TEDxperiment | Dan Ariely & Mariano Sigman | TEDxPorto

Experiência interativa com o público. / Interactive experiment with the audience.

Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University, is dedicated to answering questions in order to help people live more sensible – if not rational – lives. His interests span a wide range of behaviors, and his sometimes unusual experiments are consistently interesting, amusing and informative, demonstrating profound ideas that fly in the face of common wisdom. He is a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, co-creator of the film documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, and a three-time New York Times bestselling author. His books include Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, Irrationally Yours, Payoff, and Dollars and Sense. In 2013 Bloomberg recognized Dan as one of Top 50 Most Influential thinkers. He also has a bi-weekly advice column in the Wall Street Journal called “Ask Ariely.”

Mariano Sigman is Director of the Neuroscience Lab at the Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, a multidisciplinary group composed of physicists, psychologists, biologists, engineers, educational scientists, linguists, mathematicians, artists and computational scientists. He developed an empirical and theoretical approach to decision-making processes and the way today's knowledge about the human brain can enhance and improve educational practices.

He promoted various interactions between researchers and representatives from different areas of human culture and developed important activity in science communication, leading TV and radio shows, as well as with the publication of the best-seller "The Secret Life Of The Mind: How Our Brain Thinks, Feels And Decides."

He studied physics at the University of Buenos Aires, got his doctorate degree in New York and his PhD from College de France in Paris.

In 2016, he was awarded the Pius XI Medal from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Mariano Sigman, Diretor do laboratório de neurociências da Universidade Di Tella em Buenos Aires, um grupo interdisciplinar de que fazem parte físicos, psicólogos, biólogos, engenheiros, cientistas educacionais, linguistas, matemáticos, artistas e cientistas de computação. Desenvolveu uma abordagem empírica e teórica sobre os processos de tomada de decisões e a forma como o conhecimento atual do cérebro pode melhorar a prática educacional.
Promoveu inúmeras interações entre investigadores com representantes de diferentes áreas da cultura humana. Desenvolveu uma importante atividade na comunicação da ciência, conduzindo programas de televisão e rádio, assim como com a publicação do bestseller “The Secret Life Of The Mind. How Our Brain Thinks, Feels And Decides”.

Estudou física na Universidade de Buenos Aires, fez o doutoramento em neurociências em Nova Iorque e é pós-doutorado pelo College de France, em Paris. Em 2016 recebeu a medalha Pio XI da Pontifícia Academia das Ciências.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Mariano Sigman:
So this day is about trust,

and it happens in a quite peculiar moment
in which, I guess we all know,

societies have become quite polarized.

And there are certain topics
that have become very difficult to talk,

we are very distant with people,

and it's become really with a feeling

that's difficult
to talk about these topics.

And Dan I wanted to think
and to reflect about these,

but instead of doing
in the traditional way,

which is on this stage, in which,
like, maybe we think about these,

we come with a great idea,

we pack it in a story,
and we give it to you,

we asked, what if we try to construct
this idea here, together,

and we began thinking
about this in this place.

And so we are scientists,

and so we love to do experiments -

in the lab, outside, we live,
actually doing experiments;

I think that's fair to say.

And so actually the proposal
is let's do one experiment here, now,

altogether.

And so to begin the experiment,
this is not really high technology,

it's based on pencil and paper.

And if you look just behind your chairs,
if you put your hand,

you'll see that all of you
should have, I hope,

one envelope like this.

Dan Ariely: Don't open it yet.

MS: Just go like this

because usually the sound of papers
is very - collective sound of paper

is very good, so just ... (DA: Yay)

Very well.

DA: Very good.

Anybody doesn't have an envelope?

MS: Okay.

DA: Okay.

MS: We can start.

DA: So let's start. So ...

please open the envelope.

MS: First page.

Where it says, "TEDxperiments,"
that's the first page.

That's where we will begin.

DA: Do they have a pen?

MS: Well, you should have a pen.

If you don't have a pen,
then you can ask a pen to your neighbor.

I mean, I'm sure there are enough pens
that we can do this together.

Because you were given pens in the bag.

DA: In the bag there's a pen, yeah?

MS: As we said, this is a real experiment;
it is not demonstration.

So we will use the data collected here

to learn something about
what's going to happen here.

So for this we need you to sign

that you're willing
to be part of this experiment.

This is how science goes.

So if you're willing to do this,
just say "Yes" here - Sim,

and if not you say "No" and you write
your age and your gender,

and we move to page number two.

DA: Everybody finished?

Anybody has not finished
with page number one?

Okay.

Make sure you get a pen.

Finish page number one.

Okay.

Next page.

There's some things
written in Portuguese here.

MS: I should - I'm closer
to Portuguese than you, right?

DA: Yeah.

MS: Well, actually,
not geographically, but maybe -

So I'm going to make
my best effort to read them.

You see there are five questions.
You can read them yourselves.

And those are five questions

where we ask you to say
where you agree with these or not,

or where you feel you can have an opinion.

We'll go relatively fast with these.

So the first question is:

(Portuguese) "There should be
quotas for women in Parliament."

I have a bit of a Brazilian,
you know, we're closer to -

I'm Argentinian, what could I do?

So either you agree, you don't agree,

or you just don't want to answer

or don't feel like
you have an answer for that.

So as you see, we chose things

where hopefully there is
some difference between us.

The second one is:

(Portuguese) "Drugs
should be decriminalized."

So (Portuguese) Yes, No,

(Portuguese) or Not sure / No response.

DA: So this is something about drugs.

MS: This, yeah.

DA: It's a good question.

MS: We'll see.

Question number three.

(Portuguese) "University
should be free for everybody."

(Portuguese) Yes, No,
or Not sure / No response.

This is about university.

DA: Should university
be free for everybody?

MS: Yeah, that's the question.

Please don't answer it.

DA: No.

MS: Now, question number four.

(Portuguese) "Everyone should use
public transportation instead of cars."

DA: Should we all [use]
public transportation instead of cars?

MS: You know Portuguese, man!
DA: Yeah, yeah.

MS: (Portuguese) Yes, No, or Not Sure -

Again - well, you know.

You want to read the fifth one?

DA: No.
MS: Okay.

(Laughter)

MS: (Portuguese) "Smoking
should be forbidden in all public places."

DA: Something about smoking.

MS: (Portuguese) Yes, No,
Not sure / No response.

It says, "Smoking should be forbidden
in all public places."

DA: Great. Everybody finished?

Great.

Now comes the tricky part.

You have a number on your envelope.

MS: It's also on the first page
if you lost the envelope.

DA: And somebody else
has the same number on their envelope.

And what you're supposed to do
is to find that person.

Let us show you how you find them.

You say, "290!"

MS: 290!

DA and MS: Ahhh!

DA: Okay, wait. So you find a person -

Come on! Stand up!

They should be not too far from you.

If you don't find that person, stand up.

If you find the person, sit down.

If you haven't found the person, stand up

and show it around
until you find the person.

If you find the person, sit down.

You found it?

MS: Look, please, please, hey, pspsps.

We need some silence, some silence.

People! Hey, hey!

Please, please, silence!

DA: I have a trick.

The secret of having good sex ...

(Laughter)

MS: People, please, please, please
make some silence here.

DA: Let me try again.

A guy goes to the rabbi,

and he says, "Rabbi,
I think my wife is trying to kill me.

Would you talk to her
and find out if that's the case?"

No, it doesn't work.

MS: No.

Anal sex!

(Laughter)

DA: Okay! Quiet!

MS: That's always - Okay,
you know, you should - hey!

People that don't have a partner,
you silently go to the [aisle],

you find someone else,

and you just invent a number,

and you write down the number
for the two envelopes.

Once you find a partner,

from now on, you have four minutes
to do the following thing.

Please pay attention.

You have to discuss
about these five questions,

freely.

You can discuss one of them,
three of them, four of them,

the one you like the most.

And you have to write down -
pay attention to this:

In part three, you have to write down
the opinion, the responses,

of the person you are talking with.

So here is part three,

and you will have to -

Sorry, in part two -

no in part two.

In part two, you will have to respond
the answers of your partners.

So you have four minutes from now on
to talk with the other person

and try to choose
the more sensitive issues.

Your time.

Now you can talk all what you want. Start!

DA: Go!

(Audience chatter)

Audience member:
(Portuguese) Hey Marcos, which one?

Marcos: (Portuguese)
Decriminalizing drugs.

Audience member: Ah!

(Portuguese) Let's do it.

Marcos: (Portuguese) How crazy.

(Laughter)

Audience member: (Portuguese)
To me, the TED audience will agree on ...

[3 minutes later ...]

DA: Ehm, we want to make sure you write
the opinions of the other person

on part two.

So in part one,
you write your own opinions.

In part two, you write
the other person's opinion.

And once you finish that,

in the bottom,
there's a short description

of how you should end your discussion.

So please follow these instructions
of how to end this discussion,

and then -

Follow the instrucitons.

MS: Let's see two groups.

(Audience chatter)

DA: Okay.

And now, please fill part number three.

Fill out part number three.

MS: Part number three is private.

DA: Private.

MS: Do it alone. Each one alone.
Groups now are over.

You do it alone, and you fill part three.

DA: Part three, please fill it out.

And once you filled it out,

take this,

and put it back in your envelope.

And please pass the envelopes forward.

Quietly.

Okay, so -

So here is the question:

No, no, no. Don't seal it.
Don't worry. It's not that secret.

Okay, so, why did we do this?

MS: Why did we do it?

DA: Why did we do it?

MS: So, as you can see, these questions
are questions where people have hopefully,

I mean maybe in some of these groups,
you agreed completely;

in some of these groups,
maybe there were a lot of differences.

And as you may imagine,
as you may imagine,

we tend to like, we tend to trust,

we tend to think
that people that think like us

are actually better,
more attractive, more trustable.

So we wanted to ask this question.

In the very end, you all responded
questions about liking the other person.

But there was a bit of a trick.

DA: So wait.

So the first thing is we wanted
to replicate previous results

that basically say
when people are more similar to us,

we like them more.

And there's actually
quite a few interesting nuances.

MS: Yeah, so -
DA: What you found?

MS: So we've done - I mean, this is
the second time we did this experiment.

We did the first in Argentina
with 10,000 people,

and now we are doing it again
here in Portugal.

And what we are trying
to show, the first thing -

There are two things about this experiment
that we are trying to test -

there are questions, there are hypotheses
that we would like to respond.

The first one is you may have seen

that some of you,
when you finished the discussion,

you did something like this.

And some of you did something

like this.

And it happens to be not quite the same.

We asked -

and we ask this question
as always in science

because we have reason to believe
that if we hug the other person,

can this make us immune to this bias

by which we do not accept
so much the differences?

And it seems to be,
this is what we are finding,

this is what we would like
to confirm here -

DA: Too much for me,
let's get a little far.

MS: This is what
we are trying to confirm here,

that once we hug the other person,

we're more open,

and we're willing to trust
the people that think like us

but also the people
that think differently for us.

DA: So the question is whether the hug -

it basically bonds us
and can bridge differences.

Now, lots of those things
about our differences

are nothing that are explicit.

Before the session, there was
this beautiful video from Denmark.

Right? About all the people
with the differences and so on.

I was in Denmark a couple of months ago,

and there's a very funny thing
happening in Denmark,

which is kids start learning Danish
about two years slower

than they learned 20 years ago.

For some reason,
Danish kids are slower now

picking up language.

And the question is why.
Why does it happen?

It doesn't happen in Norway.

It only happens in Denmark.

And what they found is that the reason

is that the parents are speaking faster
and swallow their words.

They make it harder
for the kids to learn language.

Again, why would parents do that?

And the current theory

is that it's a barrier against immigrants.

So what the Danish
are doing - not explicitly,

it's not that the Danish say explicitly,
"We hate foreigners; let's do it,"

but as a society,
they created a mechanism

that creates barrier for new people.

And the barrier is that
it's harder to learn Danish -

they also make it harder
for their own kids

to learn Danish in the process -

and it's an implicit barrier.

So the question we wanted to ask here,
and we'll figure out the results,

is whether some kind
of physical connection

helps us bridge the gaps.

We've tried all kinds of things
in the past about bridging gaps,

including the four-minute
discussion that you have

and the results
were very impressive, right?

The results show that
even a four-minute diuscussion

on things that people really disagree with
helps bridge the gaps.

Now we're going to try to figure out

whether it's also about
physical proximity,

whether it helps.

MS: So again, this seems to be the case.

And sometimes, you know, science
does not have to be rocket science.

I mean, giving a hug
is not a lot of technology,

but maybe it's quite powerful,

and this is what we are trying to show,

that people become much more tolerant
once they've done so.

And to me, you know,
I watch a lot of football; this is -

I mean, what can I do, I'm Argentinian.

And people that watch a lot of football,

of course, there is not
a lot of good football.

So if you watch a lot of football,
you watch some good football

and a lot of bad football.

DA: Argentianian, you say.

MS: Yeah, Argentinian football -

bad football.

And so, often, I'm watching this game
which is completely irrelevant,

like a second division game
in the Luxembourg League.

I mean, imagine something
more irrelevant than that.

And it's like a game
in the middle of the championship -

irrelevant because it's in
the middle of a championship.

And the game is already closed -

there's nothing that will change.

And there is a goal there.

So you see how irrelevant this is.

It's the most irrelevant league,
the most irrelevant game,

the most irrelevant moment.

But the players, they hug each other

like it would be the most important
moment in the universe.

It's like you see them
and you go, What's going on?

And so when I saw that, I reflected,

I know how it's for you
in your professions.

I'm a scientist;
I've done science for 20 years,

and I think I've never hugged
any of my colleagues.

I mean, I've had very good moments,
good discoveries, good -

I mean, moments of thought,
good moments of enthusiasm.

But I've never said, You know what,

this is so important

that we should hug each other
in this moment of intense bonding

that actually football players do.

And so maybe what we should hear
is that this is quite important,

and so we proposed here
maybe to change that.

After 20 years, with one
of my friends and colleagues,

we're going to change that,
and we invite you to actually hug -

DA: Let's demonstrate.
Let's demonstrate.

MS: Physical contact can be like this ...

or it can be ... like this.

So you choose [Inaudible]

Both: Oooooh.

Rrrrghhhhh.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

DA: Okay, now -

MS: Everybody do the same.

Strong hug. Come on.

DA: Real hug.

A real hug.

(Audience chatter)

DA: I can feel the oxytocin.

Thank you very much,

and we will report the result
of the experiment soon.

MS: (Portuguese) Thank you! Bye!

(Applause) (Cheers)