Why People Ignore Facts in Medical Emergencies, Victorian-Era Credit Cards, and Adding a New Row to the Periodic Table

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Self-improvement, Science, Astronomy, Education

4.6 • 935 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Learn about why people tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies; a Victorian-era version of credit cards; and how scientists are trying to add an eighth row to the periodic table of elements.

People tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies by Kelsey Donk

UTA study: In crisis, people trust feelings over facts. (2020). The University of Texas at Arlington. https://www.uta.edu/news/news-releases/2020/04/01/confidence-study
Freling, T. H., Yang, Z., Saini, R., Itani, O. S., & Rashad Abualsamh, R. (2020). When poignant stories outweigh cold hard facts: A meta-analysis of the anecdotal bias. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 160, 51–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.01.006

Instead of credit cards, Victorian shoppers had credit coins by Steffie Drucker

Olaechea, D. (2014, February 13). Who Issued the First Credit Card? - NerdWallet. NerdWallet. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/issued-first-credit-card/
MacDonald, J. (2017, July 11). The history of credit cards. CreditCards.Com; CreditCards.com. https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/history-of-credit-cards.php
Frellick, M. (2011, June 14). The rise and fall of the credit card magnetic stripe. CreditCards.Com; CreditCards.com. https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/history-credit-card-magnetic-stripe-1273.php
Diners Club - Company history of Diners Club. (2020). Dinersclubus.Com. https://www.dinersclubus.com/home/about/dinersclub/story
Sienna Kossman. (2017, August 29). 8 FAQs about EMV credit cards. CreditCards.Com; CreditCards.com. https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/emv-faq-chip-cards-answers-1264.php#1

Scientists are trying to add the eighth row to the periodic table by Cameron Duke

Charley, S. (2012, January 13). How to Make an Element. Pbs.org; Nova. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/make-an-element/
Moskowitz, C. (2014, May 7). Superheavy Element 117 Points to Fabled “Island of Stability” on Periodic Table. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superheavy-element-117-island-of-stability/
Synthesizing new superheavy elements to open up the eighth period of the periodic table. (2020, April 24). Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-superheavy-elements-eighth-period-periodic.html
Tanaka, T., Morita, K., Morimoto, K., Kaji, D., Haba, H., Boll, R. A., Brewer, N. T., Van Cleve, S., Dean, D. J., Ishizawa, S., Ito, Y., Komori, Y., Nishio, K., Niwase, T., Rasco, B. C., Roberto, J. B., Rykaczewski, K. P., Sakai, H., Stracener, D. W., & Hagino, K. (2020). Study of Quasielastic Barrier Distributions as a Step towards the Synthesis of Superheavy Elements with Hot Fusion Reactions. Physical Review Letters, 124(5). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.052502
Kelley, L. (2018, November 8). What Is the Island of Stability? Owlcation. https://owlcation.com/stem/What-is-the-Island-of-Stability

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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.
0:06.1	I'm Cody Goff. And I'm Ashley Hamer.
0:08.0	Today you learn about why people tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies, a Victorian-era version of credit cards,
0:15.9	and how scientists are trying to add an eighth row to the periodic table of elements.
0:20.5	Let's set us fast some curiosity. Every single one of us can probably think of an irrational decision someone's made in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
0:30.0	And according to a new study, that irrational decision actually makes some sense.
0:34.7	Researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington have found that when people sense a threat,
0:39.7	like in a health crisis, they're more likely to base their choices on anecdotal
0:44.0	information than on hard facts. Guilty is charged by the way. I don't know if this has
0:49.7	happened to you Ashley. Oh yeah for sure. So let's get into it. The studies set out to solve a conflict in the research.
0:56.0	When it comes to which kind of information is the most persuasive, the findings are split. Some say
1:02.2	statistics are the most compelling. Others say personal stories are.
1:06.8	So the researchers collected 61 studies on the question and rated the decisions they covered
1:11.6	based on their emotional engagement.
1:14.2	Specifically, they looked at whether the issues were health related,
1:17.6	whether there was a threat involved, and how personally relevant the decision was.
1:22.8	Sure enough, when emotional engagement was high,
1:25.6	as in when the decision was health-related,
1:27.7	threatening, and personally relevant,
1:30.3	people found anecdotal information
1:32.4	to be the most persuasive.
1:34.0	On the flip side, when a decision isn't particularly threatening or personal,
	...

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