Curiosity Killed the Adage

0:00Hello, and thank you for calling customer service. Hi, it's Latif Nasser. So I know you already know this, but it feels like maybe you need a tiny reminder. Yeah, I was just calling because I was looking for a free subscription. Do you have a, I mean, do you have a promo code? No. But the things that you enjoy, the things that have value in your life. When you say a free subscription, what do you mean? I would still just get everything that I already get, but I just wouldn't have to pay any money. Yeah, no. You have to pay for them. Let me connect you with a representative who can help with your request.

0:34And even things that you think, like, maybe you shouldn't really have to pay for. I'm sorry. Well. A plan where the electricity is for free? This is America. How can I help you today? It's gonna cost you. Sure. Let me find someone to help you. Gas. I was looking to get the internet for free. The internet. I'm not sure what you mean by free. Your cell phone. Um, no. We don't have any free cell phone plans, no. Please hold. And I get it. You're probably sitting there thinking, well, you know what? I paid my taxes. I'm doing my part. I'm contributing to public radio. But you know how much of your personal federal taxes went to public radio stations last year?

1:06It was probably less than 50 cents. Two quarters. For the whole year, that's what you contributed. That's what you paid for... Welcome to Science Friday. Everything. It's Notes from America. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Radio Lab. Everything. Ryan Lara on WNYC. Everything you hear. You're basically getting it for free. And we wish we didn't have to, but we gotta say, that's just not cutting it, folks. So please take a minute out of your day to support this thing that you mostly take for granted 364 days of the year. You can do that by joining The Lab, our membership program. The Lab is part of what powers all of this.

1:39Joining makes it possible for us to keep making these shows for you. And you get something out of it too. Exclusive merch, bonus content, ad-free listening. And if you join this month, a Radiolab poster. The poster is beautiful. It's by artist Tara Anand of A Moonrise Over the Ocean from our kids and family show, Terrestrials. Our staff is obsessed with it right now. Go to radiolab.org slash join to check out the poster or become a part of the lab. That's radiolab.org slash join. And thanks. Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab. From WNYC.

2:26Hey, this is Radiolab. I'm Latif Nasser. All right. And today I'm just going to kick things off with our editor. Got levels on my side. Alex Neeson. Cool. Okay. So once upon a time it was summer. Okay. Okay. Hard to remember now. Hard to remember now. Yeah. And okay. So over the summer, as you know, I'm a runner. Legit runner. A legit runner. Like you run marathons. Um, so over this year, I decided to take the year off from marathons. Mm-hmm. And instead, I decided to tackle the one mile. Okay. And I was going to try and beat my personal record. And so, as part of doing that, shoes, last summer, every Tuesday, like clockwork, Oh, I need my watch.

3:14I would drag myself out of my apartment and head out into the city. and run from my house, which is about a mile and change away from Riverbank State Park in Harlem, over to this track. Hey. Hello. What up? To meet up with some people from my running crew. I'm okay. How are you? And it depends on the night, but it's basically 10 or 15 people who all get together to do these track workouts together. And as somebody who is definitely not a runner, you prefer this? you like running with people more than running alone? Yeah, I mean, I do this because I can't be trusted to do it by myself. Running is really hard.

3:58And having other people there with me to do it just makes me feel, it makes me feel like I'm a team. It reminds me of being on a track team in high school where you show up for yourself and for the rest of the team and you all do the hard thing together. And it's faster. It feels better. It's just the way that you get it done. So on this particular day, it was super hot. It's like the dead of summer. And Ref, our coach, tells us we're doing 400s. The length of a track is 400 meters. So that just means we're doing one long sprint around the entire length of the track. And we're going to do a lot of them.

4:44Ten on and ten on. Ten on, ten on. Yeah. And everybody sort of makes this collective sigh, and it's like, okay, okay. Always you want to be running the run. Don't let the run run you. Yes. Right? So we get on the track, we warm up, we stretch, we do drills, kind of get loose, and then we tow the line, and we start. Immediately out the gate, I'm pumping my legs, swinging my arms, just sprinting for the entire length of this track.

5:24I cross the line. I take a little break, a sip of water. And then I'm sprinting again. And I do another lap. Rest, lap, rest, lap, rest. How many more do you have? Six. And that day, I was struggling to breathe. Come on, come on, come on. My heart was beating super fast. It felt like it was coming out of my chest. And everybody else around me seemed to be settling into the workout. I don't know. It just felt like I just couldn't get it together. and all of these very, all these like insecurities from like childhood came rushing back. Like I was suddenly very aware that I looked like I was struggling and there was all these other people around me who were just watching me struggle.

6:11And so I just wanted to disappear. And I wanted all the other people on the track to disappear. And I just felt like I was mentally spiraling because the whole point of this, of showing up at these group workouts, the whole reason why I started running with the crew in the first place was to avoid exactly this moment. And there's this adage, Misery Loves Company, that has been the sort of philosophy of my athletic career, if you will. The idea that if you are suffering through something and you're in the company of other people suffering the same misery, that it makes all of us a little more capable, that a burden gets lifted, and that you just ultimately, you can get through it.

7:07And here I was at this track workout that was especially miserable that day, but the burden wasn't being lifted. It felt heavier, actually. And after this workout, I remember walking home and just obsessing about this adage. And by the time I get back to my apartment and for days afterwards, I had just really started to wonder, like, have I had this wrong the whole time? Maybe this thing just isn't true. Like, is it true or not? And I started to think about, like, OK, well, I have to figure this out. I have to figure out, factually speaking, does misery love company? Like, who can I call? What can I read?

7:48What can I do to get like real nitty gritty, real fussy so that on the other end I can sort of like stand up and declare it is true that misery loves company or it's just not. You needed an answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A definitive answer.

8:11So, this quest that Alex suddenly wanted to embark on, we started talking about it at the show, about how there are these things that you hear in your life. Well, you know what they say, it's just squeaky weird against the grease. You hear them in movies, on TV. Idle hands of the devil's workshop. Maybe from a friend, a parent. The early bird catches the worm. Actions speak louder than words. These little sayings, these adages, that are supposed to be these little bits of wisdom, these true facts about how the world works. And we just started to wonder, like, are they true? And could we take Alex's mission and start looking at other adages and just getting really in the weeds and being like, okay, is there a way to objectively figure out whether or not an adage is true or it isn't.

9:03Could we put them to the test in some sort of scientific, rigorous, kind of literal, almost to the degree of being absurd way, to try to get an answer? So we picked some adages, and the staff basically fact-checked them. Starting with... Number one. Misery loves company.

9:38Okay, cool. So, so, so, so, so, so. First thing I did. Right, right, yeah. Oh, here we go. Was roping producer Simon Adler. And then I went on Google and typed in Misery Loves Company Study. And to my surprise and delight. All right. Something popped up. We are rolling. We are rip-roaring and ready to rock. This paper, published in 2021, Does Misery Love Company? An Experimental Investigation. Kate, could we just have you introduce yourself? Sure. Yeah, my name is Kate Hassett. I'm an environmental economist, and I'm interested in the factors that make us do what we do, that make us tick, so to speak.

10:17And by sheer coincidence. I know where you're coming from. She is also a runner. When it comes to the particular kind of misery that long distance running can be sometimes. But yeah, we are going to move away from running. Okay. Because, you know, like an adage should be sort of universal. Like it should be true in multiple situations. Yeah. Several years ago, Kate set up a series of experiments. In the first experiment, we wanted to know, do people actually believe this? Do people actually believe, like me, this adage to be true? That being miserable in company makes the misery a little less miserable.

10:55So we asked 100 people to complete a survey. That said. Imagine. Oh, glory be. Someone. I just love my New York City lifestyle. Who lives in an apartment building. But what I love most of all is. And. My view of the park. They have this view of a green park. Yes, here from my window I can see all of the park in its glory. I can see the raccoons playing, the pigeons flying overhead, perched in their trees. But the survey says this person, and actually pretty much everybody in the building, is about to lose their view of the park. Because of a construction project. Like a big highway going in across the street.

11:39That sucks. So the survey asks, imagine you're like the landlord, and you have to go tell one of these tenants that they're going to lose their view. If you want to minimize this person's disappointment. Their suffering. How would you inform them? Would you, A. Who's there? Go knock on their door. Oh, it's Tony. What can I do you for, Tony? Hey, Gregory, I'm sorry to give you the bad news. And just simply inform them. They're going to be doing a construction project across the street. They're going to put up a highway. That means it's going to block your view of the park. That they'll lose their view of the park.

12:11Not my view of the park. Tony, I live for my view of the park. So that's option A. Option B... Gregory, it's Tony. Everything's the same. Tony. You tell them, look. Big highway outside. Construction is going to block the park view. But this time you tell them... It's going to block everybody's view of the park, the whole building. You're not the only one who's going to be affected by this. No one's going to be able to see the park anymore. Your neighbors are going to be losing this, too. And so if you want to make this person feel better, which one do you do? Option A or option B? B. It's got to be B.

12:43Yeah, exactly. That's what I said. And when Kate gave out the survey, almost 70 % of people, they said they'd choose B. So, huh, but there were still 30 % who didn't, but sociopaths or something. I know. Right. Like, I honestly don't know why you wouldn't go with B. I would definitely be one of the 70%. But Kate says, you know, 70%, it's a big number. You know, we took this to mean that people do, by and large, believe that misery actually does love company. It can, you know, alleviate suffering. However, just because you believe something is true for everyone else doesn't mean it's true for you.

13:22So they did this second experiment. We tried to make it as similar as possible to experiment one. Everything was basically the same. There's a person in an apartment with the view. But this time, the survey said, put yourself in the shoes of the person who's going to lose the view. And then one group of those people was told, you're going to lose the view of the park, while a second group was told, For your information, 85 % of the other people in your building will also lose their view of the park. And then we asked them, Both groups, alone or in company, Please rate how disappointed you expect that you would be in this situation.

14:04So, when they looked at the results, they actually found that both groups were miserable. Everybody was just miserable regardless of whether or not their neighbors were going to be miserable or not. I would not have thought that. Yeah. We didn't find evidence that Misery actually does love company. What they found is that people believe Misery loves company, but it just didn't seem like true that Misery loved company in practice. However, they did find strong evidence for something that they weren't actually looking for and that I think was like way more interesting, which is that happiness hates company.

14:44What does that even mean? Okay, so one of the things that they found is that if you're one of the lucky ones, if you have a great view of the park from your window, according to the survey results, you don't want anyone else to have it. Wow, you want to be the lucky golden ticket winner and it makes it better. it makes the golden ticket better if nobody else has one. Yes. That's sick. We're sick people. We're sick. Like, what does that say about us? I don't like that. I really don't like that. I hear you. It's kind of a tough finding, but we're social beings.

15:24I think it's just the way we're wired that, you know, what's going on with other people, you know, it's not irrelevant, you know.

15:34I realized what Kate is getting at is the fact that we're always keeping track of what we have, of what everybody else has. And that's asking questions about like equity and envy and fairness. But I think I was actually asking something even simpler than that, which is just like when you're running with a group of people and everybody is suffering together, does that fact that we're together and suffering do something for us? Is it helpful? Svenja, hello. Hi. It's so nice to talk to you. Yes, it is. And I felt like I really started to get an answer to that when I found Svenja. Svenja Wolff, I'm an assistant professor of sports psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

16:18And I research anything that has to do with groups and emotions in sport and in other performance domains. Amazing. Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. I guess, like, I'm curious about this in your professional opinion and also in, like, your opinion as a runner. Like, does misery love companies? Yeah. There is a good body and research out there, and it's really, it depends. That is the answer. Not every misery loves every company. That's kind of what it comes down to. Misery brought on by fear, she says. Where I'm fearful because the situation is dangerous. In that case, you probably do want to be around other people.

16:56Maybe make it less dangerous. So I want company. If I am sad. She says with sadness, you're often feeling a sense of loss. So you want company. To reconnect with others, to kind of like get security again. But the one emotion she said that kind of struck me was. Shame. Shame. That is something where I don't want other people to witness that. So that's something where I don't want company. And I think for me, that day on the track, I think a part of me was feeling that. Like I felt sort of out of shape, like I wasn't doing well. I felt slow, like I was dragging. You're really getting into that rabbit hole of like, I'm not good enough.

17:39I'm pathetic. And then the last thing we want is other people witnessing this. But even in that situation where we want to be alone, where we want to withdraw from others, sharing the emotion ultimately makes us feel better.

18:00Svenja says this has been studied with groups of people on stationary bikes, with teams that have just lost big games. And no matter the setting, when people feel miserable together, it helps them perform better, like they pedal faster on the bikes. And it also helps them feel better. That's at least what the research suggests. So to me, the way this resonates the most is if I'm in a miserable state, I'm yearning for company. I'm like, I want, that's what I want. I want other people to comfort me. I want people to reach out to me. And sometimes I don't have the energy to reach out, but I want that sense of recognition and validation that somebody cares for me.

18:46So maybe I might rephrase it to misery can create company.

19:02How are you feeling? I feel okay. We can slow down because I'm definitely going too fast. Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely down to slow down. I feel like I'm trying to make sure I'm not in anyone's way. No, you're fine. Yeah, I feel okay. I was, I'm sorry, when I woke up this morning to get ready. That's great. We have to take a break, but that gives you plenty of time to watch a pot boil, hold some horses, wait for a shoe to drop. We'll be right back.

19:52Number two. An idle mind is the devil's workshop.

20:04I always heard it as the idle hands or the devil's workshop. Yeah, idle hands, idle minds. Like people say it all sorts of ways. We're just going to go with idle minds. Okay. And I picked this one because... Wait, wait, wait. Just tell everyone who you are first. Oh, yes. Okay. I'm Sindhu Dhyana Zemadam. I'm a producer here. And I picked this one because it's always felt pretty true to me. Huh. Like how so? Well, I mean, of course the mind is never like idle idle. But when I think of a mind that's like not focused on anything, like it's just sort of, you know, wandering around. That's what I'm thinking of as an idle mind.

20:40And I like try to avoid that mind as much as possible. Huh. Part of it is that I just feel guilty for not being productive. Same. But also when I just sort of like sit around idle. Oh, it feels so good if I was in a bath right now. I wonder what Marcello's up to. All these thoughts start flooding in. How do ants, like, always seem to know exactly where they're going? Some of them are fun or helpful. Did I leave the stove on? But, like... That joke I made last night was so stupid. Others... I don't think anyone even smiles. Did you have to say something? Was it offensive? I bet it was. I bet that's why he's not texting me back.

21:17Always do. Can really suck. Like, almost like the devil's in there trying to make me miserable. Yes. So a lot of religious writing tends to regard the wandering mind as something that's not particularly desirable. This is psychology professor Kalina Kristof-Hajileva. I study spontaneous thought and in general how people think. And when I called them to ask about this adage, they said it's deeply rooted in our culture. This industrial kind of capitalist work-based environment. There's this sense that there is a right way and there is a wrong way. and when you wander, you depart from the right way.

21:58And that's sometimes how we think of our own minds, is time on task. Like, if I'm focused on something, that's good. Am I tasking right now or am I not tasking? If I'm not tasking, therefore I'm mind-wandering. And that's bad. But Kalina says... That's not necessarily a very rich way of looking at mind-wandering. That's the wrong way to think about it. Huh. Why? Well, first of all, you know that devilish part I was describing of my mind where it can start to just like obsess and like ruminate over things. Like Kalina says that stuff isn't actually mind wandering anymore. Nope. No. For me, that's the opposite of mind wandering.

22:35Because when you start to obsess, you're back to a task of sorts. Like you're trying to solve some puzzle that your mind made for itself. So that's how people can get into like mental ruts, right? But Kalina says when a mind truly wanders, like when it's free of any task, this isn't the devil's workshop at all. It's actually a place where something pretty beautiful is happening, like an act of creation. Wow. And it starts deep inside the brain with these bursts of neuronal firing called a sharp way ripple. sharp wave ripples. Have you heard of these? Whoa, never heard of that. No, never. Okay, well, let me tell you, Latish.

23:25Yeah, ripples. I love the sound of that. All right, so we're in the lab. We are in the lab. So I went to go see one of the world experts on these ripples. I'm Yuri Buzaki. I'm a professor of neuroscience at New York University. He showed me around his lab, rooms filled with wires and mazes and boxes of Froot Loops. Reds and mice love Froot Loops. Is that part of the experiment or just because you want to give them something nice? You want to have a good rapport with them. You want to be friends. They are pets. Your colleagues. And one of the things he does in his lab is he listens to the brains of these animals, specifically the hippocampus.

24:00And the way he does this is he sticks these little electrodes into it so that he can see or really hear these sharp wave ripples. Okay. So let's say he takes a rat and plops him into a maze. and maybe we can like play a song to represent just like the various neurons firing here and there as he like moves through and you know experiences like a turn over here or like runs straight down this path like you know I don't know what else happens in a maze like whatever looking up at the researcher maybe like yeah and maybe you're smelling something and it's behind this wall but I can't get behind the wall exactly that's nice and Rat makes it through the maze he gets to the end and stops and, you know, he's just sort of like chilling, eating his food, drinking some water.

24:51His brain is just sort of like humming around, neurons firing here and there. When all of a sudden, there's this burst of activity, like tens of thousands of neurons fire all at once in this coordinated explosion. Extraordinary powerful synchrony. Then it happens again. Then again. And again. These explosions of activity, these are sharp wave ripples. And they're the biggest, most synchronized firing of neurons that happen in our brain, short of like a seizure. Wow. And Yuri says, like, when you look at them closely, you see. These are snippets that are compressed versions of learned information.