Learn about why you don’t have to sacrifice pleasure to maintain self-control; why modern scientists still use old-timey weather balloons; and how to overcome the phenomenon of overclaiming, which is the feeling that you’re the one doing all the work. 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: You Don't Have to Sacrifice Pleasure to Maintain Self-Control, According to Researchers — https://curiosity.im/32NCMle Why Do Modern Scientists Still Use Old-Timey Weather Balloons? — https://curiosity.im/2pluMdl Overclaiming Is Why You Think You're the One Doing All the Work — https://curiosity.im/2CLptqH 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 why you don’t have to sacrifice pleasure to maintain self-control; why modern scientists still use old-timey weather balloons; and how to overcome the phenomenon of overclaiming, which is the feeling that you’re the one doing all the work.
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:
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/self-control-without-sacrificing-pleasure-why-you-think-you-do-all-the-work-and-why-scientists-use-weather-balloons
CODY: Hi! We’re here 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 why you don’t have to sacrifice pleasure to maintain self-control; why modern scientists still use old-timey weather balloons; and how to overcome the feeling that you’re the one doing all the work.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
You Don't Have to Sacrifice Pleasure to Maintain Self-Control, According to Researchers — https://curiosity.im/32NCMle (Cody)
According to researchers, you don’t have to sacrifice pleasure to maintain self-control. And this is good news! Because for a lot of us, having self-control means not eating that piece of cake, or not buying that new phone, or not watching yet another episode in our latest Netflix binge. An international team of marketing researchers says that the simple act of denying yourself pleasure isn’t the key to self-control. Because it’s not a loss of self-control if you don’t think you’ll regret your decision later. So take food, for example. Lots of scientific studies measure self-control by looking at food choices — you probably know this from studies we’ve covered in the past. Well for this new paper published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, researchers reviewed nearly 300 studies about food. And they found that nearly all of those studies would basically pit “healthy” food against “unhealthy” food. You know: chocolate cake, soft drinks, and french fries, bad; fruit salad, granola bars, and yogurt, good. Seems relatively logical, but the researchers behind this new paper found that eating "indulgent" food doesn't necessarily mean you lack self-control. Instead, a choice has to include two things for it to mean that you’ve failed at self-control: First, it has to come along with anticipated regret. And second, it has to violate a long-term goal you've been working toward. If the choice doesn't meet those requirements, then it’s not a self-control failure. So, contrary to most studies on self-control, ice cream, french fries, and pizza aren't inherently "bad." They could just be delicious, pleasurable eating choices that are also high in fat. Good to eat in moderation, but not worthy of feelings of shame and failure. When it comes to weight-loss and overconsumption, the study's authors say the best practice is not to think about building up walls of self-control, but rather to eliminate the need for self-control at all. This could involve some reframing. What if we think less about denying ourselves nice things, and instead focus on finding more pleasure? A person with weight-loss goals is capable of both eating a slice of cake and having self-control. If you know a small piece won't undo everything (and almost always, it won't), you can indulge without feeling immense regret and shame after. The same goes for non-food indulgences: It's okay to watch Netflix before you finish your work, or buy yourself something nice you haven't budgeted for. As long as you know it won't derail your goals and you won't regret the decision, enjoy yourself. Pleasure is a good thing! And remember; everything in moderation.
Why Do Modern Scientists Still Use Old-Timey Weather Balloons? — https://curiosity.im/2pluMdl (Ashley)
When you think about scientific research, you probably think about cutting-edge equipment, like electron microscopes, or fMRI machines. So why do modern scientists still use old-timey weather balloons? You know, those big rubber balloons attached to like a shoebox full of equipment? Well it turns out that just like the rest of us, scientists have budgets they have to stick to. And balloons are both cost-effective AND reliable enough to have worked for more than a century. They cost a few hundred dollars per assembly, which is pretty cheap compared to a high-altitude rocket that can cost several hundred THOUSAND dollars. When you consider that more than half a million balloons are used globally each year, the cost factor really does start making sense.
In terms of what weather balloons actually ARE, they really haven’t changed much since scientists started using them around the turn of the 20th century. A scientist fills a synthetic rubber balloon with hydrogen or helium, until it’s about 5 feet across — that’s about a meter and a half. Hydrogen is cheaper and lifts better, but helium is much less explosive. The bottom of the balloon is tied to a thing called a sonde [saw-nd], which is basically a shoebox packed with instruments that measure the atmosphere. Those include a thermistor [THER-mis-ter] to measure temperature, a hygristor [high-GRIS-ter] to measure humidity, and a barometer to measure air pressure. Transmitters were added in the 1930s so scientists could retrieve measurements wirelessly rather than waiting for the balloon to come back down.
When it’s released, the balloon rises and expands as the air pressure around it drops, until it reaches nearly 30,500 meters, where it pops. A small parachute delivers the sonde safely back to Earth.
These days, meteorological organizations at roughly 800 locations around the world release weather balloons twice per day. That's 1,600 balloons a day, even before you count the considerable number of amateur launches. High-altitude weather data helps us predict not only the week's weather forecast, but also oncoming storms and other natural disasters — long before instruments on the ground could. NASA even uses weather balloons to study meteor showers, the radiation belts, and other near-space phenomena. Not bad for an old-timey technology we’ve been using to study the skies for more than a hundred years!
[MOVA GLOBES]
CODY: Today’s episode is sponsored by Mova Globes: rotating globes powered by light.
ASHLEY: Mova Globes don’t use any batteries or messy cords; instead, hidden magnets provide movement. These globes turn on their own when they’re exposed to ambient light, using a technology that’s the first of its kind! That’s right: the technology is even more cutting-edge than the weather balloons scientists use today!
CODY: There are 40 different designs of Mova Globes, including world maps, outer space, and even famous works of art, where paintings from artists like Van Gogh and Monet are carefully recreated to transform a flat painting into a 3-dimensional work of art.
ASHLEY: I have a Mova Globe of Mars sitting on my desk, which uses images from NASA. And I’m not the only one: Elon Musk owns a Mars Globe, too! He even tweeted about it last year. That’s just one globe from the outer space collection featuring graphics from NASA and JPL.
ASHLEY: No matter which design you choose, Mova Globes are the perfect decor for a conversation starter — not to mention a great gift for the person who has everything. And right now during their special holiday promotion, you can get 15 percent off everything, PLUS free shipping!
CODY: This is their biggest deal of the year. So please visit Mova Globes, M-O-V-A-globes, dot-com-slash-curiosity and use coupon code CURIOSITY, that’s C-U-R-I-O-S-I-T-Y, for 15 percent off your purchase, PLUS free shipping.
ASHLEY: One more time, that’s Mova-globes-dot-com-slash-curiosity, code CURIOSITY.
Overclaiming Is Why You Think You're the One Doing All the Work — https://curiosity.im/2CLptqH (Ashley)
Chances are, at some point, you’ve worked on something and felt like you were the one who did all the work. Like for example, let’s say you live with a roommate, and every time you unload the dishwasher or clean the bathroom sink, you get a little more resentful. Then, one day, out of the blue, your roommate tells you she’s stressed out because she says SHE’S the only one who does housework. Not that this story happened to anyone I know or anything.
But anyway, that situation happens because of a phenomenon called overclaiming. That’s the tendency for people to believe they’re doing more than their fair share of the work. Researchers tested this back in 1979, when they asked married couples to rate how much they contributed to 20 different household activities. Those included both positive and negative things, by the way. So you might say you do 50 percent of the laundry, or making 30 percent of the messes in the kitchen, or starting 60 percent of the arguments. And it turned out that most of the time, the self-rated scores from each partner added up to more than a hundred percent. Most participants overestimated their contributions on 16 of the 20 items. And what’s more interesting is that this included the negatives, like causing arguments. That’s key, because it shows that overclaiming isn't just about feeling good about yourself; it's more about being unaware of other people overall. And that’s the key to fixing it: simply put, pay more attention to everyone else. That’s according to Nicholas Epley, who’s a behavioral science professor who helped coin the term. In an experiment, Epley and his colleagues asked teams of competing researchers to spend a second considering the contributions of others on their team before considering their own. This not only cut down their overestimation of their own contributions, but also made them more likely to say they'd work with the other researchers in the future. So next time you're angrily washing a dish left in the sink, stop to think about what the other people in your house have really done to help out.
CODY: Let’s do a quick recap of why we were excited about today’s episode.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Ashley Hamer and Kelsey Donk, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity.com.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!