What’s the best way to deal with a jerk? Well, according to psychiatrist Dr. Mark Goulston, there is one word that will shut them up – and it is kind of fun to watch. That’s first up today on this episode of the podcast.
Plus, what does your dog really think about? Probably not what you think. Camilla Gray-Nelson, author of Lipstick & the Leash: Dog Training a Woman’s Way (http://amzn.to/2mkKr5Z) offers some amazing insight into what’s really going on inside that little doggie brain. Then, knowing what your dog is thinking, you can then train and relate to them in a way that works for everyone.
Then, do you believe in magical thinking? Maybe you knock on wood or use a lucky charm or wear you lucky shirt. And deep down inside you know there is nothing to it really – but you do it anyway. So what’s this all about? Matthew Hutson, author of The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking (http://amzn.to/2lUpH8R) explores why virtually everyone (even skeptics) across all cultures engages in magical thinking. And he reveals how magical thinking can actually work – like magic!
Finally, when you go on a trip, why does it seem that the trip back home is shorter than the trip there? There is actually an interesting psychological phenomenon at work. I’ll explain what it is in today’s episode. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/06/why-the-trip-back-always-feels-shorter/395714/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Today on something. You should know that
It's time you have to deal with a jerk? There is one word that will almost always stop him in his tracks. Plus you love your dog and you probably assign your dog some human qualities, but do you know what your dog is really thinking, what it god one now most of all is hooting hard here and in that of banking. How can I please what a dog is really doing is trying to figure out? How can I buy it, pleasing my by my reader,
also when you take a car trip. Why does the trip there always seem longer than the tripled and magic
thinking lucky charm superstitions, could they actually work? There are the research showing that people who thought they were using a lucky golf ball: thirty, five percent, more adult than people who thought
in a normal got all this today on something you should know the
I have farm income in the united states was a loss of eleven hundred dollars. Sixty percent of u s- port comes from one company wholly owned by the Chinese, and farmers are more like
We to commit suicide, then veterans. Folks, we got a problem.
I'm lucinda, a generation farmer and founder of my glass eye we offer grasp,
in grass, finnish beef and lamb pastured pork and chicken and wild caught alaskan sam ships straight from the heart of rural america,
stand shoulder to shoulder with us by putting the family farm at the centre of your supper table was.
it for you, you mean, besides saving the family farm and enjoying the highest quality meat on god's green earth days where to hang a moon for you, too, I'd love to go to the
box, dot, com, slash, yeah right now and get a free gift in your first order, gets a gettin martha given is good
box, dot com, slash young monk box.
Calm, slash young. I guarantee
your fixing to say oil just so happy. I got mine,
something you should now fascinating into the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today, something you should make rather ass. I welcome
to something you should know where we are officially in the holiday spirit here:
Most of us are anyway,
I know I often ask you to share this podcast with someone. You know- and I know you're busy, especially this time of year, but as a christmas gift to me in exchange for the now with three hundred and fifty
besides, if something you should know,
tell someone you know to give this podcast to try and, and that would be the greatest gift of all we start today.
Talking about jerks never had to deal with a jerk or work for a jerk
I've come across. More than my share in my life, if you ever do have to deal with
jerk a you know that reasoning with them or arguing with them doesn't really work
according to a psychiatrist, mark ghouls didn't really interesting. Guy and he's written a book called just listen there.
One word that usually stops a jerk rightness tracks. The word is huh.
if you say it in a mild neutral tone, the jerk will have to stop regroup and repeat. It suggests that,
The jerk essaying makes no sense to you and that you are not about to
gauge, because you don't understand what he's talking about dismissing attack
personality is usually the most effective course of action. According to doktor ghouls than an awkward,
Laws can be helpful to the longer you
before responding to a jerk, the more you can emotionally distance yourself, and this really throws them off
may go on and on, but you are less likely to get upset that site
can work like an echo and give them a chance to hear what a jerk they
actually are, and that
something you should know. I've had dogs all my life and I
its natural to feel as if they are one of the family and that they would protect us, and you often hear stories of dogs doing heroic things
and in movies and tv shows like lassie. When Timmy falls down the well, as he seemed to do a lot, lassie would do anything
to try to save timmy, but how realist
Is that what it? What are dogs? Really thinking here to discuss dog?
Behavior and dog thinking
how to train your dog to do what you want to do is camilla gray, nelson she's, author of the book, lipstick and the leash dog training. A woman's way welcome camilla. So if
I fell down the well instead of timmy. How likely is it my dog would descend
that I was in danger and would want to do something to help, because I'm thinking that what my dog would probably do is
the sandwich that I left on the side of the well before I fell down it, a lovely thought to think that our dog has a feeling like humans that they would save us from the well if we fall in, but the fact is, as with so many myths suggest, isn't so the problem with the lassie syndrome. Myth is that not only does it give us false expectations of what our dog should be and should do for us that a dog can never live up to, but it actually puts us.
In it on safe predicament with our dog, sometimes meaning. We are not careful around dogs as the animals that they are think he had. They are gentle, benign creatures that would never harmony
yeah. I heard someone say, and maybe it was you being quoted somewhere
you'd never leave young children alone with a dog. Well, that is so true, and
no worries. The two nature of the dog reveal that in that advice, because dogs, after all, are predatory hunters and there have been more than one case of a young child left along with a dog that did not survive, but that that's a horrible thing to think about. But the fact is dogs are hunters and they are programmed to take advantage in their primordial state and they're instant
does date that take advantage of the old and the young, the weak, not the strong. So if my dog is not thinking, how can I please you? How can I save you if you fall down the well? What is the dog, what
its motivation. What is it thinking what a dog wants now most of all is who's in charge here and instead of thinking. How can I please you? What a dog is really doing is trying to figure out. How can I avoid this pleasing my boy, my leader slightly differ
but profoundly different in it's application, which is a very different mindset than what we think of that. The dog is there to make us happy and to do what we you know, get our slippers and, and that kind of thing, if a dog were truly motivated by making us happy, I have the dog trainer would be out of business because tickets, that dog would be policing it. If that's what they want to do, they would be doing it. But clearly that's not the dog's motivation. The dog is is built with an internal testing mechanism
testing behavior, trying certain things. What they're really doing with this behavior is they're they're testing. Are you in charge of me who's going to stop me because the status of a dog in a social group is totally dependent on how he can control and limit the behave.
Of others. So what does that mean to me as the dog owner in terms of a deal
I need to tell the dog in some sort of dog land.
that I'm in charge here the way to tell your dog here in charge and hands to get your dog
You actually want to obey you, because he sees you a leader is nothing more complicated than setting boundaries. Wolves
reining in your dog freedom? The moment you start reining in your dog at freedom instead of letting the dog gory want, do what you want and have whatever we want the minute you start dialing back those freedoms. You have actually put yourself in the leaders, it leadership position and its
regular the change in your dogs behaviour once you do that in a way that he understands from his cultural background. But what about their lives
part. I mean how do you know what his cultural background is? He's a canine, that's what I mean in the canine world. They are seeking a leader there, they're hungry, for a leader, but what most people mistake for leadership is: is raising your voice being intimidating, wagging your finger and scolding, your dog, you know in his culture, that's the mark of a pretender, not a leader, real leader,
in the animal world in the annexes to her all social mammal, not just dogs, but people as well in the animal world? True leader,
Are marked by cool and calm control of their emotions, they are unflappable in the face of a conflict. There unflappable that's a mark of their confidence
megan them right at the top when we give into our emotions- and we have to get angry angry frustrated in
that show the dog is actually seeing weaken it not strength, and yet I
He had so often in dog owners trying to take control, but
anger and frustration and punishment would actually does it work well, but a few
a correct of behaviour that the dog is due?
which is a negative behaviour pooping in the house or or eating the furniture. How do you correctly?
negative behavior without pointing out that hey that's bad.
You can correct the behavior by stopping it and limiting it. But if you do it without anger, that's the secret! You see what I'll do. Let's take at least a jumping, for example, what a dog does to stop another dog from jumping on him is to whip around and bark right in that dogs face that bar
It'S- not angry is more pragmatic. Basically, it says, excuse me, but I allow you to jump on me throughout screaming when they do it, they just pragmatically thing. I don't allow that. That's what I mean by boundaries. I can't bark like a dog, but what I do have
it's a little device pennies in a can, I'm gonna! Let you listen to it right now, hear that that had no emotion in it, but it was like a bark. It was a startling sudden noise that I can meet. My dogs jump with pardon the grammar and the dog will understand. Oh, I didn't like how that turns out. For me, I'm not a bad dog. I just didn't like how that turned out. For me, dogs are results driven and you give a result that is slightly less pleasant than than the behavior you want them to achieve, and they will reward that behavior. Indeed, correction is absolutely necessary, but if it's infused with anger
I made an hundred payment. Then you go over and dark night in actually won't work. Well, what about when the dog does things when you were not around well? What a good question is that god, as pack animals are now
designed live alone. They do not have an off switch or a conscience because they were designed to live under the supervision of other dogs in a group situation. Twenty four
seven. So what you have to do when you leave if your dog is of an age where he's still experimenting with behaviors and waiting for someone to stop him you're, not there to stop him, you must
Confine the dog to a space where he's not able to live out his his experimentations he's not tempted by.
you can't be on your carpet. Destroy your shoes, feel food off the counter. Like I say you lock the liquor cabinet when you call when you leave and that sometimes creating the dog sometimes put them in a small room. Sometimes an outdoor dog run depending on your environment in your dog,
Well it, but it's hard to remember to do that all the time,
for now does not up, but we're having. You know our responsibility. It's interesting once you get into that mindset, though, and when it can be quite good, it did because what do we do with with two year olds, where we need to take a shower or are one year old? We put them in a play Ben you get into a mindset of of of of when you can't supervise. You need to confine safely somehow and so remembering to do that become second nature once you get into that that habit. But what does the dog ever stop? Trying? Indeed, a dog will stop trying to bend the rules when he knows what the rules are. A dog will try to figure out the rules, if they're not clear to him and when they are in a young developmental stage as a dog grows and matured, and
I have done a good job of keeping the rules consistent. They eventually stop trying as often here's my analogy dogs are like jello and they're like soft jello. When you first get a dog and you start training them into the ways of your home, you are the mold. The dog is the jell o. If you take the mold off too soon, you know what happens to the jell o. Keep the mold on long enough till that dog is, is habituated into the form
behaviors, that you want, and then you can take the mold off and the jell o will retain it's shape. The dog will be habituated into good behaviors people take the mold off the jell o they take the rules away from the dog.
too soon or never put it at all, do do
it's as you said earlier, our own are looking to know who's the leader, but do dogs ever say hey. I want to be the leader in good dog, say that of dogs at a certain personality.
say that routinely and a dog that he wasn't even born with a personality suited for the corner, for you know, for the penthouse office will take charge. If nobody else does, they are so driven towards that organization that a dog will take charge. If you don't now, the dogs that are born with confident personalities that, if in nature, left to their own devices, would take the lead role. Those dogs are more challenging. They don't. They do not readily take orders because they feel they should be giving them. In my book, lipstick and the leash. I talk about how to deal with dogs of that ilk or people who, by the way and and it's a different kind of methodology, you come at things from the sides
You don't meet had on you, avoid confrontation and argument and use we'd influence. Instead, when dogs jump over people when they come over
What are they doing when dogs jump on you or others? It's it's an interesting behavior, because it has multiple purposes. Yes, it's a greeting dogs jump on each other to crete. It's also a very subtle testing and ranking ritual. A dog that's allowed to jump on another dog consistently. Is the dominant dog, a dog. That's allowed to jump on you consistently without you ever saying. I don't allow that can be led to believe that he has more power in their relationship or in the home than you do so. Jumping is a ranking ritual as well as something that's fun.
what I recommend for dogs that are crazy jumpers when guests arrive, have a leash handy when the doorbell rings put a leash on your dog's collar. You can control his behavior by that simple act and let him know subtly, but clearly that you are running the show
That does seem to be the key is to let them know that you are running the show and run
the show does not involve yelling
running the show is simply knowing what you want to follow through and getting it even if it takes a while, if not how fast you get a response or obedience is the fact that you eventually get it. What I find as a dog turner of twenty four years and counting and after ten thousand plus clients, is that to a client who a dog owner they do not under band dog, they own dog, they loved dogs, they ve had many dogs, but they dont truly understand how
dog think how his culture work and how he programmed by nature to act and react until you really understand a dog and dog life and dog culture. You cannot successfully trade.
A dog, but I know it so easy to treat a dog like a member of the family and almost as if the dog is a person, but but, as you clearly pointed out in all the people are
people and dogs are dogs and we need to respect the respect. The differences
camilla grain nelson has been my guest. She is author of the book, lipstick and the like
dog training a woman's way and you'll find a link to her book in the show notes.
Do you believe in magical thinking, you probably do almost
Everyone does, even if you claim you don't you either have a lucky charm or you perform a little ritual before you perform a task, or maybe you just knock on wood, and we do this because we liked
think it helps, even though we think it probably doesn't, but maybe it does
Then here to sort this out is matthew. Hudson he's the author of the book.
The seven laws of magical thinking, welcome, matthew and, first, why don't you define what you mean by magical thinking that technical definition that I give is the attribution of mental properties to non mental phenomena and vice versa, so, for instance believing that natural events have a purpose to them or believing that your thoughts have some sort of force over the world. So examples the magical thinking would include belief in luck or destiny or karma or essences or mine over matter that sort of thing
or even just good luck, charms, exactly yeah all kinds of superstitious beliefs and rituals? Does everybody and does every culture engage in this? Somehow? Yes, as far
know, every every culture has certain magical and and religious rituals and beliefs and traditions and and every individual person has a tendency to believe in these sorts of things, even if they deny it. Even if you call yourself a skeptic, you'll still find yourself and doing little lucky
All are feeling like something happened for a reason. Is there any reason to think it works like? I? Don't believe in real magic, so I don't think these things work the way that people sometimes think they do, but magical thinking can provide a sense of control. It can and it can make you feel lucky. For instance, if you perform a little ritual, it can increase your self confidence and then that might lead to better performance and actual um actual luck, which will then feel like the the ritual or the lucky charm had some effect, and there is research showing that people who thought they were using a lucky golf ball or sunk. Thirty, five percent, more golf putts than people who thought they were using a normal golf ball. Now that's fascinating! How could that be? Well, the research
I propose that it increases self efficacy. So if you think that you are using a gulf, a lucky golf ball, then you expect to perform well and then it relaxes you and then you actually do perform better. Even the people,
Don't necessarily believe it sorta believe it that's the argument. Yes, a lot of magical thinking is his subconscious. So, even if you don't think that you believe in these things and these expectations can have sort of stuff,
subconscious effects on your behaviour does talking about it like this ruin it, I think, they're there hasn't been a lot of research on whether talking about cognitive biofuels can actually reduce them. So it's possible that if your defences are up- and you are aware of certain illusions- and you realize that their illusions than you let us have the will to them. On the other hand, if possible, that even
You know about them in year on, look look out for them. They will still play a role in your life. Has anyone? Maybe you
However, any one down the research where you ass people who who admit that they believe in it to some extent where they,
lucky numbers are they have a ritual or they have a good luck charm and then ask
Do you really think it works, and and what's the difference in the in the answers- and I think that a lot a lot of people will say, I don't believe that this little thing that I do works, I don't believe that it's magic. I think that that's all bs,
but I do it anyway, just in case a for instance. Personally, I I knock on wood. Ah, I know that it, it probably has no physical effect on on anything, but it still gives me peace of mind. So I do it anyway, cause now no harm.
And if this stuff crosses cultures and as you say it s, probably in every culture, there are a lot of places where this doesn't happen.
What does that say? Is it human nature to need this? It seems that it is human nature matter that again is or as a result of very basic cognitive bias. These very basic mechanisms and habits of mind and- and it also is influenced by very basic human motivation- the desire to feel some sort of control over your environment. The desire to feel like life is meaningful and that there is a purpose to your pure existence, so both the the habits.
Of thinking that led the magical thinking emma desire to believe in magic. Both of those are universal. You talk, though I mean it. It is more than just the you know. I've got lucky
birds and maybe they'll wind kind of thing. I mean you talk about john linens piano in the book about a mean that kind of man
good thinking attaches value to a piano or any other
sample you want to use that that's
he'll dollars. Yes, magical thinking does have very real economic implications. The whole industry of celebrity memorabilia people paying a lot of money for something that a movie star or a rock star own.
Were touched. So, yes, you can see how you can put a dollar fine on how strongly people believe in these sorts of things, because
Let's talk about John Lennon's piano. I mean the value of that piano, just as a piano wasn't particularly spectacular. If John Lennon's piano had no special history, if it were not John Lennon's piano or if people didn't know that it was dominant piano, it would just be a regular old piano with some ding. Then it and no one would care, but the fact that it had this history of being the the piano that the song imagined was written on it. It sold for a couple of million dollars and the,
It gives people a lot of inspiration when they, when they are around it and they get to touch it. So believing it makes it so, in a sense I mean, if you believe this stuff and whether you admit it or not,
believing in it makes
so and since it is so, it's part of who we are a lot of. This is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that something will increase year performance in a certain situation, then your belief play out in your own behaviour and so yeah
patients and have become real. My guest on the pod cast today is Matthew. Hudson and his book is the seven laws of magical thinking contain
in our conversation here Matthew. If you were to try and stop doing magical thinking, you could probably star
but for a little while, but sooner or later it. If it really is a power,
of us. It really is hard to not do it exactly. I think, being a sceptic is a lot harder.
than mean a believer because you're always having to stop yourself from believing in certain things. I think we are magical thinkers by default and it takes a lot of effort and critical thinking to question
and take a partly the beliefs and say no, no, that's not really how things are happening. That is the logical way to look at it. That's not how we naturally instinctively think.
Well, I imagine, I know- and I don't want to get too far afield into the religious aspects of this, but but believe
in stuff like this. It does have a religious overtone to it. This is kind of what we have to believe in religion cause. We can't prove it.
definitely. There is an element of faith in a lot of this, and even if you can't apply the scientific method to a certain belief, you still have a sense that it's true or even you might even build your whole life around the the sense that it's true and, and so faith plays a role in in all sorts of magical thinking and and religion is based on an magical thinking that it sounds perhaps pedantic that put it that way, but just in terms of
the objective use of the term magical thinking, religion, that is they fanatical thinking, was it in your book. I remember seeing recently that the quote about the horse you over the door was that in your book. Yes, there. The anecdote that the physicist kneeled bore said that he or a friend of it friend of his kept a horseshoe over his door because it works, even if you don't believe it does. But the psychology suggests that it only works if you believe that it does and it works, because I believe it does, because it makes you feel lucky and then that that influences your behavior under your life
right and- and luck is perhaps differentiated from chance amid doesn't improve your chances of winning the lottery, but it improves europe
answers of being lucky.
Other way right something like a horse. You won't increase our chances of winning the lottery because that something that is completely out of your control by let's say you go into a job interview feeling lucky then you'll feel very confident, and people will offence that any might
better chance of getting the job. It's interesting, though, that people have these little rituals. Look good luck. Charms beliefs are things that they hold onto that that they think are lucky like the end then made they do this. They in a rubbed. The rabbits
ordered do the ritual before they quote going and try to perform
into the job interview, make the speech and they
fail miserably, but it doesn't dissuade them from the next time doing it again right. That's one of the few people will continue using certain good luck times, even if they continue to not work that part of the element of faith and magical thinking, and it also demonstrates how we can twist situations, and we interpret them such that. Let's say you, you lucky charm, and then it doesn't work. You might blame the failure on something else and say: well. The lucky time would have worked if this other thing wouldn't have happened, so you don't really give the thing
fair shot. You don't apply the scientific method rigorously to these things that you use in your daily life. It would seem that some people, you know skeptics, would say united. I don't believe in that. I don't do that, but you know we talked earlier
that it's kind of its human nature, so it it would seem
it's almost impossible. Not to do this exactly. I would say that I'm about a sceptical as you can get, but I still see little bits of magical thinking of my own life friends than knocking on wood or feeling, like certain objects. Our touched are owned by someone else are somehow special, so I'm a complete atheist. I don't believe in god
I don't believe in magic. I don't believe in any of this stuff, but I still see the tendency is myself once interesting to the people knock on wooden, that's a pretty universal thing and
for one- and I imagine, I'm one of many
don't even know why we knock on what what
Why? Why? What is knocking on would supposed to do well, the origin of knocking on would, I believe it has something to do with tree spirit, but I really what people think about when their knocking on would they to think of it as something that acts as a guard against something unfortunate happened to happening to them, for instance, if you can
fape, you might knock on wood. In one study, people were asked whether anyone in their family had had cancer been in an accident and after they said no, they would typically knock on. Would as
the signal that they were very aware that they were fortunate and they didn't want to be punished.
By being too by showing hubris right? But it is interesting that
they probably don't really know what the origins of vat or why they they just kind of learned, because somebody else used, they saw did it and are there.
parents did it and that's just they learned that that's what you do to kind of ward off bad luck! Exactly a lot of the are cultural traditions,
see these someone else. Do it or you hear about a certain act that is lucky unlucky and you.
degraded into your own behavior, without really knowing why or how it's supposed to work, you just do it because I'm you you've heard that perhaps it works, and why not yeah- and I guess that's why people do it. Why not
Matthew hudson has been my guest he's the author of the book, the seven laws of magical thinking, and you will find a link to
book in the show notes forward. This episode
have you ever had the experience of taking a car trip and it took longer to get there. It seems than it took to get home and one theory that the four, why
happens is because we were familiar now with the route, so the return trip seem shorter, but that turns out to be incorrect, sir,
It is now believe that, what's called the return, trip effect has to do with expectations. People, often under
made how long getting there is going to take so the expiring
feels longer, because they expected it to be shorter,
then overestimation how long the return trip will take and
that ends up feeling shorter in
study. Researchers at tilbury university in the netherlands set expectations by telling people that the outbound part of the trip was going to seem very long when they did that the return trip effect disappeared and those people did not feel like.
the return trip was shorter than the outbound trip. What's even more interesting is when people were too
the trip, was going to seem long. Then it
didn't seem as long, and that is something you should know and that's the podcast today, I'm like her brothers, thanks
snake do something you should know well
to talk about the ultimate smallville rewatch podcast. Look. We have a lot of fans. We have a lot of people that watch the show. Give a lot of people that still watch small builders show up to the cons are glorious, they're, awesome, they're, just loyal is the word. I guess I'm proud of the show so come on man, it's novel because now everybody's like arrow and this- and these are all great- shows- I'm not knocking the shows. I'm just saying: don't you remember us before the social media name may may catch up with season one or start season, two on youtube or wherever you listen,
Transcript generated on 2023-07-10.