Look, There's a Squirrel

Peter Kinderman I suspect that I wouldn't know if I talked to Don- Donald Trump and gave him vast quantities of psychedelic medication and then inquired into his m- I suspect I wouldn't get the truth from him because part of it is I, in my personal opinion, I don't think he tells the truth, and I don't think he'd tell the truth under oath. I don't think he'd tell the truth when drunk. I don't think he'd tell the truth if you gave him LSD.

Hilary Jeffs Hello, and welcome to Experience, the weekly podcast where we get to psychoanalyse the news. If you, like us, are obsessed with why people behave the way they do, but also are pretty obsessed with those headlines as well, this is the podcast for you. Please do like and subscribe, and tell your friends about it because we're an independent podcast, and we need your help if we're going to survive. Coming up this week, obviously I'm going to be joined by the practically perfect Professor Peter Kinderman. We're gonna be discussing the midterms in America. Is Trump actually going to have that election stolen from him? Let me see. We're also going to be discussing our fascination with fires. We've got Bonfire Night coming up. And also, why people are really obsessed with getting their kit off and getting into a bit of fancy dress. It's not really for me, but actually there's some quite interesting psychology behind all of that. But before we start, Peter, I know it is your favorite program. Did you see the final of The Traitors?

Peter Kinderman I have not seen the final of The Traitors now, no. And I don't want to do any kind of sort of plot, whatever they call it, reveal spoilers.

Hilary Jeffs You don't want any spoilers? Oh,

Peter Kinderman wanna, I don't wanna do any spoilers,

Hilary Jeffs okay. Right. Suffice

Peter Kinderman I have read some headlines about The Traitors, and I have to admit it doesn't really make me want to watch it

Hilary Jeffs No. Well, I have to admit, if we're not doing spoilers, I was very happy with the result because when the result goes a different way to the way that it actually went, I don't like it. But I think we're gonna be talking a bit about that anyway because we're gonna be talking about fair play and about cheating, and I kind of think that it's all a bit related. But first, before we go into those headlines, Peter, please let me know what our Concept of the Week is.

Peter Kinderman So the concept of the week is again a pretty simple one with a, with a fancy title given to it by psychologists, which is attentional capture, which things grab your attention. The classic of kind of seeing something sparkly or seeing a squirrel. "Oh, squirrel." It's captured your attention. And some things in life are, I suppose likely to catch our attention more than others. So if you think about babies crying or police sirens, they're, they're evolutionarily suited to catch our attention in a very dramatic way

Hilary Jeffs Yes. And, Trump would actually like to psych hack all of that, wouldn't he? So he could get everyone's attention

Peter Kinderman Well, yeah. I mean, I mean, saying scandalous things captures our attention. Wearing revealing clothes captures our attention. Halloween costumes capture our attentions. S- loud noises, bangs, explosions, you know, blinking lights, they all capture our attention, and that's part of how we're built

Hilary Jeffs Okay. And I suppose then from that basis that it actually has a very important part to play in our evolution

Peter Kinderman Yeah. So I mean I mean the idea of kind of using these principles either for good or evil purposes. So police sirens, you know, sirens used for emergency vehicles are designed to capture our attention, and they also do this, the funny warbling thing and the shifts and all of that's programmed in order to, that we don't even get bored to the, you know, the attentional mechanism. There's a purpose behind it, and in a sense those, those designers are hijacking the sort of evolutionary history of psychology. Same is true for babies crying. I mean, it's very, very difficult to ignore a baby crying, and there's good evolutionary reasons for that. I mean, I don't think it takes an academic psychologist to explain the evolutionary reason for us being built not to ignore a crying baby, right? It's kind of

Hilary Jeffs What I find hilarious is that before I had children, a crying baby used to wind me up. And now, a crying baby, obviously I don't want the baby to be distressed, but there's part of me just going, "Oh, it's just that lovely part of life. This is what's happening." And I suppose because it's not my baby, it's not making me stressed. It's not me and my baby keeping everyone else on the plane slightly annoyed. So I can sort of get rid of that responsibility, but there is something lovely about a baby noise generally. Just having a baby nearby, I'm not broody

Peter Kinderman it might be lovely or it might be intensely irritating, and it might be different for men and women. It might be different for people who have children and people who don't have children. But regardless, it's very difficult to ignore it

Hilary Jeffs Okay. All right. Well, and let's go on to then the great big orange blimp baby over the pond, because he is very difficult to ignore, and I have been trying recently, really trying not to allow that man into my psyche, not to allow him to affect my moods in any way. But of course, this week we have the midterms. We have the elections in America, which, you know, we kind of want to see it as a little bit of a referendum on Trump too. We want him to fail. But he's already, hasn't he, been priming everyone with the fact that it's going to be stolen from him, that there is fraud, this voting in advance, even though he does it himself, is a classic way of voter fraud. He wants to have ICE agents there to intimidate people. The fact is, the man is a cheat. There was even a book written about him called T- Commander in Cheat. He's such a big cheat. He cheats on the golf course. He cheats all over. What is the psychology behind why that man has to cheat? What is it about him?

Peter Kinderman Well, of course, I don't know, and I suspect I probably wouldn't know even if I spoke to Donald Trump, and I suspect that I wouldn't know if I talked to Don- Donald Trump and gave him vast quantities of psychedelic medication and then inquired into his m- I suspect I wouldn't get the truth from him because part of it is I, in my personal opinion, I don't think he tells the truth, and I don't think he'd tell the truth under oath. I don't think he'd tell the truth when drunk. I don't think he'd tell the truth if you gave him LSD. I just don't think that we will ever know. I mean, it does seem to me that the-- Well, one of the things which rather regrettably I think has happened is that, Trump and some of the people who work with Trump have changed the rules. So, you know, it used to be the case that there are things that would require you when caught to resign, and obviously he's been caught doing those things, and he just doesn't. He just ignores it. And it does strike me that the political system d- doesn't really know what to do with a guy who just goes, "Yeah, I'm not gonna do that." You know, even when it's the right thing to do, he

Hilary Jeffs that's quite interesting, isn't it? Because he doesn't play... He, I mean, he doesn't play by the rules full stop, but he doesn't play in the spirit of the law either. So there's a lot of conventions, aren't there, in our politics, in how society works, which he just runs roughshod over

Peter Kinderman yeah. So, I mean, I mean, you know, one of the things is he makes a big play out of other people lying, and then he lies. And you think, "But that's hypocritical, it's self-contradictory, it's..." but... And you can see why it's self-serving, of course. He shouldn't just simply, you know, i- ignore the rules. He should play by the rules and he simply doesn't. And so, you know, not playing by the rules is cheating, and of course, he doesn't play the, by the rules of, for instance, playing golf. One of the things I find quite interesting about Trump's behavior is that he does cheat in ways that benefit him. You know, the buying businesses and bankrupting them, and not paying taxes, and all of that sort of stuff, and election fraud, and so forth. But he also cheats at golf, and in a very, very obvious way. And I mean, I guess the best analysis that I can come up with is that, again, it's about the living in a cooperative society. That what most people do is they decide that in order to have a good life, the best thing to do is to accept that there are certain rules that society plays by. Of course, they can be changed, and of course, they're culturally determined, and so forth. But really, you know, th- there are conventions for social intercourse and one fits in with them, and Donald Trump simply doesn't. So I do find it difficult, however, the cheating at golf where, you know, it strikes me that takes trophies that seem to indicate that he's a good golf player, where he's clearly not a good golf player, and he must know that he's not a good golf player, but he still takes the trophy. And my only logic is that, he doesn't really care whether he's a good golf player or not. What he likes is for people to see him holding the shiny thing, and

Hilary Jeffs and now I was interested in that. Is that the reason? Or is it the fact that he does an excuse that, "If only I had more time because I wasn't so successful in other areas of my life, then I would have had this award. I should be having this award anyway. It's just I haven't been able to focus on that one thing 'cause look at all the amazing stuff that I do. Look at all my little shiny toys that I have"?

Peter Kinderman Yeah. I think that's, yeah, I think that's possibly true. It's also possibly the case that, you know, he likes the sense of people admiring him, and that's more important than a sense of admiring people, people admiring you because of the good things that you've done. It's just the admiring, and maybe it's that shallow. Yeah, I mean, I mean, in part, I think, like I said earlier, there's no way of knowing. I don't think anybody will ever know what the motives are of him doing it because I don't think he tells the truth. I don't think on his deathbed he'll tell the truth. I just don't think we'll ever know exactly what the motivation is. But my guess is that it is basically a very simplistic, you know, "I want the shiny thing. I want the photo. I want-- I-- When they say you are the greatest, I want them to be looking at me and saying you're the greatest, and I want them to add the word Donald to that sentence, and yeah, that's what I want, and I want it now, and I want more ice cream," and y- and, you know, it's very shallow. But I don't think we'll ever know. And in part you know, you said earlier that, you know, you know, it's horrible to turn your attention back to the Don- to Donald Trump, and I think it is. And in part, I, you know, a long time ago, I made the decision that this is about who's, who's standing in the world is not one that I value, and it-- he cheats for reasons that I'll never know, and let's move on and, ooh, look, there's a squirrel

Hilary Jeffs Okay. But what about cheats in general? It's if you cheat in one area of your life, are you more likely to cheat in other areas of your life? What are the reasons why people do cheat? What do we get from it? Because we've all cheated. I mean, I actually don't believe anyone who says they haven't cheated. I generally like to not cheat, but I do have little times, like you would say with the Scrabble rules, me having the two letter Scrabble words written down

Peter Kinderman No, well, that's not, that's,

Hilary Jeffs But for me, it's like fudging. It's like I'm so cool and

Peter Kinderman No, it is, it's, it's literally breaking the

Hilary Jeffs the game with this. Well, you see? But for me, I've rationalized it. Is that what everyone does when they, when they cheat? It's just like an incremental thing, or do some people just go all the way out, "I'm gonna cheat and don't care"?

Peter Kinderman So with all of these things, I mean, I can say this with great confidence, having not done any research into cheating, but I can say with great confidence that people rely on a normal distribution. That some people... There are a few people in the world who will never cheat and, you know, you know, great, they're close to being Buddha, right? The Dalai Lama probably never cheats, probably, or very, very rarely. It kind of... He's on that

Hilary Jeffs have seen their big fancy gold cars, you know. They're not...

Peter Kinderman And then there are the people in the middle who, who do utterly disgraceful things like, like write down, Scrabble answers and look up Wordle and that kind of stuff. And then there are people who

Hilary Jeffs You can't do

Peter Kinderman absolutely. But that's kind of as far as they go. It's kind of along the li- white lies kind of thing of lying. And then there are people like Donald Trump who cheat on taxes or cheat on their, their sexual partners or cheat in things that matter, who will draft... Do- dodge the draft and all those sorts of things. So there will be a normal distribution of this. I think it's reasonable to assume that the more frequently you cheat at things and the broader your spectrum of cheating, the more likely you are to cheat on the next occasion that it comes up. So yeah, I think if somebody has been proven to have cheated in various areas, I would not trust I mean, that's what we do, is we predict people's behavior on the basis of their past behavior. And if people have not played by the rules of a cooperative society in order to benefit themselves over their neighbors, then they're showing that trait of selfishness, that trait of rejecting the communal rules in favor of selfishness. And you know, in our evolutionary past, if you wanted to go on a hunting trip with somebody, you wouldn't go on a hunting trip with Donald, 'cause Donald always nicks the bu- the b- buffalo spleen for

Hilary Jeffs He'd probably shoot you in the bum if he thought that it was gonna get him some extra

Peter Kinderman Yeah. I mean, yeah, you capture the buffalo, you bend down to pick a tasty bit of buffalo, and Donald will hit you on the back of the head because he wants all the buffalo for himself, even though he can't eat a whole buffalo. So no, I wouldn't go hunting with Donald. But I would go hunting with Hilary, because Hilary, although she kind of cheats at Scrabble, generally I think I'm gonna be safe with her. So that-

Hilary Jeffs not with Hillary Clinton then? Okay.

Peter Kinderman Clinton as well. I trust Hilary

Hilary Jeffs I'm not going hunting anytime soon, just so you

Peter Kinderman no. I'm off on a, on a trail of fantasy and that, and that's a very bad thing. But yeah, you know, it's, it's... These traits, if taken to excess, are, are, are disadvantageous to the human condition. Now, I guess in our evolutionary past or right now, an individual organism, i.e. A person, will get an advantage if they cheat. You know, they'll get more buffalo spleen to eat, and that's great 'cause it's very nutritious, so off you go. You've got more buffalo spleen. Well done, you. So there's a, there's an evolutionary tendency towards cheating and having it all yourself and a beggar-my-neighbour policy, but we are social animals, and it will end up in, you know, discussions of nuclear war with Iran and disastrous performance of the economy and siphoning off public money to, in order to give private shareholders the benefit, and ultimately things like blaming migrants for the fact that there's a, there's pressure on the public finances, whereas most of the welfare bill goes to private landlords. That's the consequence of rampant selfishness, and I regard selfishness as close to cheating

Hilary Jeffs Well, thank you very much for that. But may I just bring us back to said cheating by the Trumpster, because he's been actually really successful with this Stop the Steal. And there's something quite interesting going on, isn't there? Because it is preferable for people to believe in this conspiracy theory that actually there is this cabal of people that are taking it away from you, rather than for it to just be something that you can't put your finger on. It automatically, he's created, like, a demon, hasn't he? He's created something for them to unite against, something for them to sort of say, "Yeah, there's the problem. That's, that's what's messing up my life."

Peter Kinderman It has been successful, yeah. And, you know, if I were a vampire and if I were to live for 800 years, and if in 800 years' time I look back at, you know, the history of human civilisation and I say, "Things seemed to be reaching a peak in about 1987, and since then it declined and things took a massive backward step with Putin and a massive backward step with the rise of the ayatollahs in, i- in Iran, and, they took a mac- mac- a massive backward step with Donald Trump being elected president," that's when the rats le- and, you know, the reason why we're now eating roasted rats on sticks is because of... It's a possibility. I suspect that humans are more intelligent than that. And, you know, after a few years of having a lying cheater in power, people will probably realise that it's a bad idea to vote for lying cheaters, and they'll ask their journalists to do a bit better job on detecting lying cheaters. And if intelligent people point out to intelligent voters that if you have a deregulated broadcasting system then you won't be able to spot the lying cheaters, they'll probably ask for a bit of regulation in the media industry. And so I think things will probably regulate themselves. Unfortunately, I'll probably be dead before we see another kind of golden age of the li- late '80s

Hilary Jeffs Well, that's really, really joyful and buoyant. Thank you very much for that little bit of positivity to take us

Peter Kinderman But he might do really badly in the midterm. There might be a crisis in the Demo- in the Republican leadership. They'll, they'll call in the 25th Amendment and they'll ditch, Donald Trump. We'll have JD Vance, but he's not as good at lying as Donald Trump. The Republicans will then lose in the presidential election in '28, and order will be returned to the calm running of the universe. The Force will reestablish itself and like in Mort, the holes will close

Hilary Jeffs Quick prediction. Are the Democrats gonna take the Senate and the Congress? What is it gonna be?

Peter Kinderman Well, I mean, I don't know for certain.

Hilary Jeffs Things. I'm terrible

Peter Kinderman But I was reading a BBC News report, that said you know, things are looking really bad for Donald Trump, but can we believe the polls? And I was thinking, well, what else would you believe? I mean, I

Hilary Jeffs Well, but they're

Peter Kinderman but this BBC journalist,

Hilary Jeffs time, really hard time those pollsters, because it used to be they could phone people up, but no one answers their phone anymore. And they have now factored in people's level of education because

Peter Kinderman O-okay.

Hilary Jeffs Predictor. They are

Peter Kinderman but the

Hilary Jeffs a bit better

Peter Kinderman the message of that article seemed to be, "I am a single reporter. There are lots of people using intelligence, science, communication, and technology in order to try to get us the best picture of voting intentions. I don't really want to do that. I want to just make an opinion up myself." So I would go with what are the polls telling us, and the polls are telling us that the Republicans are really struggling and that Donald Trump is starting to be a vote loser. Well, excellent. I'm glad about that

Hilary Jeffs That would be wonderful, wouldn't it? Okay, so Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Night, however you want to say it, coming up the end of the week. Are you a big fan? Do you like a bit of

Peter Kinderman Oh, I like pyromaniacs. I like explosions. I like, I like, I like not blowing the tips of my fingers off, but I do like explosives, fire, pyromania. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm big into the whole burning things on bonfire. And I'm... I apologise to, you know firefighters who have to pick up this, and I wouldn't set fire to a wheelie bin, but I do like a nice firework display, and I do like a bonfire

Hilary Jeffs glad you actually did say wheelie bin then. No, let's not say fire, set fire to a wheelie bin. Now, when it comes to fire,

Peter Kinderman But this is the

Hilary Jeffs you know very well you're not a pyromaniac because that is an actual condition, supposedly. I know you don't like the whole medicalization. We'll come onto that in a little bit. Let's just stick at the moment with the fireworks because we have this app, you probably do too, whether you're on it, I don't know. Maybe I've just hit a golden age with my neighbors. We're on this app called Nextdoor, where basically anyone who is sort of over the age of 70 and really is vociferous, you're going on this app. Well, it was hilarious 'cause I was thinking I haven't seen much about... Normally there's a big moan fest about fireworks and the pets and the animals and all the rest of it. Anyway, I saw a great post. Basically Dave, a week ago, went, "So I haven't seen any posts about people complaining about fireworks. Off you go." And so of course cue hundreds of responses about it. But it's a divisive issue, and it was never divisive. I don't remember it being divisive when I was younger, but it's a huge thing now

Peter Kinderman I know that there are people who, who are a bit negative. There are people who, who think it's all a waste of money and, you know, bemoan the council spending money and, you know, they look at the fireworks in London and they go, "How much does that cost?" And that's a bit negative. And then the people with pets. I mean, the pets thing strikes me as if you have pets, I mean, it's a pretty simple rule. Keep them indoors on November the 5th. It's pretty simple. You know, there you go, and you can let them

Hilary Jeffs but then you're gonna get the horse owners, they can't keep their horses in, the sheep owners, the pi- I mean, living in the country, it's a dream. But I mean, you know, I've

Peter Kinderman yeah,

Hilary Jeffs two dogs who aren't worried about it, but if they were worried about it and were hiding under the bed, I'd be like, "Yeah, okay, you're silly, aren't you? 'Cause they're not hurting you."

Peter Kinderman Well, yeah, I d- I mean, I don't want any horses to get startled and, you know, I don't want any sheep to miscarry, although they probably won't be pregnant in 5th of November. But I mean, I grew up in a small village, and, you know, quite a few people who lived around me owned horses. And I have to s- as does occur to me that the small fireworks displays that we had in my village and the small bonfires that we had were quite a long way away from any stables. I mean, I just don't see people setting off vast pyrotechnic displays kind of next to farms. They tend to be in municipal parks in Wythenshawe is where they happen. But anyway, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm sorry about the animals, but I do like a firework display, and I do like a bonfire, and I do like setting fire to guys. But, you

Hilary Jeffs I like fire. I do like fire. It's very comforting. I find it really,... I like water. Water and fire, they're two really great things that I like.

Peter Kinderman An attentional capture again. That's the thing about

Hilary Jeffs yes, but I don't like fireworks. Boring

Peter Kinderman Well, good fireworks are quite fun and, you know, there's a little bit of a ooh and a pop. There's also the element of you spend 40 quid on fireworks and then they turn out to be disappointing, so you can have a moan later,

Hilary Jeffs Oh, even when I go to fireworks displays, boring. Winter over. Come on, it's cold. I wanna go and eat something or drink something. I just, mm.

Peter Kinderman Bonfire, bonfires and fire pits are the f- I mean, fireworks display is quite nice, but bonfires and fire pits are the thing. And it's because of the attentional capture. You can just sit there with either a cup of tea or a pint in your hand and just stare at the flames for hours because they're, they're almost perfectly suited to our eyes and brains. You just,

Hilary Jeffs a guy make himself an absolute fortune by just doing a 20-hour video or something of his fireplace burning and the logs crackling, and people just put it on at Christmas? And he's made an absolute fortune from it,

Peter Kinderman it's absolutely lovely. Al- yeah, Alan R- Turing wrote a paper, which in part included the different shapes that you can see in sort of in front of your vision when you look, look at fire, and work- trying to work out the mathematical reasons why you saw those particular sorts of shapes when you stare into fire. But fire is inherently fascinating, and it's, you know, cultural. It's also slightly scary, and then you can do things with it, and you worry about whether it's gonna go out, and there's the smoke. The whole thing... But I just love a fire. I'm a very big fan of fire.

Hilary Jeffs Like a fire, but I've got a question for you now. What is fire? Come on, you are our resident science expert. I always ask you all the questions. Doesn't matter that it's not psychology. What is fire? Identify it. Tell me

Peter Kinderman do, do you want the sci- the scientific answer? I mean, th- th-

Hilary Jeffs Because it's not a solid, it's not a liquid, and it's not a gas

Peter Kinderman Yeah, well, technically it is. But technically, technically it's, it's, it's a plasma. So it's, it's... Fire is... Well, it depends. The process of fire is the ex- is the exothermic oxidation of flammable materials is what fire is. And because it's exothermic, then you g- you, it c- it sustains itself, so the heat generated by the fire is therefore the catalyst for the further development of more fire. And because it's heat, it super heats the particles so they glow and go red, and y- you get the plasma. And the flame is in fact one of the fourth... Is it the fourth? Is it more than state of matter? Anyway, yeah, it's a fourth, it is a fourth state of matter, which is plasma, which is where the electrons, at least from the outer shells of the atoms, are stripped off and you get different kind of physical reactions in it.

Hilary Jeffs You see, after watching a fire, listening to you describe a fire is like my happy place. There you go. That's exactly perfect. We're gonna clip that. We're gonna turn it into like a four-hour long calming meditation post. What do you reckon?

Peter Kinderman I think that would be great. What you want is a video of a fire in space. I don't know whether it exists and I haven't seen one, but

Hilary Jeffs something you need for far that's maybe not in space, so,

Peter Kinderman Well, yeah, no, I mean inside, inside the spaceship. Because the point is that in fire in zero gravity, if there's oxygen or flammable material, and they might have done it might have set fire to a tissue or something in space. But of course, what happens is on Earth you have gravity and so cold air falls because of gravity, and the hot plasma of the flame rises because it's displaced, so you get that.

Hilary Jeffs Particles move apart. Yep

Peter Kinderman yeah, and in space, the fire is expanding in a spherical motion 'cause you don't have gravity. And to... And the diffusion of the oxygen into fu- fuel a flame doesn't happen through the bottom, it has to happen through the globe. So you get slow-burning globes of plasma in space. Fire in space does not look like George Lucas had it on on Star Wars. Fire in

Hilary Jeffs new Google search. I'm going to waste at least an hour later looking up for those, and we'll put them in the show notes just so that you can have that pleasure as well. But I can't help but think a fire on the space station is possibly slightly scary and slightly dangerous. know. Maybe I'm a bit risk-averse compared to you

Peter Kinderman yeah. I think fires in space stations are non-conducive to human health

Hilary Jeffs Good. I'm glad we've got that cleared up. Now, in terms of our fascination with fire, it's a bit like we were saying earlier, I feel, that actually there is something about us needing to stay alive with fire. I mean, it's part of our evolution, isn't it? It's one of the reasons our brains got so big, is that we could then access more calories and we could grow better. So it's really been very essential, and no other animal, from what I understand, has managed to harness fire in quite the same way we have. I know that they can find bits and use it and use it to... I think some birds or some animals take hot things and try and set other bits of fire so that it releases animals out of it, but they're not cooking with it, are they? And they're not heating themselves with it in the same way

Peter Kinderman No, and they're not finding ways to start fires. No, and it is interesting that human use of fire does seem to-- I mean, active use of fire does seem to stretch back long enough for evolution possibly to play a role. So you're talking, you know, hundreds of thousands of years. So there were spear tips. There's one I think that was dug up in Surrey or Suffolk or somewhere, somewhere in just around London, where it was a piece of wood that had been fashioned to a spear, and you could see the tool marks on it. But the tip had also been heated in the fire because that, at least for some woods, that makes the wood harder. So you've made a very hard spear point out of putting wood in the fire. So these were some sort of either humans or human-like animals using fire in a purposeful way, and I think that's several... Well, certainly into the hundreds of thousands of years ago. And hundreds of thousands of years ago, it's just possible that there's an evolutionary pressure that has determined the course of current humans. So yeah, we might have been using fire while we were still evolving as humans.

Hilary Jeffs And it is something that is used to intimidate, isn't it? I mean, that whole arson, the whole arson by fire is terrifying. And also the pyromania. How, how does it then trigger something like pyromania, where you become utterly obsessed with fire? What's going on with our brains then? Something that is so life-giving for us, actually, to become such an obsession

Peter Kinderman People give, people get obsessions about all sorts of things. So people can get obsessions about early '80s Manchester-based post-punk musical groups, and people can get,

Hilary Jeffs yeah. Mm-hmm

Peter Kinderman mmm people can get, kind of develop, you know, obsessions about knitting or about cats or about furniture, or people get obsessions about all sorts of things. So obsessions about fire, yeah. And, you know, fire is quite elemental. I mean, e- it's elemental in the sort of Greek myth s- sort of elemental, and it's, i- it's powerful in our culture, and it's possibly powerful in our evolution his- evolutionary history. In terms of attentional capture, it gets all the things you want to get, including the thing can get out of control. And also there is an element of, for quite a lot of us who like fire, and I like fire, there is the element of setting the fire in the grate. I mean, literally that grate over there. And then, you know, the art is single match, that's it for the evening. And if it fails and you have to poke stuff in and kind of add stuff to make it and use a fire, th- that's, that's very disappointing. You're turning

Hilary Jeffs hold on. Do you, can you do fires without fire lighters?

Peter Kinderman Yeah, yeah, yeah. See the,

Hilary Jeffs my mother was so good. She would roll up the newspaper and then tie it in a knot, and she'd do those. But no, I cheat, I'm afraid. Not not quite as much as my husband,

Peter Kinderman and it involves having a good knife, yeah, a good knife, cutting a, cutting the wood very thin so it's, so it's all spindly so it catches fire. And you know, the true aficionado would, would feather the wood until it-- very dry wood, and feather it until it's really, really feathered, and then use a metal rod and a, whatever it is,

Hilary Jeffs Oh, what to do there?

Peter Kinderman And spark it and spark it. So you, so you don't even use a match that way. So there's, there's lots of ways in which you can kind of like, you know,

Hilary Jeffs You might be h- you might be warm in about a year

Peter Kinderman Yeah, there's also, you've

Hilary Jeffs do it without a match

Peter Kinderman Yeah, I mean, you know, you don't-- you need to keep your, your chimney swept. If you've got a fire outside, you wanna make sure the sparks don't go anywhere. You gotta put on the right clothes because you don't want the best clothes to get sparks and start melting onto your, onto your shins and you don't wanna melt the soles of your trainers. And there's a whole thing about fire, which is, you know, it's attentional capture because, you know, if you're gonna make a, make a barbecue, you need it to be right, and it's important, and then you have a delicious meal. And there's an element of kind of, you know, almost performance art to it. There's the possibility of it going horribly wrong and getting out of control. There's the possibility of failing dismally and having to rebuild the... It captures your attention perfectly. And then when it's lit, it's all sparkly and, you know, grabs you

Hilary Jeffs It does make me smile that sort of fires, barbecues, very much I feel that these are jobs that guys actually really go for. They love it. Whereas you don't really see them going, "Ooh, can I wash up?" I mean, some do, but no one likes washing up. But building a fire, doing a barbecue,

Peter Kinderman And, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sit here and say, you know, my particular pet obsession is by definition good and natural and God-given and so forth. It's probably as weird as anybody else's. And you're absolutely right. But that's part of why it captures your attention because as we have said, you and I before, I'm not really big into football, so I fail on that. So if there's a sort of table of socially approved things for men, men with testicles, I go, "Eh, I'm not so good on the old football side." Then they go fire, and I go, "Ooh, yeah, no, I can get some male points on the fire," because, yeah, I can do all the fire stuff. So yeah, I'm good at... Yeah. So

Hilary Jeffs Another reason why we need to be shipwrecked together, 'cause I kind of feel that together we might have quite... Well, I'm don't know what I'm bringing to the party. I'll make you laugh maybe.

Peter Kinderman No, that's g- there are lots of things. And, you know, it's, it's not the only thing that we need. I mean, clearly on the desert island we need a top class football team, that's, that's for sure. But

Hilary Jeffs Is that just so I can watch the buttocks? And I don't really mind if it's male or female 'cause they both have really fine buttocks, but I'm sounding like Trump, and we were trying to get rid of Trump

Peter Kinderman yeah, I have on occasion asked people why they're so obsessed by football and gone into homoerotic things about silk shorts and buttocks and sweaty legs. No, I'm way off

Hilary Jeffs that... Well, no, but I do think it's the competition. I mean, my brother was waxing lyrical about darts and snooker when I saw him on Friday. I think there are just some people love seeing people fight it out and, yeah, I think that must be it

Peter Kinderman but the, but the culture, to go, to bring, come back to fire, I think the fact that there is a sexual dimor- dimorphism in our cultural aspects towards things like fire, where, you know, if I can claim one macho point for building a good fire, and so people would come round... I mean, I'm not gonna have anybody round at my house. Yeah, but you know, in the past I've had people round for bonfire night, and you light a fire and people go, "Oh, cracking fire, Pete." And you think, "Ooh, that's good." So it has all of the elements for me. Fire, it captures my attention in an extremely good way, and there you go. The only thing I draw the line at is burning books. That's the only thing I wouldn't do with a fire. Anything else is

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, it's really hard, isn't it? Because I'm so not up for censorship, and it's very difficult because we live in a society where actually people like to be canceled or they like... Well, not, they don't like to be canceled, but people like to cancel things. It does sort of fly in the face of what I like

Peter Kinderman it's an interesting thing that I don't fully understand. It's... I mean, there are many things I don't fully understand. But it is a funny thing that I don't understand, which is why people want to convert other people to their point of view. So, I mean, my father was a minister of religion, and so his kind of game, what he did for, not for a living, he didn't earn any money from it, but what, but his purpose in life was to persuade people of a point of view that they didn't already hold. And I'm thinking, "This is an interesting kind of thing to do." And I can see politicians doing it in order to... But you get people who go, you know, you go down the pub and you say, "I don't like football." And they go, "Let me try to persuade you of something." And I'm thinking, "Why are you trying to persuade me?" You know. And we do that a lot. You know, why do we try to per- I, and I do not understand why we try to

Hilary Jeffs this whole zero-sum game, isn't it? If I'm right, you have to be wrong, rather than there being a plurality of points of view. I suspect that's where people are coming from. Or they're just trying to be very helpful. You know, they just want to enlighten you

Peter Kinderman So I think that's the conclusion I came to about my dad, was that he really did believe that it was in our best interest to do what he thought would do. And I think that's, you know, that's, that's what people who believe in Reiki healing and therapeutic massage and, Seventh Day

Hilary Jeffs tinfoil hats and yeah, they're

Peter Kinderman Yeah. Yeah, and you know, people, people have fixed views about, I know Andy Burnham's tax policies and so forth. They think the world will be a better place if they persuade you of their point of view. It's just I find it interesting that for human beings, this business of having a point of view, finding that somebody h- holds a different point of view, and then trying to persuade them seems to be an absolute urge for humans

Hilary Jeffs And yet I would think that lots of people listening to this would probably think that both of us like to persuade other people of our point of view. So we're not exactly immune to it, are we?

Peter Kinderman No, I di- I didn't, I didn't say I don't do it. I said it was interesting that we do it. I said it was interesting that my dad did it. And yeah, I mean, I did le- leave us a sort of moot point, do I do it? But I do it too, and I'm intrigued. Why do I

Hilary Jeffs all turn into our parents, Peter, don't

Peter Kinderman Yeah. I mean, I do want most people in the country to vote Labour because, you know, that would be in everybody's best interest. But happening to believe in a particular view on Albert Camus and Voltaire's view on moral e- metaphysics, why do I want my neighbors to share my view on that? I don't, I'm not entirely sure. I do, but I don't know why

Hilary Jeffs Yes, well, you need to have conversations with my son because frankly, definitely that thing is going on there too. Now, we've done Bonfire Night. We've just had Halloween. What was your costume? Did you do one? Were you trick or treating? What was the dress up situation in your family? Are you up for it? Come on then

Peter Kinderman I'm... Well, being as what I'm very socially anxious, then the idea of wearing kind of fancy dress costume leaves me a little bit nervous 'cause I don't see it as hiding behind

Hilary Jeffs I was just gonna say, surely that is perfect for you. You're a masked

Peter Kinderman I've had, yeah. Well, that'd be quite... Mm. No, there's too, too much right wing. No, I don't wanna be a c- no, crusaders, that's, they've, they've all been hijacked by Farage and that crowd. No, no I

Hilary Jeffs But you still get to wear tights with pants over it

Peter Kinderman Is that a good thing? Viking would be quite good. I quite, I quite like the Vikings. The Vikings are kind of like, mm. Yeah, no, the... So in my career, I've employed actors from time to time, especially with medical students. So medical students, they're practicing their communication skills, and if they kind of like, like stand up in front of a group and go, "I would ask her whether she's feeling all right," it's kind of rubbish. What you have is a reasonably good actor going, "I feel like taking my own life." And then the medical student goes, "Oh, shit, I don't know what to say now." And it's all quite difficult. So I've worked quite a lot with actors, and they're good. And the actors all go, "I couldn't do your job." And I go, "But my job's really easy. I just say what I think." And they go, "Oh no, God, no. I need-- I'd like to have a script, and I like to be a chara- I wouldn't be myself. I'd be a character." And I go, "I certainly wouldn't be a character. I can only be myself." So that, so I wouldn't wear a cos- well, I'm not, I'm not comfortable wearing costumes 'cause I'm not comfortable with the attention being drawn towards me 'cause I'm socially anxious. Despite how I appear, I am very

Hilary Jeffs very interesting. But what is the psychology behind people who like wearing costumes? Because there's so many of them now, and it's exploded with cosplay and furries and

Peter Kinderman Well, there's lots. So, well, so, I joked earlier ab- I hope I don't get a visit from the, US Secret Service, but I do- joked earlier about kind of interrogating Trump under the influence of psychedelic drugs. And so one of the questions is why do people like taking drugs? And people like taking drugs 'cause they quite like experiencing altered states of consciousness, and this idea of b- of shifting identity, being something different for a day. I mean, in the past they had sort of, you know, the lord, lord of misrule and the idea that bacchanalias and so forth. So you would take on a different role, and the servants would become the masters, and the masters would become the servants, and this and that, and cross-dressing. And there's something in the same way that being in an altered state of consciousness is great fun. The idea of playing a role that's different from your normal self is great fun. So some people quite, quite like, you know, taking their normal character and accentuating a little bit. So you might go as James Bond or you might go as a Viking. And there are people who take it even further and go as octopuses. And there is something fun about occupying an alternative identity for a while. And if it's masked and there's a bit of disguise, even better. You can kind of like, you can play around with different rules for behavior and different identities and, yeah, different behavioral strategies for the evening. So it's, yeah, it's genuinely fun, and I would like that. There's also an element of competition which I kind of, you know, kind of pull

Hilary Jeffs Like the best one.

Peter Kinderman The best, the

Hilary Jeffs see that? I think that's why my friend really loves dressing up so that she can have the absolute best costume

Peter Kinderman Yeah. I think I'm being drawn into it 'cause this year, more than any other years, I saw quite a lot of photos from my close friends who've gone to various parties dressed up in costume, and I suspect that next year I won't have an excuse, so I'll probably have to go to some sort of costume party. But,

Hilary Jeffs grapes is quite good. You just need balloons. Wrap 'em round you. That's quite fun. But I'm not, I'm not really one for it. I might do like a nod. I might have a hat that will be something about it. And I don't know if it is about drawing attention to myself, 'cause frankly, I can be quite loud and draw attention to myself anyway. But I don't really know

Peter Kinderman I will

Hilary Jeffs it's that or not

Peter Kinderman I will probably go to the next fancy dress thing as a, as a character from, "The Addams Family" on the grounds that you just put on a dinner jacket and then some makeup and it's quite easy. And you can

Hilary Jeffs Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And you get to sing. And you can have, you can have the hand, can't you?

Peter Kinderman The hand on your shoulder.

Hilary Jeffs That's quite easy. Yeah, I think that would definitely

Peter Kinderman I'm also incredibly lazy, you see, so I think, "Oh, God, I just don't wanna put in the effort of getting a costume. I'd rather have another gin, really."

Hilary Jeffs This whole cosplay thing and the furry thing, I mean, it does seem to have really captured imagination. All this anime basis ones or the animal ones. And dare I say it, there seems to be some who kind of get off on this sort of thing as well.

Peter Kinderman Clearly, I've, I've clearly met and had discussions with people dressed in in furry animal costumes and yeah, there's a thing. Personally, it's not my thing, but yeah. I

Hilary Jeffs I would have bet that that was what you were gonna say. I mean, obviously we don't know whether you're telling the truth, but you know,

Peter Kinderman [unclear]

Hilary Jeffs we all say it. I don't think many people are going, "Hey, I'm a furry."

Peter Kinderman Yeah, I mean, you know, it w- it would take a little bit of detective work to track down people in my, in my private life and ask them questions about th- these sorts of things. But I think I'm very, very confident in the answers that you'll get and, you know, straight vanilla is probably what you're getting. So no, not, not furry. I find that, again, slightly difficult to understand, but I think the best kind of explanations is that it's fun to identify and play with roles and behavioral strategies and to bend them a little bit. So, you know, in everyday life y- you're a rather dull accountant living in Basingstoke, but for one night a year you can be Uncle Fester from "The Addams Family." Well, great, that's good. And then you take it further and further and, you know, then you can be, you c- you can be, well, Thomas Crown from "The Thomas Crown Affair" or... I mean, that doesn't require much of a costume, of course. You could be the Great Gatsby or you can... And then you can stretch it further, and then you can be Russell Crowe in "Gladiator," and then you can be a Viking and, you know, then the world's your oyster after that.

Hilary Jeffs Brilliant. Well, there's all your costume ideas for the next 10 years. That will keep you sorted. I won't be wearing any of them because I am that boring. Before we finish for the week, Peter, we need to have our psych hack. The last week we were talking about biohacking, and you came up with the phrase psych hack, and we've decided the triple T is no more. There is no more tip to try. It's all about psych hacking. This is what we're gonna deliver you each week on the Experience podcast. What is today's psych hack?

Peter Kinderman Today's psych hack is e-exactly related to attentional capture, which is that what we can do is we can take the opportunity. It's kind of a meditative thing. You take the opportunity to practice shifting your attention. So instead of having your attention dragged from place to place by the events, by the fire, by the barking dog, by the screaming child, what you can do is deliberately focus your attention onto the warmth of the cup of tea, towards-- You drag your attention towards the sentences in the book you're reading, and then you allow your, your attention to go back to other things. So the thing to do is to take opportunities in your day to practice actively shifting your attention from near to far, from internal to external. It's kind of a meditative thing. But because attentional capture is so powerful, because the sound of a screaming baby is evolutionarily designed to catch our attention, what we can do is practice our skills at shifting away from, from these things, of shifting our attention deliberately to those things that we want to pay attention to. So yeah, deliberate attentional control training

Hilary Jeffs well, that's it for this week, Peter. I hope you have a wonderful fireworks display, and whatever you're getting up to, enjoy your fires that you're gonna be building. Also, before we talk next time, we're gonna find out who has won the Booker Prize. Now, we were both watching, or listening should I say, to Black Bag by Luke Kennard, but I'm afraid I sort of stalled and haven't finished it yet. Have you finished it?

Peter Kinderman You see, I was gonna claim the moral, moral high ground there. But no, I have p- been proceeding with it, but I haven't finished. I kind of hope he, I hope he wins 'cause I've been enjoying it. It's, it's fun

Hilary Jeffs Right. We have to commit now. Before Monday, we've got to finish listening to Black Bag so that we can find out what the fuss is all about fully It's been so long since I last listened to it, I can't remember what. I'm in my fi- in the 50s, I think. Something like that. But anyway, good luck, Luke Kennard. We hope that you win our psychology-based book on the Booker Prize shortlist. Okay. Have a good one. Thank you, Peter

Peter Kinderman My pleasure. Thank you