People do weird things. Sometimes we do not even suspect that our behavior is strange, until we think about it. And then questions are born in a completely logical way, they say, why are we doing this? Analyzing us, scientists have found a number of explanations for some of our strangest acts, most often unconscious.
Is it really so difficult to change a roll of toilet paper?
In the list of the most difficult things to do, the replacement of a roll of toilet paper is somewhere at the very end. However, for some reason, many of us hardly take the time to do this. Why? The reason for our complete inability to replace this unfortunate roll, according to psychologists from New York University, is really not laziness, but the fact that changing a roll doesn’t stimulate at all and does not encourage action and offers virtually no internal reward. (except for eliminating the consequences of satisfying natural needs).
Similar actions, like taking out garbage or washing dishes, are equally boring and not motivating, but they at least give us some satisfaction from keeping things clean and without insects. Timed discarded sleeves from toilet paper, a filled roll in a box - all this is good, but so what?
Psychologists Edward Decy and Richard Ryan argue that in order to motivate a person for at least some action, the task must meet three psychological needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness. The routine must be complicated enough for us to feel our competence while doing it. It should also give us a sense of a certain control of what we are doing. And it should evoke a feeling of strengthening our relations with those who are close to us. This is also known as the theory of self-determination. Replacing the roll hardly meets all three criteria. The only thing that she can raise a little is the feeling of kinship, they say, “we all live in this house and that means we must share our routine affairs” for the sake of the family.
Thus, if you need to find a spouse who will constantly change the toilet roll or perform other excessively routine activities, the task is clearly not an easy one. To convince them that although the implementation of these tasks does not require special knowledge, it does not make you a “slave” at all, it will require a certain command of the language. It turns out that “it's hard for you or something” turns into “yes, difficult”.
Bite all cute
Whenever a child is near, someone inevitably speaks (in such a pretty nasty voice yet), they say, “I will bite someone now” or “eat your fingers”, well, or another part of the body. Similar conversations occur when meeting with puppies, and many of you will remember that you tried to bite a puppy or kitten by the foot. What's the matter? Why do we have a desire to bite these cute things, even as a joke?
Scientists put forward two theories explaining this phenomenon. The first is that our "wires" are responsible for pleasure, intertwined in the brain. When people (especially women) smell the smell of a newborn, they get a rush of dopamine, like when we try a delicious dish. It is believed that we associate grace with this dopamine-inducing feeling that reminds us of food. This pad in his right mind and puts us subconscious desire to shove cute things in your mouth.
Another possible explanation is that this is all part of the biting game that many mammals share and that is part of our animal behavior. Many animals pretend to bite, nibble, chew, grab and throw in a friendly, playful manner. It is not entirely clear whether this is done to improve combat skills, motor skills, or just for fun, but this behavior is more often manifested between friendly-minded allies. It takes a lot of trust to let someone bite your hand. It turns out that the game of snacks is used to strengthen social ties and may explain why we do this unconsciously when we feel an emotional closeness to something nice.
It's funny when you can not laugh
Most of us are guilty of laughing at an unnecessary time in an unnecessary place, for example, once someone falls and hurts him or when he receives bad news. And although we know that there is nothing funny in the death of a grandmother or when the school principal speaks solemnly in front of the assembly hall, many people caught themselves (especially in childhood) trying to restrain insane bouts of laughter. Laughter in such situations is not endorsed by social standards, but it seems to be quite common, and there is a good reason for this.
When we laugh in a solemn atmosphere, it does not mean at all that we are heartless or do not respect what is happening. It is rather a sign that we are experiencing serious emotional stress and our body uses laughter as a way to relieve a feeling of discomfort or tension. Similarly, laughing at the sight of someone's fall or injury is considered an evolutionary function, which allows the tribe to find out that although a person is slightly injured or has injured himself lightly, there are no serious reasons for alarm and anxiety, and "will heal before the wedding."
Laughter is by and large rarely the answer to something ridiculous according to all canons. Neuroscientist Sophie Scott explains that laughter is often used as a method for social connections — so that people know that we like, that we agree with them, we are in the same group. Knowing this, it is not necessary to feel like a monster, chuckling when a neighbor tells how he ran away from your dog. Perhaps you feel awkward and instinctively trying to connect with him in an awkward situation.
Admiration for psychopaths
A hefty part of the population feels admiration for every kind of horror, and especially psychopaths. News often reports the actions of insane psychos, and for some reason people enjoy the news, sometimes even deliberately looking for information about it. What can such an interest in unhealthy personalities tell us about people? There are three main theories that can explain this addiction.
The first idea is that the view or rumors about psychos allow us to temporarily get out of the skin of law-abiding citizens and get into the skin of someone who thinks only of themselves. He doesn’t do much of what we do on a daily basis: he doesn’t care about others, he doesn’t try to behave well. Presenting oneself as such a person (even unconsciously) temporarily frees us from all shackles and obligations without causing any special harm.
On the other hand, forensic psychologist Reid Meloy says that psychopaths are a kind of predator, and the connection with them connects us with our primordial conditions, when we were both a predator and a victim. Entertaining oneself with tales of predators in the human world allows us to connect with the primitive animal world without experiencing the real danger of the natural world.
Finally, a psychiatrist and a professor at Harvard University, Ron Schouten, says that our attraction to psychopaths is like a desire for horror movies or a roller coaster. Sometimes we just want to be scared, and stories about killer psychopaths definitely give us what we are looking for. Fear triggers neurotransmitters, including dopamine, which gives us a feeling of pleasure. In an entertainment environment where there is no real danger, our fear does not last too long. On the crest of dopamine-induced pleasure, we usually leave the theater or turn off the TV with a sense of satisfaction and justice (depending on how the movie ended). Actually, this type of pleasure makes us return to it.
We pretend that we know everything
Many of us probably found ourselves in a situation where someone accidentally asked: "Hey, have you heard about this and that?". Almost without thinking, we answer “yes”, even if it should take time to think about what was said, and then we realize that we almost don’t know anything about what we were told. In the same way, some people pretend that they are knowledgeable about the topic of conversation, although in fact they know nothing. Regardless of whether we want to know everything or do it by chance, scientists say that there is an explanation for this strange behavior.
Cornell Professor David Dunning investigated this psychological hitch and believes that most people lie in such cases for the sake of convenience or to confirm their identity, identity. He says that many of us do not have a very clear understanding of what we are doing or do not know, and may unknowingly fake knowledge. It happens instantly when someone asks if we know about something, our brains begin to mix, guess and invent explanations of things. At this point, we can say that we know something (although not really), partly because we don’t want to fill the person with questions and inflate the conversation, and partly because our brains say that we know something topic. In short, this sense of knowledge is more the feeling that our brains are flipping through the halls of memory and come to certain conclusions.
However, there is a more obvious reason: people say they know, because they like and want to feel like know-alls. But why?
Neurologist Robert Burton explains that our society glorifies knowledge and that being aware of something means having an appropriate social status. Being such a "know-it-all" is a kind of addiction. In fact, when we give the right answer to a question or gamble, the same brain area is activated, supplying us with dopamine. It turns out that the habit of knowing everything is very difficult to give up. That is why upstarts in school, although they don’t like them, it’s also difficult to re-educate them. Paradox.
Cry
Crying seems to us rather ordinary experience, and nothing strange in it, at first glance, no. But if you stop and think about what is happening - salty water drips from our eyes in emotional moments - it will seem a bit strange. What do tears, eyes and emotions have in common?
One of the most popular theories explaining human crying has been put forward by the Dutch psychologist Ed Wingerhets. He argues that crying is for the most part a social sign, with evolutionary roots extending into a distress signal. Most young animals emit sorts of distress calls to call for help. It is believed that crying arose as a way to express a calamity (with the help of tears), without giving in to a predator-attracting cry or other noise. Although babies usually cry very loudly, adults often cry softly, bleeding profusely. Evolutionary, this can be beneficial, since another member of the tribe just needs to look at the weeping to see that he is in trouble. Remarkably, humans are the only kind that produces emotional tears. Most other animals stop issuing distress signals when they reach a mature age.
Additional evidence that crying could arise as a response to a danger or distress is that it works in conjunction with our sympathetic nervous system (or the “hit or run” system). In addition to tears, crying speeds up the heart rate, increases sweating and slows breathing. Emotional tears also contain a natural painkiller, leucine-enkephalin, which may partly explain why we feel better if we cry.
So, although today people cry even during innocuous wet films, initially this action could be a method of protection.
We start when we fall asleep
Almost 70% of people sometimes twitch or make an involuntary jerk, a “hypnotic jerk” (although everyone calls it differently) when they fall asleep. Obviously, although this behavior does not occur often, there must be an explanation. Unfortunately, scientists are not completely sure why we are experiencing these spasms, but there are a number of competent theories.
Some scientists believe that this is just a random reaction, which occurs when our nerves stop, going from vigilance to sleep. The fact is that our bodies do not have a certain switch, where “on” is a hearty and “off” is a dream. Instead, we gradually move from the state when the reticular system (which controls the basic physiological processes) is fully operational, to the state when the ventrolateral system is active (when it manages the sleep and sleep cycles). We can be in the middle between two states, gradually falling asleep, and this stay is associated with certain overlays of both states. Sometimes the nervous system misfires and sends a signal in the last seconds of waking.
Others believe that this is an evolutionary return left over from our days when we lived in trees, and that these jerks are a reflex of primates, which kept them from being overly relaxed and did not allow them to fall off the branches.
Other types of spasms while falling asleep are not associated with a hypnotic jerk. A dream in which you fall, for example, can cause a jerk - and this is a great example of how the brain mixes the dream state and real life.
Gossip
Women are usually considered to be great gossipers if you choose from two sexes, but men also have a share of responsibility in this social crime. At least one study claims that men gossip by 32% more women every day. Regardless of which gender gossips more, harmful gossip can seriously interfere with us, while we ourselves can’t give up this dubious pleasure when it comes to throwing mud at someone a little.
The reason for this is that most of us have a desire to come closer to someone who is at a certain point in time, and this desire can transcend any moral obligations that prevent us from doing something for ourselves. We want to form social ties with people in close proximity to us, and gossip not only allows us to talk about something, but also immediately creates a sense of trust, since the act of gossip itself says that we dedicate a person to our circle of trust. In turn, another person shares secrets, and the contract is signed. In this case, as we know, it gives us a sense of superiority, a reason to laugh and entertains in boring situations.
Curiously, gossip about people's success does not have the same effect. Research shows that connecting through common antipathies creates a stronger connection than discussing the positive aspects of a third person.
Although gossip often means that we are pushing someone else under the bus to harden relations right here and now or to receive a kind of moral reward, there is nothing wrong with them. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar believes that gossip partly contributed to the evolutionary development of our brains. He says that the language was first developed from our desire to share gossip and allowed us to talk about those who are not there, teaching others the right attitude to the group, inside and outside it.
Almost 60% of conversations between adults occur about who is not around. It turns out that there is nothing paranoid about your friends talking about you when there is no subject, just take it for granted.
Love for sad movies
Enough of all sorts of misfortunes, failures and other nonsense happens to us on a daily basis, so why doesn’t it seem funny to us that we want to spend another couple of hours looking at something sad? Many regularly find themselves watching a tear generator. Although it may seem illogical, one of the reasons for this is that watching the tragedies makes us happy in the short term, and consequently, increases our pleasure from watching the movie.
Scientists from Ohio State University found that watching sad movies leads people to think about their relationship with their loved ones, making them appreciate what is happening and feel the joy of life. Nevertheless, scientists note that this reaction is different from the reaction to watching a tragic film: “Phew, well, at least I am not so bad.” Such viewers are a little more selfish, focused more on themselves than others, and do not expect any sudden happiness after watching the movie.
According to Dr. Paul Zack, watching movies or listening to stories about others leads us to feel empathy, and our brains release oxytocin, which increases our sense of caring. Zach even claims that oxytocin is a “moral molecule” because it makes us more trusting, gentle, empathic. Immediately after watching a sad movie, filled with oxytocin, we feel more connected with people around and generally more satisfied - even if we shed a mean tear. This feeling makes us return to depressive works of art again and again.
Why do we find silence awkward?
Regardless of the value of what each of us can say, many feel a burning desire to fill every moment of silence with some kind of sound, to “score the air”. Что плохого в том, чтобы посидеть, помолчать с кем-нибудь, и почему продолжительное молчание заставляет нас чувствовать себя неловко?
Как и многие аспекты нашего поведения, все сводится к нашему первобытному желанию состоять в группе и вписываться в нее. По мнению психолога Намкйе Койденберг, когда танец разговора не проходит по обычной схеме приливов и отливов, мы начинаем переживать, что что-то идет не так. Мы начинаем думать, что неинтересны или неактуальны наши речи, и это приводит к беспокойству о нашем месте в группе. С другой стороны, когда члены диалога размениваются репликами как обычно, мы чувствуем себя социально одобренными.
Тем не менее не все культуры испытывают неловкое молчание, подобно европейским культурам (включая нашу). К примеру, в Японии длительная пауза может быть признаком уважения, особенно если вопрос очень серьезный. Кросс-культурные бизнесмены даже обучаются такому этикету, поэтому им и в голову не приходит, что тихий японский коллега может быть недовольным переговорами или чем-то еще в разговоре.
Финны, австралийские аборигены и представители многих азиатских стран известны своими долгими тихими паузами в разговорах, и это не значит, что что-то пошло не так. Наоборот, они считают, что другие говорят слишком много и не дают мысли передохнуть. Кстати, для тех из нас, кто любит болтать без умолку, ученые посчитали, что четыре секунды тишины достаточно, чтобы почувствовать неловкость в разговоре.
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