Learn about why the flu shot will not give you the flu; how you can set the right goals to make happiness can last longer; and the hilarious winners of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prizes. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: No, The Flu Shot Can't Give You The Flu. Here's Why You Think It Can Happiness Can Last Longer If You Set Broad Goals These Are the 10 Hilarious Winners of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prizes Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about why the flu shot will not give you the flu; how you can set the right goals to make happiness can last longer; and the hilarious winners of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prizes.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/2018-ig-nobel-prizes-flu-shots-dont-make-you-sick-and-setting-broad-goals-for-longer-happiness
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about why the flu shot will not give you the flu, how you can set the right goals to make happiness last longer, and the hilarious winners of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prizes.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Have you gotten your flu shot yet? As a reminder, you should get it sometime in October for reasons we talked about on a recent episode. Today, though, we wanted to talk about a common myth around flu shots. You know sometimes, you feel sick a little while after you get a flu shot? Well, it's not the flu shot that did it. Trust us. Getting a flu shot does not actually give you the flu, ever. It is not a thing.
CODY GOUGH: Are you sure?
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm sure.
CODY GOUGH: Final answer.
ASHLEY HAMER: That is absolutely my final answer.
CODY GOUGH: Well, then, why do all my friends get sick after they get their flu shot, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, here's the reason. So you might think that you get the flu from a flu shot because a long time ago, that's just how vaccines worked-- by exposing the body to some form of the bug you're protecting against. But vaccines have come a very long way since then. The flu vaccine you get at the doctor's office today comes in one of several types.
Some injections don't contain any flu virus at all, while the ones that do contain an inactivated form of the virus, which can't make you sick. The nasal spray does contain live flu virus. But the virus is weakened so that it can't cause flu either. But you probably know somebody who swears they got sick right after getting a flu shot. So what gives? One word-- correlation.
Most people get their flu shot during flu season, which means they could be exposed to the flu at any time. It takes the flu shot two weeks to fully protect you from the virus but only one to four days for the influenza virus to start showing symptoms. If you get sick and you think about what you did to get sick, then you might think, oh, yeah, I just got a flu shot. That must have given me the flu or a cold or bronchitis or whatever else you catch.
But correlation does not imply causation. Just because two things happen around the same time doesn't mean that one caused the other. Your symptoms didn't come from the flu shot, so don't be afraid to get one. Go get your flu shot. It'll protect you and the people around you from getting a potentially serious illness.
CODY GOUGH: You got your flu shot the other day, didn't you?
ASHLEY HAMER: I did. And I got the flu last year. And it was awful.
CODY GOUGH: Uh.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I never want to do that again.
CODY GOUGH: Is it because you didn't get a flu shot?
ASHLEY HAMER: I didn't. I didn't last year.
CODY GOUGH: Cautionary tale.
ASHLEY HAMER: Absolutely.
CODY GOUGH: Maybe I should get mine now.
ASHLEY HAMER: You should.
CODY GOUGH: Remember that time we told you to set specific rules to help you achieve something you want to do? Well, that's great advice. But specificity is not always the right approach. New research indicates that when you're trying to live in the moment, you should give specific goals a rest.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't know, man. We say specific goals one day and not specific goals the other day. I don't even know what to believe anymore, Cody.
CODY GOUGH: It's hard, but I will try to break down when it's OK to have specific goals and when it's not.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right.
CODY GOUGH: Like getting stuff done, good time to have specific goals. Generally, being happy about stuff, maybe not so specific in the goal setting.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, that makes sense.
CODY GOUGH: Here's why. This comes from a study set to be published this month in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. And it talks about how changing the way you think about the near future can have a big impact on how long you can hang on to your happiness.
So let's say you're buying a new pair of boots. You might think you'll be the happiest if you think about a specific plan, like, I'm going to take this new pair of boots and climb my first 14 or the biggest mountain I've ever climbed. But in reality, you'll feel better if you think about a more general plan, like, with these new boots, I'll be a happier person who hikes a lot.
In one of the tests researchers performed in this study, participants were told to rate a happy song in general terms, like feeling good, or in specific terms, like feeling excited. The ones who used more general feelings ended up feeling happier by nearly every metric and stayed happier for longer and remembered the song more easily and even said, they would pay more money for the song with an average bid of $0.72, compared to $0.51 from the people who used a more specific rating.
Now, that covers short-term happiness. But researchers ran a second study over six weeks to measure long-term happiness effects. The head participants think about making a large purchase, as in more than $100 large. 1/3 of the participants were asked about a purchase they thought would make them happier, general goal. Another 1/3 considered a purchase that would increase their excitement and enjoyment, which is a little more specific.
And the rest considered a purchase that would increase their peace of mind and relaxation-- a different but also specific goal. The ones who'd been primed with more general questions showed higher happiness overall and had their big purchase at the top of their mind when reminded by the researchers. That makes sense, considering it's not very happiness inducing to spend your energy cataloging exactly where your happiness goals are.
So whether you're gearing up to buy a new pair of shoes or planning a vacation in the tropics, take a minute to ask yourself what you want to get out of it. And make sure it's not a bullet-pointed list.
ASHLEY HAMER: The winners of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prizes have been announced. I didn't say Nobel prizes, I said Ig Nobel. These have been given out by an organization called Improbable Research since 1991, to honor achievements that make people laugh and think. It's real science published in real scientific journals. It's just that it's also unusual, improbable, bizarre, or just plain hilarious.
CODY GOUGH: These are very funny.
ASHLEY HAMER: They really are. I love them every year. I get such a kick out of them.
CODY GOUGH: We covered one of these Ig Nobel prizes earlier in the year on curiosity.com-- I think maybe on this podcast, too.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it may have been. But it was before it won the prize.
CODY GOUGH: We covered a story about retaliating against a voodoo doll of your boss and how it makes people happier at work.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yep.
CODY GOUGH: And that won the economics prize.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yep. It's right in line with all of the other prizes that were awarded. For example, here's the title of the paper that won the medical education prize-- "Colonoscopy in the Sitting Position, Lessons Learned from Self Colonoscopy." Akira Horiuchi was the winner. And it's not entirely clear why he performed this experiment on himself.
But he reported a, quote, "simple and efficient self colonoscopy." And it was helpful to see the difference in performing it in a sitting position versus lying down.
CODY GOUGH: Right. Because again, these have a scientific purpose. They're real science. And sometimes, they're really good contributions, they're just weird.
ASHLEY HAMER: Definitely. The Ig Nobel Prize winner in the nutrition prize category was James Cole for his paper entitled, "Assessing the Caloric Significance of Episodes of Human Cannibalism in the Paleolithic." Apparently, previous research has suggested that early humans resorted to cannibalism for its nutritional value. Cole determined that that wasn't possible. A human cannibalism diet is actually a lot lower in calories than diets made up of other meat.
You can read the complete list of winners in our full write-up on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But one other favorite was the literature prize. The paper that won this category was titled, "Life is Too Short to RTFM, How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features in Consumer Products." The RTFM is read the field manual, is how they put it.
This was a seven-year study that found that when people buy a fancy gadget, most people don't read the manual or even use all the available features.
CODY GOUGH: Guilty.
ASHLEY HAMER: Me, too.
CODY GOUGH: Hey, how long do you think we should call this podcast award winning? I mean, we are award winning. But should we say it everyday, or is it too try-hard? Or do you feel a sense of pride when you hear us say it, like it's reminding you that you have really good tastes?
I thought I would ask, so we put a poll on our Patreon page. It's open to the public. You can take it right now at patreon.com/curiosity.com, all spelled out.
ASHLEY HAMER: Patreon is a place where you can give a one-time or monthly contribution to your favorite creators, like YouTubers and podcasters. And you can support Curiosity Daily on our Patreon page. We want to give a special shout-out to some of our patrons for supporting the show. Thank you to Montecito1, Olivier Savard, and Manny Blades for contributing. You're a big part of helping us keep the show going.
If you're listening and you want to support Curiosity Daily, then visit patreon.com/curiosity.com, all spelled out.
CODY GOUGH: Even a couple of bucks a month is a huge help. That's less than a cup of coffee. And our patrons get lots of cool bonus stuff like exclusive episodes. One more time, that's patreon.com/curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's all for today. But visit curiosity.com this weekend. And you'll learn about the 12 men who have been on the moon, strange creatures in the deepest parts of the Gulf of Mexico, what the symbols on clothing tags mean, how you can vacation in the summer home of a Roman emperor, a huge Twitter analysis that shows how new words develop, and more.
CODY GOUGH: And if there's something else you're curious about, just email your question to podcast@curiosity.com. And we might answer it on a future episode.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's podcast@curiosity.com. Listen to a brand new Curiosity Daily this Sunday to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
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NARRATOR: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.