Petter Johansson: Do you really know why you do what you do?
Petter Johansson: ¿Sabemos realmente por qué hacemos lo que hacemos?
Petter Johansson and his research group study self-knowledge and attitude change using methods ranging from questionnaires to close-up card magic. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
the rich should pay more in taxes?
deben pagar más impuestos?
vote for Donald Trump?
votó por Donald Trump?
¿Por qué lo hicieron?
of question all the time,
esperamos poder responder;
we expect ourselves to know the answer,
por qué hicimos lo que hicimos.
George Clooney to Tom Hanks,
a George Clooney sobre Tom Hanks
and genuinely believe
y creer genuinamente
that drives your choice,
like something is missing.
la naturaleza de la subjetividad,
the nature of subjectivity,
that people are wrong about themselves.
a alguien que se ha equivocado.
we've been trying to solve in our lab.
tratando de resolver este problema.
what people say about themselves,
lo que la gente dice de sí misma,
sobre lo que piensan no es fácil,
about their own mind is hard.
the illusion of a free choice.
de una libre elección.
is that your choice is no longer free.
es que esa elección ya no es libre.
brainstorming sessions
the outcome of people's choices.
de las decisiones de la gente.
when people are wrong about themselves,
cuándo la gente se equivoca,
a short movie showing this manipulation.
sobre esta manipulación.
How did they react, and what did they say?
cómo reaccionaron y qué dijeron.
if you can spot the magic going on.
dónde está el truco.
they don't know what's going on.
Hi, my name's Petter.
Mujer: Hola, soy Becka.
pictures like this.
te parece más atractiva.
which one you find more attractive.
también por qué la elegiste.
I will ask you why you prefer that face.
Becka: Sí.
Becka: Yeah.
I like the way it's lit and looks.
la iluminación y la toma.
of their choice.
no la que eligieron.
innocent than the other guy.
que el hombre de la otra foto.
and contour of the nose and face.
de la nariz y de la cara.
to me, and her haircut.
me gusta el peinado.
he looks a little bit like the Hobbit.
un poco al Hobbit.
cómo es el experimento de verdad?
of the experiment?
ask a few questions.
of this experiment, was it easy or hard?
the pictures three times.
Man: No.
Hombre: No.
but I actually gave you the opposite.
pero yo te daba la otra.
OK, when you --
cuán concentrado estaba.
my attention span was.
during the experiment
a veces yo cambiaba las fotografías?
but then I gave you the other one.
pero yo te daba la otra.
figured out now,
dos fotos en cada mano
two cards in each hand,
into the black surface on the table.
con el color negro de la mesa.
of the participants detect these tries.
suele detectar el truco.
we explain what's going on,
to believe the trick has been made.
que ha habido un truco.
is quite robust and a genuine effect.
es bastante contundente y genuino.
el autoconocimiento, como a mí,
in self-knowledge, as I am,
cómo justificaron sus decisiones.
when they explained these choices?
que dan los participantes.
in these experiments.
what they say in a manipulated trial
en un experimento manipulado
a normal choice they've made
y una donde el resultado es manipulado,
son increíblemente parecidas.
just as specific,
igual de específicas,
with the same level of certainty.
and a manipulated choice,
y una elección manipulada,
todo el tiempo.
lo que dicen con la cara que eligen.
with the actual faces.
he preferred the girl to the left,
la chica de la izquierda,
his choice like this.
at the bar than the other one.
en un bar y no a la otra chica.
the girl on the left to begin with,
a elegir la chica de la izquierda
pues quien los tenía puestos era la otra.
sitting on the girl on the right.
de una construcción 'a posteriori':
of a post hoc construction.
the choice afterwards.
que nuestra elección fue cambiada,
that our choices have been changed,
to explain them in another way.
explicarla de alguna manera.
muchas veces los participantes
often come to prefer the alternative,
que habían elegido bajo un engaño.
they had previously rejected.
que antes habían rechazado.
we call "choice blindness."
"ceguera a la elección".
a number of different studies --
and even reasoning problems.
con base en el sabor y el olor
decisiones más complejas e importantes.
to more complex, more meaningful choices?
moral and political issues.
con cuestiones morales y políticas.
it needs a little bit of a background.
requiere cierto contexto.
and a right-wing coalition.
una de derecha y una de izquierda.
between the parties within each coalition,
entre partidos dentro de cada coalición,
between the coalitions.
entre una coalición y la otra.
"an election compass"
"una brújula electoral",
of dividing issues
de temas polémicos
should be increased
debería incrementarse.
por paternidad o maternidad
between the two parents
entre ambos padres
elecciones en Suecia,
brújula electoral.
y le preguntamos a la gente
to do a quick political survey.
de una rápida encuesta política.
their voting intention
entre las dos coaliciones.
to answer 12 of these questions.
estas 12 preguntas.
que explicaran, por ejemplo:
tax on gas should be increased?
a la gasolina debería incrementarse?
con códigos en colores,
to tally their overall score.
one, two, three, four
dos, tres, cuatro ...
scores to the left,
nueve puntos a la izquierda,
a la izquierda, básicamente.
fill in their voting intention once more.
nuevamente su intención de voto.
also a trick involved.
about their voting intention
going in the opposite direction.
que iban en dirección opuesta.
debajo del bloc de notas.
of the participant's own answer.
de las respuestas del participante.
por cada una de las respuestas:
about each of the questions:
their overall score.
their voting intention again.
su intención de voto.
manipulations are detected.
son detectadas muy pocas veces.
in the sense that they realize,
malinterpretado la pregunta.
the question the first time I read it.
manipulations were changed,
algunas de estas manipulaciones,
of the participants' answers
de las respuestas de los participantes
their overall profile.
a izquierda; su perfil general.
they are asked to motivate their choices?
justificar esas decisiones?
interesting verbal reports
son mucho más interesantes
and I'll read it to you.
of email and internet traffic
de correos electrónicos e Internet
el delito y el terrorismo internacional".
international crime and terrorism."
con esta afirmación?". "Sí".
with this statement." "Yes."
at international crime and terrorism,
y el terrorismo internacional
those kinds of tools."
herramientas de este tipo".
from the newspaper in the morning.
publicado en el periódico matutino,
los móviles de la prisión
listen to mobile phones from prison,
his crimes from inside.
seguir delinquiendo desde adentro.
that we have so little power
the possibility to do so."
la posibilidad de hacerlo".
back and forth in the end:
sobre el final:
a todo lo que uno hace,
to everything I do,
it's worth it in the long run."
a choice blindness experiment,
de ceguera a la elección,
of that person.
with the voting intention?
con la intención de voto?
clearly affected by the questionnaire.
influenciado por el cuestionario.
or from right to left.
a la derecha, y viceversa.
that go from clear voting intention
de una intención de voto segura
to clear voting intention.
intención segura.
staying uncertain throughout.
incertidumbre en todo el cuestionario.
at what the polling institutes say
considered uncertain.
en la franja de indecisos.
un número mucho mayor de personas
shifting their attitudes.
de cambiar de opinión.
that you are not allowed to use this
no está permitido usar este método
to change people's votes
opportunity to change back
de retroceder y decidirse
that if you can get people
que la gente vea la postura opuesta
in a conversation with themselves,
change their views.
de lo que llamamos autoconocimiento,
is actually self-interpretation.
cuando debo justificarla,
as much sense of it as possible
and with such ease
y con tanta facilidad
when we answer why.
cuando explicamos el porqué.
when we try to understand other people.
en que cometemos errores
the question "why"
al preguntar "¿por qué?".
is that, if you asked them,
or this relationship?" --
o en esta relación?",
is that you actually create an attitude
before you asked the question.
in your professional life, as well,
en nuestra vida profesional,
and then you ask people,
que esto es bueno o malo?".
asking a politician,
que entrevista a un político,
why a certain decision was made.
tomaste una determinada decisión.
from a positive direction,
a little bit more flexible than we think.
de lo que creemos,
the minds of others,
la opinión de otros,
to engage with the issue
para que vean la postura opuesta.
since starting with this research --
empecé con esta investigación,
we've always had the rule
I liked something a year ago,
me gustaba el año pasado
to stay consistent
de mantenerse en una posición
relational life so mush easier to live.
y facilita las relaciones.
as you think you do.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Petter Johansson - Experimental psychologistPetter Johansson and his research group study self-knowledge and attitude change using methods ranging from questionnaires to close-up card magic.
Why you should listen
Petter Johansson is an associate professor in cognitive science, and together with Lars Hall he runs the Choice Blindness Lab at Lund University in Sweden.
The main theme of Johansson's research is self-knowledge: How much do we know about ourselves, and how do we come to acquire this knowledge? To study these questions, he and his collaborators have developed an experimental paradigm known as "choice blindness." The methodological twist in these experiments is to use magic tricks to manipulate the outcome of people's choices -- and then measure to what extent and in what ways people react to these changes. The general finding is that participants often fail to detect when they receive the opposite of their choice, and when asked to explain, they readily construct and confabulate answers motivating a choice they only believe they intended to make. The effect has been demonstrated in choice experiments on topics such as facial attractiveness, consumer choice and moral and political decision making.
Petter Johansson | Speaker | TED.com