Learn about how a phenomenon called the third-person effect makes us think we’re too smart for advertising to work on us, why scientists used violinists to study how humans sync in a complex network, and why you can relieve pain by holding hands!
Learn about how a phenomenon called the third-person effect makes us think we’re too smart for advertising to work on us, why scientists used violinists to study how humans sync in a complex network, and why you can relieve pain by holding hands!
The Third-Person Effect Is Why We All Think We’re Too Smart for Ad Campaigns by Anna Todd
Scientists used violinists to study how humans sync in a complex network by Grant Currin
For an All-Natural Painkiller, Try Holding Your Partner’s Hand by Mae Rice
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-you-think-youre-too-smart-for-ads-studying-violinists-to-understand-human-synchrony-and-relieving-pain-by-holding-hands
[MUSIC PLAYING] ASHLEY HAMER: Hi. You're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiositydotcom. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, you'll learn about how a thing called the third-person effect makes us think we're too smart for ads and how scientists use violinists to study how humans synchronize. And lastly, how holding hands can relieve pain.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's all hold hands and satisfy some curiosity.
NATALIA REAGAN: If you've ever watched a misleading commercial or read a fake news article and thought, I can see right through this. But what about everyone else who can't? Then you've experienced the third-person effect. This effect is why we think we're too smart for commercials, political campaigns, and fake news. But other people aren't.
The term third-person effect was coined in 1983 by Sociologist W. Phillips Davison who defined it as a tendency for people to assume that a piece of persuasive media will have a greater influence on other people than on themselves. In one of his studies, half of the participants said that information about a local politician would influence other voters more than themselves.
In another study, Davison found that people tended to think that kids today are more influenced by TV commercials than they were as kids. The third-person effect even applies to good kinds of persuasion. In a 2016 study, researchers presented volunteers with a bunch of news clips about the H1N1 swine flu epidemic.
Instead of feeling motivated to get a flu shot afterwards, the participants considered themselves immune to the messages. Still they thought the rest of the group would probably be influenced. That feels particularly relevant during the current pandemic, when health departments and politicians are each sending conflicting messages about the importance of protecting yourselves from the coronavirus.
A study from April may also feel a little too familiar. It found that the better a person thought they were at identifying fake news online, the more they thought it would fool other people. Now, there are two problems with the third-person effect. One is, of course, that you may be underestimating how much something you see or read is persuading you. The other problem is that assuming others are more easily persuaded can lead to calls for censorship. All based on an assumption.
The next time you read something that's designed to persuade, maybe the best approach is to assume you're like most everyone else and everyone else is like you too.
ASHLEY HAMER: What do the COVID-19 pandemic, the QAnon conspiracy theory, and the stock market have in common? All three involve human networks. That's the scientific term for a group in which some people's actions go on to affect what other people do and so on. They can be pretty complicated. And they're everywhere in a large complex society like ours.
So to get some hard data on how humans interact and synchronize in a network, researchers recently invited 16 professional violinists into a concert hall to make some music. See, in the past, studies into how human networks sync up have been a little too simple. For instance, researchers have had people clap in rhythm so they could measure how they synchronized.
But that's a network where everybody's aware of what everybody else is doing. In something like the COVID-19 pandemic, one person might be seeing five friends regularly but one of those friends might be hanging out with 20 more. It's a lot more complex than just sitting in a room clapping together.
That's why this experiment was so cool. It took place in a brightly lit auditorium where two researchers sat at a mini command center that was set up right in the middle of the stage. They had computers and audio equipment with cables, radiating out to each of the 16 violinists. The violinists were in their own worlds. They sat with their backs to each other, white dividers restricted their peripheral vision, they wore noise-canceling headphones, and they played electric violins that didn't make much sound.
That way, the researchers could control which violinists heard each other. The experiment began with each violinist repeating a short musical phrase. At first, they could only hear themselves play. As the experiment went on, the researchers began joining the players into small networks. Then into larger ones. They also changed the network's parameters like the timing and the volume of the music coming from the other players.
After the music stopped and the stage went dark, the researchers got to work analyzing the data. It turns out that the violinists were really good at ignoring frustrating signals like the sound of another player who was at a completely different point in the phrase. But how they dealt with that depended on how the network was put together at any given time.
For instance, their reactions were different depending on whether there was an even or an odd number of players in a network. This study represents the first step on the road to really understanding the rules behind complex human networks. In the future, research like this might be able to slow down pandemics of all kinds-- whether they're spreading harmful viruses or false facts.
NATALIA REAGAN: Even though Cody is on paternity leave, we wanted to satisfy your Cody fix with a throwback Thursday Cody special. And we chose this one because he's soon becoming a dad. Check it out.
CODY GOUGH: Ashley, what's your go-to if you've got a lot of pain after a hard workout?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, I'll take a hot bath, that's a good one. But also just having my cat on my lap is kind of nice.
CODY GOUGH: Very natural with the remedies.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Oh, no. Because if you take-- inflammation is part of your muscles rebuilding themselves. So if you take an anti-inflammatory, sometimes you can actually keep yourself from recovering as fast.
CODY GOUGH: Wow. Pro tip. Is that rooted in science?
ASHLEY HAMER: That is rooted in science.
CODY GOUGH: Well, we're not talking about that science today, but we are going to talk about a new research that shows that when you're in pain, holding hands with your partner could also make the pain less intense.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: This study has kind of a cool back story too. Pablo Goldstein was the lead author and he said he got the idea for this experiment when his wife was giving birth. He saw that she was in a lot of pain. And when he held their hand, it seemed to help. So he was like, let's test this in a lab and see what happens.
So for the study published just last month, his team studied 22 straight couples in certain situations. Sometimes they were holding hands, other times they were in the same room but not touching, and sometimes they were in different rooms. And in some situations, the researchers applied heat to the woman's forearm. The idea was to get about a 60 on a pain scale of 0 to 100, that's not the amount of pain necessarily involved in a typical birth scene.
And this study showed that holding hands really did help. It's because of a thing called interpersonal synchronization. That's a physical phenomenon where we unconsciously sync our heartbeats, breathing, and brain activity with someone else's. In this study, synchronization in all areas was the highest when partners were holding hands. The woman's pain went down because she felt and absorbed her partner's lack of pain.
And here's an odd twist. The more empathetic men in this study, based on a questionnaire they took, had higher synchronization when the woman was in pain. Meaning she had even more pain reduction. It'll take more research to figure out exactly why this is but, it's something to keep in mind the next time you want to help your partner feel less pain.
NATALIA REAGAN: So let's do a little recap of what we learned today.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well we learned that a phenomenon called the third-person effect tricks us into thinking we're immune to stealthy advertisers and propaganda, but we assume everybody else is likely to fall for it. I mean, this is one of those things where it's like you think that you're smarter and better and more beautiful than everybody else, but it's like, chances are you're just average.
NATALIA REAGAN: We're all just, yeah. Let's not fool ourselves. I can't believe people would fall for this, but we're just as likely. I mean, how do we know? We also learned that scientists looked at violinists' ability to ignore or sync up with a network of other players to understand how humans engage in various networks in our own lives.
And hopefully, it'll help us understand, maybe, how to better combat COVID-19 and who we're hanging out with and all that stuff. Because I know that-- I don't know about you Ashley, but here in New York, it's kind of making sure everybody, like, who are you hanging out with?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. If you have social anxiety, it's already hard to hang out with people and then it's like harder to hang out with people because you have to like grill them. It's just oh, it's not worth it.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if this is TMI for the show, but it literally is like, who are you sleeping with? Just so you know what possible STIs-- but instead of STIs, it's just COVID. Just trying to avoid a global pandemic. That's all we're trying to do.
ASHLEY HAMER: It really is a lot like that. I have thought that throughout this pandemic.
NATALIA REAGAN: So who have you been hanging out with? Have you been socially distanced?
ASHLEY HAMER: Except we're asking our parents these questions.
NATALIA REAGAN: That's the crazy thing. I feel like as kids becoming parents overnight, trying to explain to our 70 something year old parents, "Hey, who are you hanging out with? Where are you going. Curfew. When are you going to be back?"
ASHLEY HAMER: All right.
NATALIA REAGAN: The tables have been turned.
ASHLEY HAMER: And we learned that holding hands can reduce your pain because it helps your hand-holding partner absorb some of the pain you're feeling. And a study found that men who are more empathetic were even more effective in decreasing their partner's pain. It's pretty fitting since Cody's about to be a dad. He might be a dad already by the time this goes out. We don't even know.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, my goodness.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm sure his wife will be taking advantage of that scientific fact.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, Cody. And he's like one of the most empathetic dudes I've met in terms of just being very kind. So I can imagine, he could take on a lot.
ASHLEY HAMER: Definitely.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think that kid's going to be in good capable hands for sure.
NATALIA REAGAN: Today's stories were written by Anna Todd, Grant Currin, and Mae Rice. 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 Natalia Reagan. 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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