Learn about a nearly mile-long trackway of fossilized human footprints is the longest ever found, a trick to keep experiences feeling fresh and new, and the more you wish for self-control, the less of It you have.
Learn about a nearly mile-long trackway of fossilized human footprints is the longest ever found, a trick to keep experiences feeling fresh and new, and the more you wish for self-control, the less of It you have.
This nearly mile-long trackway of fossilized human footprints is the longest ever found by Steffie Drucker
This Simple Trick Keeps All Your Favorite Experiences Feeling Fresh and New by Reuben Westmaas
The More You Wish for Self-Control, the Less of It You Have by Anna Todd
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-more-you-wish-for-self-control-the-less-of-it-you-have
[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. Happy Thanksgiving to our listeners in the United States. Today, you'll learn about why the more you wish for self-control, the less of it you have, the longest trackway of fossilized human footprints ever found, and a trick to keep familiar experiences, like a holiday meal at home, feeling fresh and new.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
[SWOOSH]
The holidays are here. And that's got many of us wishing for self-control, the discipline to not eat all the pie, or not buy gifts for ourselves, when we're supposed to be shopping for others. Well, be careful of what you wish for. Because depending on the task, the more you wish for self-control, the less of it you may end up having.
In a study published in 2017, researchers measured people's desire for self-control by having them rate their level of agreement with statements like, "I want to be able to better resist temptations." Then, they began working on either an easy or a difficult assignment. Those who did the best on the challenging assignment were the least likely to say they'd like to be better disciplined. And those who did the worst were the most likely to wish for more self-control. Of course, it could be that the people who aced the difficult task did so precisely, because they already had self-control. I mean, you don't wish for something you already have.
So the researchers controlled for that by actually manipulating people's desire for self-control. They asked volunteers to write an essay explaining either why self-control was a good thing, or how it could cause problems. Then, the volunteers had to complete either an easy or a hard task. Again, those people who are made to want self-discipline did worse on the difficult task than those who wrote about how self-control causes problems. But there's a twist. In both experiments, a desire for self-control had no effect on the participants performance on the easy tasks.
That suggests that it's only on really challenging stuff that a wish for discipline comes into play. But why? Essentially, you psych yourself out. Thinking about things you wish you had highlights the fact that you don't have them. To fight this effect, the researchers suggest a few things. If you find yourself wishing for discipline, try your best to connect that wish to a specific action you can take. Like, instead of wishing you had the self-control to avoid online shopping, take concrete steps to actually avoid it by blocking those sites on your web browser.
The researchers also suggest reframing the idea of self-control. Instead of thinking of it as a trait you have or you don't, think of it as an unlimited resource you can tap at any time. Good luck.
[SWOOSH]
NATALIA REAGAN: If you want to understand someone's perspective, you have to walk a mile in their shoes, as the saying goes. And a recent discovery allows scientists to walk a mile in a prehistoric pedestrian shoes, or footprints, at least. Cornell researchers just unearthed the longest known trackway of early human footprints ever found. And the prints offer incredible details about the travelers journey. The footprints were found in a dried up lakebed in New Mexico's White Sands National Park. Footprints, from now extinct animals, found nearby helped scientists determine the tracks age as more than 10,000 years old.
These particular prints may have captured a prehistoric preschool drop off. The person, either an adult woman or teenage boy, made a slippery mile long trek with a toddler in tow. Scientists figured this out by comparing the 400 plus footprints to those of modern humans. Tiny toddler tracks appear alongside the others at some point. Suggesting the traveler was carrying the child, and then set them down to rest or readjust. The kid was probably riding on the traveler's left side, judging from the larger indentation of the left foot.
Researchers even get an idea of what the weather was like from the footprints. They believe the traveler was moving at a clip of almost four miles per hour or six kilometers per hour based on the steps spacing. That's pretty quick considering the toddler on their hip. So it was probably raining. Banana shaped swipes reveal where the traveler slipped. And gaps in their stride show where they might have jumped over puddles.
But that northbound trip was just half of it. The return trip south was much easier. The pedestrian southbound steps are smaller and follow the same path with fewer slips. The child's tracks don't appear at all. This implies they knew the route to their destination where they left the child and walk back unencumbered.
This person wasn't the only one tromping around at that time. A mammoth and giant sloth cut across the human's northbound tracks. The team can tell from the sloths track that it stopped to check for predators nearby. The travelers southbound steps then overlap the animals. Meaning, they cross paths within hours before the mud dried.
The steps were hard to spot at first revealed only by slight changes in moisture that altered the color of the ground around them. And just as soon as they were uncovered, they disappeared. Though they survived 10,000 years in the ground, once they were excavated and 3D imaged, they disintegrated into sand. But the knowledge they gave us will last a lifetime.
[SWOOSH]
ASHLEY HAMER: It's Thanksgiving today in the United States. But because we're still in a pandemic, a lot of us don't get to gather with friends and family. Instead, we'll just sit at our same old tables and eat our same old food. So we thought we'd play this throwback clip from Cody, about how to keep those familiar experiences feeling fresh and new. Give these ideas a try.
[SWOOSH]
CODY GOUGH: All right, Ashley. What's the last thing you got sick of?
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't get sick of very many things. In case you haven't noticed, I eat the exact same thing for lunch every single day.
CODY GOUGH: I'm so weirdly the same way. If I had to eat lean ground turkey meat or chicken and veggies every day, that would be it. Yeah, I don't know what it is.
ASHLEY HAMER: You don't have to think about it.
CODY GOUGH: But not everybody's like us. So today, we've got a simple trick to help you keep your favorite experiences feeling fresh and new.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice.
CODY GOUGH: And this is really about fighting off something called hedonic adaptation, also called the hedonic treadmill. It has the treadmill nickname, because it's talking about how you get back to a stable level of happiness, even after something really good or really bad happens in your life. It's like if you're on a treadmill on your trip or something, you eventually go back to that regular speed. And to give you an idea of how big of a thing this is, one study showed that people who won the lottery weren't even very much happier than they were in the first place a full year after they won the lottery. Even a million bucks gets old. So why is this?
One paper blames hedonic adaptation on two main causes. First, we all love something new. But you can only discover so many things about that thing, right? Got a new car? OK, well, there's only so many features and settings you can find and mess with before they aren't new anymore. Same for me, goes for video games.
The second cause is that even if you get a lasting benefit, like winning the lottery, your newfound wealth just becomes the new normal. It's not really a benefit anymore, if it's just life. So let's talk about how to get over it. A new study says all you need to do is liven up the things you're used to by experiencing them in new ways. Like in this study, researchers had participants eat popcorn with chopsticks. And they enjoyed the popcorn more.
Another study had people watch their favorite movies with their hands cupped around their eyes like goggles. I love that. And the way I make things new again, video games. I do this all the time by playing as a new character, or trying a new mode, or difficulty when the main experience gets stale. Maybe do singleplayer instead of multiplayer.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. And actually, when I train for marathons, because I've done a bunch of them, and that gets boring, is I'll just use a new training plan.
CODY GOUGH: I'm the same way with yoga also. So many different things. Anyway, try switching things up. You can email us to let us know how you come up with awesome ideas at podcast@curiosity.com.
[SWOOSH]
NATALIA REAGAN: Let's do a quick recap of what we learned today. Well, we learned that it turns out, wishing for self-control may actually counteract that goal. So some suggestions to best sustain self-control include maybe blocking that website that you always buy stuff at in the middle of the night, or maybe just reframe the idea by telling yourself that thing that you really want to do is kind of an unlimited resource that you can do any time you want. So who needs to do it today?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I think, it's also important to note that when it's a holiday, self-control is overrated. I mean, when you go hog wild one day out of the month, it's not going to do much damage, right? Just have fun. Enjoy yourself. It's fine.
NATALIA REAGAN: Eat that pie.
[LAUGHS]
ASHLEY HAMER: Exactly.
NATALIA REAGAN: I agree. When I was younger, I had a lot of issues with food, and self-control, and stuff like that. In terms of just being way too hard on myself and a lot of it just falling into traps of what one should look like and whatnot that I think is unfortunate. And now, I've got a much more, I think, gentle approach when it comes to self-control and things like. Come on, life's short. If anything taught us-- if 2020 taught us anything this year, life's short. And why not have that extra piece of pie if you want it. We're all going to be fine.
ASHLEY HAMER: And we learned that scientists discovered the longest set of prehistoric footsteps ever discovered in modern day New Mexico. They determined it was either a woman or a teenage boy who had a toddler on their hip. And based on the speed of their walk, it was possibly raining. And I think coolest of all, they crossed paths with a mammoth and a giant sloth. That's incredible.
NATALIA REAGAN: I'm jealous.
ASHLEY HAMER: I just love the toddler tracks. That's my favorite detail. I mean, it's obvious that we've always had babies and toddlers. But to see this trek that someone took, and see that they had to put their baby down to readjust and give themselves a little break from carrying, it's just so relatable. I love it.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah, it reminds me of the laetoli footprints that were near Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. And they think it was by an Australopithecus afarensis individual. And it looks as though, maybe there was a kiddo with them that was hopping in the footprints. Like when you're walking with an adult when you're a little kid, and you like-- whether it's like mud that you want to jump in and match their footsteps. Almost like hopscotching their way through the desert. And I just love that this little toddler-- it humanizes the past in a way that we don't get to do very often.
ASHLEY HAMER: Definitely. Yeah, they had their kid. They're just hanging out. Oh, look, a giant ground sloth, Megatherium. Yeah.
NATALIA REAGAN: We also learned that to escape the hedonic treadmill, or good things not feeling as good anymore, try to switch up your routine. Like trying to eat your favorite fruit a different way, or if you're a gamer, try playing as a new character. Heck, I might try eating peanut butter with chopsticks. Who knows? I don't know.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, one thing that I'm doing with my friends is we're all signing up to make a dish. And then we're going to divide it up into individual servings. We're going to go to a public place, like a park. And then we're all going to exchange food. So that we have food that other people cooked, which honestly, I think is one of the best things about a holiday meal. And I'm really excited to do it. And plus I'll get to see my friends. It'll be great.
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, it's perfect. I love that. Hopefully, next year, you will actually not-- you'll be able to hug your friends. We don't know yet. But hopefully. But friendsgiving, I think, is a great tradition to have if you're not able to go home. And of course, we're having to do that in a modified way, if you are living in a COVID hotspot, which I think all of us are at this point.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, everybody in the United States, pretty much.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah. So one of the interesting things about tradition or routines, tradition especially, I remember, being in anthropology class, a theoretical class that this idea of tradition being old. And it's just an old thing that just exists. But no, tradition is new. Because every generation has to choose to maintain that tradition.
So if you decide to abandon it, it's gone. So it's always getting re-upped. So you can abandon tradition and create a new one. So it's this, I think, an interesting way of looking at tradition. It's not something like we have to do it. Because it's tradition.
It's like, no, you can either choose to keep doing it, or you can abandon it and start a new one. And then therefore, you can keep that going into future years or generations. But there's no need to look at tradition as something as old. It's actually as new as you've chosen to keep it.
ASHLEY HAMER: I love that. Yeah.
[SWOOSH]
NATALIA REAGAN: Today's story is written by Steffi Drucker, Reuben Westmis and Anna Todd. 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 Jonathan McMichael. And our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Go ahead and have that extra, well, entire pie. And join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]