Written By Will Grant
 

Picture this: It’s the turn of the millennium. The dust from 9/11 is only just beginning to settle. Shrek, Rush Hour 2 and Donny Darko are packing cinemas. LeAnn Rimes, Shaggy, and Kylie Minogue top the Aria charts. Apple begins their technological invasion with the first iPod and honest little Johnnie Howard is the Prime Minister of Australia.


Can you feel yourself back in that time? Can you picture what and who you used to wear/eat/do? Has immersing yourself in the events of 20 years prior made you feel any more youthful? Any more topped up with vim and vigour? Perhaps even more supple?


This hypothesis formed the groundbreaking research of Harvard psychology Professor Ellen Langer: Could you reverse the age-related physical and mental decline by immersing yourself in the environment of your younger self? Can you shatter the societal expectation of aging and live a youthful life until expiry?


Langer, a psychology PhD at the time, began her foray into mindset manipulation by designing a pot plant study conducted in a nursing home. She gave plants to two groups instructing one that they need to care for the plans and decide their location, and informing the other group that they are not required to do anything about their new indoor foliage. 18 months later, twice as many of the grey-haired green-thumbs were alive compared with the control group.


This led Langer to formulate that a person’s setting could be manipulated to improve their physical and mental state and thus turn back the clock. Unable to send old people back in time, she brought an earlier time period to the old people! In 1981, Langer helped 8 men in their 70s shuffle off a van and into a converted monastery made to look identical to a 1959 house. And we mean identical - interior decor, wall art, music, books, magazines, photos… it was all impeccably period-accurate. None of this Starbucks-coffee-cup-in-a-Game-Of-Thrones-episode malarky!


A control group also spent time in the monastery though in an area void of any nostalgic decor and both groups spent 5 days in their allocated settings.


The results beggared belief! Both groups improved physically and mentally however the experimental group’s gains were much more significant with an impromptu touch football game erupting on the final day of the study played by these previously frail men.


Enter the critics! You have to understand, the power-of-the-mind stuff was not trending back then as it is today. In the 1980s, positive thinking and environmental manipulation on this scale were scarcely above witchcraft! Ellen was academically harangued for her hopeful hypotheses and lost her inquisitive drive. That was until the BBC recreated the experiment in 2010 with Ellen consulting called “The Young Ones” (no, not that “The Young Ones”) again showing remarkable improvements in the senile subjects: wheelchairs swapped for canes, spines were straightened, egos rekindled, and Bafta Awards were nominated.


Her own vim and vigour restored, Ellen went on to conduct hotel chambermaid experiments (chambermaids informed they did, in fact, do a lot of exercise in their job lost more weight than those who believed they didn’t), hair salon studies (recently did women happy with their new do had lower blood pressures compared with those sporting a tragedy), and flight simulator tests (subjects dressed as Maverick from Top Gun performed better on eyesight testing than those in schlub duds).


So when next you reach for the collagen supplements, the botox needle, or even the scalpel, think of Professor Langer and turn back the clock instead by ditching those societal expectations, believe you are in fact younger, and remember who you were 20 years ago.

 
 
 

  • Rod 00:00

    Willy. I want you to think back to your life and the world around you in 2001. I'm gonna give some nudges. Okay, biggest movies, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,

    Will 00:10

    I'm sorry, stop. That's the wrong name. Sorcerer's Stone is what it's released in America Philosopher's Stone in Australia.

    Rod 00:17

    That no philosopher. Shrek. Rush Hour 2. Those box office smashhits. The Mummy Returns.

    Will 00:26

    Yeah, that was good fun.

    Rod 00:27

    That was good fun.

    Will 00:27

    I am a big fan of a relic in the desert of the mummies. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like if I was being chased by any sort of supernatural bad guy. I don't want to be chased by Mummy. But you know, you would tell the story later.

    Rod 00:40

    If you survive, or become one. How about sci fi so Donnie Darko? Oh, Planet of the Apes the one with Marky Mark You know, the big one. The reboot that really went first to reboot? How about music? Let's because we're getting into 2001 System of a Down released toxicity. Tool released lateralis nice. I know. The Aria top five songs in Australia can't fight the moonlight by LeAnn Rimes we all remember that blinder. It wasn't me by Shaggy. The one I do remember, can't get you out of my head. Kylie Monogue. We all know de la la la la la la, la la. So that's what's going on

    Will 01:15

    a great rendition you give the audience here. You are a gift to Musicology

    Rod 01:23

    So events 911. Of course. iTunes launched, and also the first iPod. And I remember the first iPod, I bought one in Honolulu, and I was in my hotel room going I just want to lick it. just so lickable the technology was just delicious.

    Will 01:41

    That's not nice.

    Rod 01:42

    It wasn't. First draft of the Human Genome Project. First clone of a human embryo. This is what's going on in 2001. heady days in Australia, John Howard PM. Fuck yeah. And so Australia goes belly up. Do you remember Anset?

    Will 01:55

    I do. I do.

    Rod 01:56

    They're one of the oldest airlines in the world and the second largest in Australia, which is not a big claim to fame. So that's what was going on it so think about it. Do you notice anything? Like you feeling any nostalgia?

    Will 02:09

    No.

    Rod 02:10

    Feeling any wistfulness?

    Will 02:11

    No?

    Rod 02:11

    Do you feel your shoulders relax? Is your heartbeat slowing down?

    Will 02:16

    It was it was relaxed before?

    Rod 02:19

    What about younger? Do you feel any younger?

    Will 02:21

    Am I imagining myself in 2001? Yes, I am younger. I am I am 22 years younger

    Rod 02:25

    and you can feel that? No not really know what I suggest this?

    Will 02:28

    I don't know what you're talking about. You're the one suggesting it.

    Rod 02:31

    So what if I told you that to turn back your age related decline could be as simple as living exactly as you did when you were for example 22 years younger and when I mean living I mean 100% committing

    Will 02:51

    Welcome to The Wholesome Show. The podcast that pines No, no, no, no, no. Well, sorry, listener, I'm not reading that. That that thing that I just wrote.

    Rod 03:07

    It's totally on topic. I never thought you'd reach the limit. I'm done. Well, I don't know what it actually says what's the podcast a pint? For the youthful dose of the whole of science?

    Rod 03:19

    Yeah, there you go. With a w. because it's not naughty

    Will 03:23

    he tried to entrap me into into into saying something that is dreadful

    Rod 03:29

    and totally on topic

    Will 03:30

    you know, can't get me

    Rod 03:32

    I'm Rod Lambert's the bad man. Ellen Langer was born in the Bronx 1947. She went to NYU chemistry major wanted to do medicine, very excited about medicine. Then she took Psych 101 And apparently the way the lecture presented human psychology she was like, this is this is cool as fuck way more interesting

    Will 03:52

    brains opened up she doesn't she has a little bit about medicine anymore. She wants brain medicine.

    Rod 03:55

    She did. She did. And also it probably helped that her professor at the time was Philip Zimbardo. Okay, the stage show magician looking dude responsible for the Stanford Prison Experiment.

    Will 04:05

    I think most most psychologists looked like a stage showman in the 70s.

    Rod 04:10

    He looked the most stage show magician he was wearing the velvet cloak. He had the look. So she did a graduate work at Yale. So she's doing, she's playing poker. And that got her thinking about her doctoral dissertation

    Will 04:22

    as part of her graduate work?

    Rod 04:25

    just playing poker as you do, because you got to make money, you got to live. And she started thinking about the magical thinking of people who are otherwise quite logical and rational. These sort of essentially magical, irrational, crazy,

    Will 04:36

    logical person still has a weird bit of superstition,

    Rod 04:38

    weird bit of superstition, and they actually put it out. Even smart people can fall prey to illusions of control over chance events. She said, Look, really we're not very rational creatures. And I mean, we know this. We know. Her notions were basically that our cognitive biases will routinely steer us wrong. And then we're trained not to think, which means we're extremely vulnerable to notions that seem right but actually aren't. So things like believing that if you put the same numbers into the lottery every week, you increase your chances.

    Will 05:06

    I don't think people believe that. I think there are people that No, no, no, no, no, see, I think I have a friend, the people that do that is once you get stuck on to a set of numbers, you would be horrified with yourself if those numbers came up, and you chose different numbers. So it's, I don't think they're thinking it's more likely they're just thinking, this is my only path here. Yeah, I have to do this. Yeah, it's a commitment.

    Rod 05:27

    Well, I told you, I had a buddy who I have a buddy who was convinced that this was what happened. And he said, it's got to increase the chances and I carefully and slowly explained why and he went. Yeah, but it's got it, doesn't it? And I thought, all right. He was he was convinced also that it would increase his chances

    Will 05:41

    I think I would be down on the person that always puts in the same numbers, because I just would be horrified if I had a horrified. I'd be horrified if I had my set of numbers coming up on the day when I was like, oh, today's the day to be flippant, and it's Oh, that's no,

    Rod 05:55

    I agree. But I agree. I commend you get so stuck in a bit. What if What if this is the day? Anyway, she was kind of intrigued by this. But she was a bit sort of undiagnosed ADHD ish. So she, she wasn't the kind of person to plug away at one idea.

    Will 06:07

    So you can't just you can't just add a diagnosis here.

    Rod 06:10

    undiagnosed. undiagnosed. She was, how did she put it? She was a gadfly. She'd bounce around between things as they took her interest. So she had, she says, I have so many ideas. If whatever it is I'm excited about now doesn't happen doesn't matter. Because there's always the next possibility. So I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, ideas. So in the 1980s, she became the first woman to be a tenured professor in psychology at Harvard.

    Will 06:36

    Only in the 1980s.

    Rod 06:37

    Imagine that, wow. It's as if it used to be a boys club. Back in the old days. And so she studied things like illusion of control, decision making, ageing, and mindfulness theory. But it's enough background. So let's get into a bit more detail. In the 1970s, she became convinced that not only are people led astray by their biases, but they are spectacularly inattentive to what's going on around them, like we are just not there. We're not present. We don't pay attention to stuff. And she goes on, you're going like, isn't that just being alive? She said, when you were not there, when you're not present, you're very likely to end up just going where your lead be that directly or implicitly. So she sets up all these cutting studies to show how people's thinking and behaviour can be easily manipulated with very subtle primes. And one of them there'll be many more, don't worry, one of the early days was she and her colleagues wrote these outrageous, ridiculous interdepartmental memos. Yeah. And they just tweaked how much they look like a real interdepartmental memo. We're talking seven years not email, okay. And people will comply with ridiculous shit if it looks official.

    Will 07:38

    Okay, so if they didn't really process like a memo, it says, throw out all of your work.

    Rod 07:43

    Yep. The question is, like, What's this got to do with winding back the clock and anti ageing and you know, going to the youthful part of science. So here's the premise, we act like we're supposed to act, or the situation suggest it will, even if it's implicit, like we tend to act as things dictate is what she's saying.

    Will 08:02

    So what are we saying? So society has context?

    Rod 08:06

    But she goes deeper. Again, she goes, I feel like you're not on board with Ellen yet. The idea that she says that getting old means we get frail and forgetful. And it's so embedded in our culture, and our understanding of ageing, that the expectation and living up to the expectation implicit and otherwise is hard to tease apart from the actual biology of ageing. Okay, your argument? Okay. Okay, so the expectation is so strong. This is what holds us

    Will 08:29

    So us getting frail is in part body and in part head,

    Rod 08:34

    because you're supposed to,

    Will 08:35

    uh, yeah, okay.

    Rod 08:36

    She says, for example, if you're living in a nursing home, your meals are often in a cafeteria, your recreation is at sheduled times, you're surrounded by other old people, most of them strangers, you've probably been robbed of a lot of your autonomy, maybe bits of your identity. And so the things that make you are very much tied much more to your past in the present, and nobody really expects a lot of you. So at whatever age, but particularly in old people's places, it's not an environment in which people thrive, to kind of just do the things that supposed to do

    Will 09:03

    there's a path in front of you and it just gets closer to the grave. Okay.

    Rod 09:07

    And she basically says in an article, she wrote a chapter on the old age and artefact question mark 1981 social conditions may foster what may erroneously appear to be a necessary consequence of ageing. Okay. See, see what's going

    Will 09:21

    Yeah, okay.

    Rod 09:22

    So she's, she's a seminal study on pot plants and people. You know, the one

    Will 09:27

    Oh, no, I don't, I don't know the one.

    Rod 09:30

    So as a classic of social psychology, she gave house plans to two groups of nursing home residents. Yeah, one group She said you're responsible for keeping the plant alive. And also you can make choices about your daily schedules, but the plant was for some reason

    Will 09:43

    you gotta keep it alive.

    Rod 09:44

    You can keep it alive. We're not going to do it for

    Will 09:45

    the other group. You're responsible for killing it.

    Rod 09:47

    Yeah. The other group murder the other people. So the other group just retired, the staff would take care of the plants and they didn't have any changes. Just like here's a plant but it's not really yours. 18 months later, twice as many people who are caring for them plants and making more decisions were alive than in the control group

    Will 10:06

    their stressed like the other group

    Rod 10:08

    the stress kept going because

    Will 10:11

    the other group just relaxed in the right fucking whereas these guys they got pressure now I gotta plant you gotta keep this plant alive. Research will be disappointed me if I don't if I just die

    Rod 10:22

    why are you staying alive? I don't want to let her down. So she thought this is a good result is interesting. What if we could put people in a psychologically better setting that would then they'd associate it with a better younger version of themselves? Might their bodies follow along?

    Will 10:37

    I thought this is gonna be about given the job or give him a

    Rod 10:40

    work harder.

    Will 10:40

    Yeah, exactly. So what if we put people back at work was plan say you are now responsible for this

    Rod 10:45

    carry these bags of grain you old lazy bastard, you malingering son of a bitch. So she said, basically, wherever you put your mind you're necessarily going to be putting your body. that's her call. So the question for her became how many of agings negative effects could be manipulated and maybe even erased with psychological intervention?

    Will 11:04

    Oh, wow.

    Rod 11:05

    So how do you test this? You do an experiment on people? Yeah. Okay, obviously. So she couldn't actually send all of this. This is a quote from one of the articles. She couldn't actually send elderly people into the past. I don't know if you knew that but she didn't have that power then. So she thought, let's bring the past into the present. We're gonna this is 1981 will recreate the world of 1959.

    Will 11:25

    Yes, how precisely? what are they doing here?

    Rod 11:28

    Quite a bit, actually. And I'll ask the subjects to live in their subjects back then still as though they were 20 years or really 22 years earlier. And she wrote about this later in 2009, and a book called counterclockwise. So 1981, the experimental group eight men in their 70s. So before getting there, they had assessments of dexterity, grip strength, flexibility, hearing, vision, memory and cognition, which was close to sort of indicators or biomarkers of age and time

    Will 11:55

    checking how old they are

    Rod 11:56

    quite reasonable they then got off the van they shuffled into the room. Some of them were as they put it, arthriticly stooped a couple of head canes. I can walk with the not candy,

    Will 12:05

    but they walked in?

    Rod 12:07

    they did walk in. None were wheeled in or stretched in on IVs or anything, though. They could independently move even if some of them a bit slowly, with care. So as they get through the door, they could hear Perry Como music created through a vintage radio, Ed Sullivan on TV and black and white. yeah. Everything inside books on the shelves, magazines, everything were basically from 1950.

    Will 12:31

    that's so cool.

    Rod 12:33

    Yeah, they went for it. And from the moment I walked through the door, they were treated as if they were younger. So they were told not to just reminisce about this era, but to inhabit it. And she goes on to say to them, we have good reason to believe that if you are successful at this, you will feel as you did in 1959. Oh, they were told they had to take their own belongings upstairs, even if they had to do it one shirt at a time. But you guys are going to take your own as you're gonna do it. Each day, they discussed the sport of the time, like from 1959 current events like the first US satellite, they would discuss movies that they just watched like anatomy of a murder with Jimmy Stewart. They spoke about 1950s artefacts around the place and all these events in the present tense. I don't know if there were people marching around going How dare you say was I'm gonna bash you that wasn't made clear how

    Will 13:17

    many years back was this?

    Rod 13:18

    So this was 22 years. There were no mirrors, no modern day clothing, no photos, except portraits of their younger selves.

    Will 13:25

    Why did they choose 22 years?

    Rod 13:26

    I don't know. I wondered that too. I'm like 22?

    Will 13:30

    But these are all older folks. 70s. So going back to 57 isn't necessarily their glory days. No. So if there is something about 17 in 1981, you could have gone back to 1930 or something like that sucks, the depression. Let's go to an era where they felt good, and it's not so sucky. All right. Yeah.

    Rod 13:51

    Yeah. I don't know why they chose it. I wonder if 959 was particularly pivotal. That wasn't noted.

    Will 13:56

    She just had some 1959 magazines lying around. She's like, Oh, well, I could recreate that bit. Perry Como we can still get

    Rod 14:02

    I've got that I've got the radio from 1959. They did all this. And they did it for five days. The control group work arrived little earlier in the monastery and they're encouraged to reminisce. But they didn't do any of the other stuff.

    Will 14:13

    Different part of the monastery

    Rod 14:14

    different part of the things no Perry Como they got the today the 1981 version, okay. And they were encouraged. Reminisce was like, tell us about the past talk about 1959.

    Will 14:22

    Do they have to carry their clothes upstairs?

    Rod 14:24

    No, none of that they were treated as they were today.

    Will 14:25

    A couple of variables here.

    Rod 14:26

    Couple quite a few. results. So a week later or five days both the both groups showed improvements in physical strength, manual dexterity, gait, posture, perception, memory, cognition, taste, sensitivity, hearing and even vision.

    Will 14:41

    So they're all better.

    Rod 14:42

    Both groups are doing better. They were supplied. They showed greater manual dexterity. suppler. more bendy.

    Will 14:49

    It's a weird way to think about our old people

    Rod 14:52

    Hank, it's time to test your suppler. Let's see how bendy you are. And they also sat tall us so they had more

    Will 14:59

    posture

    Rod 15:00

    really the weirdest thing they thought really was that their site improved. But it was much more significant in the experimental group. 63% of them had better intelligence test scores, the other guys 44% And that they had better than they did when they started. So they're not only got, like, definitely improved. Four independent volunteers who knew nothing about the study, were asked to look at photos before and after of the men. And on average, they said they look about two years younger. Two years, okay, he doesn't look 74 or 72. It's amazing. Last day of the study, men who quote had seen so frail, just days before ended up playing while they're waiting for the bus and impromptu game of touch football on the front lawn. You seem worried?

    Will 15:42

    No, I don't seem worried. I think that's I think that's really cool. Exactly. Wonderful. You just have to live in a weird time warp where you don't get anything new.

    Rod 15:49

    No, that's a bummer. So she took these results as confirmation of her theories of power of the mind over the body. Yeah, I guess it's very strong about this. And she wrote in 81, many of the consequences of old age may be environmentally determined, and thereby potentially reversed through the manipulations of the environment. But the results sounded kinda too good. And she even said, look, it sounds like it's ludes. You know, the holy waters and curing ungents. She got her students to write up an experiment for a chapter in a book from Oxford University Press, higher stages of development, but she never sent it to journals, because she suspected it would be rejected. Okay, which is why you don't send things to journals, obviously. Yeah, sure. But they might not like it.

    Will 16:28

    Sure. sure sure.

    Rod 16:30

    I like it. So we're the critics. You want to? Of her whole thing. So we've got to the pot plant study for a moment. So she published this in the Journal of Personality, social psych. And 77. year later, there was a rotten, published, basically said, all of this on page 900 The Zed scores should be changed to the statistical glitches. And they said, actually, the difference is only marginally significant so a more cautious interpretation of the mortality findings than originally given is necessary. So like, yeah, there's a difference, but not a big one. Are you sure between the pot plant with

    Will 17:07

    marginally significant is significant?

    Rod 17:10

    Exactly that is true? That's right. But I you're getting a sense here that maybe people aren't huge fans of this research? Because they're not

    Will 17:17

    Are they not?

    Rod 17:19

    Here we go. So the main magazine article was talking about from New York Times Magazine guy called Bruce Grayson wrote it. He says he has a number of quotes, Langer sensibilities can feel at odds with the rigour of contemporary academia. Sometimes she'll give equal weight to casually hatched ideas and peer reviewed studies, seeing them as the sign okay. And then this story had quite a splash. So he was interviewed about the story. He became an interviewee. And he said, Look, while Leng's unorthodox techniques may inspire wonder they should also provoke scepticism, because she's pretty far out there on a limb with this kind of stuff. People won't be convinced until it's been replicated under strictly controlled conditions, nor should they be

    Will 17:57

    sure. To be honest, I don't know why people are that bothered by this. I mean, to me on face value, the idea that a all these people get a new, a new place to live in for a few days. I can imagine there's improvement straightaway. Yeah, that there's you're not in the same routine. And then you're asked to do one of two things to imagine the back in time or you. It's not that surprising to me that you feel better that there would be marginal improvements. We're not talking vast improvement. They sit up straighter.

    Rod 18:26

    They don't need glasses anymore.

    Will 18:27

    I don't know why people are attacking this, this much. I get that more research would be a thing. I just don't understand the problem with it

    Rod 18:34

    Attacking it so much. What do you mean? James coin for example, he's a University of Pennsylvania psychologist and as it was put in this article and indefatigable, indefatigable,

    Will 18:43

    indefatigable that was going to be my newspaper

    Rod 18:45

    the indefigable.

    Will 18:46

    the indefatigable.that was gonna be my newspaper. it'd be a great name for a newspaper that no one can pronounce the indefatigable

    Rod 18:58

    like my band, the Athabasca. He goes further in his responses. So he says, he responds to the article that there was in the New York Times mag, some of her studies are described only in ostensibly peer reviewed journal perspectives on psychological science

    Will 19:14

    stop there. I know that it's peer reviewed, or it's not, that there are better peers

    Rod 19:19

    So it's ostensibly like you can you can kind of you can feel the air quotes leaking through the page. And he says, but there's insufficient details to allow any independent evaluation of who claims like many, many, many studies, you can just read the article and reproduce. There's evidence of deliberate selective publication in her credit in her quotes in the New York Times article, she talks about ongoing studies in ways that suggest bias being introduced by her monitoring of incoming data. It's quite a screed here. She's flipping and presenting a theoretical model in the sources of hypotheses. He continues, he's angry. There are discrepancies between claims that she makes to the media and what is available in published accounts of the research. not qualified. They're not quite the same. She's dismissive of the basic responsibilities of a scientist conducting biomedical research. Langer has published in scientific journals, but she's not otherwise acting like a scientist. He's going off

    Will 20:15

    what is actually the problem with this the actual study she did, putting the older people into, you know, the monastery.

    Rod 20:22

    Well, it's a small sample in short term. Sure, it was one of the main criticisms small sample short term. This is my favourite. If you want to hear how this guy has been very even handed, this proves it. If I'm sceptical Do I owe it to her to carefully examine this article before dismissing it? I don't think so. Her other activities established sufficient prior probabilities, it will not be worth the effort. So fuck it, like seriously calm the hell down me. Yeah. So yes, the small sample and very short terms, five days was a critique. And you can get that yes, it was a small sample in just a few days. There are plenty of potential confounds, as you note, but this is a criticism too. stimulating novelty, the stimulating novelty of the setup. And people might have been trying extra hard to please the testers. my responses, but they were able to, like something changed from before. They're able to

    Will 21:15

    look yes.

    Rod 21:16

    This is why I find it just keeps going. Also, the unconventionality of the study made Langer self conscious about showing it around. So now you're starting to see why maybe she went. I don't want to send it to a journal. I

    Will 21:27

    don't actually see what's happened conventional about it.

    Rod 21:29

    Neither do I. I think a big part of it wasn't this is what she goes on to say it was just too different from anything that was being done in the field as I understood it. Okay. She says you have to appreciate people were not talking about mind body medicine, early 80s. Yeah. So this is just like, No, we don't talk about that. But in my head, everything they're saying it's like, but these people behave in ways they had not been, quite clearly as a result of whatever was going on.

    Will 21:54

    Yeah, yeah. And so maybe it's some sort of placebo, but maybe you're getting a good steward. But yeah, you're getting an insight into what's the placebo is as a mental effect on your body. So yeah, so this

    Rod 22:05

    is what I'm reading these critiques, and I'm waiting for someone to really bring the hammer down. I'm like, this is like, get to bring it down and there's nothing there. So why didn't you replicate it? Because why wouldn't you?

    Will 22:17

    Someone else's job. Damn, that is the rules. That's the rule of replication. Someone else is gonna do it. You can't replicate your own work.

    Rod 22:23

    She didn't try because it's complicated and expensive to do this. But also, every time she thought about it, she apparently talked herself out of it. So she kind of went eh I don't want it. which could have been the Undiagnosed gadfly syndrome. Yeah. Okay. Then in 2010, the BBC said, we're going to do this and broadcast it, we're going to do one

    Will 22:41

    Does that count as science though?

    Rod 22:43

    Yep. All right. That's why when I first started studying psych, I wanted to work for a TV show or McDonald's because I know ethics committees, I could do whatever I want.

    Will 22:50

    It's not a good thing.

    Rod 22:51

    No, I didn't do it. Because I'm a good person. Yeah. Okay. You made me better. So, she was a consultant on this show. It was called the young ones. Six ageing former celebrities were guinea pigs. They were required to turn up in period cars from 1975. So we're going back quite

    Will 23:11

    So we're starting earlier, and they source their own period cars.

    Rod 23:15

    Maybe they will had one that was a criteria. Do you have a car from 1975 It just so happens I do. So like kitschy out on the walls. You know, they put it all they recreated essentially the same 1975

    Will 23:26

    So they're gonna go for a little holiday back to 1975. like I I guess the other thing about this is I can absolutely get this is a holiday effect. You know, this is this is five days worth of doing something different in a different location, and you're gonna feel better. Would it last if you were stuck there for the for the foreseeable future? Maybe not

    Rod 23:45

    probably got a bit weird after a while when you're like, I want to, I want a pill in 1980. You can't. I don't know if they denied medication.

    Will 23:52

    You have 1975 medicine.

    Rod 23:53

    Here you go. Here's a cat in a bag and rub it on your face and you'll be fine. Apparently they emerged as rejuvenated as Langer's mob seem to. they showed marked improvement. One who turned up in a wheelchair work walked out with a cane. Another who couldn't even put his socks on unassisted, hosted the final evening's dinner party gliding around with purpose.

    Will 24:13

    That's choice. like I you know, I want someone to help me put my socks on. That'd be quite nice.

    Rod 24:18

    Why don't you just call me man. Don't feel embarrassed. Just ask. others as they put it walked taller and seem to look younger. And she of course knew that also rekindling of their egos because they became you know, ageing celebrities. They became central. Yeah,

    Will 24:31

    back when they're a big part of the narrative,

    Rod 24:34

    It won a BAFTA. So really, yeah, upon the equivalent of an Emmy four part show. So it brought new attention to her to her work, original work. But all of this again, arguing that it was just because of the TV show, etc, etc. Yeah, but they behaved better. They felt better and did more than they were doing before. Why did you bag that out?

    Will 24:54

    Well, I guess the other thing is the level of intervention required to get this effect Yeah. It might be too big

    Rod 25:02

    recreate everything. And as we say, I want to use my phone or we don't have those today. Yes, that can be a problem. And would that ruin it? If you could do everything but you also took your iPhone with you?

    Will 25:12

    of course it would ruin it

    Rod 25:13

    ruined. Some of the she's had supportive. So some of her colleagues were pretty keen on it. So there's a psychologist called Jeffrey Ray Duggar. He's one of the Harvard many hospital output things. He was invited by a friend to watch the show. He hadn't really known much about the original study. But he watched the show. And this is kind of interesting. She's one of the people at Harvard who really gets it. She gets that health and illness are much more rooted in our minds and in our hearts and how we experience ourselves in the world than our models even begin to understand Yeah, and he's from a psych clinical Harvard's McLean Hospital. So he's from a clinical environment. Steve Pinker, writer and Harvard professor, okay, he told the author of this pace, she filled an important niche within the school's department, which is often harboured, quote, Mavericks with non traditional projects, including BF Skinner, Timothy Leary, and Richard Alpert, who ended up being called rom das and becoming a serious spiritual dude. So he's kind of gonna she's called, it's important to have people like that here, again, cetera, et cetera. So there are definitely strong supporters as well. So what happened after counterclockwise? She did a few experiments, a few little things. So in 2007, hotel chambermaids. So one of her students Alia Crum, who's now a quite a well known or at least successful psych in her own right. They took 84 Hotel chambermaids they mostly these women reported no women, of course, because men can't clean rooms

    Will 26:40

    while they be called chamber misters

    Rod 26:41

    chamber mates and the Chamber mates chamber bros. Sure. They mostly reported that they didn't get much exercise in a typical week. Yeah, we don't get a lot of exercise, we should

    Will 26:51

    not exercise. Surely they're working physically a fair bit,

    Rod 26:54

    according to them. What didn't really mean much all right. But apparently not true. But it didn't mean much. So the researchers prime the experimental group, so for them to think differently about their work. And they said, Actually, according to serious medical science, you're not only doing quite a bit of exercise, but more than the Surgeon General, would daily recommend like, hey, go back. Exactly. You're saying you were you're like the surgeon. So you were one of the surgeons general. So once your expectations shifted there, the maids who had that lost weight relative to a control group. And they also improved on mass body mass index and hip to waist ratio, when all other factors were they actually lost more weight.

    Will 27:31

    So you just told them that you're doing doing is is exercise counts more as exercise

    Rod 27:38

    supposedly. So

    Will 27:42

    well, in fairness, it actually they weren't moving around enough to for it to count. So you can't tell the sedentary of us what you're doing counts as exercise.

    Rod 27:52

    I don't think she tried that. Freaking gadfly can let try. But also, or it could just be these guys were doing that anyway. And the people who were told they weren't getting a lot of exercise. It's them that didn't change, so to speak, maybe they keep themselves less fit. Yeah, critics, of course, said no, it's got to be statistical errors, subtle behaviour changes that she'd somehow instilled in the weight loss group. Because otherwise the outcome would defy physics. And her response was, there's no discipline that's complete. If current physics can't explain these things, maybe there are changes that need to be made in physics.

    Will 28:25

    I don't think it has to define defy physics. I don't think it has to

    Rod 28:29

    defies physics. broken the laws of the universe with your lies.

    Will 28:32

    I just like the critics from you know, you could have a physiology or a psychology programme or medicine programme saying this defies physics.

    Rod 28:41

    People really get stroppy with it. 2009 couple of years later, the hair salon study. So this explores the relationship between expectations of ageing and physiological signs of health, which they designed she had a couple of colleagues around hair salon so they had research assistants approach 40s

    Will 28:57

    You have to get a haircut from 1970s

    Rod 28:59

    Yes.

    Will 29:00

    I don't want it you have to. And you you get 1950s in the 80s I'm gonna get flack you're getting Depression era you're only getting

    Rod 29:09

    Bowl and a chainsaw

    Will 29:13

    English Civil War

    Rod 29:16

    47 women they ranged from 27 to 83 years old and they're about to have the hair cuts or coloured or both. So apparently jump cutter colour. They took blood pressure readings. After their hair was done. They filled out a questionnaire about how they felt they looked at their blood pressure was taken again. Subjects who perceived themselves as looking younger after the makeover had lower blood pressure than the ones who didn't feel it they look younger. Okay. Haircuts low your blood pressure,

    Will 29:41

    no good haircuts. So the ones that got their hair cut that made them feel like they liked it so they feel a bit more youthful look younger and then they're not stressed. So their blood pressure goes down. The other ones that get shitty haircuts and they're like, Oh,

    Rod 29:53

    this is horribly heart attacks and one stroke I feel terrible.

    Will 29:56

    I don't doubt there are people that have had a heart attack. I'm sure there are people stressed already. And then they get a haircut that is just a tragedy.

    Rod 30:05

    What finally did it was it work was the death of your first child? No it was my haircut!

    Will 30:10

    you know

    Rod 30:12

    2010 flight simulator. So she and her colleagues published in Psychological Science two groups were taken into us a flight simulator one were told to think of themselves as Air Force pilots. They were given the flight suit gear.

    Will 30:26

    Okay, we're just cool as hell Okay, okay.

    Rod 30:28

    I mean, obviously, they're older. I didn't. I couldn't find where the age was but older.

    Will 30:32

    See, I'm going into flight simulator and you're an Air Force pilot. I'm doing dogfights I'm, while I'm shooting everything I can. Because if you say you're being, it's gonna be a commercial airline pilot.

    Rod 30:42

    The other group we're told the simulator was broken, and they should just pretend to fly the plane. What a letdown. Get in the simulator.

    Will 30:48

    Okay. Why am i Pretending to fly the plane when the simulator is broken? I probably heard you know, I don't understand how this is a condition for Psych research. Okay, we're testing how few people feel about broken simulators. Still asked to pretend to use

    Rod 31:05

    But apparently afterwards, they didn't eyesight test. The group that piloted the flight performed 40% better than the other group. So the eyesight allegedly improved. Laying a thought, Okay, if there's a certain kind of prompt that could change vision. There was no reason that you couldn't try and change almost anything. And she says clearly, mindset manipulation can counteract presume physiological limits. And her endgame is basically return the control of health back to ourselves.

    Will 31:31

    Yeah. Okay.

    Rod 31:32

    So we get to 2014. She plans to have a run version of the monastery study, but three groups of women 24 of them with stage four breast cancer.

    Will 31:43

    Oh, okay.

    Rod 31:44

    I know. That was my response to you Sure. They're in a stable condition and they're undergoing hormone or therapy. All the same for that stage four, which

    Will 31:53

    is pretty bad. Pretty bad prognosis. Are they like terminal or is this like

    Rod 31:57

    They didn't say terminal, No, but definitely, you know, they're at an advanced stage. So you know, things are things are chugging along with difficulty. So two of the groups were together at a resort in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico under the supervision of Lenga and her staff,

    Will 32:11

    you had me at resort,

    Rod 32:12

    I know, in Mexico Miko to to go there and expect the experimental group would live for a week in the surroundings that evoke the date 2003, which was when they all the women were healthy and hopeful without any kind of mortal threat.

    Will 32:24

    Again, how far back did we go?

    Rod 32:26

    Only this wood is only plant 11 years back, it would be but it was basically as long as your before, that might be just dictated by the people

    Will 32:33

    2003 is not a great year. I don't know what stands out. I'm just saying I want a bit of selection. In the year I'm time travelling back to not just some random

    Rod 32:43

    96 When the offspring were killing it.

    Will 32:44

    No, probably not. I don't know. I don't know. But it seems a little bit weird.

    Rod 32:49

    Do you want to hit pause and go and work it out? You can look at the calendar again. 91. Tell me more. They were told to try and inhabit the form itself. So there were very few clues of the present day inside the resort. Nothing was particularly visible in the living areas. It was turning the Millennium magazines. DVDs like Titanic and The Big Lebowski, were lying around.

    Will 33:07

    Oh, this is terrible.

    Rod 33:08

    I like the Big Lebowski. I know I'm not allowed to because you don't like the PTSD. But I still love it.

    Will 33:12

    It's just aged badly,

    Rod 33:14

    though, intended to pass a richly diverting week. So art classes, cooking classes, writing classes, etc. To help distract them from you know what they're going what's going on in their everyday real lives. The other group would be at the resort as well. And they'd have support to fellow cancer patients but not live in the past. So just you hanging out in a nice place. Talk to people who also understand what you went through the control group, nuttin

    Will 33:35

    you just stay home?

    Rod 33:37

    Yep. Just doing what you do. All right. Now, you'd be amazed to hear there are many ethics hurdles to pass for this study. I'm shocked.

    Will 33:44

    Stage four. I mean, of course, there's there's ethical considerations here. It's medical research. But you are people that have stage four that your treatment is not necessarily likely to make anything worse. Yeah. I can't imagine that thinking of back to another time. It's gonna make things worse,

    Rod 33:59

    I wouldn't imagine either. But yes, there was there was a lot. I didn't go into all the ethics stuff because there were a lot of hurdles and stages. But what I did record, the one that pissed Langer off the most was University of Southern California ethics board, or what are they called institutional review boards, asked language between, they want me to add a consent form for the people to sign saying, there's no known benefit to them. But that just introduces a no SIBO effect. So she's like, if, if you force her that that's actually having an experimental effect on the whole procedure,

    Will 34:31

    saying there's no known benefit?

    Rod 34:33

    Yeah, I want you to sign it acknowledging there is no known benefit. And so she was a bit peeved about that.

    Will 34:37

    Is that required a placebo versus placebo tests?

    Rod 34:40

    Not that I'm aware. Usually, you should be able to talk to people afterwards and say, Okay, you're in the control group. If there's any results, you offer the treatment to the control group. So breast and other cancer, breast cancer and other cancer experts said look, there's strong evidence that support the support of people boosts quality of life for cancer patients. So No surprises, but social systems and so forth. But there's less evidence that improves the health prospects. And one guy called Debu Tripathi. Tripathi is a breast cancer specialist and he had some sort of connection with the original proposal is he's still got these credentials. He says, Look, there are many examples in medicine where improvement in emotional states also bring about improvement in disease states many examples. And we know for example, Tibetan monks can meditate lower their blood pressure people with hypertension, when they embark on behavioural changes, you'll see medical indexes drop fewer heart attacks, etc. He says but cancer that's as he puts it a harder thing to fathom. But as far as I could tell, and I looked, I don't think the study went ahead. Ah, if it did, it's well, it's well

    Will 35:41

    I wanted a result.

    Rod 35:43

    it's well hidden if it exists

    Will 35:44

    I wanted to know if it improved your, well, your cancer or your feelings

    Rod 35:49

    So Langer is now 76. She looks pretty good. Looks pretty well. She's always been at this positive psychology and mindfulness that's been her stick running all the way through and it works for. But look, she's she's still known to this day and continues to be known as the mother of positive psychology. Martin Seligman, I think was the father. But they're not actually entwined. They didn't have a baby. Okay, that's just, you know, figurative

    Will 36:08

    two separate parents.

    Rod 36:09

    Yeah, I don't want it to seem like they're actually having the intercourse, that's fine. Because I don't think they are, they might be and if you are good luck. And the closing quote from her, which I like is the power of the mind is likely not limitless. But we just don't know where those limits are.

    Will 36:22

    There's a whole movement now. I haven't actually looked into I've heard people start their centres around the world, doing Narrative Medicine, getting doctors to be better able to engage with people's stories, to hear people's stories, and then to help people tell their stories and things like that. And apparently, you know, maybe it's this research, maybe it's not, I haven't, I haven't looked into it. But apparently, it's a really growing area of medicine and a whole bunch of areas. Maybe she's just the start of it, maybe.

    Rod 36:48

    But this is what I think is interesting about this, because I mean, as you were picking up very early, it's like, how much of it was people just going oh, that we know, that doesn't work? Not as if it was instead of saying, let's just check the evidence and see. Because that I can imagine being very real people go bullshit. If it's not a chemical, how could it be changing you

    Will 37:07

    i It feels it feels really outdated to be rallying against the idea of giving something people that make them feel nice and give them a positive psychology. I don't see why that's a problem. And it feels really outdated to say, No, it's just going to be chemistry. And that's the only thing we can look at

    Rod 37:25

    is like she said, You guys coming into the monastery, for example, leave all your medication behind, like there wasn't this, and nothing else. It wasn't like, we're gonna lie to you, this will definitely work. But people did get angry about that. So like you said, you said to them beforehand. This is likely to make you feel better?

    Will 37:41

    I think the interesting thing here and it goes back to stuff we've talked about in the past is that understanding what the placebo effect is, is is a big fascinating quest huge in psychology and medicine, and what is actually going on there, because we know you take a sugar pill, and it will have effects on your whatever the whatever the treatment condition is that you're suffering.

    Rod 38:02

    And sometimes even if you're told this is a placebo, take this placebo and yet there are still in some cases improvements.

    Will 38:08

    Right? Exactly, exactly. So So there's something going on there. I think actually understanding the placebo not as the you know, the control condition where you know, we're trying to get rid of that, but what actually is the placebo and it feels like this kind of research is pushing in the direction so that we can understand that link. And I think that's a really fascinating thing to do.

    Rod 38:26

    But it's also the one that's always gotten to me ever since I started doing Psych 100 years ago was the idea that we seem to implicitly accept much more easily Are you worrying will make you sick? Stress will make you unwell all it seemed like no SIBO effects we seem to live we embrace in cultural our cultures very easily. But the moment you say are thinking more positively etc can make you better. I know that's we wound up shooting, it's got no evidence. That's

    Will 38:47

    just one guy saying this three guys, well, three guys, you know, what are they guys?

    Rod 38:51

    Whatever. I don't mean here. I mean, in general, I noticed this, like, if I feel like it's easier for people or in our world to accept that negative thoughts and bad situations.

    Will 39:00

    And there's clearly not really there's people at the other end that are thinking positive thoughts all the way into their grave? When when they're not positive,

    Rod 39:09

    I'm gonna die.

    Will 39:09

    Well, no, in the sense of we know people like Steve Jobs, for example, followed a fair few treatments that are not recommended by by most doctors for his cancer, and he didn't do terribly well out of that. And, and I feel like there is a danger of people thinking positive thoughts and thinking that we'll get rid of the problem. Yeah, but I think some version of positive thinking or sort of narrative thinking might well help alongside other traditional sorts of treatments. So

    Rod 39:37

    yeah, and there's a lot of stuff that suggests we are much more hardwired to, like expect bad or at least not expect good than we are to expect good so it'd be harder also to instil an enduring positive mindset in a normal life.

    Will 39:49

    Well, this is my solution to live forever is

    Rod 39:52

    a positive mindset.

    Will 39:53

    No, this is this is the what is it? People who are happier, are better able to lie to themselves. He says you're able to ignore all of non fun all of the actual stupid, actual terrible things in your life or the actual terrible person that you are. But you can you can just go no, not me.

    Rod 40:13

    I'm the worst. there's a weird dot on My skin well, I've got everything cancer. I'd rather be that one.

    Will 40:19

    Well, this is me. Welcome to my world where nothing is wrong. I'll just pull up dead on the carpet

    Rod 40:24

    And you would you be happy right up till that moment

Will Grant
Previous
Next