Memory Effects and Goal Setting

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All promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. Promotions may vary by market. Gambling problem. callall one eight hundred gambler. Ita worked out great I'm Angela Duckworth I'm Stehen Dener, and you're listening to No Stupid questions. Today on the show, why do we love to rooot for underdogs Stubner, I gott toa tell you, you don't have what it takes. You're right, cooach. I'm leaving now Also, Angela and Steben wonder whether it would be better to answer one question each week instead of two To can be as bad as one. the loneliest number is the number one Angela, we have an email here from one Kristen Callaway from Chicago. Okay who writes to say I was reading the morning newsletter from the New York Times this morning and it features the results of a new kind of poll The author of the newsletter says, Nothing produced a more positive response from poll respondents than hearing that a political candidate was a small business owner. It offered a bigger lift than any political position or demographic feature and it was popular across black, Latino and white respondents. Krist goes on to say, I have been working in the tech industry for a long time and a few companies I've worked for loved helping small businesses. I work for a Fortune one hundred company now and they too love helping small businesses. I love small businesses, she writes Everyone I know loves small businesses. We all want to support small businesses and really appreciate them So here's my question Why does everybody love small businesses and small business owners? Is there something psychological to that Is the love of small business universal and not just American Fascinating. The flip side of this, by the way, is that people do not love big businesses. No they don't. So I think what her question is really about is why do we root for underdogs I think that is the question. There's a little research on this. when you ask people, hey, there's this hypothetical match. It's a soccer match. Do you want to vote for the favored team? or do you want to vote for the team that is expected to lose and the disproportionate number of people will want to root for the underdog? I very much identify with that. I love underdogs and rooting for them But I've never really thought about wine. if you think about it, it's kind of crazy because Wouldn't you want to root for the winners? Yeah, don't you want to bask in the reflected glory of the winners. I don't think people rooting for underdogs necessarily means that they like to lose. What seems like irrationality. when you actually break it down, there is usually a why. If you are rooting for the dominant team and they win It's great, but it hasn't violated expectations. The payoff is not that large necessarily. It's like investing in IBM in nineteen fifty eight Yeah, it's kind of boring to win because it was expected. But when you win unexpectedly, all these lovely parts of the brain seem to light up. I think you could say like, hey, if I root for the underdog and they win, then I really get to enjoy the fruits of the victory. And the fact is you don't really pay that much for rooting for an underdog when they lose because they're expected to lose anyway. so it doesn't really cost you that much. Exactly. So on one hand, you win big and then on the other hand, it's kind of neutral I don't think that's the only thing that's going on though. I think about this with movies too Very often, I think the hero or the heroine is an underdog, somebody who is not expected by their family history or by some other plot feature to prevail, but they do. And I think that we identify more with the underdogs for the simple statistical fact that most of us are underdogs. like we're not Beyonce, okay? We are not JZ. We are not at the very top of a pyramid. We're somewhere in the masses below. And so of course, we're gonna identify more with that sort of character than we will with the unusually successful one I think also, however You've identified that there can be a resentment against the big or the successful In fact, when I looked at the newsletter that prompted this question There's actually a nuance that makes the result maybe a little bit less surprising than it appeared I'll read a little bit more from the newsletter. It said this morning, a creative new poll exploring these issues and the issues were What kind of political candidate is most attractive to voters The newsletter continues, it asks working class respondents defined as people without a bachelor's degree to choose between two hypothetical candidates So it may be a little bit less surprising that that demographic would opt in favor of the small business candidate, right that a lower income or maybe more working class person would identify with a small business much more than big business. If that's the case though Is that, do you think a philosophical identification? Is it mirroring In other words, that small business person is more like me than a big business person. Is it familiarity perhaps? I know person who runs the shop down the street versus I don't know Larry Page who runs Google? I think those would all be good, completely speculative possibilities. All of those things might be at play. I have noted when my husband and I are in need of buying something, he is always encouraging me to buy it from a small business I do a lot of Amazon one click shopping. and my husband's always like, but we could go down the street to the Joseph Fox. And I was like, I put in order. Go down the street to the what? sorry? The Joseph Fox bookstore. That's a small business in Philadelphia where we have a running tab. We try to go there for all of our literary needs. and I'm sorry to say that the Joseph Foxbookstore doesn't always have all of the titles that I'm interested in purchasing. And you can't buy from there in your pajamas and slippers, presumably? Not at four in the morning either. But my husband is adamant and really, really, really doesn't want to buy anything off of the internet from larger businesses that we can buy from local business owners And that's because why? Because he fears that the very presence of the Goliath will ultimately kill the Davids and that the Davids provide some values that are irreplaceable. Is that his big reason? Well, I wondered about the psychology of this, and I wondered whether he himself identified more as a David than a and it wasn't even that complicated. Jason says that he wants to live in the kind of neighborhood where there are small businesses because they enrich lives And he pointed out that if he and I and a lot of other people go to one cllick shopping for all of our needs, then we're gonna to be living in a neighborhood with nothing. like nowhere to buy a gallon of milk, nowhere to buy a book. And indeed, that's something to consider. And I do it some one click shopping nevertheless But I do try to shop locally. So do you feel conflicted? Do you ever, for instance, obscure or hide your Amazon behavior from Jason? Do you ask Amazon to deliver packages in Joseph Fox bookstore bags so that he can pretend that you're not violating your marital oath toward independent bookstores I haven't gone to covert one click shopping. Maybe I should feel a little guiltier than I do. I feel like I'm on the noble side of the ledger because I'm making any effort at all. You know, in the beginning, Amazon was seen as a threat to independent bookstores, but they were also seen, even by a lot of people in publishing is like, whoa, here's a company that could be selling anything and they're selling That is awesome And then the perception began to change quite rapidly. I saw the same art Goog Back in the day when Google started, it was this little y search engine. Fisty startup Fisty little startup kids, computer scientists from Stanford. And I remember when the New York Times, where I was working at the time installed the Google search engine on its computers and we were all, oh, what's this little box? What can we do with it? Oh, they're a search company They're so cute, they don't do anything except help us to do our jobs better. And so the coverage of Google in the New York Times in the early years positive. Absolutely evangelistic and then You could see it begin to change because Google became in some ways, a big threat to the New York Times. They started as a David. And they became a gooliath and a gooliath that the New York Times used to be. Exactly. I have to say, I do not have this kind of anti big business feeling. I really don't. Yeah, you don't seem like a big underdog rooter to me. Well, it's interesting that in my research, I find that there are a lot of people who are really gritty who have an underdog identity. I mean, Tom Brady is famously somebody who, I mean, who is more of an overdog than Tom Brady, right? But he still treats himself like an underdog. Not drafted in a high round who is considered not athletic enough. Chip on your shoulder, like something to prove. And I think in a way, there's probably some metacognitive trickery going on because you know you're not the underdog. You know you've won almost a countless number of Super Bowl rings, but you also know that it's effective. So I have some appreciation for underdog mentalities t Wharton where I have an appointment, there's a professor whoom I doore. hisis name is Asamir Nur Mohammed. He came to Wharton with this research program on underdogs. One of the things that he's done in the field is to define what it is to have these underdog expectations and when we have them. So I'll refer to his research here. when I say that underdog expectations are essentially the perception that other people view us as unlikely suceed And his discovery is that they motivate us, especially when we want to prove another person wrong, and we think there's some question about their credibility. Say, for example, a coach says to you, Dubner, I gott to tell you, you don't have what it takes. You're right, coach, I'm leaving now. Y. Well, see, this is the thing. If you think the coach knows what they're doing, you're like, o That's terrible. I guess I'll pack up. But if you have some reason to question their credibility, then it can double or triple your motivation. I have to say, when I feel in my life that people have underestimated me or degraded my chances of succeeding, I take it in one hundred percent silently. I tend to not respond at all because I don't want to give them any satisfaction defefinitely use it as motivation. And I know in the sports realm, particularly I think almost every athlete I've ever known has done some form of that. Intentionally, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, when Katie Milkman and I were told that we should apply for this hundred million dollars prize, the MacArthur Foundation was giving this historic award out to like any team around the world to solve an urgent social problem, att first I had very little interest. What really got me motivated was when I was told how difficult it would be. I was like, Oh, Harvard's applying. Oh, even the United Nations might be applying. And that got your competitive juices flowing. Exactly. Pople were like, it's probably not worth applying because why would they pick you? And I was like, oh, now I'm in the game. So that's interesting because that's in a zero sum scenario Right? There could only be one winner. Our year there was just one winner was Sesame Street for doing programming for Syrian refugee children, which by the way, it's pretty hard to argue against. I could argue against it if you're competing against Angela Duckworth, damnit. So that's a zero sum situation, But you could imagine where there's a group of ten people, it's possible for all of them to do much better than someone is assuming that they're going to do So in that case, underdog motivation might be a purely good thing for all those people, don't you think? I mean, I think underdog motivation is pretty terrific, even in zero sum situations in part because people do often underestimate themselves and others and unlocking that potential through This particular motivational trickery? you know, great. I think that is totally true, except for the people who overestimate themselves Be I think there's a lot of that going on too. There's a lot of people, I think who assume that they should win or prosper Because they are who they are. Or they overestimate their own ability Yeah. Optimistic bias, et cetera. Yeah, absolutely. That is clearly the case. But so often, I don't know, maybe this is from being a former high school teacher. there is such a danger of counting yourself out and having a bad day and thinking you don't deserve to be somewhere. So we can be overconfidident. but I see a lot of underconfidence too So Kristen wondered how strong this effect was in America versus elsewhere. I do see here an interview with two historians, Ed Ayers from University of Richmond and Brian Below from the University of Virginia. And they make some really interesting points about the American embrace of underdogness particularly in the political realm. So Ayers said, I think ever since thirteen scrappy colonies went up against the largest empire in the world, America has been pretty fond of the underdog. And the American dream, he says, is that everybody has a chance. and if you find that the underdogs don't have a chance it sort of pokes holes in that dream. I find that to be An interesting argument doesn't totally persuade me that the rest of the world doesn't love underdogs, but it's interesting That's the thing I was wondering about. I'm sure every country can point to some underdog moment in their narrative. Yeah. The other historian below made this point. He said, we have people like Harry S. Truman who really came from an impoverished background was pretty unsuccessful himself in his business and absolutely was not expected to win in the election. Now we should say the vast majority of American presidents have come from families where they did have some significant advantage But he goes on to make a point about Donald Trump. He says on the other hand, we have people like Donald Trump who has styled himself as an underdog. I'm not sure I would take underdog as the best word there maybe Outsider But he makes the point that those who voted for Trump came from counties that are essentially underrepresented in America's economy And I think most political observers and political scientists have noted that one of Trump's great accomplishments was to tap into that sentiment that really hadn't been addressed by most politicians before. Yeah, I'm not sure whether the underrepresented are the same as the underdogs, but there's obviously something there. in a way. I think Trump was the underdog. I don't know that he was expected to win, right? And he did. He certainly was the underdog as a political candidate But this newsletter was asking people whether the political candidate they would prefer would be a small business person versus not. Yeah, what's the line between small and say, medium business? I looked this up. There is a thing called the U S. smallall Business Administration What classifies you as a small business will vary from industry to industry full service restaurants, for example. If your revenue is under eight million dollars a year, you are considered a small business for a department store, If you have under five hundred employees, you are considered a small business. Whoa, It's a lot of employees. But check this one out. for radio networks If your annual revenue is under thirty five million dollars, you are considered a small business. Stephven, we should run for office. This is gonna work out great. I think we could win. Pretty much any election we would run for. you could take your pick of all the elected offices in all the land. You know, I can't think of anyone who'd be worse in elected office than me. Oh, you're talking to him. Come on. Well, we're gonna have to race to the bottom here because I think that sometimes underdog Psychology is great, unleashes your potential, doubles your motivation. And sometimes you probably shouldn't be a dog in the fight at all. And I think with elected politics, as advantageous as our small business administration identity could be, Stehven That's a fight that I have no desire to be in Can I just say, I know you don't want to run for anything I would love to have a president withith insomnia. I do have that Because I feel like I'm getting a lot from my money. You're gonna be awake twenty two hours a day, solving problems, taking names, kicking butt. I mean, come on, let's get her into office immediately Still to come on no stupid questions, Stehven and Angela debate whether the podcast needs an upgrade Would you rather have Two hamburgers For one steak If you walk into a room and can't remember why, It could be nothing or something more If you confuse a familiar recipe, it could be a slip up. orr it could be associated with amyloid plaque buildup in the brain. Amyloid is a protein that your body produces naturally, but a buildup in the brain could lead to memory and thinking issues. To see what may behind your memory and thinking issues, talk to your doctor about getting a full assessment. It's never too early to start the conversation Visit amloid. com to learn more This NBA playoffs with fan duel, you're not just watching the playoffs, you're a part of them Steve's got the phone, opens Fan Dool, and he's going for Threes. Be a part of the action on Fan Duual. All customers get a profit boost every NBA playoff game day. twenty one Pleusant present at seelect States. Opt in required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable profit boost tokens, restestrictions supply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See full terms at fan duual dot com slash sportsb Gambling problem call one eight hundred gambler Node one eight hundred my reset No StupidQuestions is sponsored by Mint Mobile Mint mobile plans are only fifteen dollars per month. wondering what's the catch There isn't one. There are no gimmicks and no gotches. Just unlimited talk text and data, fast reliable coverage on the nation's largest five G network and an award winning care team. That makes Mint Mobile a catch You can bring your current phone and your number, choose from three, six or twelve month plans, and say goodbye to a monthly bill. Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint mobile It's so easy. signign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for fifteen bucks a month. To get your new wireless plan for just fifteen bucks a month, go to mintmobile. com slash no stupid questestions. That's mintmobile. com slash no stupid questestions. Cut your wireless bill fifteen bucks a month at mintmobile. com slash no stupid questions. That's it. There's no catch. forty five dollars upfront payment required equivalent to fifteen dollars a month New customers on first three month plan only speeds slower above forty gigBytes on unlimited plan. addditional taxes fees and restrictions apply, see MintMobile for details Staman I have been thinking about a change. We're gonna do the show in French Wev of Per L Ch enfanet. Stehven, I've been thinking that ever since we started this show about, I guess a year and a half ago, it's had these two acts. And I've observed that these two questions Theyly have nothing to do with each other. Have you made this observation Yes I recently was talking to my husband Jason about his pretty loyal listenership to No Stupid questions. He did point out to me though, that by the time he's done listening to the second question, he's offi completely forgotten what the first question was. So I have a question for you today, which is should we think about having only O question in each episode Oh my goodness. It's a big one. It is truly an existential question I do know that the show has gotten longer. Have we? Oh my gosh, we've gotten like fat? Yeah. We have muffin top. I mean, we have no shortage of things to say, you and I A lot of people do exercise when they listen to episodes and I've had say that they've had to run an extra half mile as has gotten longer. I'll tell you when we first started thinking about this show I lik the notion of it being short and sweet because fre eonomics radio is this Big baggy monster. That's the longer workout. That's your intense gym day. I mean, truth be told, the average freere eonomics radio episode these days is not that much longer than the average How long is it I would say average is probably in the forty seven minute range. That's what it's always been, right forree economics No, it started much shorter. It's gotten a little chubby over the years too, because I think part of the problem is the ambitions of that show got larger We used to not do episodes like, let's make a show about the state of child poverty and what the US is doing about it. It used to be more like, why don't sports teams advertise on their jerseys? A smaller, less monumental Qion With this show, I conceived of it originally as short and sweet, but also more, I generally think, is better for the listener. but then you get into this idea of, you know too much of a good thing. I'm always like less, less, less. I like short sentences. likeike this one Did you like that How about this one I'm going to be you that's not really sense.s just yeah. But yes, I like short sentences I like short paragraphs. I prefer shorter books to long ones. I would be a listener who would want a shorter versus a longer, no stupid questions. I hear you, but I don't think it's the shortness so much that should be the goal I like the notion that there are two questions because it feels a little bit like play. There's an act one, there's a break, an intermission. And then there's a second act. Yeah, but Stehven, we're not connecting the two acts, right? Like in a real play, there's act one, there's an intermission, but you don't come back And have a completely different play. This is more like a play and then an intermission and then another play. You make an excellent point. And I will say this, Hamlet has five acts, which I've always felt was at least one or two acts too many. Yes. Truth be told, I love one act plays. I love those checkoff plays that are short. I love short stories also, maybe more than novels. Interesting I did recently listen to one of our episodes. I don't always listen because of course, we're he in conversations, but I also, like Jason, kind of forgot what the first conversation was by the second one. Now maybe that doesn't matter. Forgetting has some benefits, but I don't really think it's a great thing to have completely erased the memory of something that you might want to talk about at dinner or you know relay to a friend I guess I could imagine that a listener could get confused about what a given episode is about, which is understandable because it's literally about two unrelated things Where does this forgetting fall in terms of the Primacy and recency effects that we've discussed on this show? Well, there are primacy and recency effects that are well established in the research on memory. Primacy is you hear lots of things in an episode. posossibly, you'll remember the first things's better than anything else. There's also this research on Super Bowl ads There are these very expensive ad slots all throughout the Super Bowl, and you could ask the question, what are the best slots? Should you be in the middle? Should be the end? or because of primacy, maybe in the beginning research is that earlier is better. so maybe people are sort of like replaying them in their head throughout the rest of the game. There's also recency effects, which are when we have a list of things to remember, there are some cases where you would remember the last thing that you saw better. And why is that? compleompletely different mechanism. You're not rehearsing it for longer. you're actually rehearsing it for less But it's just like they're in the buffer of your working memory. So there are some advantages for being early. There's some advantages that are different for being late. I think what's pretty clear from the research is that there are not a lot of benefits for being in the middle In terms of our episodes, I guess A one has a primacy benefit, Act two has a Recentcy benefit. So you're coming around, it sounds like to having two. No, no, no, I was just saying that there'd be some primacy and some recency. But I really think the more relevant research is actually on goal setting and planning. Be I think a lot of things that we talk about would give people an idea for something they might do or think about differently. And the research on goal setting and planning is Is it better to have two plans or one? I'm going to be an aerospace engineer, I'm going to be a cowboy. Well, if you can do both of them, great, but there's some research studies suggesting that when you make two different plans, you're actually less likely to do either of them. Oh, that's so interesting. And I do wonder whether you Listen to something, it gives you an idea, like, oh I gott to go talk to my best friend Sue about this. And then you keep listening and there's the second conversation it gives you a totally different idea, Talk to somebody else about something else. And you know if you're working out or not taking careful notes, you could forget. So I'm not saying this is a clear cut case, but I think that's relevant research look at you using science against me in your argument. I can see how if there were just one question per episode that we could probably discuss it in a little bit more depth and come at it at more angles, which I think both you and I would enjoy and maybe would be better for listeners too. O the other hand Can you persuade me of the power of one of something versus two? Be look, I'm a simple person. I think of Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. What would a peanut butter and jelly sandwich be without the peanut butter or without the jelly? Well, okay, those are compliments in the economic sense, right? Especially jelly. Who eats jelly without something else? Oh, huck. Tom Sayer. He ate jelly sandwiches? Well, they ate jam right out of the jar. Did they really? Maybe not, but that's how I remember it I also eat I'veen it butter by itself, now that I think about it I do enjoy both peanut butter and jelly on their own out of the jar By themselves, you never eat jelly on its own. I do. You do not I don't really eat dessert because I'm not a dessert person, but sometimes after dinner, I do want something a little bit sweet and I'll go get jar of jam or jelly or preserves Have a couple spoonfuls. What I'm making an argument against myself though in the two question argument, are't I? I can't even remember what you were talking about, but I'm just horrified. Okay, since we're digressing, what about that menu item in diners, That's the jelly omelet. Have you ever ordered that? You know what I'm talking about? Good question. I've also wondered who gets the jelly omelet? All I know is it's not me and it's apparently not you, either But I kind of wanna try it. Look, my point is that peanut butter and jelly are complelimmentary goods in the economic sense. The value of peanut butter is enhanced by the jelly, the value of jelly is enhanced by the peanut butter. Let's look at pop music though. Okay. Tw is better than one. Marvin Gay and Kim Weston, one of the best songs from Motown, It takes two, do you know it takes two? Oh One can have a dream, baby, two can make that dream so real. It takes two, baby. It's the two of us. There you go. We can make it if we try. It's two Okay, all right yeah This is incredibly persuasive Also, an argument against one as Th Dog Knight, I believe it was once sing one is the loneliest number. Oh, is that Th Dog Knight? Can you give me a little jingle from it, Steven? It's a sad song. Oh, and actually now that I think about the lyric, it doesn't really help my argument because It is anti one But I believe it's also anti to. It goes One is the loniest number that you'll ever do. B. But then listen to this. two can be as bad as one. It's the loniest number it's the number one. What does that even mean There were a lot of drugs being taken Do you know where the name threeree Dog night comes from? No, I know nothing. I believe that the phrase three doog night refers to a night that is very cold becausecause when it's chilly, you bring one dog in the bed to warm you up. This cannot be what three doog night means And also I doubt that Th Dog Night is itself a phrase. I think we should have a little wager on that and Rebecca can settle. Okay, F check wager. What are you willing to wager? Five bucks. I take it. All right, hereere's an argument declining marginal utility. Okay comoming at me with the science again This is really like, hey, after we give people the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Do you think they would want another peanut butter and jelly sandwich? And the answer is yes, but there's less value in the second peanut butter and jelly sandwich than there was in the first. I hear you. And I guess Theoretically, the quality of each question could be better if we only need to come up with one G good question So it's kind of like would you rather have T hamburgers. or one state On the other hand, I love hamburgers I think it's like two hamburgers or one slightly larger, but not too big, delicious cheeseburger. I've never really understood even the fact that there's hamburgers without cheese. Well, it's not kosher, just so you know. Fair enough. An who, we would have to up our games, Stephven. We would have to have a meteor as it were conversation. You know, as pro two and anti one as I am in this context, I can think of one historical precedent convinces me that one is way better than two. What is it? The story of King Solomon in the Bible. Solomon was a young man when he inherited the throne from his daddy, David and he was eager to show that he was wise and He had his chance, according to the Bible When these two women came to him with a dilemma, they lived in the same house And within the space of a couple days, they'd each had a baby boy. And the first woman told Solomon the second woman's baby had died and that she woke up in the middle of the night and took the living baby and swapped him So there's Two women, two babies, one dead, one living What's Solomon supposed to do So Solomon says, Servant Fetch me a sword We are going to cut the living baby in half and we'll give half to each of the women And the first woman begs King Solomon, No, no, no, please don't do it. Just give it to the other woman. And the second woman was like, okay, yeah, fine. cut it in half. Seems fair. Great idea, Sally. And so King Solomon promptly rules in favor of the first woman says, give her the baby. She's plainly the mother. And according to the Bible, all Israel heard of the judgment and they saw that the wisdom of God was in Solomon and he would do justice. So how did he know who was the true mother? Because a true mother would never want their baby cut in two to go out on a limb there. Right. The true mother would rather give up her child than see it die P any woman would want to give up any child I' saying, but I get what Solomon was going for there To be fair, this story has been dissected by game theorists who arguue that it's not really very good as a piece of game theory because it's just not believable in that way That said It's a nice story. And what I take away from the story is that one living baby is way better than To halves of a dead baby. and so you're calling no stupid questions. Two halves of a dead baby? Essentially. And my feelings are a little bit hurt, but I'm gonna say this considering the Solomon effect and I guess considering the fact that you're a lot smarter than me. And also there's some common sense in here I submit It's your wish And I would suggest that maybe we take advantage of the fresh start effect that we've discussed on this show And after the new year, we go to the single question format. What do you think? You know what, Nothing ventured, notothing gained. Why don't we try it out And if it's stinky potamus, we'll go back to doome So this question may be the very last second question W ever answer. I think it's going to be great, but we shall see And if not, we'll superglue that baby right back together