrong aircraft.

42:33

I descended the one on top instead of the

42:35

one on the bottom because

42:38

I got those call signs messed up. She

42:41

told the aircraft that was at a

42:43

higher altitude to descend directly

42:46

into the path of the

42:48

lower altitude aircraft. Luckily, the pilot could

42:50

see the aircraft, so the pilot just

42:53

said, no, we're not going to descend. And

42:56

I immediately knew what I had

42:58

just done. And I thought

43:00

today was a clear

43:02

day. It was clear skies. There was no

43:04

clouds in the way. There wasn't any storm clouds in the way.

43:07

But had there been storm clouds or

43:11

had there been some other kind of visual obstruction,

43:14

this plane would have descended and they

43:17

would have hit that aircraft. And

43:19

I would have been responsible for hundreds of deaths. And

43:23

it wasn't because I didn't know how to control the

43:25

traffic. I did. And I had done this

43:27

a million times. It

43:30

was because of the social stress that

43:32

I was in at that time

43:34

that didn't make me think clearly. I

43:41

told Vanessa Barnes what Anna described, how the

43:44

mere presence of the trainer had disrupted her

43:46

to the point where she made a mistake

43:48

that could have been catastrophic. Vanessa

43:51

said, look, it's certainly the

43:53

case that there are lots of unethical people

43:55

who know they are unethical and

43:58

lots of bullies who know they are bullies. Maybe

44:01

that was the case here, but

44:03

there is a deeper problem in the workplace that we

44:05

often forget. The bullies

44:07

and harassers who don't know

44:10

that they are bullies and harassers. Often

44:13

when we're the person causing someone

44:15

else distress, we can't see that

44:17

distress. It's invisible to us, and

44:19

it's not to let anybody off

44:21

the hook because clearly it's the

44:24

people creating this toxic culture's responsibility

44:26

to kind of fix it and

44:28

to not cause these things to

44:30

happen. But there's also

44:33

this cognitive bias there where we

44:35

may not realize the extent to

44:37

which we're interfering with somebody else's

44:39

performance. These same dynamics play

44:41

out in another common occurrence in the

44:43

workplace, unwanted romantic attention.

44:46

We ran a couple of studies

44:48

where we asked people about their

44:50

experiences being asked out at work

44:54

or asking someone out at work. We

44:56

asked people to imagine situations where they weren't interested

44:58

in the other person or the other person wasn't

45:01

interested in them. What

45:03

we found is that people who asked somebody

45:05

out at work and

45:07

were rejected thought that it was pretty easy for

45:09

that person to reject them. They didn't

45:12

think that that person experienced a whole lot of

45:14

distress. They didn't

45:16

think that they changed their behavior very much after

45:18

being asked out. But when

45:20

people recall situations where they were asked out

45:22

by someone at work who they weren't interested

45:24

in, they described feeling obligated

45:26

to say yes, feeling much more uncomfortable

45:28

saying no to the person, and they

45:30

reported doing all sorts of things to

45:32

try to avoid that person that the

45:34

other person didn't realize that they were

45:36

doing. In fact,

45:38

this little request, we tell people to just

45:41

go for it and ask this person out,

45:44

it actually puts a lot more pressure on the other

45:46

person than we tend to realize when we're the

45:48

ones doing the asking. In some ways,

45:50

we underestimate the pressure that we exert on other people.

45:53

In some ways, that's the moral of the whole story

45:55

here, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah.

45:58

We underestimate the... influence

46:00

that we have over other people, and

46:02

we underestimate the extent to which asking

46:04

them for something really puts them in

46:06

an awkward position, because now they

46:09

have to say no, and that's just a really hard thing

46:11

for people to do. Like

46:14

many psychological biases, the tendency we

46:16

have to downplay the influence we

46:18

have on others can have far-reaching

46:20

consequences. It can keep

46:22

us from asking for help that would be forthcoming.

46:26

It can keep us from reaching out and making

46:28

friends with strangers. And

46:30

it can also lead us to give in

46:32

to unethical demands or make improper demands of

46:34

other people. I

46:36

asked Vanessa how her research had

46:38

prompted her to do things differently

46:40

in her own life. It has made a

46:42

huge difference. And the little

46:45

things, so for example, when I was

46:47

pregnant, if I needed a

46:49

seat on the subway or on a

46:51

train, I would kind of stand there

46:53

and look around and try to look

46:55

my most pathetic so that someone would

46:57

give me their seat, thinking that someone

46:59

would step up and do it because

47:01

they were nice, right? But

47:03

in fact, everyone's all involved in their

47:05

own stuff. They're not necessarily looking around

47:07

and paying attention. And maybe they'd

47:09

be perfectly happy to give up their seat, but they're

47:12

not going to think of it unless you actually ask.

47:15

And so I tried to take that into account. So when

47:17

I was pregnant, I would go up to people and be

47:19

like, hey, can I sit down? I'd really

47:21

love to sit. And then of course, people

47:23

are incredibly happy to just pop up and say yes. And

47:26

what's interesting, of course, is when that happens, you're actually

47:28

giving people an opportunity to do something nice. It's not

47:30

just that you're imposing on them. Presumably, some of them

47:32

are actually happy to say, you know, I was just

47:35

writing to work and now I actually got to do

47:37

this nice thing for this other person. I feel this

47:39

little warm glow. Yeah, absolutely.

47:41

So a lot of people wonder about the

47:43

takeaway. So if people agree to

47:46

help us out of obligation because they feel like

47:48

they can't say no, then do

47:50

you really want to ask them for things? But

47:52

people are really good at justifying their behaviors and

47:54

ways that make them feel good about themselves. So

47:57

they may agree to help because they feel like they

47:59

can't. say no, but pretty quickly after that they're

48:02

going to be convincing themselves that they helped because

48:04

they're a really wonderful person. And so everyone's going

48:06

to walk away feeling good about the interaction. You

48:08

got the help that you needed and the other

48:10

person gets to feel like a good person. Psychologists

48:18

once conducted a lighthearted version of

48:20

Stanley Milgram's obedience study. In

48:22

the 1970s, they had research assistants stand

48:24

on the streets of New York City.

48:27

Their jobs? To look skyward.

48:31

At nothing. The question

48:33

the researchers wanted to know was whether

48:35

innocent passers-by would also stop to look

48:37

up to see what was going on. They

48:41

found that when more people were in on the

48:43

gag, more pedestrians stopped and

48:45

looked up. I've

48:48

seen video of that study many times and

48:50

always found this scene funny. One

48:52

to fifteen people just staring off into the

48:55

sky. Recently, I

48:57

rewatched it and this time

48:59

I did what Vanessa had done. I

49:02

flipped the script. Instead

49:04

of seeing the experiment from the point

49:06

of view of the passers-by and asking

49:08

myself whether I would be similarly influenced,

49:12

I looked at the experiment from the point

49:14

of view of the research assistants. Did

49:17

they expect so many people to join them in

49:19

looking at nothing? We've

49:25

seen throughout this episode how all of

49:27

us as individuals have great power to

49:29

shape how others behave. If

49:32

each of us has this hidden

49:34

power, then collectively as groups, as

49:36

communities, as tribes, we are

49:38

going to have even more influence. How

49:42

we choose to use that influence? That's

49:44

up to each of us. Hidden

50:00

Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our

50:03

audio production team includes Annie

50:05

Murphy-Paugh, Kristin Wong, Laura Quirell,

50:07

Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew

50:10

Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara

50:12

Boyle is our executive producer. I'm

50:15

Hidden Brain's executive editor. We

50:18

end today with a story from our sister show,

50:20

My Unsunk Hero. It's brought

50:23

to you by T-Mobile for Business. Our

50:26

story comes from Bethany Renfri. I

50:28

was 20 years old. My baby girls

50:31

and I were living in low-income apartments.

50:34

Most of my neighbors were single mothers

50:36

like myself. And

50:38

I remember how overwhelmed I felt that morning.

50:40

It was a cold day in the apartment.

50:43

I dragged myself to the sink, and

50:46

it was stacked with dishes, with

50:48

pots and pans that had been soaking because

50:50

I'd burnt them all. I didn't know how

50:52

to cook back then, and I would always

50:55

burn our pans. And

50:57

I looked at my twin girls.

50:59

They were 18 months old. They sat in

51:01

their high chairs. The baby, the

51:04

newborn, was in her swing. I

51:06

looked back at the sink, and

51:08

I just couldn't bring myself to do those

51:10

dishes, and I couldn't look at

51:12

them any longer. It was

51:15

a reminder of how overwhelmed I

51:17

felt in my own life. So

51:20

I grabbed a white garbage bag, and I

51:22

stacked the dishes in there one by one.

51:25

I walked out in the rain, and I placed

51:27

it on the edge of the apartment dumpster because

51:30

the dumpster was full. And

51:32

I came back in, and the girls and I left for

51:34

the day. When I got back

51:36

that evening, it was dark, and my

51:38

porch was dark because I didn't even have

51:40

the energy to change the porch

51:42

light. But as we

51:45

were coming in, I kind of kicked something. It was

51:47

a box. And so I

51:49

brought it into the apartment and put it on the

51:51

table, and it was

51:53

my pots and pans, and

51:56

they were shining and sparkling, and

51:58

the girls' blues clues. plates and their

52:01

sippy cups and

52:03

a little handwritten note popped out on a

52:05

yellow piece of paper and it

52:08

said, I've been there

52:10

before you will make it

52:12

I promise you. I

52:17

don't know which of the single mothers

52:19

went out there that day and saw

52:22

that garbage bag and

52:24

understood what was happening but

52:26

if I saw her today I would

52:29

thank her for showing me that

52:31

we are not alone and we

52:34

are not bad mothers even in

52:36

our hardest moments. We

52:38

are surrounded by kindness and

52:40

understanding and I'm so

52:43

grateful to have learned that

52:45

lesson so early on in motherhood. Bethany

52:56

Renfri lives in Sutter Creek, California.

52:59

When she was 27 she went back

53:01

to school and earned undergraduate and master's

53:04

degrees. She is now

53:06

a legislative director in the California State

53:08

Senate. Today's

53:10

My Unsung Hero story was brought to

53:12

you by T-Mobile for Business. If

53:17

you enjoy Hidden Brain please take a moment and

53:19

share your favorite episode with two or three people

53:21

in your life. Word of

53:23

mouth recommendations really make a huge difference

53:26

in introducing new listeners to our work.

53:29

We truly appreciate your support. I'm

53:35

Shankar V. Danthem. See you soon. you