The Things We Don't Say

0:00Hey there Shankar here. Do you feel like you lost your ability to focus? Do you start a task and then quickly find yourself distracted by something else? We explore the research on attention and how you can begin to reclaim your ability to focus in the latest episode on our new YouTube channel. Go to youtube.com slash at hit and brain or click the link in the show notes for today's episode. Okay here's today's show. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. When children are very small their minds are often an open book. They say what they mean. They blurt out things. This can come across as both cruel and charming. The little boy laughs aloud when someone slips on a banana peel and gets hurt. The little girl tells her uncle that his face is ugly.

1:02In Hans Christian Anderson's famous folktale, the emperor's new clothes, a child is the only one who speaks truth to power. The king has been taken in by con men who pretend to close him in marvelous robes that are actually nonexistent. The king's courtiers marvel at their majesty's fine garments even though he is walking around naked. Finally a small child blurt out what everyone can see but no one wants to say aloud. The king is a fool. The folktale has many parallels in real life. Authoritarian leaders throughout history have surrounded themselves with yes men who tell them their every action is wise and brave. When we listen to stories like the emperor's new clothes, most of us identify with the child. We think that if we were in that situation, we too would be honest. We too would speak truth to power. Today on the show we explore the many ways in which we

2:08fail to say what we mean and mean what we say. It turns out most of us are not the kid in the story. We are the courtiers. The power and the peril of coming clean. This week on Hidden Brain. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Instagram. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections limit who can contact teens, the content they can see and the time they spend on the app. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parents permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Support for Hidden Brain comes from LinkedIn. Running a small business means every higher matters.

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4:23We have countless expressions about the value of being direct with others. And yet as we go through life, we often don't just say what we mean. We hedge, we weave, we dodge. At Harvard University, psychologists Steven Pinker studies language, social relations, and the mind. He has thought deeply about what our evasions and euphemisms might reveal about us. Steve Pinker, welcome to Hidden Brain. Thank you. Steve as an eminent member of the Harvard faculty, you are sometimes called upon to help the university president raise money. Tell me what this is like. Do you have to wine and dine potential donors? Well, there was one episode that sticks in memory. That was when the president of the university recruited me to have dinner with a, as they say, a high net worth individual. That is a euphemism for filthy rich. This was one of the world's highest net worth individuals as they,

5:23as the fundraising office, says, or to use another euphemism, the development office. And I took a train to Manhattan for the event. At the goal, of course, was to solicit a very, very, very large donation, or again, another euphemism, a gift to Harvard from this high net worth individual. And it was at an expensive, quiet restaurant. We were me and the university president were seated at a quiet, remote table waiting for our partner to join us. We conferred and the president indicated that we would see how the conversation proceeded. We wouldn't bring up the gift, obviously. In fact, I wouldn't bring it up at all. Establish warm rapport, a mood of conviviality of intimacy. And as we were having this conversation in this dark

6:28corner of a rather romantic restaurant, it reminded me of something, kind of reminded me of when I was single and I was at the hot date. Because both parties kind of know what you're there for, or what is what, what issue is kind of hanging over them. But it would be a ghost to say the least, to just blur it out, even though both sides know what the result will be about. So I can imagine that one reason the university president wants you by his side is because the potential donor, this high net worth individual, will feel good about having dinner with a star member of the faculty. So you're not the eye candy, but you're the brain candy? It was the brain candy. On any date, there's a lot of many days, there's entertainment. You've got to a concert, you go to a movie. So that's kind of the entertainment. But also it was, I was part

7:34of the deal in so far as a lot of tech entrepreneurs are very, very smart people who forwent a career in writing or academia or intellectual activities in order to pursue their goal of founding a successful company. But they're very smart, they're very curious. They kind of miss the banter, the repartee, the intellectual discussion being close to the cutting edge of ideas. You know, they generally are intellectually curious and smart. And forging a connection with a university is a way for them to be a member of a community that they long to be part of. And so, you know, what are we to put it crudely? And again, this is exactly what you cannot do. But what that evening was all about was, you give us, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars will name something after you and you'll get to hang out with interesting people.

8:34That's the quid pro quo. But if when this gentleman sat down, the president said, hey, if you give us 150 million dollars, then we'll name the program after you and you can speak to Pinker and Michael Sandel and other Harvard faculty as often as you want. They would put a kind of poll over the evening. It would be, even though it would have cut out a lot of time, these are busy individuals. But somehow offering to save that time would be like an a date saying, okay, so are we going to have sex at the end of this or not? You know, there's a sense of which I would be like a shocking thing to say. And a not shocking thing to say at the same time because both parties know it. They kind of know that the other one knows it, but they may not know that the other one knows that they know that the other one knows they know it.

9:36Language has to do two things at once. It's a channel of communication. Bits and bites are exchanged for particular purposes, sharing information, negotiating agreements. At the same time, it establishes a particular kind of social relationship. Are we just transactional partners? Pure quid pro quo? Are we friends? Do we have like a communal, warm intimate relationship? Is it a relationship of dominance? That is, is one person clearly the dominant and the other's the subordinate? People care a lot about which of those relationships they have. And the way you often cement them is with explicit verbal declarations. In the case of a romantic couple, it's like, I love you and then they reciprocate that I love you. Or it can be nonverbal cues having a nice dinner together. That's often the way a

10:37friendship is cemented. In the course of this dinner that you were having with this high net worth individual, how did the conversation go? I'm assuming you didn't start by talking about money or perhaps money didn't come up at all through most of that conversation. Money never came up. It was a lively conversation. This was a very smart person. Intellectually curious. He talked about the human genome project that development of the brain, issues facing the university, economics. The actual cold hard financial transaction was, I think relegated to the my people will call your people stage. And some of that was out of your shot of me being the nearly entertainment element of the partners. But the idea, both on a date and in a solicitation for funds, is to avoid the impression that the relationship is transactional.

11:39The idea is that we are the relationship of sharing of warmth, of intimacy, of mutual concern. And so all the signals have to indicate that. Now, in the case of solicitation of a donation, as of course with sex and romance, there are actually often is a genuine relationship together with the actual exchange of favors. But still, a lot of emotional capital goes into preventing any impression that this is a transactional relationship. Those do occur, but I suspect that probably the most univiscent gifts tend to occur when they are considered to be, as they say, a gift, something that is layered on top of a communal relationship. And this is, in the case of the university, the intellectual stimulation and exchange,

12:44together with the prestige of not being merely a capitalist profit maximizer, but also a philanthropist for cultural and educational institutions. Those are the ultimate incentives. So I'm wondering at a dinner like this and the analogy to sexual courtship is apt, they might come up point in the dinner where in some ways something actually has to be communicated that this is not just a dinner. In other words, what happens if the high net worth individual says, this is a delightful conversation. I really enjoyed meeting Steve Pinker and then goes back to his hedge fund or his tech company to make, continue to make money and has no interest in Harvard going forward. That would not be a successful dinner. Exactly. And this is where a lot of what we informally we call social skills, social acumen, jargon of psychology,

13:47sometimes called theory of mind, that is your theory of what's going on in the other person's mind. As you say, you don't let the moment slip. On the other hand, if you make it too overt, too early, then it feels like a transactional relationship as opposed to one of mutual generosity. I'm wondering, did the donor come through? Did you get the big gift? I think not as big as I've been hoping. So maybe I was not charming enough. Also donors, you know, donors, actually, know there was a donor. Now that I think of it, the donor did not have the entity named after himself. So there was a donation, but he chose having something named after him at Harvard, came second to the various buildings his own name plastered over on them.

14:49I want to talk about an example of indirect speech in the political arena in 2016, then presidential candidate Donald Trump insulted Nikki Haley, who was the governor of South Carolina. Here's how a TV station in South Carolina described the exchange. So Steve, when used by Americans from Southern states, does bless your heart mean bless your heart? It does not mean a bless your heart. And it was rather clever on her part because he was, obviously, they were in a contest for dominance. One way to play it is with, in your face, insults, that's the kind of playground trash talk. Haley, rather than taking the bait and

15:53meeting him in the same arena, tries to step above it with the non-secretor. Bless your heart. It doesn't make sense in context because that's not what you say to someone who just insulted you. So listeners have to then puzzle all, geez, she's not just saying things that ran them. She had a reason to say that. Why did she say that? And to read between the lines, it's this kind of trash talk does not wound me. I consider myself to have a strong enough reputation and I have enough confidence that I believe that I will not be lowered in the status because of the content of your insult by not playing that game. It is the case also that I think, especially in the American South, bless your heart is not just a wish for your continued good health. It could also be another two or three word phrase that might be unprintable, but is it's pouched in much more diplomatic language. Indeed. And the language of diplomacy,

16:58as with all of our speech that is not meant to be taken literally, and that's a lot of it, there's a lot of interpreting in context and the way that humans do it is by adhering to a principle of relevance and of cooperation. That is, the ground rules are the listener, thanks to himself or to herself, what did they mean that would explain what they just said? And so any socially competent listener can say she is signaling, you have not wounded me. I'm not playing that game. I am confident enough that I don't feel the need to reply to that insult. So often, what we say aloud doesn't represent what we're thinking. When we come back, the many roles that indirect speech plays in our lives. Also, when to say what we mean, and when this can be a mistake, you're listening to Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta.

18:10Support for Hidden Brain comes from Instagram. Instagram, teen accounts, automatic protections, limit who can contact teens, the content they can see, and the time they spend on the app. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parents permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Land Rover. Even the boldest journey starts small with a single decision to go somewhere new. Purpose built and courage driven, the Defender 110 combines on-road presence with off-road capability. It looks tough because it is with a raised hood and an exterior engineered for durability. Inside, capability meets comfort with seating for five and the option for seven plus refined finishes and thoughtful design. The Defender event is on now. Explore enhanced offers at Land Rover USA.com.

19:16This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Steven Pinker is a psychologist at Harvard University who studies the nuances of language and social relations. Steve, if we were to sketch something of a taxonomy of indirect speech, one of the first on the list might be the lies that we tell in order to protect the feelings of the people we love. Can you talk about this idea, perhaps with some example, Steve? Sure. Someone shows up in an outfit, they've taken a lot of effort to beautify themselves. Even if you think it might be a gathly taste, you might say, that's beautiful. You're great. Or even more fraud is often if someone is an artist and they show you their obje d'art. You have to comment on it. There are so many ways for that to go wrong. It could be if it's a painting of a red barn, it could be kitsch, if it's too abstract,

20:18it could be incomprehensible. You have to say beautiful, striking, powerful, strong, even if you may think privately that it's hideous. Again, the cool thing, let's tie it back to the underlying explanation is that there is a relationship to be cemented and each one wishes the best for the other. Neither one is superior to the other. Each would do anything for the other. Those are the fictions that underlie a relationship of friendship. I call them fictions because they can't always be true, but that's the background assumption that makes friends friends, it makes lovers what that means is you don't want to say, blurt out anything that would directly contradict that tacit assumption.

21:24I'm thinking of how this is also true at the level of international relationships. There is a hierarchy between countries that are richer and more powerful and they're countries that are poorer and weaker. But very often in international settings when diplomats sit down or the leaders of countries sit down, they're very complimentary to one another. They say nice things about one another. So even though there is some hierarchy between the countries, everyone agrees that in this public forum, we have to pretend like we are equals or we have to pretend like we deeply care about one another. Can you talk about the idea that this doesn't just happen at the level of interpersonal relationships. It happens at the level of diplomacy and nations? Oh absolutely. Perhaps the most conspicuous fiction is simply the iconography of the United Nations where Vanuatu, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific and China or Russia, or at least in the general assembly are treated identically at the same size desk, the same size flag and the same privileges. In fact, the word

22:28diplomacy, which we sometimes use to refer to our everyday interactions, but technically refers to the relationship between nation states, reminds us that there is a lot in international relations that does not consist of actual bronze brute force nor wealth GDP, but relationships of respect, status, power, dignity, and to make things happen and to establish stable relationships. There's an awful lot of posturing symbolization that goes into international relations. There's a famous book by Barrio Neal, which shows that every year there are probably a hundred acts between countries that are purely symbolic, that is, two leaders have dinner together, or one sense of vice president to be funeral of an ex-head of state of the other, or they exchange students or zoo animals,

23:33or they attend a ceremony which they raise a flag or formally apologize. There's an awful lot of just social relationships that go on between heads of state. So in 2011, then president Barack Obama had a hot mic moment where he expressed his sentiments about dealing with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What happens, Steve, described this incident because in some ways it peeled the curtain back on what's actually happening behind all of this diplomacy? Yes, it was a hot mic moment. I discovered it when I clicked on some page at the bottom of a web page. There are 10 most embarrassing hot mic moments. One of them is when Barack Obama confided to Nicolas Sarkozy that both of them knew, namely that the

24:34BB Netanyahu was a pain in the neck. I don't think they used that euphemism. Now that was almost an international incident, even though everyone knew that. There's an old saying from the journalist Michael Kinzley that the definition of a gaff in Washington is when a politician says something that's true. By the way, that has been made somewhat obsolete by Donald Trump, who has blurted out what in earlier times would have been considered gaff. That's a whole other story of the different rules that he plays by. But the default rules are that leaders of parties within a country, leaders of countries, international relations have a relationship of mutual admiration and respect. In this hot mic moment, Sarkozy apparently told Obama, I cannot bear

25:36Netanyahu. He's a liar. Obama says, you're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day. That people might talk about it like, you know, Duda parties, but to realize the same thing is happening probably at the level of international relationships is really striking because you hear so little of it when you see the polite diplomacy that happens in these international forums. And the tension is that for agreements to be negotiated, it helps when two parties consider themselves to be in a communal relationship. That lubricates getting to yes. But the paradox being that especially the level of leaders, things that they say in private can then float some norm that characterizes their public relationship. So in interpersonal settings, it can be a tricky balance to communicate what you mean while also trying to hide what you're saying. I want to play you a clip from the 1989 comedy when Harry met Sally. Harry has complimented Sally's looks a bit

26:41too insistently and she accuses him of coming on to her. So Steve, there's something very interesting here. Once something is out of the box, Sally is saying it can't be put back into the box? In that scene in the movie, they had just met. They're sharing a ride across country. That's why there was some motor noise in that audio clip. And they were not in a romantic or sexual relationship, even though as with my fundraising dinner, it had to be the back of their minds. But there's a big difference between something being common knowledge, as Sally put it out there, and something being known privately by

27:44each of them. They're grown-ups. They're two sexually mature heterosexual individuals. Each one has to know that the possibility of a sexual relationship has crossed their minds. But each one could think about the other. Well, she doesn't know exactly what's running through my mind. Maybe she thinks I'm dense. Or she didn't think maybe he thinks I'm naive. However, when it is, as she said, out there, that is when it is said in plain language, then the other person knows that you know the common knowledge is no longer reliable. Another kind of indirect speech is the humble brag. Describe what this is, Steve. Can you think of some examples that you've come by humble bragging in your own life? Oh, yes. I once saw a documentary with an eminent British evolutionary biologist, John Maynard Smith, who would be recognizable to any evolutionary biologist. And the British are

28:48champions at Ninjas at humble bragging. And he was being interviewed and asked him why he went into the field that he did. And he said, well, originally I was interested in physics. But I realized I wasn't smart enough to do physics. Any idiot can do biology. Now, this is a truly brilliant man. He invented the entire field of evolutionary game theory, a powerful idea. He laughed when he said it. In it, he was doing kind of two things. And this was the genius of expert humble brag. He was not saying that he was so coarse as to have a boast. Like, I'm, you know, I realized that as a smart person, and I could make a contribution to biology, because I was so smart. I was smarter than other biologists. But by saying any idiot can do biology, both saying, I don't have to worry about people thinking me that I'm an idiot. If I call myself

29:49an idiot or compare myself to idiots, people will know to blow that off. I have the confidence to do that because my status is not in doubt. You know, by my lights, biology is hard. If he's saying any idiot can do biology, and I'm an idiot, the kind of idiot who can do biology, I'm thinking, I find biologists kind of hard. Does that mean that I am, you know, unlike Sir John, you know, made our sniff. I am not of the caliber that would find it easy. I find it hard. And therefore, I'm even lower than him in intelligence than if he would have said it outright. So it works at multiple levels. As in general, wit, charm, tact, social skill often refer to cases where the desired message comes not from the literal content, but from several layers of thinking about what the other person thinks about what you think about what they think. That kind of chess game of

30:54thinking several moves ahead, except instead of on the chess board, it's in the brains of two people. There's a related idea that is beautifully captured in the comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David, playing himself, has donated money for a wing of a non-profit building, named after him. The other wing displays only the inscription donated by anonymous. At the ribbon cutting ceremony, Larry is talking to his soon-to-be ex-wife Cheryl when he discovers who the anonymous donor is. It's his rival, Ted Danson. He donated the whole wing. Didn't want anybody to know. Well, he told you. So apparently he wanted somebody to know. He told me, okay. Who else did he tell? How do you know he just told you? Point is he didn't need all the fanfare and didn't need all the fanfare. Fanfare? What fanfare? I don't like the fanfare. Are you saying I like fanfare? You can tell a few

31:55people. He just doesn't need the whole world to know that he don't need all the money. You know what? I didn't need the world to know either. Nobody told me that I could be anonymous and tell people. I would have taken that option. So that's a great line, Steve. Nobody told me I could be anonymous and tell people. Oh, it is brilliant. It strikes to the heart of a very deep paradox about altruism. Going back to the medieval Jewish philosopher by Monides who had a ladder of righteousness of where the size of the gift doesn't determine how righteous it is according to my Monides. If you do it for the glory, for the recognition, that's considered less indicative of an underlying trait of charitableity or generosity than if you do it anonymously. For the obvious reason that if you do it anonymously, there's no ulterior motive of reputation, nor can you call it the favor

32:57and expect some special treatment or quick pro quo. In experiments that I've done in collaboration with some postdocs and grad students, we found that people will actually give more moral credit to someone who gives less money anonymously than more money publicly, which Larry David used to great comic effect. So in some ways, in that clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ted Danson is trying to have it both ways. He's getting the moral benefit of being seen as an anonymous giver while also telling people that he was the anonymous giver. He's really getting it both ways and that's what gets Larry so upset. Indeed, yes. It underscores the paradox of reputation in altruism. That ultimately reputation is a motive for altruism. You want other people to think that you're kind, you're generous, you're beneficent. On the other hand, if other people perceive that that is the motive, they give you less credit as a genuinely altruistic person because maybe you're in it for

34:04the long term benefits. Another kind of indirect speech is the innuendo. I want to play you a clip that captures this from the TV show The Sopranos. In this scene, a member of The Soprano mob family accosts an old acquaintance in a store and pays for his candy bar. Hey, how you doing? Hey, listen, Danny, we just want you to know how glad we are. A guy like he was on a tour, that mob thing, that junior Soprano trial. Not working guy, wife and two kids, performing a civic duty we should all take part in. We know you do the right thing. So what are you here that's being said and not said, Steve? Well, that is an excellent example of a veiled threat. What's being veiled is if you vote to convict junior Soprano, we will harm your family. And it can be effective by striking fear into the heart of the target without literally

35:08exposing themselves to the crime of extortion. So what the mobster was doing in that clip from The Soprano was basically offering something that had plausible deniability. If someone came up and said, is this what you really meant, the mobster could say, no, I'm just wishing this old acquaintance well. Exactly. And the question is how plausible is the deniability? And crucially, the level of plausibility for the speaker and the hearer have to be different for it to work. So you want to be not so subtle little fly over the head of the hearer, but subtle enough that it by higher standards of proof such as in a court of law, it would not meet that higher standard. So if a motress gets pulled over by a cop telling the cop, you know, here's $100, let's make this go away right now. That could get you in trouble because you're bribing the police officer. But if you say, you know, is there some way we can get this resolved without, you know, having to do a lot of paperwork, that might

36:11send the message of what you're trying to say, but give you some plausible deniability if the cop turns out to be an honest cop. Yes, enough deniability that it couldn't be the basis of conviction by the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is very high threshold. But in everyday conversation, we don't need that higher threshold. We can take our chances that, you know, Aachamon, it's pretty obvious what he said. So in that case, plausible deniability. In the case of a court case, it's near its deniability beyond a reasonable doubt, much higher standard. A few years ago, the writer Bruce Filer was given an assignment by a magazine. He was to try and bribe a series of major deeds at popular New York City restaurants in order to get a good table. What did he imagine would happen when he did this, Steve? Yes, sir, the assignment filled him with

37:13dread. He kept imagining the incensed retours of some outraged natured, like, how dare you insult me? Or what kind of establishment do you think this is? Or do you think you could get in with that? As it happened, he instinctively couched the bribe in in New Endo and in direct terms. He would instead of saying, if I give you 20 bucks, would you see me right away? Would you let me jump the queue? He would hold a $20 bill in peripheral vision, not look at it, look at the natured in the eye and say something like, I was wondering if you had a cancellation or I was hoping maybe you could fit us in or this is a really important night for me. The interesting is it worked every time. Despite all our fears, all major deeds in Manhattan are bribeable, at least they

38:18worked the time they worked this article, which leads to the question, what was he? And by extension, all of us are so afraid of. That is what would be so terrible if the major deed rebuff the bride. I think the answer is that going back to our different kinds of social relationships, breaching the tacit assumptions of a social relationship, the common knowledge that cements the relationship has emotional costs, which we experience as embarrassment, awkwardness, if they are accidental, if they're one time, or as disbelief, you're outraged, shock, if they are intentional or repeated. In the case of a major deed, a major deed, they're dressed in finery, they're wearing a tux or a nice dress, and they carry themselves with the authority that this is their kingdom,

39:19they get to see people when and where they choose. That's part of the dignity of being a major deed. If you're tendering an outright quid probe, quote, bride, you're kind of treating them like like a sales clerk, like a transactional partner undermining that aura of authority that they have, and doing it in cases where you don't know whether they will agree leads to that emotion of, on the part of the speaker, it would be awkwardness on the part of the recipient of the bride, it would be outrage, at least in the imagination of the writer. And even in the case where it did succeed, which it did in every time, it may not have succeeded had he tendered the bride as a naked quid probe quote. He did do it indirectly and it worked. You know, it's interesting. We talked earlier about the challenge of sexual courtship in the clip

40:22that I played you from when Harry met Sally. You know, if Harry had shown his hand, but it turns out that Sally was completely not interested, maybe Sally was married already, and maybe Sally has no interest in Harry, that would be a slap in the face. And so it's helpful in those cases to to put forward a very tentative proposal that perhaps the other party can reject also, you know, fairly subtly so that there's no face that's lost, there's no humiliation that is meted out, even as both parties make clear where they stand. Hey, indeed. And in fact, in studies that I have done, that is one of the motives for using indirect speech, that it avoids the change in relationship from one in which one person has the authority, the superiority of striking down another's offer. That changes the relationship, but then introduces awkwardness if the basis of the relationship had been one of egalitarian

41:22warmth and communal sharing. So you don't want to spoil the relationship with one person kind of holds the prerogative of sexual consent and can blatantly imply that the other is not worthy of it. Obviously, the time comes when there's no choice, which is, I would say, no. And you're what part of no doubt you understand. If that stage can be avoided, they can maintain the fiction of a completely platonic friendship, or in more dangerous and fraud circumstances, such as a supervisor and an employee or a professor and a student. It would be not just preaching a norm, but preaching a law or a rule, and they may not want to go through the the trouble of making a court case out of it.

42:26Interact speech can be a useful lubricant, greasing the wheels of social interaction. But it's not always what it's called for. When we come back, when it's good to be coy, and when it's necessary to be blunt. You're listening to Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta. Support for Hidden Brain comes from quints. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat, the sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the tea you somehow always reach for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what quints does best. Quints focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials in timeless versatile styles designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. And it's not just clothing. Quints brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel quality bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture.

43:30Find your next fall favorites at Quints. Download the Quints app for app exclusive offers, or go to quints.com slash brain. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash brain. Support for Hidden Brain comes from BetterHelp. You know those little promises you make to your future self? Tomorrow I'll put my phone away earlier, or stop rehearsing arguments in the shower. Tomorrow I'll stop saying yes to everything, or stop overthinking that conversation. Most of us aren't trying to become completely different people. We're just hoping to feel a little better every day. That's what's great about BetterHelp. With them, Better is personal. It's matching with a therapist who gets you and having someone in your corner. Better doesn't have to come from major victories. It can be from the small habits you create. With thousands of

44:31therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries, BetterHelp is making therapy more accessible so more people can keep moving forward one conversation at a time. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Hidden to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Hidden. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Stephen Pinker is a psychologist at Harvard University. He's the author most recently of the book when everyone knows that everyone knows common knowledge and the mysteries of money, power, and everyday life. Steve, there are many vivid examples of the importance of using direct speech. You talk about the crash of Korean Air 801 in 1997. What happened in that tragedy? This is a case in which the pilot in a social setting in which there was a clear hierarchy

45:35and he was the authority and the other pilots and technicians had to defer to him. In this case, it was clear to the second and third in command that a disaster was possible, but the plane was losing altitude. It was on a collision course, but they indicated there was a problem, but they didn't just blurt it out and say, hey, we're going to crash. Wake up, do something. Or let us take over the controls. Resulting in tragedy is one of the cases where for all the socially lubricating benefits of indirectness and in your endo, there are times when it becomes cruel, tragic, unjust to persist in failing to describe something in so many words. So there's a trend out there known as radical honesty, which holds that we should all be saying exactly what's on our minds without any indirection or euphemism. One of the leading

46:35proponents of radical honesty is a psychotherapist named Brad Blanton. Here's how he makes the case for it. So the idea is being able to be happy and be related to people and not be guarded and careful and protected and afraid to be found out. That's a lousy way to live. It's a better way to live out loud, let the kids fall where they may have a few hard times now and then, but still they get all cleaned up because everybody tells the truth. That does sound appealing, Steve. Do you think it always works in practice? To put it mildly, no. That it is often a health scape when everyone is honest with everyone else. And there are some comedies and science fiction plots that actually play that out for the amusement and sometimes the horror of the other audience. But the reason that it doesn't is that this is a world in which there are no social relationships. Everything is transactional. There's no warmth. There's no friendship because all of us constantly have

47:40compromising thoughts about even our closest friends. Oh, that was a stupid comment. But blurting those things out just crodes the tacit assumptions that make a friendship or a romantic relationship or even a stable relationship of respect of a supervisor and a supervisee stable and sustainable. If every thought was blurred out, then there would be no long-term stable relationships of cooperation. You cite a French essayist and philosopher from the 17th century who wrote about what would happen if we were all open books. What is Blase Pascal's say? He said that if everyone said it was on their minds, there would not be four friends in the world. And indeed, if there was a hidden microphone in my dining room in the unbuttoned conversations that I

48:46have with my wife, my family, my close friends, and that was published tomorrow in New York Times, I would be in deep trouble. Even though I don't really have anything to do ashamed of, I'm committed a murder or happened to have broken any laws. But just the unguarded honest comments that you make about other people, if voiced, would negate the assumption of infinite mutual respect and generosity that are the basis of friendships and of other relationships, relationships of decorum and cooperation. My favorite example, I don't know if you have a clip from this was in the romantic comedy movie Tutsi, where in a scene in which the disguised Dustin Hoffman portraying an actress becomes intimate with a fellow actress on a soap opera played by Jessica Lang, and she confesses to the disguised Dustin Hoffman. You and I wish just once. That a guy could be honest and

49:52out just to walk right up to me and say, hey listen, you know I'm confused about this too. I could lay a big line on you. We could do a lot of role playing, but the simple truth is, I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love with you. And then in a clever twist of fate later in the movie, an undisguised and unrecognized Dustin Hoffman does need Jessica Lang at a cocktail party, goes up to her and says, I could lay a big line on you and we could do a lot of role playing, but the simple truth is, is that I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you. And of course she throws her glass of wine in his face. Showing our hypocrisy about our hypocrisy. Namely, we long for honesty, candor, not role playing and beating around the bush and just saying

50:54what we mean, but really we would not tolerate it. So you've thought deeply about the costs and the benefits of indirect speech. I understand your wife recently challenged you to act on your own theories and she took a leaf out of that story you told me about the magazine writer who managed to score great restaurant tables with a $50 bribe, but what was the challenge she laid down on the table, Steve? So we were having a lovely stroll and they put them in waterfront, a late summer night and there was a river cafe and a lovely restaurant with a gorgeous view of Manhattan and we had made a reservation and we were getting hungry and I had a $50 bill in my pocket which is a rare occasion. And so she was saying, well look you've explained how it works. It would be really good if we could

51:56get in there. You're the guy with a theory. Let's see if your theory works. And you like the writer for gourmet magazine, I got to say it was terrifying. I don't know what I was afraid of, but it did require screwing up a lot of gumption. But I did. And I said, if I have the courage of my convictions, I got to do it. And so I went in, but I was defeated by the site, greeted me at the Hostest Station. There were two majorities, two elegantly attired, attractive women, both of whom smiled at me and I realized that any in-u window that I tried with one would be immediately spotted by the other. Perhaps that's why they hired majorities and pairs. One of the revelations of this article in gourmet magazine is that bribing majorities is evidently possible. And now of course restaurants, the owner of the restaurant

52:59has an incentive that is or her majorities not be bribable because then people would be loath to make reservations if they could just be delayed and delayed and delayed by people jumping the queue with $50 bills. So there's some conflict there between the interests of the major D, which is to accept a little tip on the side, allow their palms to be greased and the interests of the owner. And I'm wondering whether the owner had a pair of major D's there just for that reason. So what happened? You had the $50 bill in your hand and you just put it back in your pocket? What did you do? I skunked away, yes. And we had to have a long walk to find a restaurant with a table. Stephen Pinker is a psychologist at Harvard University. He is the author of the book when everyone knows that everyone knows common knowledge and the mysteries of money,

54:03power and everyday life. Steve, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Quarelle, Ryan Katz, Andrew Chadwick and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Southern New Hampshire University. Science consistently tells us learning starts with motivation. That's why SNHU offers over 200 flexible, affordable online programs to help you get where you want to go. Take classes that spark your curiosity,

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