Selfish People Remember Being Generous, Why We Can’t Transplant Brains, and Buying Life Insurance from Vending Machines

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Self-improvement, Science, Astronomy, Education

4.6 • 935 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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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