Do We Really Decide for Ourselves?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2018
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why do we behave the way we do in a group setting? Is it because of gender, because of taught behaviour or because of obligation? Ginny Smith, a science writer and memory expert, shows us how to make a “mind palace” to remember lists, and explains how the power of suggestion can affect how we remember things. What caused the last financial crisis? Some commentators suggest some of the blame can be placed on a male, testosterone-fuelled environment, but author Cordelia Fine says that ignores the real problem – bad decision making. Journalist Angela Saini says gender balance in science is not such a problem globally as it is in the west, which she says sounds paradoxical. But because modern science took off later elsewhere, in countries which already had votes for women, more women take part as a matter of course. Tax is a good topic when it comes to choice. Is how we think about fair shares of tax influenced by who we think about when it comes to tax avoidance? Yes, says Helen Miller of the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Vishala Sri-Pathma presents.
(Picture: Woman trying to remember. Credit: Getty.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily with me Vichala Sri Puffler. |
| 0:12.2 | That music you can hear is being performed here at the Cheltenham Science Festival in the west of England |
| 0:18.4 | where I've been finding out about choices, why we choose the jobs |
| 0:22.6 | we do and why we choose to remember some things and forget others. |
| 0:26.6 | The brain can get a bit confused and incorporate that new piece of information into the original |
| 0:31.6 | memory. When you go to recall it again, you can't tell the difference. |
| 0:35.6 | And I'll be asking if testosterone was to blame it for the financial crisis. |
| 0:39.9 | Generally much more evidence that behaviour changes hormones |
| 0:42.8 | than of hormones kind of powerfully driving particular kinds of behaviour. |
| 0:47.7 | That's Business Daily from the BBC World Service here at the Cheltenham Science Festival. |
| 1:02.0 | That first date, do you both remember it differently? Was it more fun for you than it was for them? |
| 1:05.0 | And that meeting you just had, did you lead from the front or sit quietly in the corner? And what was decided |
| 1:13.0 | anyway? Time and time again, we come up with a different answer and I'm here at the Chelten |
| 1:18.4 | Science Festival to find out why. Jeannie Smith is a science writer and memory expert and she's about to |
| 1:26.5 | test my recall skills. |
| 1:29.3 | For example, if you wanted to learn the 10 biggest countries in South America in order of |
| 1:33.7 | population size, I would have talked you through the Mine Palace that I created for this. |
| 1:37.4 | They work better if you create your own, because it means that the associations work for you. |
| 1:41.4 | So imagine you're walking into your kitchen and picture a giant |
| 1:44.6 | Brazil nut sitting at the table. So that's your first country. That's Brazil. And the Brazil |
| 1:49.1 | nut is drinking a cup of Colombian coffee. It smells amazing. So you go to the kettle to make |
| 1:55.7 | yourself a cup. But when you get there, you find the kettle is dancing the Argentine tango with the toaster. |
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