Selfish People Remember Being Generous, Why We Can’t Transplant Brains, and Buying Life Insurance from Vending Machines
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2020
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about why selfish people have false memories of being generous; why we can’t do brain transplants; and why you used to be able to buy life insurance from airport vending machines.
Selfish people actually have false memories of being generous by Kelsey Donk
- Memory misfires help selfish maintain their self-image. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/yu-mmh042820.php
- Carlson, R. W., Maréchal, M. A., Oud, B., Fehr, E., & Crockett, M. J. (2020). Motivated misremembering of selfish decisions. Nature Communications, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15602-4
Listener Question: Why can’t we do brain transplants? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Zoe)
- Behind Hand and Arm Transplants. (2020). https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/behind-hand-and-arm-transplants
- Lewis, T. (2015, March 6). Why Head Transplants Won’t Happen Anytime Soon. Livescience.Com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/50074-head-transplants-wont-happen.html
- The Infographics Show. (2020). Why Can’t We Transplant Brains? [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ohCQRJGbV8
- Burnett, D. (2017, November 17). No, there hasn’t been a human “head transplant”, and there may never be. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2017/nov/17/no-there-hasnt-been-a-human-head-transplant-and-may-never-be-sergio-canavero
- Brain transplants - are they possible? (2017, July 17). Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/brain-transplants-are-they-possible
You used to be able to buy life insurance policies in airport vending machines by Steffie Drucker
- Gregorie, J. (2015, May 27). A look back: Whatever happened to airport insurance vending machines? Insurancebusinessmag.Com; Insurance Business America. https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/a-look-back-whatever-happened-to-airport-insurance-vending-machines-22593.aspx
- Bacani, L. (2016, July 20). Is this the return of airport life insurance vending machines? Insurancebusinessmag.Com; Insurance Business America. https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/is-this-the-return-of-airport-life-insurance-vending-machines-35066.aspx
- Leckey, A. (1995, January 26). HIGH-FLYING CONTROVERSY. Chicagotribune.Com. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-01-26-9501260221-story.html
- BOVSUN, M. (2013, May 5). Justice Story: Son plants bomb in mom’s suitcase, killing her and 43 others during flight. Nydailynews.Com; New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/justice-story-son-bomb-mom-luggage-kills-44-flight-article-1.1335372
- Belleville, & SchlueterNews-Democrat, R. (2018, March 26). Answer Man: Bomb started death spiral for flight insurance. Bnd; Belleville News-Democrat. https://www.bnd.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/answer-man/article20042934.html
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. |
| 0:05.9 | I'm Cody Gough. |
| 0:06.7 | And I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:07.9 | Today you learn about why selfish people have false memories of being generous, |
| 0:11.8 | and we'll answer a listener question about why we can't do |
| 0:13.9 | brain transplants. You'll also learn about why you used to be able to buy life |
| 0:18.0 | insurance from vending machines. Let's vend some curiosity. |
| 0:22.0 | When selfish people do self- Let's vent some curiosity. |
| 0:28.0 | When selfish people do selfish things, how do they face themselves in the morning? That's what researchers from Yale and the University of Zurich wanted to know. |
| 0:32.0 | So they put selfish behavior to the test. and the University of Zurich wanted to know. |
| 0:32.5 | So they put selfish behavior to the test. |
| 0:35.1 | And as it turns out, selfish people actually |
| 0:37.6 | have false memories of being generous. |
| 0:41.4 | We've known for a long time that people make themselves feel okay about acting in less than okay ways through something called motivated reasoning. |
| 0:50.0 | We convince ourselves that we deserve to do what we do, and if anyone was hurt in the process, well, they deserve that too. |
| 0:58.0 | Like, you caught off that guy in traffic because you're in a hurry to get somewhere, and he shouldn't have been driving so fast anyway. |
| 1:05.0 | That kind of thing. |
| 1:06.0 | But the researchers wondered if it was possible that memory had more of a role. |
| 1:10.0 | Maybe people don't need to do mental gymnastics to appear generous. |
| 1:14.0 | They just remember themselves as more generous than they really are. |
| 1:18.0 | So here's how that would work. |
| 1:20.0 | Say a customer leaves a bad tip for a server at a restaurant. |
... |
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