The technology of ideas | Barry Schwartz | TEDxAmsterdam

Barry Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, talks about the most powerful technology there is: the technology of ideas.

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

Man: Welcome.
Barry: Thank you so much.

Man: There you go.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm really, really honored to be here,

and especially thrilled that the -

Oop! That's not the clicker,
that's my phone -

especially thrilled
that the topic is human nature

because that's actually what I want
to talk to you about...

I think.

So let's begin with this quote

from the very distinguished economist,
John Maynard Keynes,

who said, "The ideas of economists
and political philosophers,

both when they are right
and when they are wrong,

are more powerful
than is commonly understood.

Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.

Practical men who believe
themselves to be quite exempt

from any intellectual influences

are usually the slaves
of some defunct economist."

And so that's what I want
to unpack for you.

Given that "T" in [TEDx]
stands for Technology,

I assume that most of you
are big technology fans.

You eagerly embrace each new gadget.

My guess is that most of you
have four different gadgets

attached to your bodies right now.

A smartphone, a tablet,

you belong to a social network,
you're itching to tweet them

as soon as you get permission to do it.

Not everyone in the world
is as eager and enthusiastic as you are

about new technology,

but adjusting to ever-advancing technology
is a brute fact of modern life.

The technology of smartphones,
the technology of brain scans

is what you might call "thing technology."

And this is what we tend to think of

when we think about the impact
that science has on our lives,

we mostly think about things
or about processes.

This is where science changes our lives.

And there's no doubt that that's true.

But there's another kind of technology
that's produced by science

that has just as big an effect on us,

maybe even a bigger effect
on us than thing technology,

but is somewhat harder to notice.

And this is what I have come
to call "idea technology,"

and this is what Keynes was talking about.

In addition to creating things,
science creates concepts,

ways of understanding
the world and our place in it.

And these concepts have
an enormous influence on how we think

and on how we act.

If we understand
birth defects as acts of God,

we pray.

If we understand them as acts of chance,

we grit our teeth and we roll the dice,

hoping for the best.

If we understand them as the product
of prenatal abuse and neglect,

then we take better care
of pregnant women.

How we understand birth defects,

the ideas that inform
our understanding of birth defect

have an enormous impact
on what we actually do.

A squirrel foraging
for food in a bleak winter

won't be affected by how
it understands the lack of food.

Human beings, when they're confronted
with a lack of food

will be dramatically influenced
by how they understand it.

One understanding may lead to resignation,

and a different understanding
may lead to revolution.

And so it seems clear that ideas
are just as much products of technology

as computers.

But, there is something
about idea technology

that makes it different
from thing technology.

The thing about technological objects
is that we don't have to worry about them,

unless they work.

If they don't work,
they just disappear, right?

The dumb, new smartphone

is not on anybody's list
of objects of desire for very long;

they go away.

Technology that works,
we have to grapple with;

technology that doesn't work
just vanishes into the ether.

But idea technology
can have profound effects on us

even when the ideas are false,

even when the ideas don't work.

And I call idea technology
that is based on false ideas: ideology.

Now, just a second,
I know what you're thinking.

Well, maybe I don't know
what you're thinking.

I hope I know what you're thinking,
what you're thinking is, listen:

The great thing about science

is that science puts its propositions
to empirical test.

If you have an idea, you test it.

And if the idea fails the test,
it also disappears

just like bad smartphones disappear.

Why isn't it the case that false ideas
just die of natural causes

in the same way that bad technology does?

Wouldn't it be nice if that were true?

Well, what I'm going to suggest
to you is that it's not true.

False ideas can live
a long and troubling life

even though they are false.

And I'll illustrate this
with a couple of examples.

Let's take the first example:

Why do people work?

It is a long, accepted tenet of economics,

buttressed by certain views
in psychology - my home discipline -

that if you want
to get someone to do something -

an employee, a student,
a government official,

or even your own child -

if you want to get someone
to do something

you have to make it
worth his or her while.

People work for pay,
people work for incentives,

people work for rewards.

End of story.

You can see this view operating
in the carrot-and-stick approach

currently driving our efforts
to fix the world economy.

To prevent a meltdown

like we've been experiencing
from happening again,

you have to replace the dumb incentives
that were operating before

with smarter incentives.

So, does this sound right to you

that people work for pay and only for pay?

Of course, that's not right!

If that were right,
we wouldn't be here today.

How much money do organizers of TEDx make
for this incredibly laborious effort?

My understanding is: none.

So it must be that even though
people do have to make a living,

people don't work only for pay.

And how do we acknowledge that?

We say things about people like,
"He's just in it for the money."

"He's just in it for the money."

This is not a description,
this is an evaluation,

this is a criticism.

People who are just in it for the money
are people we don't respect.

And yet there is a piece
of idea technology -

ideology, since it's false -

that says, "People are just in it
for the money."

Now, how come

we have not only been subjected
to this ideology,

but we have largely embraced it,

witnessed the efforts
to fix the financial crisis

by throwing different kinds of money
at different people for different reasons?

I think the answer
is that as capitalism developed,

as industrial capitalism developed,

under the sway of what we might call
the "incentive theory of everything,"

a mode of industrial production evolved

in which all other possible reasons
for working were eliminated.

If you are doing

the same mind-numbing,
repetitive, uninvolved task

hour after hour, day after day,
and week after week,

why on earth would you do it,
except for the money?

And so what grew up
starting in the late 17th century

was a system of industrial production
that had built into it

the assumption that the only reason
people work is for the money,

and the character of the work
they do doesn't matter.

Of course, if this is the kind
of work you do, you work for pay.

But is that because it's human nature
to work only for incentives?

Or is it because we've created
an environment

in which there are simply no other reasons
to work except for incentives?

What follows from this argument

is that just how important
incentives actually will be

will depend on the nature
of the human workplace.

And that is something that human beings
have substantial amount of control over.

So, it may or may not be
human nature to work for pay

depending entirely on the kinds
of workplaces people find themselves in.

So, that's one example.

Let me give you another.

Is intelligence fixed?

As many of you probably know,

there is some evidence
and a great deal of belief

that individual differences
in intelligence

are innate and unmodifiable.

Some people, probably
most of the people in this room,

win the genetic lottery,
and some people lose it.

Is this a piece of idea technology

or is this a piece of ideology?

Well, consider the work
of psychologist Carol Dweck.

Carol Dweck discovered
that there are some children -

she studied seven, eight,
nine-year-old children -

who have what she calls
"performance goals."

Their aim is to do well on tests,

their aim is to seek and get approval.

There are other kids who have
what she calls "mastery goals."

These kids want to encounter things
that they can't do,

and learn from their failures.

As Dweck puts it,

performance-oriented children
want to prove their ability

while mastery-oriented children
want to improve their ability.

Children with performance goals
avoid challenges,

children with mastery goals
seek challenges.

What this means over time
is that children with mastery goals

learn more and get smarter

than children with performance goals.

So, where do these different
orientations come from?

Dweck has shown that children
who have performance goals

tend to believe that intelligence
is a fixed quantity.

You can't get smarter.

Why seek challenges,

why risk embarrassment
if you can't get smarter?

Children with mastery goals
tend to have what she calls

"incremental" theories of intelligence;

that is to say, you can get smarter.

And the reason for seeking challenges
and risking embarrassment

is that the result of these challenges
and these embarrassments

is that you'll be a smarter person
afterward than you were before.

So, is intelligence fixed?

Well, it depends on what theory
of intelligence you have.

If you have a theory
that intelligence is fixed,

you're going to behave in a way
that makes the theory true

by not seeking the challenges
that will actually make you smarter.

We see something similar to this
in a very recent piece of research

on supposed sex differences
in mathematical ability.

This is a hot-button issue these days,

and there's a very clever experiment
that was done just two years ago

in which college-age women

took a graduate school
entrance exam in three stages:

stage one was math,

stage two was reading comprehension,

stage three was more math.

The reading comprehension section
either contained a passage

that talked about how women
were less good at math than men

based on genetic differences,

or it contained a passage

that talked about how women
were less good at math than men

based on their different experiences,

or it contained a passage
about something completely irrelevant.

And the question was,

how did these women do
on the second math portion of the test

right after they had read
this reading comprehension passage?

You're clear on the design?

And here's what they found.

If you read a passage
that wasn't about math and women,

or if you read a passage that said women
are worse at math than men

because of their different experiences,

your performance was the same

and it was the same as it had been
on the first math test.

If, however, you read a passage

that said women are less good
at math than men

for reasons of genetic sex differences,

your performance on the second math test
was significantly worse.

If you read a piece of idea technology
that says there are limits

to what women can do when it comes
to formal systems like mathematics,

you then act in a way that makes
that piece of idea technology true.

Is it idea technology

or is it ideology?

We know it's ideology

because there's this other group of women

who read a different passage who seemed
to do just fine taking the math test.

So, these are just two examples -

Why do people work, and how smart
are people and how smart can they get? -

that demonstrate, I think,
what I have in mind

when I say that ideas that are untrue
can have a profound impact on reality

if people, and even
more important than people,

the institutions within which they operate
believe those ideas to be true.

So, how does this happen?

There's an old and valuable idea
from the social sciences

that's called
"the self-fulfilling prophecy,"

and it helps explain
what I'm talking about.

A young girl believes that she's bad
at math and she doesn't try.

What happens?

She's bad at math.

Or the girl's teacher believes
that girls are bad at math

and the teacher doesn't try to teach them.

What happens?

They're bad at math.

So, a self-fulfilling
feedback loop gets created.

A false statement influences behavior
in a way that makes the statement true.

Now, when feedback loops like this operate
at the level of individual people,

there is hope that we can
identify them as false

and get rid of them,

because there will be
other people in society

who don't share that view -

namely, for example, kids who think
that intelligence can increase,

and they will demonstrate
the falsity of the ideas

that influence
some of the people in society.

So we get a chance
to correct our mistakes.

But if an idea becomes so pervasive

that every corner of society
is dominated by it,

like "people work for pay,"

it's very hard to find phenomena
out there in the natural world

that show this idea technology
to be ideology.

When ideology is held universally,

it is very, very difficult
to show that it's false.

Now, in the natural sciences,
science tends to correct its mistakes.

That's good news.

Not always as rapidly
as we would like, but it does.

In the social sciences,
we have to be very wary

because false ideas can be applied
in a way that makes them true.

And if that happens,

we may never get the opportunity
to notice that they're false.

We don't have to worry

that the motion of planets
will be affected by our theories

that describe and explain
the motion of planets.

Planets, as far as I know,

are completely indifferent
to what we think about them.

Let us hope.

(Laughter)

Human beings are not indifferent
to what we think about them

and to how we describe them.

And so we need to be very, very careful
when we hear someone say

it is just human nature to be
or do one thing, or another.

Let me close with a little fable

that is taken from a movie
directed by Neil Jordan,

called "The Crying Game."

I think this fable derives from Aesop,

although it's not totally clear
that that's true.

A scorpion wants to get across a river,

but the scorpion can't swim.

So the scorpion asks a frog,
"Can I hop on your back

and you can take me across the river?"

The frog looks a little suspicious
and says, "Listen,

if I give you a ride
on my back, you'll sting me."

The scorpion says, "Why would I do that?

If I sting you, we'll both drown."

So the frog shrugs its shoulders -

do frogs have shoulders? -

and says, "Alright, hop on."

And the frog takes
the scorpion across the river,

and midway across the river the frog
feels a shooting pain in its side.

Argh!

As they both start to sink
beneath the waves,

the frog says, "Why did
you sting me, Mr. Scorpion?

Now we're both going to drown."

And the scorpion says, "I can't help it.

It's my nature."

And the question is,

is human nature like scorpion nature?

Forty years ago - I'm almost done -

a very distinguished anthropologist
named Clifford Geertz

described human beings
as "unfinished animals."

What he meant by that -
not monkeys with shoes,

but unfinished animals -

what he meant by that
is that, unlike the scorpion,

it is human nature to have a human nature

that is very much the product
of the society in which we live.

So you should be very suspicious
when you hear explanations

that appeal to human nature.

Chances are that even
if it is human nature,

it is a human nature that has been created

and not a human nature
that has been discovered.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)