May 24, 2011 • 26 mins
Terror management theory isn't about mid-level bureaucrats in Al-Qaeda -- so what exactly is it, and what does it say about human culture and our perception of mortality? Join Chuck and Josh as they explore the implications of terror management theory.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. Hi. I'm Josh Clark. That was Chuck Brian
(00:24):
who just said, Hi, good times. When you put the
two of us together, you're gonna get something called stuff.
You should know. It's like mixing baking soda and vinegar
and chest hair. Oh god, that's stuff you should know.
It's explosive. All right, it is, um, Chuck, Yes, are
(00:46):
you okay? Yeah? Great? Okay? Does that that sound convincing?
And I know that you won't be okay By the
time we finished this one. I thought this is very
interesting and well written. Thank you very much. I would
agree with very interesting. No, of course, well written. I
had your fingers doing the typing. Thank you, Chuck. I
appreciate that. Um, you want to do this one? Okay?
(01:09):
So Chuck, there was a study UM released in a
little known journal called Conservation Letters. You may have heard
of it. I hadn't until I read this. I hadn't
either until I found it. UM. But it was by
Conservation Internationals Will Turner and a couple other people from
that group, and Um. The point of this paper was
(01:33):
to point out that even though we may try to
mitigate climate change, we're still screwing things up. By trying
to mitigate it, and by not preparing for the worst
e g. Climate change, We're ultimately going to screw things
up after the Earth is already screwed up. Let me
(01:55):
give you a couple of examples. First, is um, one
fifth of all the world's tropical forests lie within a
few kilometers of areas that would be totally underwater if
sea levels rose by just one meter, right, Yes, thirty
one miles of heavy human population would be underwater. Thirty
(02:18):
one the forest are within thirty one heavy human populations, right,
And so these human populations aren't just gonna sit there
and drown one and take one for the Earth. Now,
we're gonna move upward, and as they move upward, they're
gonna encounter these forests, and they're gonna say, Hey, that
bird looks delicious. Hey, I can burn this tree and
(02:38):
cook this bird. Hey, mama, let's get it on. That's
gonna be all sorts of weird things said in these
forests after climate change takes place, right, Yeah, these untouched
forests will now be touched and plundered. Right and um,
by the way, these this same one five of the
forests are home to exactly half of all of the
(03:00):
Alliance for Zero Extinction sites, which means that these are
sites where animals that are filled with animals that are
on the verge of extinction. Humans show up. It's over right.
So that's if climate change happens and we don't figure
out what we're going to do for shelter and fuel
and food ahead of time, that's just natural. The other
(03:21):
scenario is, Okay, we're trying to mitigate climate change now
before some sort of disaster happens in the future. Right,
So say hydroelectric power, Yeah, let's build a dam, and
why not because that's a clean and green When you
release water, it makes turbines move, which generates electricity, completely
(03:43):
claim cleanly, right, So how can you go wrong? Chalk? Well, Uh,
it didn't say so in this particular paper, but I
remember a little podcast we did about the reservoir in
due seismicity, and a Science Channel short film we did
on that where building dams can potentially cause instability and
tectonic plates from the heavy water and then no water,
(04:08):
and if you build one too close to a dam,
it could cause an earthquake, cause an earthquake. So that's
one way. That's one way. Another way is that when
you build a day m that river backs up and
creates a lake in an area that wasn't ever really
supposed to be a lake in all of the deer
and the squirrels and the koala bears and the plants
are in big trouble. Right. Um. What's more, you also
(04:29):
affect the fresh water downstream of the dam, and basically
you screw up the environment. Right. This sounds like a
you're darned if you do, you're darned if you don't
kind of thing, right, So chuck, Somebody reading a news
report about this paper, right could say, what's the point,
(04:49):
why do anything? Right? Just let me eat my hungry
man dinner. And I don't care anymore. I don't care,
like I can't do anything about it. And this that
the very understandable and reasonable reaction, is kind of caused
for concern among a lot of critics of the media,
because well, let's talk about whether or not science believes
(05:12):
that anthropogenic or man made climate change is real. Uh,
Josh National Academy of Sciences, who we actually know some
people there, very nice people. They did great work. We
do Hey Rick Hey, Rick um Hey Marty. Thirteen hundred
and seventy two scientists were pulled by the proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences and agreed that an anthropogenic
(05:38):
climate change is a real thing. And they even went
so far as to say, what's up with you? Three like,
what what do you what do you think? And they
kind of found out that they didn't have the expertise
to really determine that, right, they went back and shamed them. Yeah,
based on the that three percent citation and publication rates.
They said, these these people are basically stick it, which
(06:00):
is why they don't believe in manmade climate change. Right,
So this pole at least indicates that science says, yeah,
manmade climate change is happening. It's a real thing. Okay.
So you have science on the one hand saying yes,
there's a problem people, and you have the public on
the other hand saying, all right, um, I don't want
to drown and I don't want to drive these species
(06:21):
out of extinction. What can I do? What can I do? Mr?
Scientists and The group that serves to connect these two,
the people who know there's a problem and maybe have answers,
and the people who can actually create change by carrying
out these these solutions is the media. And it's about
here where that disconnect comes about, especially when there's doomsday scenarios. Yeah,
(06:43):
let me read you another stat which feels a little
awkward because you found the stat a gallop pole. Last year,
the Future UH of Americans said they believe that the
seriousness of global warming is quote generally exact adgerated. And
that was a seventeen percent rise from when we supposedly
(07:05):
have a lot more information probably over that time period.
And you hit the nail on the head. It is
because of something called alarmism, thanks to something called the media, right,
and part of it, part of it is alarge alarmism.
Another part is that there's such a thing as professional
climate skeptics, bloggers, reporters, media influencers who are like, no, no,
(07:28):
it's not real and then take money from pr companies. Sure,
but part of it is alarmism. There's there's if you
put enough problems onto a person, they're going to just
throw up their hands and give up. Well, there's also
a British study that you found that, um, the think
tank Institute for Public Policy Research. They did a review
(07:50):
of more than six d news articles in the UK
this is just in the UK right on climate change,
and they found we should read some of these. This
is the language, alarmist language being used by some of
these uh six articles. The climate of fear, serious climate
change is now inevitable. That was James Lovelock, for the
(08:12):
person who came up with the gaia theory. He also said,
the same guy said the Earth has passed the point
of no return. He also called for the temporary suspension
of democracy until we can handle climate change. Yeah. Um.
Another one said we're headed for Dodo status. Words like
point of no return, civilizational collapse, global chaos and Malcolm
(08:34):
Gladwell's favorite tipping point, your favorite person. Um. So that
was the alarmist language, right, And it creates the sense
of enormity, right, And that sense of enormity creates a
reasonable distancing from the problem, like there's something I can
do about this, there's nothing any of us can do
about this. Yeah. But again to my hungry man dinner,
(08:59):
I have to admit, well, it's a pretty normal human
thing to do. Well. Basically you're kind of being charged
with like save the planet now, or humans will be
extinct in the blink of an eye, right, and who
was not going to shrink from that a little bit
and say where's my hungry man? Right? But they also
found that there are two other large categories that climate
change reporting language can be put into. There's also, um
(09:23):
non pragmatic optimism, which is basically like, it's not gonna
happen in our lifetime. Who cared? Right? Um? And then
there's pragmatic optimism, which is like you can change your
light bulbs and make a difference. We we can save ourselves,
but we have to do something. That's pragmatic optimism. But
what they found was far and away the most common
(09:46):
type was alarmism, right because it sells uh, you know, headlines,
It sells headlines, it sells headlines, sales papers, it does,
but there really aren't papers anymore. So exactly so, Chuck Josh,
the guys who from this British thing tank what wasn't
uh the Institute for Public Policy Research, They they they
(10:08):
I don't think they meant to, which is fine to
say that they failed to show causation like you've got
alarms language. You have people who don't care about climate
change any longer, are afraid of the problems, aren't thinking
about it. Um. They didn't show that one caused the other.
They just show that they're correlated. But other studies have
(10:30):
shown that if you manipulate the public in a certain way,
you're gonna have a counterproductive reaction from him, right, yeah,
not the reaction that you're intending, right, which I thought
this was really interesting. The Northwestern study you cited in
two thousand ten in Canada, they did a public service
announcement a that said, uh, he beinge drinking has uh
(10:54):
is a bad thing. You shouldn't bene drink. You should
feel guilt and shame for binge drinking. But what happened, well,
they found that people who were already exposed to send
to the feelings guilt and shame, and then we're shown
this tended to drink too, were likelier to go bench
drink within the next two weeks than people who were
(11:16):
exposed to these ads, and we're had some sort of
neutral emotion going on, right, that's right. And even scarier,
there was one in two thousand nine in the Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology, which is a fun read um
cigarette packs. They found that said really blatant aggressive messages
like smoking can kill you actually increased smoking in some people. Right,
(11:40):
very specific set of people. But if you're trying to
get people across the board to quit smoking, it would
be a good idea to not use these death related messages.
You want to go for death neutral messages. Is that
what it's called. That's what it's called. Really Yeah, So,
um that that study, that two thousand nine study from
the Journal of experiment Social Psychology UM was carried out
(12:03):
conducted by some terror management theorists. Chuck, that's right. Terror
management theory is the coolest sounding theory of all time.
Has nothing to do with terrorism. So all of you
who are listening to this podcast hoping for one on terrorism,
you can now be officially disappointed. Yeah. And when I
first saw terror management theory, the first thing I thought
(12:24):
it was terrorism. I think of terror. You know what
I see in my mind? I see like a seventies
horror anthology paperback cover terror management. Yeah, right, like um yeah,
like maybe a red skull or maybe the the cover
to Stephen King's Dense Maccabre. I've never seen that. Yeah,
(12:45):
nice reference. Cep quab uh what queik way you had
that great funny line at the end of that one podcast,
which it was one that just came out recently. When
I was doing the q A for the episode, I
genuinely like was cracking up at my desk. That is awesome,
It's very good. Okay, that happens all the time though,
(13:06):
um so, where are we? Terror management theory? This was
created in the nineteen eighties by psychologists at the University
of Miszoo go uh tigers tigers, Prairie tigers, Prairie tigers,
Go prairie tigers, and based on the work of Ernest Becker,
who was the author of Denial of Death, which a
(13:27):
lot of you may have heard of, and we've talked
about him before plenty. I think we've talked about him,
and I think definitely, is there a worse way to die?
He came up big time. Um. But he was an
anthropologist who basically said, um, okay, all culture is created
to distract us from being obsessed with our inevitable death.
(13:51):
I think he was obsessed with death. He definitely was,
but through his obsession he managed to free himself. I imagine.
So that's what he thinks. It's a big distraction. Everything
from sports on TV, television, probably war is used as
a distraction and to create meaning in life. Well, actually
one of them, the war was a big one that
(14:14):
he used. He used the the I can't remember what
it's called. It's not thanatology. That's like the study of death.
Becker's was more like the obsession with death. Um. But
basically he was saying, we we are aware innately that
we do create culture to distract ourselves from death. So
when we encounter another culture that's totally foreigner, alien to us,
(14:38):
and we look at their culture, we see how ridiculous
it appears, that their belief systems just appear ridiculous to us.
That it reminds us that we're we do the same thing.
Our beliefs are ridiculous. And then we start thinking about
our own deaths. So we want to destroy this culture
that we encounter because it's reminding us of our own
death and we hate it. How does that fit the
(14:59):
cultural relativism, wonder, that's the opposite of it. Cultural relativism
is is also flawed. You know, we we figured out
to a certain extent because it just allows absolutely anything
you know, wholesale. But it's the opposite of of what
I just described cultural relativism is. But terror management theory
takes Becker's ideas and introduces them from anthropology to psychology
(15:23):
and has really kind of started to standardize them. So
the idea is that you are afraid of your own
demise and so you cling like uh mad to the
culture that you most identify with and you've come to
identify with. Yeah, and and they keep finding and study
after study that this this theory holds up. And that's
called what distal defense. Yes. Interesting, So let me give
(15:45):
you an example of a study. There were there were
a bunch of judges that were that were used in
a study UM and I guess they chose prostitution to
use it as like a it's the same case, same offense.
It was easily standardized. Maybe, but they took some judges
and basically were like, hey, you know you're gonna die
(16:06):
eventually to one group. Then they did another group where
they give him some activity that basically guaranteed um death
saliency I believe, where they weren't thinking about death at all,
And they sent both groups out to handle their prostitution cases,
and the judges have been reminded their mortality tended to
(16:27):
throw the book at prostitutes, and they the researchers theorized
or postulated that the reason these guys through the book
at prostitutes was because this was there they were buying
into their culture. They were clinging to their culture morals
and laws and what they believed in. And if you
think about it, it makes perfect sense. Chuck. You've been hungover,
(16:48):
like tragically hungover before, right, Uh, so you don't want
to take any risks whatsoever. You kind of feel like
you're at death store. You're on some sort of edge
right there where you're really hanging out there and you're
really vulnerable and like you you maybe you know my
alwe notice makes you cry while you're watching it on
the couch, or like you really need to be around
(17:08):
Emily and have our support right then, right, Yeah, I
think that's the that's the that's the root of it,
that's the basis of it. When we're reminded of death,
we cling to what we find comfort in, and we
tend to find comfort in the charade of society or
culture that we create. And I bet you you could
even trickle it down a little bit, even beyond death,
when you're feeling most fragile and vulnerable, which obviously death
(17:31):
would be the ultimate invulnerable vulnerability exactly. But that's when
you need to support most and you cling to what
you know most, right. But I mean like, if you
got fired from a job or you know something, there
was some disruption to your normal life, You're you're going
to cling to it. So that's distal. That's the distal defense.
There's also proximal and this this is what regards the
(17:54):
climate change. Yeah, and that's when you downplay the seriousness
of something like, um that that's kind of me. I
don't think about death much, and I'm one to really
like play it down probably like, oh, you know, you're
I'm gonna die when I'm old like everybody, but I
don't want to think about that. You just downplay the
significance of it, right, I wonder though, I mean, like,
is that the best you can hope for, what to
(18:15):
die when you're old? No, to to just kind of
downplay it and not like genuinely not worry about it.
Like is that really flawed? I hope not. I never
think about death, but I guess what I asked, because
I have the same approach, Like I tend to think, well, okay,
I'm aware that I'm going to die one day. Um
you know, I'm aware of death. I don't think about it.
(18:37):
I'm not obsessed with that, especially not my own. Um,
but I wonder sometimes, like in that last few minutes,
am I going to freak out? Because people do? Yeah,
you don't see that in the movies. Emily is a
is very preoccupied with death. Yeah, she didn't talk about
it much, but she's she's kind of a very dark side,
(18:59):
like I'm driving home and I could easily slip off
the road and hit that tree, or there's a tornado
watch in the area and a tree is gonna fall
in our house and kill us all in her sleep
where I don't think about that stuff. But how does
she react to that? Um, I think there's a low
level of anxiety. Probably, Yeah, she would probably agree with that. Yeah,
(19:20):
she didn't listen to the show. That's fine, see whatever
you want now. Um, So you've got proximal and distal
defense mechanisms when reminded to mortality, right, Yeah, and imagine
both can probably happen to right, not one or the
other right. Um, but with with the doomsday scenario and
climate change, it seems like terror management can't explain that,
um through the the proximal defense where you just downplay
(19:43):
it and they're like, Okay, well, who cares, it's not
that big of a deal. It's not gonna happen in
our lifetime, that kind of thing. Um. So I guess
if we were to uh give advice to the media,
which we never do in an article. Yeah, and media
doesn't listen to us anyway, even though we're sort of
a part of it. Are I don't know if we
are media fully concluded that yeah, yeah, Um, it would
(20:04):
be to basically adopt the more pragmatic, optimistic approach I
think tends to work. But it doesn't look like the
media is gonna do it. Chucked because tell him about CFLs. Yes, Josh, CFLs. UM.
When they first came out, it was all the rage
in green living and as soon as everyone was like, yeah,
(20:26):
you know what, I can deal with the fact that
it looks a little funny and I'm not used to
this whiter light. Um, I'm gonna do it because I'm
gonna do my part, my very small part like I
can't exact change against climate change. And then the media
all of a sudden started reporting stories about mercury. Is
it mercury in CFLs and you're gonna die if you
(20:47):
used them exactly? Alarmist language. It's just sensationalism. Man. It's
been around since the first words were printed, extra extra
read all about it is like you're going to die
from the plague, and it's still still around. In this case,
it's climate change, and it's making people shrink under their
couch instead of doing small things that can actually make
(21:08):
a difference. Prescription. Dr Bryant, Um, You know what I
do is I don't read. I don't watch local news.
I don't watch I don't watch any news really, no no, no, no,
no no no do you uh no, now that I
think about it, not really. I mean I watch selective
(21:28):
stuff like if if there's like a good video or something,
I'll watch it. But I think I get most of
mine news from Twitter or magazines. Yeah. I get most
of mine from the Internet, and a lot of times
not from you know, leading sources on the Internet. You
can usually get an honest truth if you seek out
some of these other websites. Okay, I wish I could
think of one. So terror management theory and Ernest Becker
(21:51):
makes another cameo. Thank you Dr Becker for showing up.
Be Um. If you want to learn more about dooms, stay,
climate scenarios, terror management theory, tobacco warnings. This article's got
it all. You can type in doomsday and climate change
and I think it'll bring this article up. And handy
(22:13):
search bar brings up listener mail. That's right, Josh, we're
gonna call this. Uh, these kids are ripping us off.
Is this catholic stuff you should know? Now? This tongue
in cheek? Um, so Josh, so Chuck. We are teachers, so, Jerry.
We are teachers at Mountain Ridge Middle School in Colorado
(22:34):
Springs at the base of America's Mountain Pike's Peak. We
were inspired by your podcasts over the years and became
regular listeners and decided our eighth grade class should write
podcasts in the style of stuff you should know, record them,
and edit them. Sounds like good conclu Yeah, cool exercise.
So we shared portions of some of your podcasts with
the kids, asked them to develop the plan and rubric
(22:56):
and based on the elements they based on the elements
that they heard in your show. The Chuck and Josh
is ms, jazzy theme song, jokes, and stats, demonstrating a
thorough understanding listener mail the whole soup to nuts nasically. Um.
The students were permitted to choose their topics. We encourage
them to find out what's the deal with whatever they
(23:16):
were curious about. Topics range from hovercrafts to grilled meat
and carcinogens to hypoglycemia. So these are some smart kids. Um.
The sound quality isn't as crisp obviously, but you think
you'll get a kick out of it. You should have
heard our first one before we got microphones. Um. The
most interesting aspect, though, guys, was you're really surprised who excelled.
(23:40):
One pair of students didn't have a history of being
the most academically motivated, but their delivery was really smooth
and professional, and the emo kids were surprisingly funny. They
seem to get the Chuck and Josh banner and uh
could become excellent radio personalities one day awesome. Another group, um,
shall we say, is not the most so really proficient
(24:00):
face to face, but behind the microphone they really came
alive and had a fluid delivery and we're animated that
the chemistry was amazing between them. So that is from
Emily and Sewn, who are the t A G Coordinator
and IB coordinator at Enrichment Team Enrichment Team leaders, and
we have a clip. They sent us a clip and
we're gonna play just a little snippet right now. Guys think,
(24:27):
hey from Colorado Springs, Colorado. It's just like mother used to.
And here zerost with the face for radio decode. Dim
Sum originated from the older tradition of tea tasting. When
people discovered the tea health digestion, they began adding food
to tea time, giving them dim sum. Dim Sum is
(24:50):
a dish that involves small individual portions of food, usually
served in a steam basket or on a plate. Dim
Sum is typically served as a breakfast. This usually includes vegetables, steam, dumplings,
roasted chicken and rice, and noodles. Awesome, pretty cool, huh Yeah,
little emulators, yes, little rip off artists. Yeah, I know,
(25:11):
I'm just kidding you. Guys will be hearing from our lawyers.
That was an excellent job and we want to tell
the whole class way to go, and that's really cool
that your teachers did this. Yeah, so thank you Emily
and Sean for letting us know about this. We appreciate it.
You guys, keep on keeping on, keep doing all sorts
of cool things. Don't be so judgment all of the
emo kids people too. If you have a cool theory
(25:33):
that you'd like us to hear of, I'm always down
for cool theories, aren't you send it to us via
email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
(25:55):
of our homepage. The house Stuff Works iPhone app has
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are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. Hi. I'm Josh Clark. That was Chuck Brian
(00:24):
who just said, Hi, good times. When you put the
two of us together, you're gonna get something called stuff.
You should know. It's like mixing baking soda and vinegar
and chest hair. Oh god, that's stuff you should know.
It's explosive. All right, it is, um, Chuck, Yes, are
(00:46):
you okay? Yeah? Great? Okay? Does that that sound convincing?
And I know that you won't be okay By the
time we finished this one. I thought this is very
interesting and well written. Thank you very much. I would
agree with very interesting. No, of course, well written. I
had your fingers doing the typing. Thank you, Chuck. I
appreciate that. Um, you want to do this one? Okay?
(01:09):
So Chuck, there was a study UM released in a
little known journal called Conservation Letters. You may have heard
of it. I hadn't until I read this. I hadn't
either until I found it. UM. But it was by
Conservation Internationals Will Turner and a couple other people from
that group, and Um. The point of this paper was
(01:33):
to point out that even though we may try to
mitigate climate change, we're still screwing things up. By trying
to mitigate it, and by not preparing for the worst
e g. Climate change, We're ultimately going to screw things
up after the Earth is already screwed up. Let me
(01:55):
give you a couple of examples. First, is um, one
fifth of all the world's tropical forests lie within a
few kilometers of areas that would be totally underwater if
sea levels rose by just one meter, right, Yes, thirty
one miles of heavy human population would be underwater. Thirty
(02:18):
one the forest are within thirty one heavy human populations, right,
And so these human populations aren't just gonna sit there
and drown one and take one for the Earth. Now,
we're gonna move upward, and as they move upward, they're
gonna encounter these forests, and they're gonna say, Hey, that
bird looks delicious. Hey, I can burn this tree and
(02:38):
cook this bird. Hey, mama, let's get it on. That's
gonna be all sorts of weird things said in these
forests after climate change takes place, right, Yeah, these untouched
forests will now be touched and plundered. Right and um,
by the way, these this same one five of the
forests are home to exactly half of all of the
(03:00):
Alliance for Zero Extinction sites, which means that these are
sites where animals that are filled with animals that are
on the verge of extinction. Humans show up. It's over right.
So that's if climate change happens and we don't figure
out what we're going to do for shelter and fuel
and food ahead of time, that's just natural. The other
(03:21):
scenario is, Okay, we're trying to mitigate climate change now
before some sort of disaster happens in the future. Right,
So say hydroelectric power, Yeah, let's build a dam, and
why not because that's a clean and green When you
release water, it makes turbines move, which generates electricity, completely
(03:43):
claim cleanly, right, So how can you go wrong? Chalk? Well, Uh,
it didn't say so in this particular paper, but I
remember a little podcast we did about the reservoir in
due seismicity, and a Science Channel short film we did
on that where building dams can potentially cause instability and
tectonic plates from the heavy water and then no water,
(04:08):
and if you build one too close to a dam,
it could cause an earthquake, cause an earthquake. So that's
one way. That's one way. Another way is that when
you build a day m that river backs up and
creates a lake in an area that wasn't ever really
supposed to be a lake in all of the deer
and the squirrels and the koala bears and the plants
are in big trouble. Right. Um. What's more, you also
(04:29):
affect the fresh water downstream of the dam, and basically
you screw up the environment. Right. This sounds like a
you're darned if you do, you're darned if you don't
kind of thing, right, So chuck, Somebody reading a news
report about this paper, right could say, what's the point,
(04:49):
why do anything? Right? Just let me eat my hungry
man dinner. And I don't care anymore. I don't care,
like I can't do anything about it. And this that
the very understandable and reasonable reaction, is kind of caused
for concern among a lot of critics of the media,
because well, let's talk about whether or not science believes
(05:12):
that anthropogenic or man made climate change is real. Uh,
Josh National Academy of Sciences, who we actually know some
people there, very nice people. They did great work. We
do Hey Rick Hey, Rick um Hey Marty. Thirteen hundred
and seventy two scientists were pulled by the proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences and agreed that an anthropogenic
(05:38):
climate change is a real thing. And they even went
so far as to say, what's up with you? Three like,
what what do you what do you think? And they
kind of found out that they didn't have the expertise
to really determine that, right, they went back and shamed them. Yeah,
based on the that three percent citation and publication rates.
They said, these these people are basically stick it, which
(06:00):
is why they don't believe in manmade climate change. Right,
So this pole at least indicates that science says, yeah,
manmade climate change is happening. It's a real thing. Okay.
So you have science on the one hand saying yes,
there's a problem people, and you have the public on
the other hand saying, all right, um, I don't want
to drown and I don't want to drive these species
(06:21):
out of extinction. What can I do? What can I do? Mr?
Scientists and The group that serves to connect these two,
the people who know there's a problem and maybe have answers,
and the people who can actually create change by carrying
out these these solutions is the media. And it's about
here where that disconnect comes about, especially when there's doomsday scenarios. Yeah,
(06:43):
let me read you another stat which feels a little
awkward because you found the stat a gallop pole. Last year,
the Future UH of Americans said they believe that the
seriousness of global warming is quote generally exact adgerated. And
that was a seventeen percent rise from when we supposedly
(07:05):
have a lot more information probably over that time period.
And you hit the nail on the head. It is
because of something called alarmism, thanks to something called the media, right,
and part of it, part of it is alarge alarmism.
Another part is that there's such a thing as professional
climate skeptics, bloggers, reporters, media influencers who are like, no, no,
(07:28):
it's not real and then take money from pr companies. Sure,
but part of it is alarmism. There's there's if you
put enough problems onto a person, they're going to just
throw up their hands and give up. Well, there's also
a British study that you found that, um, the think
tank Institute for Public Policy Research. They did a review
(07:50):
of more than six d news articles in the UK
this is just in the UK right on climate change,
and they found we should read some of these. This
is the language, alarmist language being used by some of
these uh six articles. The climate of fear, serious climate
change is now inevitable. That was James Lovelock, for the
(08:12):
person who came up with the gaia theory. He also said,
the same guy said the Earth has passed the point
of no return. He also called for the temporary suspension
of democracy until we can handle climate change. Yeah. Um.
Another one said we're headed for Dodo status. Words like
point of no return, civilizational collapse, global chaos and Malcolm
(08:34):
Gladwell's favorite tipping point, your favorite person. Um. So that
was the alarmist language, right, And it creates the sense
of enormity, right, And that sense of enormity creates a
reasonable distancing from the problem, like there's something I can
do about this, there's nothing any of us can do
about this. Yeah. But again to my hungry man dinner,
(08:59):
I have to admit, well, it's a pretty normal human
thing to do. Well. Basically you're kind of being charged
with like save the planet now, or humans will be
extinct in the blink of an eye, right, and who
was not going to shrink from that a little bit
and say where's my hungry man? Right? But they also
found that there are two other large categories that climate
change reporting language can be put into. There's also, um
(09:23):
non pragmatic optimism, which is basically like, it's not gonna
happen in our lifetime. Who cared? Right? Um? And then
there's pragmatic optimism, which is like you can change your
light bulbs and make a difference. We we can save ourselves,
but we have to do something. That's pragmatic optimism. But
what they found was far and away the most common
(09:46):
type was alarmism, right because it sells uh, you know, headlines,
It sells headlines, it sells headlines, sales papers, it does,
but there really aren't papers anymore. So exactly so, Chuck Josh,
the guys who from this British thing tank what wasn't
uh the Institute for Public Policy Research, They they they
(10:08):
I don't think they meant to, which is fine to
say that they failed to show causation like you've got
alarms language. You have people who don't care about climate
change any longer, are afraid of the problems, aren't thinking
about it. Um. They didn't show that one caused the other.
They just show that they're correlated. But other studies have
(10:30):
shown that if you manipulate the public in a certain way,
you're gonna have a counterproductive reaction from him, right, yeah,
not the reaction that you're intending, right, which I thought
this was really interesting. The Northwestern study you cited in
two thousand ten in Canada, they did a public service
announcement a that said, uh, he beinge drinking has uh
(10:54):
is a bad thing. You shouldn't bene drink. You should
feel guilt and shame for binge drinking. But what happened, well,
they found that people who were already exposed to send
to the feelings guilt and shame, and then we're shown
this tended to drink too, were likelier to go bench
drink within the next two weeks than people who were
(11:16):
exposed to these ads, and we're had some sort of
neutral emotion going on, right, that's right. And even scarier,
there was one in two thousand nine in the Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology, which is a fun read um
cigarette packs. They found that said really blatant aggressive messages
like smoking can kill you actually increased smoking in some people. Right,
(11:40):
very specific set of people. But if you're trying to
get people across the board to quit smoking, it would
be a good idea to not use these death related messages.
You want to go for death neutral messages. Is that
what it's called. That's what it's called. Really Yeah, So,
um that that study, that two thousand nine study from
the Journal of experiment Social Psychology UM was carried out
(12:03):
conducted by some terror management theorists. Chuck, that's right. Terror
management theory is the coolest sounding theory of all time.
Has nothing to do with terrorism. So all of you
who are listening to this podcast hoping for one on terrorism,
you can now be officially disappointed. Yeah. And when I
first saw terror management theory, the first thing I thought
(12:24):
it was terrorism. I think of terror. You know what
I see in my mind? I see like a seventies
horror anthology paperback cover terror management. Yeah, right, like um yeah,
like maybe a red skull or maybe the the cover
to Stephen King's Dense Maccabre. I've never seen that. Yeah,
(12:45):
nice reference. Cep quab uh what queik way you had
that great funny line at the end of that one podcast,
which it was one that just came out recently. When
I was doing the q A for the episode, I
genuinely like was cracking up at my desk. That is awesome,
It's very good. Okay, that happens all the time though,
(13:06):
um so, where are we? Terror management theory? This was
created in the nineteen eighties by psychologists at the University
of Miszoo go uh tigers tigers, Prairie tigers, Prairie tigers,
Go prairie tigers, and based on the work of Ernest Becker,
who was the author of Denial of Death, which a
(13:27):
lot of you may have heard of, and we've talked
about him before plenty. I think we've talked about him,
and I think definitely, is there a worse way to die?
He came up big time. Um. But he was an
anthropologist who basically said, um, okay, all culture is created
to distract us from being obsessed with our inevitable death.
(13:51):
I think he was obsessed with death. He definitely was,
but through his obsession he managed to free himself. I imagine.
So that's what he thinks. It's a big distraction. Everything
from sports on TV, television, probably war is used as
a distraction and to create meaning in life. Well, actually
one of them, the war was a big one that
(14:14):
he used. He used the the I can't remember what
it's called. It's not thanatology. That's like the study of death.
Becker's was more like the obsession with death. Um. But
basically he was saying, we we are aware innately that
we do create culture to distract ourselves from death. So
when we encounter another culture that's totally foreigner, alien to us,
(14:38):
and we look at their culture, we see how ridiculous
it appears, that their belief systems just appear ridiculous to us.
That it reminds us that we're we do the same thing.
Our beliefs are ridiculous. And then we start thinking about
our own deaths. So we want to destroy this culture
that we encounter because it's reminding us of our own
death and we hate it. How does that fit the
(14:59):
cultural relativism, wonder, that's the opposite of it. Cultural relativism
is is also flawed. You know, we we figured out
to a certain extent because it just allows absolutely anything
you know, wholesale. But it's the opposite of of what
I just described cultural relativism is. But terror management theory
takes Becker's ideas and introduces them from anthropology to psychology
(15:23):
and has really kind of started to standardize them. So
the idea is that you are afraid of your own
demise and so you cling like uh mad to the
culture that you most identify with and you've come to
identify with. Yeah, and and they keep finding and study
after study that this this theory holds up. And that's
called what distal defense. Yes. Interesting, So let me give
(15:45):
you an example of a study. There were there were
a bunch of judges that were that were used in
a study UM and I guess they chose prostitution to
use it as like a it's the same case, same offense.
It was easily standardized. Maybe, but they took some judges
and basically were like, hey, you know you're gonna die
(16:06):
eventually to one group. Then they did another group where
they give him some activity that basically guaranteed um death
saliency I believe, where they weren't thinking about death at all,
And they sent both groups out to handle their prostitution cases,
and the judges have been reminded their mortality tended to
(16:27):
throw the book at prostitutes, and they the researchers theorized
or postulated that the reason these guys through the book
at prostitutes was because this was there they were buying
into their culture. They were clinging to their culture morals
and laws and what they believed in. And if you
think about it, it makes perfect sense. Chuck. You've been hungover,
(16:48):
like tragically hungover before, right, Uh, so you don't want
to take any risks whatsoever. You kind of feel like
you're at death store. You're on some sort of edge
right there where you're really hanging out there and you're
really vulnerable and like you you maybe you know my
alwe notice makes you cry while you're watching it on
the couch, or like you really need to be around
(17:08):
Emily and have our support right then, right, Yeah, I
think that's the that's the that's the root of it,
that's the basis of it. When we're reminded of death,
we cling to what we find comfort in, and we
tend to find comfort in the charade of society or
culture that we create. And I bet you you could
even trickle it down a little bit, even beyond death,
when you're feeling most fragile and vulnerable, which obviously death
(17:31):
would be the ultimate invulnerable vulnerability exactly. But that's when
you need to support most and you cling to what
you know most, right. But I mean like, if you
got fired from a job or you know something, there
was some disruption to your normal life, You're you're going
to cling to it. So that's distal. That's the distal defense.
There's also proximal and this this is what regards the
(17:54):
climate change. Yeah, and that's when you downplay the seriousness
of something like, um that that's kind of me. I
don't think about death much, and I'm one to really
like play it down probably like, oh, you know, you're
I'm gonna die when I'm old like everybody, but I
don't want to think about that. You just downplay the
significance of it, right, I wonder though, I mean, like,
is that the best you can hope for, what to
(18:15):
die when you're old? No, to to just kind of
downplay it and not like genuinely not worry about it.
Like is that really flawed? I hope not. I never
think about death, but I guess what I asked, because
I have the same approach, Like I tend to think, well, okay,
I'm aware that I'm going to die one day. Um
you know, I'm aware of death. I don't think about it.
(18:37):
I'm not obsessed with that, especially not my own. Um,
but I wonder sometimes, like in that last few minutes,
am I going to freak out? Because people do? Yeah,
you don't see that in the movies. Emily is a
is very preoccupied with death. Yeah, she didn't talk about
it much, but she's she's kind of a very dark side,
(18:59):
like I'm driving home and I could easily slip off
the road and hit that tree, or there's a tornado
watch in the area and a tree is gonna fall
in our house and kill us all in her sleep
where I don't think about that stuff. But how does
she react to that? Um, I think there's a low
level of anxiety. Probably, Yeah, she would probably agree with that. Yeah,
(19:20):
she didn't listen to the show. That's fine, see whatever
you want now. Um, So you've got proximal and distal
defense mechanisms when reminded to mortality, right, Yeah, and imagine
both can probably happen to right, not one or the
other right. Um, but with with the doomsday scenario and
climate change, it seems like terror management can't explain that,
um through the the proximal defense where you just downplay
(19:43):
it and they're like, Okay, well, who cares, it's not
that big of a deal. It's not gonna happen in
our lifetime, that kind of thing. Um. So I guess
if we were to uh give advice to the media,
which we never do in an article. Yeah, and media
doesn't listen to us anyway, even though we're sort of
a part of it. Are I don't know if we
are media fully concluded that yeah, yeah, Um, it would
(20:04):
be to basically adopt the more pragmatic, optimistic approach I
think tends to work. But it doesn't look like the
media is gonna do it. Chucked because tell him about CFLs. Yes, Josh, CFLs. UM.
When they first came out, it was all the rage
in green living and as soon as everyone was like, yeah,
(20:26):
you know what, I can deal with the fact that
it looks a little funny and I'm not used to
this whiter light. Um, I'm gonna do it because I'm
gonna do my part, my very small part like I
can't exact change against climate change. And then the media
all of a sudden started reporting stories about mercury. Is
it mercury in CFLs and you're gonna die if you
(20:47):
used them exactly? Alarmist language. It's just sensationalism. Man. It's
been around since the first words were printed, extra extra
read all about it is like you're going to die
from the plague, and it's still still around. In this case,
it's climate change, and it's making people shrink under their
couch instead of doing small things that can actually make
(21:08):
a difference. Prescription. Dr Bryant, Um, You know what I
do is I don't read. I don't watch local news.
I don't watch I don't watch any news really, no no, no, no,
no no no do you uh no, now that I
think about it, not really. I mean I watch selective
(21:28):
stuff like if if there's like a good video or something,
I'll watch it. But I think I get most of
mine news from Twitter or magazines. Yeah. I get most
of mine from the Internet, and a lot of times
not from you know, leading sources on the Internet. You
can usually get an honest truth if you seek out
some of these other websites. Okay, I wish I could
think of one. So terror management theory and Ernest Becker
(21:51):
makes another cameo. Thank you Dr Becker for showing up.
Be Um. If you want to learn more about dooms, stay,
climate scenarios, terror management theory, tobacco warnings. This article's got
it all. You can type in doomsday and climate change
and I think it'll bring this article up. And handy
(22:13):
search bar brings up listener mail. That's right, Josh, we're
gonna call this. Uh, these kids are ripping us off.
Is this catholic stuff you should know? Now? This tongue
in cheek? Um, so Josh, so Chuck. We are teachers, so, Jerry.
We are teachers at Mountain Ridge Middle School in Colorado
(22:34):
Springs at the base of America's Mountain Pike's Peak. We
were inspired by your podcasts over the years and became
regular listeners and decided our eighth grade class should write
podcasts in the style of stuff you should know, record them,
and edit them. Sounds like good conclu Yeah, cool exercise.
So we shared portions of some of your podcasts with
the kids, asked them to develop the plan and rubric
(22:56):
and based on the elements they based on the elements
that they heard in your show. The Chuck and Josh
is ms, jazzy theme song, jokes, and stats, demonstrating a
thorough understanding listener mail the whole soup to nuts nasically. Um.
The students were permitted to choose their topics. We encourage
them to find out what's the deal with whatever they
(23:16):
were curious about. Topics range from hovercrafts to grilled meat
and carcinogens to hypoglycemia. So these are some smart kids. Um.
The sound quality isn't as crisp obviously, but you think
you'll get a kick out of it. You should have
heard our first one before we got microphones. Um. The
most interesting aspect, though, guys, was you're really surprised who excelled.
(23:40):
One pair of students didn't have a history of being
the most academically motivated, but their delivery was really smooth
and professional, and the emo kids were surprisingly funny. They
seem to get the Chuck and Josh banner and uh
could become excellent radio personalities one day awesome. Another group, um,
shall we say, is not the most so really proficient
(24:00):
face to face, but behind the microphone they really came
alive and had a fluid delivery and we're animated that
the chemistry was amazing between them. So that is from
Emily and Sewn, who are the t A G Coordinator
and IB coordinator at Enrichment Team Enrichment Team leaders, and
we have a clip. They sent us a clip and
we're gonna play just a little snippet right now. Guys think,
(24:27):
hey from Colorado Springs, Colorado. It's just like mother used to.
And here zerost with the face for radio decode. Dim
Sum originated from the older tradition of tea tasting. When
people discovered the tea health digestion, they began adding food
to tea time, giving them dim sum. Dim Sum is
(24:50):
a dish that involves small individual portions of food, usually
served in a steam basket or on a plate. Dim
Sum is typically served as a breakfast. This usually includes vegetables, steam, dumplings,
roasted chicken and rice, and noodles. Awesome, pretty cool, huh Yeah,
little emulators, yes, little rip off artists. Yeah, I know,
(25:11):
I'm just kidding you. Guys will be hearing from our lawyers.
That was an excellent job and we want to tell
the whole class way to go, and that's really cool
that your teachers did this. Yeah, so thank you Emily
and Sean for letting us know about this. We appreciate it.
You guys, keep on keeping on, keep doing all sorts
of cool things. Don't be so judgment all of the
emo kids people too. If you have a cool theory
(25:33):
that you'd like us to hear of, I'm always down
for cool theories, aren't you send it to us via
email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
(25:55):
of our homepage. The house Stuff Works iPhone app has
a ride. Download it to day on iTunes, brought to
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