Mind of Snaps - Positivity Podcast | Ep. 26 - "What's Your Ingroup?"

Welcome to "What's Your Ingroup?" - the 26th Episode of the Mind of Snaps Positivity Podcast!

This is a special podcast series that is separate from the regular Mind of Snaps Podcast, with a new release (typically) posted every Thursday for Patreon supporters!

It is my goal to create as much positive & encouraging content as I can during these intense, uncertain times we're faced with. 2020 has been so much more than anyone expected it to be, and nobody should have to take it on alone. The only way I can continue to do so, is with your help. Become a patron, subscribe to me on Twitch, you can send a tip which I'll turn into an investment... or you can simply share my content on social media. Every little bit helps me be able to continue to create the podcasts and other mindfulness & positivity based content in the future.

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Hang in there, friends... we're all in this together.

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You can find new Positivity Podcasts on Patreon every Monday, and as of September 2020 - every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, & Stitcher!

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Jessy (Mind Of Snaps / SheSnaps)

www.MindofSnaps.com

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Transcript

Unknown Speaker : 0:00

Hello friends, Happy Tuesday, or you know, whatever day it happens to be that you're listening to this. I am feeling damn near giddy right now, because I've gotten to a point where I get so excited to sit down and record these positivity podcasts for y'all. I really like doing this. And I've been getting even more positive feedback lately. And that just makes me feel great. So thanks again for all the support. And thanks to those of you who reached out privately to comment kindly on how these podcasts are impacting your lives. So dope. So if you're enjoying these podcasts, or if you have some thoughts on how they could be better, please remember I do check the comments here on Patreon as well, and I'm all about trying to improve and provide value. Speaking of feedback, there is one additional thought I wanted to run past to let me know let me know your thoughts. I have been thinking of slowly releasing the positivity podcasts to the public on a weekly basis starting at the beginning. So everyone would be behind y'all in terms of, you know, the the order of things. I do want to make sure that I'm providing great value to all of you who have chosen to support here. And I don't want you to feel like the benefits are of doing so are essentially non existent. So I'd really love to hear from you on this. We talked about it on stream yesterday a little bit too. But I'm totally open. You know, this is something that's going to evolve over time. So how do you feel about the positivity podcasts being fully accessible on Patreon, the day that they're released and then being slow released weekly on my regular podcast? Let me know. Also, if there are any other resources I can work to provide for you on this Patreon, please don't hesitate to ask. As it stands. Now. My goal is to continue to release more affirmation recordings and guided meditations, but I'm totally interested In whatever y'all feel might help you. Anyway, moving right along, let's get into the podcast for today we today, I want to talk about what's known as in group out group distinctions. We're reading a book in our discord book club right now called incognito the secret lives of the brain by date, David Eagleman, I don't know why that was so hard to say the word David. Oh, by the way, y'all should look into more. He has a ton of fascinating research out there. And he explains things in such a beautiful way. So I have the enhanced version of his ebook of his book, like, you know, the digital version of it. And in the enhanced version, there's some little videos where David talks about some of the studies they were doing in his lab at the time of the book release. One of those studies stood out to me a great deal in all of my psychedelic experiences and through All of my mindfulness practice, I've had countless aha moments, where I was able to recognize that the labels we place on ourselves and others are really causing us more harm than good. And in many cases, they're limiting our ability to fully connect with others, because it reinforces this idea of separateness rather than unity. I'm sure that that doesn't come as a huge surprise to all of you labels are bad, blah, blah, blah. One of the things that I wasn't aware of though, was that our belief systems in this respect, can completely change the way our brains operate in terms of our actual neurology. So David Eagleman showed this by running experiments where the folks in the experiment went through three three variations.

Unknown Speaker : 3:52

In the first phase of the experiment, they would have people watch a video of a person being stabbed in the hand with a needle before watch At the researchers would inform the folks that the person being stabbed, was a member of their own religious group, whatever that might have been for them. When the person was stabbed, the subject mind would light up with an empathic pain response. Essentially, they felt that pain that person felt, or at least they ran themselves through a brief simulation of what the experience would be, which caused them to feel empathy for their fellow Christian or Muslim or whatever, then they would run the experiment again, this time with the subject being told that it was someone from a different religion. In many cases, that empathic response went away entirely. The subjects simply didn't feel anything for the person whose hand was just stabbed by a needle. Like nothing and this wasn't something they were deliberately saying, I choose not to feel anything for you. It was the completely behind the Seems kind of process. So in the next phase of the experiment, the researchers showed a listing of various religions, and then made notes saying which religions were now allied with each other, again, like this is still very arbitrary. It's all just an experiment or an exercise. They repeated the exercise with the stabbing of a hand with a needle. And for those who were either a member of the subject actual religion, or just one of those allied religions, the empathic pain response returned. The folks that weren't listed as allies, again, very little popped up in terms of neural activity. So not only does this happen for people who we believe are like us, but we also extend that same empathy towards those that are allied with us. The final phase of the experiment did away with all things Real and instead came up with a completely arbitrary set of group names. One was called the augustinians. And the other group, they were called the just Indians. The researchers and subjects would flip a coin together to determine which group they'd be in. When they did the needle, stabbing the hand part, even though the group names had zero background story, and were very clearly arbitrary, since they had flipped a coin, to determine which fucking group they were in. The empathic response to the stabbing was significant in those that were identified as members of the same in group as the subjects and went away if they were in the outgroup wild, your brain just does not register like you, you physically have a much harder time being empathetic or empathic towards another person if you believe that they're in a different group than you.

Unknown Speaker : 6:55

Another interesting experiment was done for the first time in 19. 68 by a teacher named Jane Elliott, and it was the focus of a documentary called a class divided. It was the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and this teacher decided she wanted to provide an important lesson in the importance of releasing any belief system that fosters separation or segregation. So over two days, she did this experiment on her class of third graders. The first day, she told the students that blue eyed people are better than brown eyed people, and then even went so far as to impose various restrictions on all Brown Eyed students. She would make these brief comments regularly throughout the day, about how Brown Eyed students are stupid and unruly and a bunch of other stuff that would further reinforce the idea that they were less than the people with blue eyes. She even made them wear these little cloth collars around their necks and restricted recess. privileges and water fountain usage among other things. Now just just to clarify here, when I first read about this study before I watched the video, when I heard cloth collars I'm picturing like dog collars. It wasn't that imagine like, just uh, it almost looked like the shoes trying to give them the little colors you'd have like if you're wearing a suit, but it was just a little cloth thing hanging around their necks. totally irrelevant, but for painting the picture, I think it's useful. Anyway, almost immediately, after announcing that blue eyed people were better than brown eyed people and putting those colors in the kids. The blue eyed students began agreeing with her and becoming clearly more unpleasant towards the brown eyed students. A fight even broke out at one point. at another point, one of the blue eyed students and this was super early on suggested that the teacher keep her yardstick at her desk in case One of the brown eyed students acted out. Like right away after being told about this distinction. This kid was already ready to say Hey, be prepared to handle them with violence if you need to. fucking kid we're talking seven years old man. So this class went from being super buds with each other to turning on each other like that. The next day, the experiment continued, except the roles were reversed. The teacher explained that she had lied the day before. And actually the brown eyed people are the better people. The students handed their collars over to the blue eyed kids and the same rules and restrictions were implemented. The following day. The teacher explained that this was all just a lesson. The kids took off their collars she explained that they were all equal, that we are all equal, and that judging someone by their eye color or skin color, or whatever external features they might have was wrong. The students readily agreed and discuss how it impacted them. Once the students were freed of their collars and reminded that eye color didn't matter, they immediately embraced each other like they were long lost family members was really fucking cute. Everyone was happy and friendly. And they talked about how badly it felt to be told that they weren't smart, or that they were different, and how how bad it was. The same students were even interviewed again, as adults later in life. And they spoke to the lasting effects of this experiment, it had a profound impact on them. So the same experiment was done in various schools and companies, and even in prison systems over the years, always showing almost identical results. Folks, we're learning what it felt like to be truly discriminated against over something as silly as external experience, or as external appearance, and it helps to change minds and lives forever. One of The lines from the teacher of the initial experiment Jane Elliott really stood out to me. I watched marvelous, wonderful cooperative children turn into nasty discriminating little third graders within 15 minutes. 15 fucking minutes. Think about that. As soon as an us versus them mentality was established, it took almost no time for that concept to take hold, and make it incredibly easy for those children, as well as the adults and other studies to turn on each other, to start viewing others as less than and start treating them poorly. And with this regard for their well being their comfort, their happiness. It's so sad. Now, this is where it all starts to apply to you because I'm sure some of you are thinking like yeah, of course racism is bad, all of this stuff, bigotry, it's bad, but think about some of the ways You may separate yourself from others with your own mindset. If you can't think of anything offhand, pay attention this week to times where that us versus them mentality comes up. Employees versus management. Pedestrians versus motorists, men versus women. Even things as silly as your sports affiliations can cause this same response neurologically. I remember perfect example of this. I was wearing a Sox hat in Chicago, walking to get some food with some friends after a twitch Chicago meetup. So it's evening. It's probably like 11 o'clock, something like that. We're on the north side of Chicago just walking doing our own thing. When a woman spotted me from across the street and came charging at me. She screamed in my face completely out of nowhere, like we didn't even make eye contact before this, but she screamed in my face out of nowhere. Go back to the south side.

Unknown Speaker : 13:01

Granted, I'm fairly certain she was pretty drunk. But still, some random woman somewhere around my age walking alone at night in Chicago saw me walking with a group of other folks and felt felt bold enough to run up to me and make it known where her allegiance lies. If you know me at this point, you're probably pretty well aware, I don't care about much and it's hard to rile me up. So I just told the woman to calm down and kept walking. I feel like if this, if I had been in a different state of mind, though, that could have escalated very quickly, and she would have had no problem justifying her actions in the future of like, I got into a fight defending our turf, you know. So what's the main point of this? As I was saying, of course, we all know not to discriminate. We know that racism and sexism and bigotry, it's all wrong. What we may not be realizing is that in so many situations in our lives, we are telling ourselves a story of separation rather than unity, we are telling ourselves that it is us versus them. And no matter how silly or arbitrary that distinction is, it does have actual impact on our minds. If we want to change the world, we must start with ourselves. A great way to do that is to start changing yet another story we tell ourselves. Start looking for ways to find the commonalities between yourself and others, rather than the differences. When you find yourself in a situation where you're feeling separate from another person or group, try putting yourself in their shoes for a minute. I mean that in a very real visualization sense, try to get out of your own fucking way for a minute and imagine what it's like in their role. How would you feel if you were the manager and they were the employee or vice versa If you were the developer and they were the gamer, if you were the Sox fan and they were the Cubs fan, like what the fuck ever, try flipping that a little bit. Additionally, continue to work on building a strong sense of self, figure out who you are, basically, figure out who you want to be and work on growing that. According to psychologists, when you feel more confident about your own identity, you are less likely to criticize someone else's. So work on that, what's your identity, figure out who you are, who you want to be and work on getting there. I read this great book last year called the courage to be disliked, and I highly recommend it. One of the parts that I really enjoyed and I've worked it to implement into my own life and mindset is, the people around me are all my comrades. Now I don't use the word comrade often. So what it's really turned into for me now is every person I meet is my friend and I do my best To treat them as such, as members of this community, I want you to know one of the biggest values I want to ensure we maintain is that we are compassionate people. I believe all of you truly are compassionate at your core. Now it's time to think about if you're putting yourself in situations, or telling yourself stories that make it harder for you to actually be compassionate towards others. So this week, spend some time looking for the commonalities between yourself and others. Try to find all the ways that you are similar to them and they to you. Rather than emphasizing all the ways you're different. Remember, that by having a belief system of separation, you are setting your brain up to care less by default. We truly are all in this together. So let's work harder to challenge our own thought thought processes so we act more like it. lead with compassion.

Unknown Speaker : 17:15

lead with compassion.

Unknown Speaker : 17:18

That's all for this week, folks. I hope it's given you something to think about. Have an amazing week. And remember, be kind to yourself and others. Much love to all of you. Bye