Learn about a simple trick for making people take you more seriously; what a messy office might say about its owner’s personality, and what you should do about it; and a strange theory about why humans are domesticated. 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: Here's the Simple Way to Make People Take You More Seriously — https://curiosity.im/2rMEyTn Messy Offices May Signal These Personality Traits to Others — https://curiosity.im/2scGLrI Humans May Have Been the First Domesticated Animals — https://curiosity.im/2rL2Ixx 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! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about a simple trick for making people take you more seriously; what a messy office might say about its owner’s personality, and what you should do about it; and a strange theory about why humans are domesticated.
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:
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! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/a-trick-for-being-taken-more-seriously-messy-office-traits-and-human-domestication
CODY: Hi! We’ve got three stories from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about a simple trick for making people take you more seriously; what a messy office might say about its owner’s personality, and what you should do about it; and a strange theory about why humans are domesticated.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Here's the Simple Way to Make People Take You More Seriously — https://curiosity.im/2rMEyTn (Ashley)
ASHLEY: There’s a simple way to make people take you more seriously, at least according to recent research. Ready to get better at convincing people you’re right?
CODY: Wait, lemme guess. Is it [something fucking nerdy]? [ad lib]
ASHLEY: This study comes from researchers at UC Berkeley and University of Chicago. And they got the idea for the study after one of them read a news article that included a speech excerpt from, quote, “a politician with whom he strongly disagreed,” unquote. The next week, he heard the exact same speech clip playing on a radio station, but his reaction was totally different. When he read the statement, the politician seemed idiotic, but when he heard it spoken out loud, the politician sounded reasonable to him. So for this study, the researchers sat six people in front of a camera and recorded them as they gave their actual opinions on three polarizing topics. Think controversial stuff like abortion, the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and one of the most timeless issues of all, rap versus country music. Then, the messages were shown to online participants. Some watched and listened to the video, some just heard the audio, and others only read the transcript of the message. Then, participants had to rate the speaker on their intellect and emotional warmth. When the participants read opinions they disagreed with, they tended to dehumanize the person, judging them as more mechanical and less responsive and warm. That wasn't true when they watched or listened to them; in those cases, people judged the speaker as more humanlike. The same thing happened when the researchers presented hypothetical employers with pitches from job candidates; when an employer HEARD the pitch instead of READING it, candidates were more likely to be hired. So if you want your ideas and opinions taken seriously (and seriously, who doesn't?), this has huge implications. These days, a lot of us type more than we speak, and it’s important to realize text communication has a lot of shortrcomings. Just because our technology has evolved doesn't mean our brains have caught up — they're as keen on the human voice as ever. The bottom line? It’s easy to dismiss text. If you seriously want to be taken seriously, then speak up. Verbally.
Messy Offices May Signal These Personality Traits to Others — https://curiosity.im/2scGLrI (Republish) (Cody)
You know what will NOT make people take you more seriously? Being too messy. According to a new study, an extremely messy personal space may lead people to believe the owner of that space is more neurotic and less agreeable. And this can have big implications. The least of which is that I have no idea how messy Ashley thinks my desk is. [ad lib]
CODY: As reported by Futurity, this comes from a new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. In three experiments, researchers randomly assigned about 160 participants to sit in a researcher's office that was clean and uncluttered, or in another office that was either "somewhat" or "very" messy. They set up all the offices to suggest they belonged to a male researcher, and they had various personal items. Stuff like a baseball cap hanging on a door hook, a cup containing candy, a baby photo, and science books and academic journals in a bookcase. The neat office had papers stacked on the desk, books and journals upright on the bookshelves, and file drawers with typewritten labels. The somewhat messy office had books tilted over on the shelves, some books and papers on the floor, and the wall clock an hour off. And the VERY messy office was dirtier and more disorganized, with more clutter. Participants tried to guess the office owner’s personality using the Big Five personality traits. We’ve talked about those before: remember the acronym OCEAN. Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. And participants thought the owner of the kinda messy office was less conscientious than the owner of the clean one. The researchers say that in everyday life, an impression like that could lead somone to decide not to even deal with that person in the future — either on a personal or professional basis. But here’s the twist: the researchers say that the impression someone gives you from looking at their space can affect how YOU treat THEM. So try not to be too quick to judge your employee or friend with a messy desk. Maybe it’s just you projecting. But clean up anyway. It never hurts to be more organized.
[SKILLSHARE]
ASHLEY: If you need help getting organized, then you’ve come to the right place! We’ve got a special offer for Curiosity Daily listeners from today’s sponsor: Skillshare.
CODY: Skillshare is an online learning community for creators. With more than 25,000 classes in design, business, and more, you’ll discover countless ways to fuel your curiosity, creativity, and career. You can take classes in social media marketing, mobile photography, creative writing, or even illustration.
ASHLEY: Skillshare is there to keep you learning, thriving, and reaching your goals for the new year — whether you’re looking to discover a new passion, start a side hustle, or gain new professional skills.
CODY: I’m not really big on New Year’s Resolutions, but I have been wanting to set some goals this year and get my life a little more organized. Thankfully, there’s a class for that called “Setting Goals & Getting Organized.” It’s taught by Chris Croft, author of several books and one of the UK’s leading trainers
ASHLEY: Chris isn’t the only pro on the site. In fact, Skillshare’s classes are ALL taught by real experts in their field or public motivational speakers. And today, YOU can join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare with a special offer just for Curiosity Daily listeners: Get two months of Skillshare for free.
CODY: That’s right, Skillshare is offering Curiosity Daily listeners two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. To sign up, go to Skillshare dot com slash CURIOSITY.
ASHLEY: Again, go to Skillshare dot com slash CURIOSITY to start your two months now. CODY: One more time, that’s Skillshare dot com slash CURIOSITY.
Humans May Have Been the First Domesticated Animals — https://curiosity.im/2rL2Ixx (Ashley)
Here’s a weird idea. Humans have made friends with lots of different animals. We’ve domesticated dogs, cats, horses, and even cows. But a lot of scientists say we humans show all the same signs of being domesticated as those animals do. So today in “things you might have talked about late at night in your college dorm room,” we ask: who exactly domesticated US? Trust me when I say you probably won’t guess. [ad lib]
ASHLEY: Scientists aren’t exactly sure why some animals are able to be domesticated, and some aren’t. Wolves turned into dogs, but most foxes were never tamed. And horses are one of the most successful domesticated animals in history, but zebras are almost impossible to tame. We also know that lots of mammals take on certain traits as they grow more domesticated. Physical stuff, too, like smaller teeth, a shorter face, and floppier ears. Charles Darwin called this domestication syndrome, and humans exhibit those qualities, too. I mean, just look at how small our teeth are compared to a chimpanzee’s, for example. So if humans exhibit physical and social traits of many domesticated species, then who domesticated us? The obvious answer is that we domesticated ourselves so we could live in peace in large communities. But there’s another theory. Get ready for this one: maybe we were domesticated by… wheat. Yes, wheat. The plant. Wheat is a grass that originated in the Middle East, and it takes a lot of work to grow. Before we started growing wheat, we were doing just fine as hunter-gatherers. But then wheat came along and gave us a delicious, nutritious, and easy-to-store food source. So humans started clearing rocks from fields so it could spread, and spending days in the hot sun pulling up weeds that might compete with it for nutrients, and coming up with techniques like irrigation and fertilizer to make sure it could thrive. It's a pretty convincing case — and it's got us seeing the gluten-free movement in a whole new light.
[EMD SPOT]
CODY: DON’T FORGET that this week, Ashley and I are going to be on the ground at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas. And you can watch us podcast from CES LIVE on Facebook!
ASHLEY: That’s right! We’ll be talking to experts about the latest and greatest technology and the science behind your gadgets and devices. Keep an eye on our Facebook page this Thursday, January 10, and Friday, January 11. You’ll also be able to catch the replay on our Facebook page if you miss it live.
CODY: We’re super excited to be at CES, in cooperation with EMD Performance Materials, a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. And if you’re not on Facebook, then just keep listening to our podcast, because we’ll be bringing you special Saturday editions of our show in a few weeks to share what we learned at CES.
ASHLEY: To make sure you don’t miss out on the excitement, just stay subscribed to Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app. Or visit our Facebook page at facebook-dot-com-slash-curiosity-dot-com, all spelled out. Again, we’ll be live January 10 and 11. We hope to see you there!
CODY: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m [NAME] and I’m [NAME]. Stay curious!