1 00:00:00,025 --> 00:00:07,783 And the topic of this section is emotions. A guy goes to his mother and says, mother 2 00:00:07,783 --> 00:00:12,397 after 40 years, I finally decide to get married. 3 00:00:12,398 --> 00:00:15,420 And the mother is so happy. She's just filled with joy. 4 00:00:15,420 --> 00:00:18,713 And she said, why don't you bring your future wife to dinner? 5 00:00:18,713 --> 00:00:22,498 And the guy said, that's wonderful. I'll bring her over Saturday night. 6 00:00:22,498 --> 00:00:26,860 But he says, you know, over the last two years mother, I dated two other women and 7 00:00:26,860 --> 00:00:31,150 I'm still friends with all of them, and we're, why don't I bring all three women 8 00:00:31,150 --> 00:00:35,308 to dinner and why don't you meet all three women and then let's see if we could 9 00:00:35,308 --> 00:00:38,637 guess, if you could guess which is the one I'm going to marry. 10 00:00:38,638 --> 00:00:41,780 The mother said, that's great. He brings all three women to dinner. 11 00:00:41,780 --> 00:00:44,418 His mother talks to one. She talked to the second. 12 00:00:44,418 --> 00:00:47,855 She talked to the third. After about an hour, she points to one of 13 00:00:47,855 --> 00:00:50,430 them and she said, I know which one. It's this one. 14 00:00:50,430 --> 00:00:53,863 This is the one you're going to marry. And the guy is amazed. 15 00:00:53,863 --> 00:00:56,791 He looks at this mother and said, mother, how well do you know me? 16 00:00:56,791 --> 00:00:59,935 How well do you understand me? I loved all of these three women. 17 00:00:59,935 --> 00:01:02,330 I'm friends with all of them. I appreciate all of them. 18 00:01:02,330 --> 00:01:06,166 But indeed, this is the one that I'm going to spend all of my life with. 19 00:01:06,166 --> 00:01:08,837 What gave it away? What gave it away? 20 00:01:08,838 --> 00:01:13,354 And the mother looks at him and she says, it's the only one I hate. 21 00:01:13,355 --> 00:01:18,155 What is it about emotions? It turns out there are two sides to our 22 00:01:18,155 --> 00:01:21,885 decision making. There's the rational side and there's the 23 00:01:21,885 --> 00:01:24,625 emotional side. And what's interesting is that not only do 24 00:01:24,625 --> 00:01:27,537 we have these two sides. They don't simply add up. 25 00:01:27,538 --> 00:01:33,080 Sometimes when emotions are evoked they take over and they basically eliminate our 26 00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:36,860 rational side. And in this section we will think about 27 00:01:36,860 --> 00:01:42,555 how emotions actually work, when they overpower us, under what conditions, and 28 00:01:42,555 --> 00:01:47,485 how do they get us to make either bad decisions and sometimes even good 29 00:01:47,485 --> 00:01:50,380 decisions. [music]. 30 00:01:54,208 --> 00:02:13,587 Emotions we all have them, we all experience them. 31 00:02:13,587 --> 00:02:20,737 The question is, what do we know about them and how do they actually work and how 32 00:02:20,737 --> 00:02:28,373 they influence our decision making? So Pascal said, we arrive at the truth not 33 00:02:28,373 --> 00:02:34,006 by reason alone, but also by the heart. And this is the idea that we have these 34 00:02:34,006 --> 00:02:39,288 two separate inputs into decision making. We have an input from our cognitive system 35 00:02:39,288 --> 00:02:42,060 and we have an input from the limbic system. 36 00:02:42,060 --> 00:02:46,360 In very general, simplistic, maybe oversimplistic terms, we think about the 37 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:50,125 brain as having two systems. We think about the system that is internal 38 00:02:50,125 --> 00:02:53,870 to the brain and the inside of the brain that is more the emotional system. 39 00:02:53,870 --> 00:02:57,347 And then we have the neocortex that surrounds it, which is more of the 40 00:02:57,347 --> 00:03:00,605 thoughtful system. And what's interesting is that those 41 00:03:00,605 --> 00:03:05,025 systems do have some kind of separate inputs, separate outputs, and separate 42 00:03:05,025 --> 00:03:08,656 ways of, of thinking. So, the way that our decisions, we arrive 43 00:03:08,656 --> 00:03:13,072 at them at the end of the day, is not just the two of them together, but it kind of 44 00:03:13,072 --> 00:03:16,944 separate from the two systems. And lots of theorizing have been going on 45 00:03:16,944 --> 00:03:21,144 and something called system one or system two, the emotional system, the cognitive 46 00:03:21,144 --> 00:03:23,686 system. But for today, I want to just concentrate 47 00:03:23,686 --> 00:03:27,050 on the emotional system, and say what do we know about the system? 48 00:03:27,050 --> 00:03:30,240 How does it operate? How does it give us signals? 49 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:35,898 And now, from an evolutionary perspective, the way to think about that, is to think 50 00:03:35,898 --> 00:03:39,215 about. Imagine you were in the jungle 100,000 51 00:03:39,215 --> 00:03:42,832 years ago. And imagine you saw a tiger approaching. 52 00:03:42,832 --> 00:03:47,478 What did you, would you want to do? Would you want to pop up your spreadsheet 53 00:03:47,478 --> 00:03:50,250 and look at the cost and benefits? Should you run, should you stay? 54 00:03:50,250 --> 00:03:54,167 Of course not. You want a system that would take over. 55 00:03:54,167 --> 00:03:58,577 You want a system that would give you a quick command and get you to run as fast 56 00:03:58,577 --> 00:04:03,404 as you can without thinking. And one way to think about this thing is 57 00:04:03,404 --> 00:04:08,010 as if it's an executable program. As if there's a tiger, presses a button in 58 00:04:08,010 --> 00:04:11,650 your brain, that says turn around, run as fast as you can. 59 00:04:11,650 --> 00:04:15,190 Don't think about it. And in fact, it's useful to think about 60 00:04:15,190 --> 00:04:20,358 the emotional system in that way, that it takes inputs from the outside world, and 61 00:04:20,358 --> 00:04:25,064 gets to execute the command. Whether it's about running or fighting or 62 00:04:25,064 --> 00:04:29,620 procreating, that are not really dependent on the cognitive system. 63 00:04:29,620 --> 00:04:33,829 Which means that when we get an input from our emotional system, we've just execute 64 00:04:33,829 --> 00:04:37,450 something as fast as we can without thinking about it to a high degree. 65 00:04:37,450 --> 00:04:41,750 And of'course, we are basically limbic animals. 66 00:04:41,750 --> 00:04:45,900 We are but we share with the rest of the animal kingdom, is our limbic system. 67 00:04:45,900 --> 00:04:50,956 This internal part of the brain is incredibly similar with us and mice and 68 00:04:50,956 --> 00:04:53,890 rats and all across the, the animal kingdom. 69 00:04:53,890 --> 00:04:56,424 Its the cognitive system that separates us. 70 00:04:56,425 --> 00:05:00,546 So, much of the animal kingdom, but they limbic, the central part of the brain. 71 00:05:00,546 --> 00:05:04,206 The emotional part of the brain is something that is very, very similar to 72 00:05:04,206 --> 00:05:07,836 the rest of the, the animals. And because of that, we can study that not 73 00:05:07,836 --> 00:05:11,060 just in human beings, but in all kinds of other animals as well. 74 00:05:11,060 --> 00:05:14,420 So, this is what has stayed with us for longer time. 75 00:05:14,420 --> 00:05:18,714 It's something that started our evolutionary, evolutionary progress. 76 00:05:18,715 --> 00:05:21,120 It's something that we share with the rest of the animals. 77 00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:25,410 Something that is incredibly basic. In fact, if you thought about what's more 78 00:05:25,410 --> 00:05:29,233 basic to the human experience? Emotion or cognition? 79 00:05:29,234 --> 00:05:33,660 Cognition separates us to a higher degree from the animal kingdom but emotion is, 80 00:05:33,660 --> 00:05:38,694 has been with us for a longer time. It's what's really us in a deep rooted 81 00:05:38,694 --> 00:05:42,057 way. With this understanding of emotions, it's 82 00:05:42,057 --> 00:05:45,487 something that gets us to act in a particular way. 83 00:05:45,488 --> 00:05:47,987 You see a tiger and you just start running. 84 00:05:47,988 --> 00:05:52,356 You can ask yourself, why do we even have, have to have the feeling of an emotion, 85 00:05:52,356 --> 00:05:55,135 what's called qualia, the feeling of the emotion? 86 00:05:55,135 --> 00:05:56,690 Why? Why can't we just run? 87 00:05:56,690 --> 00:05:59,748 Why do we need to know that there are emotions? 88 00:05:59,748 --> 00:06:05,450 Why you would need to feel those emotions. And the theory for that is that emotions 89 00:06:05,450 --> 00:06:09,409 are not good for that moment. The moment you see a lion you just want to 90 00:06:09,409 --> 00:06:11,887 start running. You don't have to feel anything. 91 00:06:11,888 --> 00:06:16,272 But it's about teaching us for the future. That the quality of the thing about the 92 00:06:16,272 --> 00:06:19,210 feeling of the emotion comes for planning for the future. 93 00:06:19,210 --> 00:06:23,902 So, once you've done a few things, and got some very negative feedback. 94 00:06:23,902 --> 00:06:27,400 It didn't work out very well. This part of the jungle was dangerous this 95 00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:29,988 and so on. Now, the feeling that this emotion is 96 00:06:29,988 --> 00:06:34,100 going to stay with you and you're going to be able to have a lesson from it. 97 00:06:34,100 --> 00:06:37,481 And when you plan for the future, you're going to hopefully do things in a better 98 00:06:37,481 --> 00:06:40,057 way. So, what I wanted you to do now is, I 99 00:06:40,057 --> 00:06:45,685 wanted to think about your own experience of emotions, and you had many of those, 100 00:06:45,685 --> 00:06:50,977 and to think to yourself about what is special about emotions, how emotions 101 00:06:50,977 --> 00:06:54,958 actually work. What can you say from just reflecting on 102 00:06:54,958 --> 00:06:59,402 emotions about how they operate, how long they stay and so on? 103 00:06:59,402 --> 00:07:04,602 If you think about it, you, you realize that emotions are not usual feelings or 104 00:07:04,602 --> 00:07:07,931 thoughts. They are much more primitive. 105 00:07:07,931 --> 00:07:11,668 You realize that they are fast. You realize that they are executed 106 00:07:11,668 --> 00:07:16,754 automatically based on the environment. You realize that they could be moderated, 107 00:07:16,754 --> 00:07:21,190 probably by cognitive processes. The first thing that comes around could be 108 00:07:21,190 --> 00:07:25,205 perceived very differently, depending on what you're thinking on at the time. 109 00:07:25,206 --> 00:07:29,343 Are you in the a comfortable mindset? Are you in an aroused mindset? 110 00:07:29,343 --> 00:07:32,293 And so on. And you also probably realize that they 111 00:07:32,293 --> 00:07:35,495 are transitory. And the transitory part is actually 112 00:07:35,495 --> 00:07:40,313 incredibly important because when something happens and you feel an emotion, 113 00:07:40,313 --> 00:07:44,973 you probably feel at that moment that the emotion would last for a long time. 114 00:07:44,973 --> 00:07:49,998 But the fact is, that the emotion would often go, go down in a faster speed than 115 00:07:49,998 --> 00:07:53,329 you might anticipate. And this, by the way, happens for both 116 00:07:53,329 --> 00:07:57,017 good things and bad things. So, as somebody who was eh, badly injured 117 00:07:57,017 --> 00:08:01,573 a long time ago, if you asked me at early days of my injury how long do I think this 118 00:08:01,573 --> 00:08:05,794 would last and how long would I feel miserable, I would probably think that I 119 00:08:05,794 --> 00:08:10,015 would feel miserable for a really, really long time and it would not get much 120 00:08:10,015 --> 00:08:12,646 better. In fact, over time, it did got better, 121 00:08:12,646 --> 00:08:16,293 better than I expected. Similarly, when you talk to somebody that 122 00:08:16,293 --> 00:08:19,420 had something happy, happening. Winning the lottery, maybe. 123 00:08:19,420 --> 00:08:21,820 You ask them how long will things be happy. 124 00:08:21,820 --> 00:08:23,650 They think it would be long, for a long time. 125 00:08:23,650 --> 00:08:27,896 In fact, it'll be happy but for shorter time than they expect. 126 00:08:27,896 --> 00:08:31,242 There is a lot of experiments on this, by the way. 127 00:08:31,243 --> 00:08:34,050 Dan Gilbert at Harvard has done many of those. 128 00:08:34,050 --> 00:08:39,405 It's about our inability to predict how the future would work in terms of our 129 00:08:39,405 --> 00:08:42,842 adaptation. So, for example, in a standard experiment, 130 00:08:42,842 --> 00:08:47,417 he asked people at, at Harvard about how they would feel if they got tenure or not. 131 00:08:47,418 --> 00:08:51,714 So, at some point, professors are up for tenure and then the university decides if 132 00:08:51,714 --> 00:08:55,702 to give us a job for life or not. And people predict that if they get 133 00:08:55,702 --> 00:08:59,646 tenure, they'll be really, really happy and they will be really, really happy for 134 00:08:59,646 --> 00:09:02,210 a long time. And if they didn't get tenure they will be 135 00:09:02,210 --> 00:09:05,577 really, really miserable and really, really miserable for a long time. 136 00:09:05,578 --> 00:09:08,818 What happens? On the day that people are told that they 137 00:09:08,818 --> 00:09:11,467 got it, they're happy. On the day that they're told they didn't 138 00:09:11,467 --> 00:09:15,110 get it, they're unhappy. But then quite quickly, much quicker than 139 00:09:15,110 --> 00:09:20,390 people anticipate, they get back to the standards of life, they get adjusted to 140 00:09:20,390 --> 00:09:22,770 it. The same thing happens with people who are 141 00:09:22,770 --> 00:09:25,060 moving. People who are moving from Chicago to 142 00:09:25,060 --> 00:09:27,861 California. Think, oh if I only move to California, 143 00:09:27,861 --> 00:09:32,099 where the weather is so good, I will be happy and I'll be happy for a long time. 144 00:09:32,099 --> 00:09:36,195 And people who move from California to Chicago say, if I only move to Chicago, 145 00:09:36,195 --> 00:09:40,419 where it's cold and miserable in the winter, I'll be miserable and be miserable 146 00:09:40,419 --> 00:09:45,002 for really long time. People do get their initial happiness or 147 00:09:45,002 --> 00:09:48,777 this happiness but then they go back to it. 148 00:09:48,778 --> 00:09:54,415 This also by the way, happens with dating. People think that when I break up with my 149 00:09:54,415 --> 00:09:59,590 girlfriend or boyfriend or get a divorce, I'll be really miserable and this misery 150 00:09:59,590 --> 00:10:03,376 would last a long time. It turns out that misery is much more 151 00:10:03,376 --> 00:10:07,789 short lived than people expect. There's lots of things about emotions. 152 00:10:07,789 --> 00:10:12,037 One of the things is that they are temporary and we don't think of them as 153 00:10:12,037 --> 00:10:15,433 temporary. The other thing that is incredibly 154 00:10:15,433 --> 00:10:19,406 important is that when they come up, they take over. 155 00:10:19,406 --> 00:10:23,430 They don't just add to another component. It's not that you think and have 156 00:10:23,430 --> 00:10:28,030 cognition, they seem to be taking over. And in fact, that's what you would want 157 00:10:28,030 --> 00:10:32,120 them to do if you designed emotion as an escape, as an escape plan. 158 00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:37,864 So, let's think a little bit about how emotions over take cognition. 159 00:10:37,864 --> 00:10:43,045 And we decided to test this in as many, many ways that you can think about testing 160 00:10:43,045 --> 00:10:46,584 it. You can think about testing it when people 161 00:10:46,584 --> 00:10:50,613 are hungry or afraid or thirsty, or people are curious. 162 00:10:50,613 --> 00:10:54,972 Where something around the world, either our internal physiology, or something 163 00:10:54,972 --> 00:10:59,662 external, is influencing our emotions. Our emotion system starts working and we 164 00:10:59,662 --> 00:11:04,917 can say how much they take over. We decide to do it with sexual arousal. 165 00:11:04,918 --> 00:11:09,538 And the reason we decide to do it with sexual arousal is that sexual arousal is 166 00:11:09,538 --> 00:11:14,506 incredibly basic to the human experience, people have lots of experience with it, 167 00:11:14,506 --> 00:11:19,134 and, and it's also, a consequence for many important decisions on life. 168 00:11:19,134 --> 00:11:22,550 We have crimes of passion, we have advertising using sex. 169 00:11:22,550 --> 00:11:27,307 So it's really around us in a big, a big way. 170 00:11:27,307 --> 00:11:35,173 [inaudible]. >> Viewer discretion is advised. 171 00:11:35,173 --> 00:11:40,517 In the upcoming clip, you will be exposed to potentially explicit descriptions of 172 00:11:40,517 --> 00:11:45,189 sexual behavior, risk taking, immoral acts, and the surprising tendency of 173 00:11:45,189 --> 00:11:48,578 mankind to shift priorities when sexually aroused. 174 00:11:48,578 --> 00:11:52,935 If you are sensitive to a conversation and imagery of a sexual nature, you may not 175 00:11:52,935 --> 00:11:55,859 want to watch this clip. [inaudible]. 176 00:11:55,859 --> 00:12:02,492 So we wanted to understand how is the emotional state of being aroused 177 00:12:02,492 --> 00:12:08,118 influencing people's decision making. So, to do that we looked at three 178 00:12:08,118 --> 00:12:11,900 behaviors. We looked at, we looked at preferences for 179 00:12:11,900 --> 00:12:17,576 sexual behaviors, what kind of sexual behaviors would people like to engage in 180 00:12:17,576 --> 00:12:20,961 or not. We looked at willingness to take a risk, 181 00:12:20,961 --> 00:12:24,617 mostly the sexual domain wearing condoms and so on. 182 00:12:24,618 --> 00:12:30,720 And we finally looked at the willingness of men to engage in morally dubious type 183 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:34,592 behaviors. What, to what extent were they willing to 184 00:12:34,592 --> 00:12:39,520 lie and exaggerate in order to get women to go into bed with them. 185 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:42,957 And the procedure, basically, was very simple. 186 00:12:42,958 --> 00:12:46,130 We had what we called a cold state, an unemotional state. 187 00:12:46,130 --> 00:12:50,615 This was the control group. In that control group, people sat in front 188 00:12:50,615 --> 00:12:55,566 of a laptop and answered questions. And the questions were about, how likely 189 00:12:55,566 --> 00:12:59,972 are you to be interested in engaging in all kinds of sexual activities. 190 00:12:59,973 --> 00:13:07,597 Ranging from kissing to having sex with somebody you hated, to things that are 191 00:13:07,597 --> 00:13:14,219 kind of on the outskirts of quirkiness. Things that were you, are not part of what 192 00:13:14,219 --> 00:13:19,763 we think of as standard sex, like contacts with animals and urination and other 193 00:13:19,763 --> 00:13:22,474 things. So, with the whole range of sexual 194 00:13:22,474 --> 00:13:27,580 practices and we ask people, when you're sexually aroused, how likely are you to be 195 00:13:27,580 --> 00:13:30,500 interested in engaging in all of those things. 196 00:13:30,500 --> 00:13:34,905 And people answered those questions. Then the second question was about risk 197 00:13:34,905 --> 00:13:37,390 taking. We asked questions about condom use. 198 00:13:37,390 --> 00:13:42,278 If, if you went into a room with a girl at night and you were both halfly undressed 199 00:13:42,278 --> 00:13:45,701 and all of a sudden you realized you don't have a condom. 200 00:13:45,701 --> 00:13:50,519 Would you stop things and go to a pharmacy to get the condom or would you continue 201 00:13:50,519 --> 00:13:54,387 having sex without a condom. We asked lots of questions like that. 202 00:13:54,388 --> 00:13:57,650 And finally we asked questions about immoral activities. 203 00:13:57,650 --> 00:14:03,026 And we asked, to what extent would you go as a man, to what extent would you go to 204 00:14:03,026 --> 00:14:07,667 try get women to have sex with you. Would you buy them a drink? 205 00:14:07,668 --> 00:14:10,837 Would you try and get them drunk? Would you give them drugs? 206 00:14:10,838 --> 00:14:15,074 Would you tell them you love them even if they don't, if you, if you, if you don't, 207 00:14:15,074 --> 00:14:17,990 would you try and coerce them physically and so on? 208 00:14:17,990 --> 00:14:20,346 So, we had the whole range of these activities. 209 00:14:20,346 --> 00:14:22,650 So, as I told you, we had the cold condition. 210 00:14:22,650 --> 00:14:27,867 We had the condition which people just sat there and answer the question. 211 00:14:27,868 --> 00:14:33,776 And base on those answers, you would say that people would, eh, not interested in 212 00:14:33,776 --> 00:14:40,492 any of our quirky sexual behaviors. They were always going to wear condoms and 213 00:14:40,492 --> 00:14:46,910 they were not going to be deceitful and egregiously unethical to women. 214 00:14:46,911 --> 00:14:49,550 Eh, when they were trying to get them to have sex with them. 215 00:14:49,550 --> 00:14:53,310 So, people look quite fantastic in that regard. 216 00:14:53,310 --> 00:14:58,110 But then we took the same men and sometimes different men and we gave them 217 00:14:58,110 --> 00:15:02,751 the same computer interface. But before they started answering, some 218 00:15:02,751 --> 00:15:06,690 pictures of nudity came about. We asked the group of undergraduate 219 00:15:06,690 --> 00:15:10,616 students to pick the kind of pornography that other students would like. 220 00:15:10,616 --> 00:15:15,879 And these pictures started appearing. And in addition to that, we asked them to 221 00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:19,848 self stimulate. We gave them instructions of sit in you 222 00:15:19,848 --> 00:15:26,078 room alone, get a towel, as the picture start appearing start stimulating yourself 223 00:15:26,078 --> 00:15:31,774 with one hand and put the computer such that you can operate with only one, one 224 00:15:31,774 --> 00:15:33,955 hand. And then, as we're going through this 225 00:15:33,955 --> 00:15:37,660 self-stimulation process. We asked them to indicate how aroused they 226 00:15:37,660 --> 00:15:40,812 were. And once the arousal reached a level of 227 00:15:40,812 --> 00:15:44,000 about 75, 80% of the total arousal possible. 228 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:50,650 Between not aroused at all, to coming. Once it arrived that level, we asked them 229 00:15:50,650 --> 00:15:55,880 to try to maintain that level of arousal, and the questions start to pop again. 230 00:15:55,880 --> 00:16:00,640 So, now the questions popped out and they were asked, how would you behave when you 231 00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:02,957 arouse? But now they were also aroused. 232 00:16:02,958 --> 00:16:07,035 So think about it. Both groups were asked to predict how they 233 00:16:07,035 --> 00:16:11,160 would behave. What sexual activities would they enjoy, 234 00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:16,547 condom use, and misbehavior to women? How do we behave when aroused? 235 00:16:16,548 --> 00:16:19,656 But the first group were not aroused, the second group aroused. 236 00:16:19,657 --> 00:16:23,540 And again we have to remember that undergrads experience arousal quite 237 00:16:23,540 --> 00:16:26,576 quickly, quite often. So, this is not something that they do not 238 00:16:26,576 --> 00:16:29,477 have experience with. It's something they have experience with. 239 00:16:29,478 --> 00:16:32,214 But nevertheless, they were dramatic differences. 240 00:16:32,214 --> 00:16:38,492 In terms of the preferences the people who were aroused found everything more 241 00:16:38,492 --> 00:16:40,893 exciting. Legal and illegal. 242 00:16:40,893 --> 00:16:47,325 Everything, every possible activity was much more exciting. 243 00:16:47,326 --> 00:16:54,626 In terms of safe behavior, people who are aroused, were not as interested in getting 244 00:16:54,626 --> 00:17:00,902 condoms and acting safe in a sexual way. And finally, in terms of misbehaving, so 245 00:17:00,902 --> 00:17:06,629 with women in ethical way the people who were in a cold state said I would never do 246 00:17:06,629 --> 00:17:12,227 any of those, people in a hot state said, yes I could easily see myself doing that. 247 00:17:12,228 --> 00:17:17,967 So, what we have here is that despite this being a common experience, when we have to 248 00:17:17,967 --> 00:17:23,477 predict how would we behave when we are aroused, we don't predict it quite well. 249 00:17:23,478 --> 00:17:25,880 And we're aroused, all of a sudden, we change. 250 00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:29,502 We change as human beings. All of a sudden, what we want and what we 251 00:17:29,502 --> 00:17:32,955 don't want is not the same. We look differently at the future, we look 252 00:17:32,955 --> 00:17:35,510 differently at risk, we look differently at morality. 253 00:17:35,510 --> 00:17:40,859 In essence, our desire takes over. Our thinking goes away. 254 00:17:40,860 --> 00:17:45,964 But not only did, does that happen, but we also mispredict the extent this would 255 00:17:45,964 --> 00:17:49,540 happen. So, this suggests for example, that if you 256 00:17:49,540 --> 00:17:55,216 think to yourself oh, I'll go to a party and then if I ever get sexually aroused, I 257 00:17:55,216 --> 00:17:58,640 will go and get a condom. You're doing that in a state in which 258 00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:03,159 you're cold, in which you're unaroused. What are the odds that when you actually 259 00:18:03,159 --> 00:18:07,407 get to that state, this will be the state of your mind and your set of preferences? 260 00:18:07,408 --> 00:18:11,290 Very unlikely. So, in fact we have to understand how we 261 00:18:11,290 --> 00:18:15,865 become different people when we get aroused and how we need to account for 262 00:18:15,865 --> 00:18:20,693 that, how we need to make sure that our behaviors are consistent with that. 263 00:18:20,694 --> 00:18:24,429 So you can either think about maybe you don't want to get to a state of arousal, 264 00:18:24,429 --> 00:18:27,906 or maybe you have to recognize the fact that by the time you get to a state of 265 00:18:27,906 --> 00:18:31,908 arousal, you would be a different person. Maybe you will want to have a condom with 266 00:18:31,908 --> 00:18:34,681 you. By the way, there's a very troubling 267 00:18:34,681 --> 00:18:39,994 result in the US, where you have a lot of young people who are signing all kinds of 268 00:18:39,994 --> 00:18:44,922 pledges to not have sexual relationships and what you find is that the rate of 269 00:18:44,922 --> 00:18:50,158 sexually transmitted disease among this group is actually very high, sometimes 270 00:18:50,158 --> 00:18:53,817 higher than the people who don't take this pledge. 271 00:18:53,818 --> 00:18:55,982 And why? Because the people who are taking the 272 00:18:55,982 --> 00:19:00,023 pledge are also not taking a condom. And they say, oh yes, yes, I can always 273 00:19:00,023 --> 00:19:02,610 resist the urges and I would always behave well. 274 00:19:02,610 --> 00:19:05,910 When they get to, in that situation they can't behave very well. 275 00:19:05,910 --> 00:19:12,000 And if they don't have a condom, this is very they're going to actually act in a 276 00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:16,118 very risky way. This, by the way, I should point out is 277 00:19:16,118 --> 00:19:21,694 not about forgiving people who commit all kinds of crimes of passion. 278 00:19:21,694 --> 00:19:26,380 If you and I sat in a jury and there was somebody who committed some kind of 279 00:19:26,380 --> 00:19:31,840 passion, crime of passion, whether it's sexual or physical or some other approach, 280 00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:36,832 it's true that from our cold state we would not be able to understand their hot 281 00:19:36,832 --> 00:19:40,348 state. And it's true that if they, somehow the 282 00:19:40,348 --> 00:19:44,971 court procedure would get us to experience the hot state, all of a sudden we would 283 00:19:44,971 --> 00:19:49,590 understand better what was causing that person to act to a much higher degree. 284 00:19:49,590 --> 00:19:54,418 But understanding that, to an even higher degree, and understanding how emotion 285 00:19:54,418 --> 00:19:59,281 changes, people doesn't necessarily mean we should just accept it all the time. 286 00:19:59,281 --> 00:20:02,157 People are still responsible for their actions. 287 00:20:02,158 --> 00:20:07,000 But when we design interventions, and we design educational programs and so on, we 288 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:11,690 need to understand the extent to which emotion changes us and the extent in which 289 00:20:11,690 --> 00:20:16,240 it changes us without us understanding how effective it will be and how big the 290 00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:17,509 difference will be.