Cody Cassidy is back to talk about how soap was invented. You’ll also learn about a bias that makes people believe poor people have thicker skin, and how good anxiety can help you get things done.
Cody Cassidy is back to talk about how soap was invented. You’ll also learn about a bias that makes people believe poor people have thicker skin, and how good anxiety can help you get things done.
Good Anxiety Can Help You Get Things Done by Reuben Westmaas
Society Perceives the Poor to Have a "Thick Skin" Compared to Others by Kelsey Donk
Additional resources from author Cody Cassidy:
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-dirty-smelly-history-of-soap-w-cody-cassidy
[MUSIC PLAYING] ASHLEY HAMER: Hi. You're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity. com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, Cody Cassidy is back to talk about the dirty, smelly history of soap. You'll also learn about a bias that makes people believe poor people have thicker skin, and how good anxiety can help you get things done.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we've never been more aware of how important soap is to our health. Handwashing kills germs, which means it can help prevent infections, avoid food contamination. It's even been linked to higher school attendance.
But we've had soap for way longer than we've known about germs. So what made us invent the stuff in the first place? Today, Cody Cassidy is back to give us the answer. He's the author of the new book, Who Ate the First Oyster, The Extraordinary People Behind The Greatest Firsts In History, which uncovers the geniuses behind many of history's forgotten innovations and world-turning inventions, from the person who wore the first pants to the Stone Age physician who performed the first surgery. Here he is on the grimy history of soap.
CODY CASSIDY: It's something we've always sort of taken for granted. It first showed up probably in ancient times when people understood that you could use ash, which is a kind of lye from a fire, and clean off a greasy plate or something, because it would combine with the fat and create a mild saponification effect.
But it wasn't first made until-- intentionally made as a product until around 4,500 years ago. We think and we know because it was written on a sort of ancient Akkadian tablet. And shockingly, it wasn't made at all-- that didn't have anything to do with washing hands. It was about improving the textile process. So it helps remove lanolin from wool a little bit. So this person who invented soap, this sort of great medical product probably had absolutely no idea what she had done. And it's really been a sort of 4,500-year process for us understanding how great a product it really is.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm speechless. I actually never really thought about what lye even was. That's amazing, that you can just get it from a campfire.
CODY CASSIDY: Yeah. Even in the Middle Ages, a lot of people made their own homemade soap by just dipping ash, sort of a teabag, into some grease or fat, a greasy fatty water. It's not as pure of a soap as we would buy today, but it makes an impure soap, and it works.
HOST: Do you have a sense or do you write in the book about how quickly after that it took for a soap to become the standard it is today?
CODY CASSIDY: Oh, it's been a 4,500-year process because really, it wasn't until a microscope that people understood what soap was actually doing or even began to understand. So the ancient Egyptians use soap simply because it makes people smell better. It has that effect. And I think no idea I'm sure of the medicinal qualities. So soap has sort of been sporadically adopted until the microscope and then Louis Pasteur.
HOST: Yeah. You would think, at least anecdotally, if it's raining outside or something, and you cover your whole body with soap, that your skin feels better.
CODY CASSIDY: Yeah, exactly. That's why it was used. I know the Gauls used it. The so-called barbarians used soap and the Romans didn't. In some cases, they use sort of spoiled urine, which also has a mild saponification effect. So just to smell better, certainly. But most people probably had no idea that it was destroying the bacteria on your hands.
ASHLEY HAMER: I have heard that about the urine. I didn't know that it actually had a saponification effect.
CODY CASSIDY: It does. It actually works a little bit. I have not tried it myself. And I don't think it works quite as well as soap. So the so-called barbarians, which were using soap, probably were a little bit cleaner than the Romans.
ASHLEY HAMER: When it comes to being clean, please do not do as the Romans do. Again, that was Cody Cassidy, author of Who Ate The First Oyster, The Extraordinary People Behind the Greatest Firsts in History. You can find a link to pick it up in today's show notes.
NATALIA REAGAN: Setbacks, emergencies, and personal crises are hard to deal with no matter who you are. But according to a series of studies done at Princeton University, not everyone believes that. The researchers found something troubling. Most people think that the poor are less affected by negative life events than those with means. They call it a thick-skin bias.
People in poverty are routinely mistreated. And the Princeton researchers had a hunch that this thick-skin bias was the cause. So through four studies, they asked a group of participants to read about people of different races and genders who experienced negative life events.
In one story, a person was served in overcooked meal. In another, a person was wrongly accused of shoplifting. Participants got a photo of each person with a short story. The story said, each of the people were born and raised in a large American city. But some of the people were described as poor and others were described as financially stable.
Independent of race or gender, poor people were seen as much less harmed by the negative life events than people of higher socioeconomic statuses. In later studies, the researchers made sure there weren't any other factors at play. Maybe it wasn't that being poor gave you a thick skin, but that being rich gave you a thin skin. That wasn't the case. Participants thought a rich person who falls on hard times gets tougher from the experience of poverty. But a poor person who gets suddenly rich, won't be changed by that experience of wealth.
They also tested whether participants thought poor people had thicker skin because negative events are more common for them. That wasn't the case either. The bias also showed up in events that are equally common for a poor or rich person, like getting hit by a car. They surveyed people of different races, genders, incomes, and occupations. Through all the studies, the researchers found a thick-skin bias.
The problem is this idea isn't true. People who live in poverty experience more stress, trauma, and troubling experiences. But those hardships do not give a person thicker skin. Instead, the trauma of poverty can mean that negative experiences affect those people even more.
This Is a big problem. If the thick-skin bias is this widespread, it's probably at work in our policymakers, legislators, therapists, and teachers if these people think the poor can live with less or are less affected by negative experiences, they may feel like it's less urgent to help them. People in poverty need more help, not less. And it's important for all of us to remember that.
ASHLEY HAMER: Do you worry a lot? Obsess over the details? Live in fear of a never ending parade of deadlines? The bad news is, you're probably experiencing a form of anxiety. The good news is, it might be good for you. It also might not. Let me explain.
In 2017, a study published in the Journal of Individual Differences looked into why some people seem to work best under pressure. It was inspired by psychology researcher, Julianne [? Strack's ?] observation that in some situations, negative emotions like anxiety can be as powerful a driver as positive emotions.
The researchers recruited more than 400 journalists, some students, some professionals, and measured their anxiety, how much they were motivated by anxiety, how well they could identify their feelings, and a few metrics of success, like academic achievement or job satisfaction.
They found that anxiety could be a powerful motivator for some. For others, it had the opposite effect, causing depression and a major drop off in productivity. Specifically, anxiety was good for people who were motivated by anxiety and could easily identify and understand their own emotions. These people were found to have higher grades, and be more satisfied at work than anxious people who weren't motivated by anxiety.
In other words, the ability to identify anxious feelings for what they are and be motivated by them could completely offset many of the negative side effects traditionally associated with them. So if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed with your workload, it might help to try to channel that feeling into better motivation. After all, if you tackle it quickly, you won't be so overwhelmed afterward.
Although anxiety can have a positive impact on your being, it's not something that you want to let grow unchecked. After all, anxiety has been linked to such issues as short-term memory loss and an inability to concentrate. If you've been plagued with recurring anxiety problems, things like cardio exercise and breath training can help. But in the end, this might be good news for some. Anxiety isn't always a bad thing. It might be good for your career, too.
NATALIA REAGAN: Know what? That makes me feel a little bit better.
[CHUCKLES]
ASHLEY HAMER: It's certainly good news for me.
NATALIA REAGAN: Right. The whole time, I was a bundle of nerves as you were reading.
[LAUGHTER]
Well let's recap the main things we learned today. We learned that soap wasn't invented to kill germs. It actually got its start 4,500 years ago, with textile workers who used lye from ash to wash lanolin off wool. And apparently, the so-called barbarians were probably cleaner than the hoity-toity Romans. They used soap, while the Romans used spoiled urine. Hmm. Spoiled urine.
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: Hmm.
[LAUGHTER]
NATALIA REAGAN: I get it. You use what you've got. And if you got some more leftovers spoiled urine, well, you don't want to let that go to waste, [? do you now? ?]
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
NATALIA REAGAN: That's a great tagline. Don't let your waste go to waste.
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: Perfect.
NATALIA REAGAN: I was born to write taglines for Roman spoiled urine cleaning products. Never let your waste go to waste. Bathe in it. The Romans.
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, I love it.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, god, ooh. The far cry from Dr. Bronner's. I'll tell you that much.
ASHLEY HAMER: It is. It is. And we also discovered the disturbing truth that when it comes to dealing with the trials and tribulations of life, many think poorer individuals have thicker skin, figuratively speaking, than rich people. This thick-skin bias can negatively affect how politicians, teachers, doctors, and therapists treat those already suffering in poverty.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, god. This one is a scary concept. But it's good that people are actually determining that exists so they can actually do something about it. But there are other studies that are, I think, equally, if not more disturbing. That for the long time, there's been a myth that Black populations and Brown populations actually had literal thicker skin than their paler counterparts.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
NATALIA REAGAN: So they were being treated differently, whether they were patients at a doctor's office or just-- yeah. And it goes back unfortunately, to slave days when they thought that slaves had thicker skin. And it's a really disturbing myth that needs to be debunked.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's a pretty convenient myth for someone who wants to keep certain groups down.
NATALIA REAGAN: Absolutely. The more we know and can do something about it, the better. We also learned that a moderate dose of anxiety can actually help motivate you to get work done. That's not to say it's a good thing if you're a nervous wreck. But a little anxiety can be that fire under your keister to get your work done. Yes, lean into it a little bit.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm definitely, sadly motivated by anxiety. It's not a fun existence, but it works for me.
NATALIA REAGAN: Hey, right, whatever works. I know that procrastination can be a little bit of a tool to get stuff done. But yeah, I definitely think there is a healthy amount of anxiety. People that are a little too laid back maybe lack the motivation or ambition that some people have.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Hey, that's a good thing for me, I guess.
NATALIA REAGAN: Right. Whatever works, man.
[LAUGHTER]
Today's stories were written by Reuben [? Wesmus ?] and Kelsey Donk, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan and Sonja Hodgen. Today's episode was edited by me, Ashley Hamer. And our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
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