217. What Happens When You Put on a Costume? AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast No Stupid Questions

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (217. What Happens When You Put on a Costume?) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Go to PodExtra AI's podcast page (No Stupid Questions) to view the AI-processed content of all episodes of this podcast.

No Stupid Questions episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog

Episode: 217. What Happens When You Put on a Costume?

Author: Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher
Duration: 00:40:45

Episode Shownotes

Would you steal Halloween candy? Should people be required to identify themselves online? And why did Angela go trick-or-treating in a trash bag? SOURCES:Hajo Adam, professor of management at the University of Bath.Marianna Cerini, journalist.Edward Diener, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Illinois.Adam Galinsky, professor of leadership and

ethics at Columbia Business School.J. Nathan Matias, assistant professor at the Cornell University Departments of Communication and Information Science.Lisa Morton, paranormal historian and author.Isaac Bashevis Singer, 20th-century Polish-American author.Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University. RESOURCES:"Halloween Was Once So Dangerous That Some Cities Considered Banning It," by Christopher Klein (History, 2023)."Why Do People Sometimes Wear an Anonymous Mask? Motivations for Seeking Anonymity Online," by Lewis Nitschinsk, Stephanie J. Tobin, Deanna Varley, and Eric J. Vanman (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2023)."From Pagan Spirits to Wonder Woman: A Brief History of the Halloween Costume," by Marianna Cerini (CNN, 2020)."The Real Name Fallacy," by J.Nathan Matias (Coral, 2017)."Can Your Employees Really Speak Freely?" by James R. Detert and Ethan Burris (Harvard Business Review, 2016)."'Mask Index' Helps Predict Election Day Outcome," by Adriana Diaz (CBS Evening News, 2016)."Enclothed Cognition," by Hajo Adam and Adam D. Galinsky (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2012)."Effects of Deindividuation Variables on Stealing Among Halloween Trick-or-Treaters," by Edward Diener, Scott C. Fraser, Arthur L. Beaman, and Roger T. Kelem (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1976)."The Human Choice: Individuation, Reason, and Order Versus Deindividuation, Impulse, and Chaos," by Philip G. Zimbardo (Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1969). EXTRAS:"What Is Evil?" by No Stupid Questions (2024)."How to Maximize Your Halloween Candy Haul," by Freakonomics Radio (2012).

Summary

In episode 217 of 'No Stupid Questions', hosts Angela Duckworth and Mike Maughan explore the role of costumes in Halloween and their psychological implications. Angela recounts her childhood Halloween experience and the origins of Halloween from the Celtic festival of Samhain to its commercialization. The episode discusses how costumes historically impacted behavior, emphasizing de-individuation, with research by Ed Diener demonstrating that anonymity can lead to moral disengagement. They also discuss the effects of anonymity in online environments and student feedback, linking how clothing symbolism influences identity and cognitive processes.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (217. What Happens When You Put on a Costume?) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:03 Speaker_03
One star. I don't believe it. And it's boring. I'm Angela Duckworth.

00:00:08 Speaker_01
I'm Mike Mann. And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

00:00:13 Speaker_06
Today on the show, what happens when you put on a costume?

00:00:17 Speaker_01
This is my night of debauchery. Angela, we are in the season of ghosts and witches, costumes and masquerades, so today's question is, I think, especially interesting.

00:00:45 Speaker_01
What is the history of why people dress up at certain times, and what happens when you put on a disguise? Are there upsides where some people feel more free to be themselves, and what are the downsides of the anonymity of a disguise, signed Spencer.

00:01:00 Speaker_01
Before we dive into this. Halloween, boo. Halloween, boo. Before we dive into this, let me start by asking you a question. Did you dress up for Halloween as a kid? And if so, what was your favorite costume? And do you dress up for Halloween as an adult?

00:01:15 Speaker_03
Oh, I have actually thought about this question and remarked on its significance in my psychological development.

00:01:22 Speaker_03
So when I was growing up in southern New Jersey as the daughter of two Chinese immigrants who thought ice cream sandwiches were made on Wonder Bread, right? Like they didn't really fully get all these American traditions. They partially got them.

00:01:38 Speaker_03
So my mom and dad didn't, you know, put out jack-o'-lanterns. We didn't decorate the house. I was always the one who said at some point we have to buy candy. It was also outside of my parents'

00:01:53 Speaker_03
possible cognition that I would go to the store and buy a costume, and then it would be only worn once. Like, how wasteful.

00:02:02 Speaker_03
So they refused to do what kids of my generation really wanted to do, which is you would go to the drugstore at that point, and there would be these little boxes, you know, like Wonder Woman or a ghost or a witch.

00:02:14 Speaker_03
a cat, and it would have this really cheap plastic mask with this elastic across the back that only lasted for about 10 minutes, and then it would have this printed plastic sheet that was supposed to turn you into whatever you were, and that's all I wanted.

00:02:28 Speaker_03
I wanted to be normal. I want to be like all the American kids, and I never got that. But my parents did say you could do whatever else you want to do, so they didn't forbid me from dressing up.

00:02:41 Speaker_03
And here was my solution, which I executed for all the Halloweens I can remember from my childhood and adolescence. I would take a glad trash bag, like the really big ones, you know, for leaves and stuff, like the dark green ones, really thick.

00:02:55 Speaker_03
And I would cut two holes in the bottom for my legs, and then I would fill it with balled-up newspaper, and I would then tie the top loosely around my neck.

00:03:03 Speaker_03
So I'd be wearing a trash bag, and I would go around, trick or treat, and people would ask me, like, what are you? And without thinking too deeply, I was like, I'm trash. And they were like, oh. How clever they would try to say something positive. Yeah.

00:03:21 Speaker_03
So that was my childhood. That may have something to do with the fact that as an adult, Mike, to your second question, typically I do not dress up for Halloween.

00:03:31 Speaker_01
I will say this. I traditionally do not dress up as an adult either. But in recent years, Halloween has become among my favorite holidays because I think it is so cute.

00:03:43 Speaker_01
to see everybody's pictures, all my friends and family posting pictures of their little kids, you know, dressed up on their Halloween costume tour at school or whatever. And I've recently decided that I wanna be much more festive and into Halloween.

00:03:59 Speaker_01
So go to the Home Depot and buy the- You wanna be in the parade. Well, or just buy, I don't wanna be in the parade, but I wanna buy the 10 foot skeleton at Home Depot to put in the front yard to like have some,

00:04:10 Speaker_01
Halloween spirit and make it a little bit more fun. This can be such an exciting, fun holiday. Why not get into it a little bit?

00:04:18 Speaker_03
You don't want to be like the Halloween Grinch. So what was your kid Halloween experience? Did you get dressed up?

00:04:24 Speaker_01
Yes. So we did get dressed up. We thankfully had a neighbor down the road, Sally Wiseman, who had an entire chest full of so many costumes. And I don't remember. I think her family had been engaged in theater.

00:04:38 Speaker_01
And so it was just like, go down to the Wiseman's and pick out a Halloween costume. And that's kind of how we often got dressed.

00:04:46 Speaker_03
So what the heck is this Halloween holiday about anyway, right? It's not celebrating love like Valentine's Day or gratitude like Thanksgiving. It's got to be American, right? Like Halloween isn't from another country.

00:05:00 Speaker_01
So its origins actually date back about 2000 years. Oh, there was a Celtic pagan festival called Samhain, and it was to mark the end of summer and kind of the beginning of the year's, quote, darker half in the British Isles.

00:05:16 Speaker_01
So, during the festival, it was believed that the gods became visible. This all comes from an article by journalist Marianne Serrini, who wrote about the history of Halloween.

00:05:27 Speaker_01
And so, this tradition emerged during this Celtic pagan festival where people would offer treats and food to the gods, or they would put on disguises like animal skins or an animal head so that the spirits would pass them by and therefore miss them.

00:05:43 Speaker_01
Fast forward, and Christianity is coming in and sort of adopting a bunch of these pagan holidays and trying to reform them a bit. November 1st was celebrated as All Saints Day, and so All Hallows' Eve turned into Halloween on October 31st.

00:06:02 Speaker_01
What's interesting, though, is in the first half of the 20th century, people's costumes are traditionally terrifying.

00:06:09 Speaker_01
People are still opting for this very morbid and serious costume because the idea is still ward off evil spirits and reconcile with death. But what do Americans do better than anyone? We commercialize things.

00:06:25 Speaker_03
I was gonna say we eat candy, but okay, that's not entirely unrelated, yeah?

00:06:29 Speaker_01
Yeah, so as soon as Halloween begins to really permeate American culture, and this is starting in kind of the 1920s and 30s, then you get this company known as Halpern Company, better known as Halco, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who starts licensing characters to make costumes.

00:06:47 Speaker_01
So think back then, you've got Popeye and Olive Oil and Little Orphan Annie and Mickey Mouse, right?

00:06:53 Speaker_03
This is now sounding like an American holiday. There are trademarks involved.

00:06:57 Speaker_01
Exactly. So we move from like, I'm really scary and we're warding off evil. Here's the real kicker, though. Halloween became such a violent time, especially like this is culminating in the 1940s.

00:07:09 Speaker_01
The press starts referring to it as a night of anarchy because there's vandalism, rioting, broken fences, broken windows. It's widely assumed that costumes in their current form were

00:07:22 Speaker_01
put together partly to ward off this bad behavior and change and recast the holiday as this activity for younger kids. So instead of adults dressing horrifically in terrifying ways, it was like, why don't we turn this into a cute thing for kids?

00:07:38 Speaker_01
and just kind of make this a fun holiday. And so this is where we come back, I think, to Spencer's questions.

00:07:45 Speaker_01
Part of the issue was that people were so dressed up and they used it almost as this excuse to act differently than they would otherwise, right?

00:07:53 Speaker_01
The thought was costumes are a big part of the problem as to why there's this rioting and smashed windows and broken fences and all these things. Because people are doing things they would never do

00:08:05 Speaker_01
if they were representing themselves, but when they're in a costume or a disguise, it's like, well, This is my night of debauchery.

00:08:13 Speaker_03
You know, there's this amazing study that was published just about 50 years ago, a little less than that. It's a study that was led by Ed Diener, who is truly one of the greatest psychologists ever.

00:08:27 Speaker_03
And I think now he's known as somebody who created the science of happiness research. But back in the day, Ed Diener was really interested in what's called de-individuation, blending into the group. So it's not Mike Monn. It's, you know, this group.

00:08:43 Speaker_03
It's not Angela Duckworth. It's this group. So he does this study. Like, what is the effect of masking yourself on de-individuation and then what you do morally? Right. The whole thing was so clever because he knew kids were going to go trick or treating.

00:08:59 Speaker_03
So he knew if he prepared in the month of October for this experiment, that on October 31st, he could vary, for example, when they knocked on the door, you know, what the adult would say. And the houses were set up, and this is the experimental part.

00:09:13 Speaker_03
So there was this unobtrusive observer who would watch kids and, you know, record things like, was the kid alone? Were they in a group?

00:09:20 Speaker_01
Also something hard to do today, some unobtrusive observer taking notes on kids trick-or-treating.

00:09:26 Speaker_03
I think you probably could, actually. I think legally you are allowed to record public behavior, even if it's a child. I'm not 100% sure.

00:09:33 Speaker_01
I just meant it seems creepy.

00:09:35 Speaker_03
Oh, yes. It's definitely creepier today, I think, than it was in 1976. But in the non-anonymous condition, right? This is the condition where you walk up to the house and this house is set up so that you are supposed to be individuated.

00:09:50 Speaker_03
So here's what the article says. After the experimenter

00:09:54 Speaker_03
meaning the adult who answers the door, trick or treat, after the experimenter greeted the children and commented on their costumes, which all conditions the adult was like, oh, I love your costume. So glad you dressed up as trash.

00:10:07 Speaker_03
But after the experimenter greeted the children and commented on their costumes, she would explicitly ask each child in the non-anonymous condition what his or her name was and where he or she lived.

00:10:19 Speaker_01
Interesting.

00:10:20 Speaker_03
Okay, by the way, so not happening today. The experimenter carefully repeated each child's name and address to make it salient that she knew this information about each of them. She then continued with the rest of the basic procedure.

00:10:35 Speaker_03
And the basic procedure I also find ingenious is this moral test that I remember taking when I was a trick-or-treater. You remember those bowls of candy that would have the sign, please take one?

00:10:48 Speaker_03
You know, like, people are out of town, and you can take one, but nobody's looking, so you can take more than one. That is the test in this experiment.

00:10:57 Speaker_03
The adult who answers the door, comments on your costume, and then either asks you questions about yourself or not, She then excuses herself to work in another room. And the instructions to the kids are, oh, you know, please take one.

00:11:09 Speaker_03
But I have to go into the other room. And the question is, what do you do?

00:11:13 Speaker_01
So just so I understand, the kids are coming up, they're trick or treating in one group. The person whose home they're trick or treating at says, tell me your name and your address in a friendly way and then leaves the room.

00:11:26 Speaker_01
And in the other condition, the person just welcomes them in and then walks away, but doesn't. try to individualize them.

00:11:33 Speaker_03
Yeah, doesn't ask them those questions, which again, can you imagine doing that? Like, I think kids would like run off screaming. Plus, their parents are usually behind them these days.

00:11:41 Speaker_01
My guess would be that those who had to identify themselves are much more likely

00:11:47 Speaker_01
to just take one, to follow the instructions of the person, whereas if I experience some level of anonymity still, I don't think everyone's suddenly going to take armfuls of candy, but you're more likely to see that in the second condition where I've not identified who I am and where I live.

00:12:03 Speaker_01
Is that accurate?

00:12:04 Speaker_03
That is correct. So, the conclusion was that significantly more stealing was observed under conditions of anonymity. If you are de-individuated because, you know, nobody knows who you are, like, that's Halloween. Right.

00:12:21 Speaker_03
That is going to incline you to steal more. I do want to also tell you about another classic study, which probably also couldn't be done today. There's this psychologist we've talked about before named Phil Zimbardo.

00:12:35 Speaker_03
And Mike, you remember we talked about the Stanford prison experiment when we were recently discussing evil and what evil is. Yes.

00:12:42 Speaker_03
He had prior done these experiments where students would put on either a plain lab coat with a hood that like kind of concealed their identity. That was one condition in this experiment.

00:12:56 Speaker_03
And in another condition, you're also donning a lab coat, but now there's a name tag to say who you are, and there's no hood. So this is very similar to the Halloween experiment. It's like, do I know who you are, or do I not know who you are?

00:13:09 Speaker_03
And he instructs the volunteers to give an electric shock to a person who they think is actually receiving it. This is very similar to the Milgram

00:13:20 Speaker_03
experiment, but the finding is that when you are hooded and when you are nameless, you're twice as likely to comply with these instructions to administer painful electric shock.

00:13:33 Speaker_03
I think that evidence, you know, is very old and you can't really replicate it today. I mean, it rings true to me when I do look at the contemporary environment. Like, there was a time where I would read my Amazon reviews.

00:13:45 Speaker_03
I'm no longer in that time, not just because my book came out a million years ago, but also because I have found it to not be a healthy exercise to read Amazon reviews, good or bad.

00:13:56 Speaker_03
But during this era, when I would scroll through and look, it's like one star, I don't believe it, and it's boring. Would that person look at me in the face and say, I give you one star. I mean, maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't.

00:14:13 Speaker_03
Maybe it's a good thing that they can make these comments anonymously. But I have felt in the contemporary online environment that the ability to say and do things where you are effectively masked, I'm going to go with it's net negative.

00:14:30 Speaker_01
So I think for a long time, there has been this idea that if everyone had to stand behind every comment they made online, that we would all behave much better. And I think that is, in many senses, largely true.

00:14:43 Speaker_01
But there's also what's been called the real name fallacy. And there was a assistant professor of communications at Cornell University named Nathan Matias, who worked on something called the Coral Project.

00:14:55 Speaker_01
and they bring journalists and communities together through open source tools and strategies.

00:15:00 Speaker_01
And what they actually found was that forcing real names in online communities actually sometimes had a reverse impact of increasing discrimination and worsening harassment.

00:15:10 Speaker_03
Wait, why would that be?

00:15:11 Speaker_01
If you think about it, when you reveal personal information, it sometimes can expose people, for example, to sexism or to racism.

00:15:20 Speaker_03
If you say who you are, you've revealed a vulnerability and then people can. take advantage of it. I think this is an interesting question.

00:15:29 Speaker_03
There is this questionnaire called the Online Anonymity Questionnaire, and it was developed by psychologists who really, I think, did want to know about the modern equivalent of wearing a mask. So, seeking anonymity in these online forums.

00:15:46 Speaker_03
And they develop questions that really fall into two buckets, and they identify these as two primary motivations for wanting to be anonymous online.

00:15:58 Speaker_03
The two buckets are anonymous self-expression, that's the upside that I'll talk about a little bit, and then anonymous toxicity, so that's the downside.

00:16:08 Speaker_03
So, the toxicity items are, for example, I am more likely to do things that are unlawful or illegal when I am anonymous online. When I am anonymous online, I do things that are normally unacceptable in society.

00:16:24 Speaker_03
Being anonymous online is fun because I don't get in trouble for what I say.

00:16:28 Speaker_01
Okay, these are all fascinating because I don't even think like this.

00:16:32 Speaker_03
I know, you're like, who are these people? Like, it's terrifying.

00:16:35 Speaker_01
I have better things to do with my time than just be like, I want to go make people mad online just for the sake of riling people up. I'm not saying I'm some pure, perfect person by any means.

00:16:48 Speaker_03
But you would say not at all like me, right?

00:16:50 Speaker_01
Not only not at all like me, I've literally never contemplated the idea of engaging this way. It's not crossed my mind.

00:16:57 Speaker_03
Okay, same. Here are some items from the anonymous self-expression subscale. I feel more comfortable disclosing information about my ideas, thoughts, and feelings when I am anonymous online.

00:17:10 Speaker_03
Being anonymous online allows me to share thoughts and feelings I otherwise would not share with people who know me. being anonymous online allows me to experiment with new ideas, et cetera, et cetera.

00:17:22 Speaker_03
And I think they find that the motivation to seek anonymity in order to express yourself in this sense more truthfully really may come from a sense of anxiety or, you know, insecurity that, you know, now when I'm veiled, I can say what I really think.

00:17:40 Speaker_01
Exactly. And I think Angela and I would love to hear your thoughts on how putting on a mask or a disguise affects your or other people's behavior.

00:17:49 Speaker_01
So record a voice memo in a quiet place with your mouth close to the phone and email it to us at NSQ at Freakonomics.com. And maybe we'll play it on a future episode of the show.

00:18:02 Speaker_06
Still to come on No Stupid Questions, in what way does your everyday clothing act as a mask?

00:18:09 Speaker_03
Very Steve Jobs, very Mark Zuckerberg, and very Barack Obama.

00:18:22 Speaker_06
Now, back to Mike and Angela's conversation about disguise.

00:18:30 Speaker_01
So Angela, my mind, as you were talking about this, immediately went to the workplace where I think there are some of these same upsides and downsides of anonymity.

00:18:38 Speaker_01
Of course, in the workplace, there are always opportunities to give feedback anonymously. Some of the virtues of that are if I have a toxic boss or I'm in a situation that's somewhat untenable, I may not feel comfortable giving that feedback

00:18:54 Speaker_01
publicly, but I am willing to do it anonymously. And so it's this like virtuous way to allow people to say things they might not otherwise say. Right. On the flip side, there are downsides as well.

00:19:07 Speaker_01
There's a business professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School that talked about some of the downsides of anonymity at work.

00:19:14 Speaker_01
He mentions that if you tell people that in the workplace we want to encourage you to be able to comment anonymously, it sends kind of the subliminal message that it's not safe to speak up here, like that we have a culture where you can't do that.

00:19:30 Speaker_01
tell the truth. And that's why we have to provide an anonymous thing. The second thing he points out, and I'm going to use terminology we use, but it can lead to who hunting. Like who said that?

00:19:41 Speaker_01
So even if it was anonymous, people love to go who hunting.

00:19:44 Speaker_03
I've never heard that. It sounds like from Dr. Seuss, although you probably wouldn't want to hunt who's if you weren't Dr. Seuss, that would be a little grim.

00:19:52 Speaker_01
But I've got a co-worker, Julie, who always talks about when there's feedback that's coming in, we don't go who hunting. That's not the point.

00:20:00 Speaker_01
And then the third and maybe most important thing that this professor brings up is the idea that if it's anonymous, I don't know how to go fix it.

00:20:08 Speaker_01
If someone's saying, hey, there's this issue, but I can't come talk to you more about it, I can't get context from you, it makes us less capable of correction.

00:20:18 Speaker_03
Well, let me ask you this. You teach a class at BYU. I teach classes to undergraduates and have for, oh my gosh, nearly two decades. That's a lot of anonymous commenting. Right. Because I am sure you have ratings, right? And so the ratings are numeric.

00:20:36 Speaker_03
But also there's that open comment box that, at least at our university, you can fill with whatever you want. And in a large enough class, nobody is going to know. What do you think about that?

00:20:48 Speaker_03
What have your experiences been of positive and negative comments that are anonymous as a teacher?

00:20:55 Speaker_01
I mean, what I try to do is calibrate them all.

00:20:57 Speaker_01
We have 350 students, and they have an opportunity after every single class period to provide feedback via survey, to tell us what went well, what they liked, what they didn't like, and what they might suggest we do differently.

00:21:11 Speaker_03
Which is unusual, right? Did you guys make that up? I'm sure your university didn't make you ask people every class.

00:21:17 Speaker_01
Yeah, we just made that up and said that we wanted to get that level of feedback.

00:21:21 Speaker_03
I do the same thing, by the way.

00:21:22 Speaker_01
You do every class period.

00:21:24 Speaker_03
Every class. I have them rate me. Well, I have them rate their own engagement because that's the only thing they know.

00:21:30 Speaker_04
Right.

00:21:30 Speaker_03
But effectively, it's a consumer rating of the class. I think I use a zero to 10 scale. And then they have an open comment box for questions, things that they still don't understand. They really actually say whatever they want.

00:21:45 Speaker_03
I don't think most classes are run this way, but go on.

00:21:47 Speaker_01
I would just say we try to calibrate it. And obviously, if there's a one-off comment that is not reflective either on the positive or negative of sort of the experience of the rest of the class, then you might do less with it.

00:22:00 Speaker_01
But as you calibrate and there's some signal coming out of the noise saying, hey, these are things that are consistently or among many people that need change.

00:22:09 Speaker_03
Do you think that you would get more information or less information if students had to tell you who they were?

00:22:16 Speaker_01
Given the type of information we're getting, I don't know that it would be wildly different, to be completely honest, because none of it is so vitriolic on the one side or so celebratory on the other.

00:22:27 Speaker_01
It's more tactical in things that we could change, or we don't resonate with that guest speaker or this topic. My gut instinct says, though, that it would be more milquetoast, more neutral if you had to put your name to everything. What is your gut?

00:22:41 Speaker_01
What's your experience with this as well?

00:22:43 Speaker_03
First of all, I can remember almost every negative comment I've gotten over two decades. I'm not as good at calibrating, looking for the center of gravity.

00:22:51 Speaker_03
You're doing what you should do, which is to say, look, if one person says something, you know, you might take notice.

00:22:57 Speaker_03
But really, if like two people or now three people, then there's really evidence that this isn't about this person, but there's a problem.

00:23:05 Speaker_04
Right.

00:23:05 Speaker_03
I don't do that. I just like obsess about every negative comment. Sad. I feel like that's not healthy. So true. But I think it's a really good question. I mean, most surveys are anonymous.

00:23:16 Speaker_03
Most polls, like who are you going to vote for in the next presidential election, are anonymous. You know, ratings of teachers are anonymous. I don't think anybody is saying, like, oh, let's try a poll where you're not anonymous.

00:23:28 Speaker_03
I think there is the assumption that anonymity is that veil that enables you to be more truthful You know, the Halloween study that I told you about with Ed Diener was like, oh, when you're anonymous, you're more deceitful.

00:23:42 Speaker_03
But my gut is that I would certainly not receive as many negative comments. I mean, I don't receive a lot, but I would receive fewer if it were identified. I think probably it is net better to be anonymous.

00:23:56 Speaker_03
And I have to say, much as I hate negative reviews and much as I think there is this kind of like non-accountability,

00:24:04 Speaker_03
I think in this case, I'm arguing myself into a position I did not think I would take, which is that perhaps anonymity in certain contexts is for the best.

00:24:16 Speaker_01
I mean, I definitely think it has its place.

00:24:19 Speaker_03
Yeah, well, you know, if you're thinking about costumes not just insofar as they mask your identity, which they don't all do, by the way, it doesn't seem to me like Halloween trick-or-treaters are walking around with full face or head masks where you really don't know who they are.

00:24:37 Speaker_03
They tend to, in my personal experience, be choosing costumes where you can mostly see them.

00:24:43 Speaker_01
In fact, there are statistics actually where we used to try to cover ourselves up completely and hide. And maybe now we're moving as society to even more risque costumes where we cover as little as possible sometimes.

00:24:54 Speaker_03
Oh, is that right?

00:24:55 Speaker_01
Not in children, but yeah.

00:24:57 Speaker_03
There was this temporary Halloween store that would regularly take over this empty retail space near where Jason and I lived. They would only rent it for, I guess, the month of October. They would have this big sign, you know, Halloween costumes.

00:25:12 Speaker_03
I remember taking Amanda and Lucy. when they were little, because I was like, oh, there's a pop-up Halloween store. Amazing. They couldn't be more excited.

00:25:19 Speaker_03
And there was, like, nothing appropriate in the entire, you know, 2,000-square-foot space for anybody below the age of 21, I would say. Oh, gosh.

00:25:29 Speaker_03
But when you think about other aspects of costuming, Isaac Bashevis Singer, who is a, you know, writer and thinker from a long time ago, said, what a strange power there is in clothing.

00:25:42 Speaker_03
And so I wasn't reading an Isaac Beshevis singer short story or anything when I read this. I was reading the work of a great psychologist named Adam Galinsky.

00:25:51 Speaker_01
Oh, you know, Adam, he was my professor.

00:25:53 Speaker_03
I was going to say at the time he was at Northwestern.

00:25:54 Speaker_01
He taught my very first ever business school class.

00:25:57 Speaker_03
OK, well, there you go. And this is an article that he published in 2012. Were you there then?

00:26:03 Speaker_01
Yes.

00:26:03 Speaker_03
So this article was called Enclosed Cognition. The co-authors are Adam Kalinske and Hajo Adam. And it begins with the Isaac Beshevis singer quote, what a strange power there is in clothing.

00:26:18 Speaker_03
And the definition of enclosed cognition, a term that they invented, I think, is, quote, to describe the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes.

00:26:30 Speaker_03
You know, the idea is that it's not only like you are what you eat, but maybe you are what you wear.

00:26:36 Speaker_01
Which, by the way, I buy this 100 percent.

00:26:40 Speaker_03
You're like, I don't need data. Well, I mean, what I'm wearing.

00:26:43 Speaker_01
Right. Sometimes.

00:26:44 Speaker_03
What are you wearing right now, by the way? And I can't see behind the microphone.

00:26:47 Speaker_01
I'm wearing a black. I wear a black T-shirt every day.

00:26:50 Speaker_03
OK.

00:26:51 Speaker_01
I own a whole bunch of the exact same black T-shirt. And that's what I wear.

00:26:56 Speaker_03
Very Steve Jobs. Very Mark Zuckerberg and very Barack Obama.

00:26:59 Speaker_01
Yes. And I am not putting myself in the category of any of them, except in that I wear the same thing every day.

00:27:04 Speaker_03
A black T-shirt and what?

00:27:05 Speaker_01
And then I wear, they're called Built, it's a brand, I wear Built pants and a black t-shirt every day.

00:27:11 Speaker_01
But if I'm wearing a suit versus I'm sweaty from a workout or dirty from working in the yard or something, it absolutely changes both in maybe my own self-conscious approach to how am I fitting in here, but also how I feel about myself.

00:27:28 Speaker_01
in that moment. So I buy this completely sans data, but I'd still love to hear the data.

00:27:32 Speaker_03
Yeah, well, I like you resonate with it completely. So in this experiment, the first experiment that introduced this idea of enclosed cognition, you are asked to wear a lab coat like a white lab coat, or you are not asked to wear a lab coat.

00:27:51 Speaker_03
And that's the only manipulation. And then you basically have to do this task in the lab that requires selective attention, so it's a high cognitive load task.

00:28:01 Speaker_03
And the question is, does it make a difference whether you put on a white coat to do it or not? And the finding is, yeah, it does. If you wear a white lab coat, you are better at this basic but high load cognitive attention task.

00:28:21 Speaker_03
So that's experiment one.

00:28:23 Speaker_03
And then, as follow-ups, they probe a little deeper, and they say, well, what if you interpret that white lab coat as like, oh, scientist, right, and all the associations of like, you know, I'm now stepping into the role of somebody who, you know, pays attention, is really careful, et cetera.

00:28:40 Speaker_03
What if you instead give the frame, oh, please put on this coat, but, you know, it's a painter's smock? Well, then you get very different experiments.

00:28:48 Speaker_03
So in the follow-up experiments where you are thinking that it's a painter, you don't get this boost in selective attention.

00:28:56 Speaker_01
So in the first condition, I'm putting on a lab coat. In the second experiment, is it the exact same coat? I'm just told it's a painter's smock that time, but there's no difference in the coat itself.

00:29:06 Speaker_03
Yeah, there's no difference in the code. It's just that in the second experiment, they vary it between being called and framed as a doctor's coat versus a painter's coat.

00:29:17 Speaker_01
And if I'm wearing what I think is a painter's coat, I don't perform better. But if I'm wearing what I think is a doctor's coat, even though it's the same coat, I perform much better. Right. That's fascinating.

00:29:28 Speaker_03
So their idea is that there's something that happens when we put on a costume or even like if we think about our own closet, there are certain things in it that like, you know, bring out different selves.

00:29:40 Speaker_03
But I think the point of the follow-up studies is that there has to be the symbolism. that goes along with the physicality.

00:29:47 Speaker_03
You know, when we dress up in black for a funeral, it's not just that there's a physical act of putting on something black, but it's also you know you're dressing up in black for a funeral. By the way, there was a lot of interest in the study.

00:30:00 Speaker_03
Then there were a lot of skeptics of the study. Then there was a lot of question about whether this was a real finding. or a fluke. Just last year, there was a meta-analysis, meaning, like, all the studies had been published.

00:30:14 Speaker_03
Let's average the effects together. And Adam Galinsky and Hajo Adam were co-authors on this. And the first author was a graduate student at the time at Columbia. Basically, the findings hold up.

00:30:26 Speaker_03
But I guess the point is that when we don a costume, I mean, just like Isaac Bezhevis' singer intimated, you know, when we step into a role, and we know what that role is, this is the symbolic part, right?

00:30:42 Speaker_03
It's not just the physicality of the costume, but sort of knowing everything that goes on with it, that it changes us. And I think it's profound. And I don't know that Isaac Bashevis Singer would have anticipated the changes in norms for dressing.

00:30:55 Speaker_03
But I find it really interesting that I can wear sneakers to teach these days, even at Wharton, and not really raise an eyebrow. Or you could be in a board meeting and you could be wearing like a tracksuit.

00:31:10 Speaker_03
Like the norms for the costumes that we're wearing have become decidedly less formal. And I have wondered what effect that might have on how we behave.

00:31:23 Speaker_01
I think it's a fascinating question, and I think, Angela, I would love to wrap up this conversation in a bit of a different way and just take us to something that's also somewhat timely with masks and the political world.

00:31:38 Speaker_01
It's not totally related to Spencer's question, but I think it's interesting. So, you've talked about these pop-up Halloween shops.

00:31:45 Speaker_01
There's a company called Spirit Halloween, and you often see them in these kind of empty box stores, as you've mentioned. They claim to have predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1996 based on which candidate's mask

00:32:03 Speaker_01
is selling better. Now, I couldn't find any spirit Halloween data for 2020, but HalloweenCostumes.com in 2020 said that Biden masks outsold Trump masks 58% Biden, 42% Trump, and Biden won.

00:32:18 Speaker_03
Now what's going on this year? I want to know who's going to win.

00:32:21 Speaker_01
For the 2024 race, Spirit Halloween is not actually selling any Kamala Harris masks. I don't know why. I wonder if maybe she became the candidate too late.

00:32:30 Speaker_03
Wait, they are selling Trump masks, but no Harris masks?

00:32:35 Speaker_01
Correct.

00:32:35 Speaker_03
Fascinating.

00:32:37 Speaker_01
And again, I don't know why, but she became the candidate fairly late in the cycle and maybe manufacturing and distribution couldn't catch up quick enough.

00:32:46 Speaker_01
Like with our hockey jerseys, for example, we have a new hockey team that had their first game recently and we won't have any jerseys to sell for months because they were only able to make enough for the players.

00:33:00 Speaker_03
Hmm. See, I was going all conspiracy theory on you, but maybe you're right, because it's an unexpected turn of events that Kamala Harris is the Democratic, you know, candidate.

00:33:10 Speaker_03
So there are no data that you know of that can predict the outcome of this election.

00:33:15 Speaker_01
Not based on masks, but interesting that in the past, that's what's happened.

00:33:19 Speaker_03
Ugh, I really wish there were. I think what this says to me about masks is not only do they sometimes allow you to be more truthful, they sometimes allow you to be more deceitful, but maybe the mask you choose says more about you than we think.

00:33:39 Speaker_01
So choose carefully.

00:33:43 Speaker_06
Coming up after the break, a fact check of today's episode and stories from our NSQ listeners. And now here's a fact check of today's conversation.

00:34:00 Speaker_06
The journalist who wrote the CNN article on the history of Halloween that Mike references is named Mariana Serrini. And the Pittsburgh company that began licensing characters for costumes in the early 20th century was called the J Halpern Company.

00:34:15 Speaker_06
They actually produced the sort of drugstore boxed costumes that Angela would later covet as a young trick-or-treater.

00:34:22 Speaker_06
Mike's framing of the history of Halloween makes it sound as if its shift to a holiday for young children was a result of adults committing Halloween violence and vandalism.

00:34:32 Speaker_06
According to author and Halloween expert Lisa Morton, this kind of behavior was usually attributed to adolescent boys. During the 1930s, community organizations began to throw costume parades and house-to-house parties to keep kids out of trouble.

00:34:48 Speaker_06
which Morton says ultimately evolved into trick-or-treating as we know it today.

00:34:53 Speaker_06
Finally, Angela says that the students who participated in psychologist Philip Zimbardo's 1969 deindividuation experiment were twice as likely to comply with instructors to administer painful electric shocks when they had anonymity.

00:35:07 Speaker_06
The finding was actually that they delivered shocks that were twice as long in duration. Zimbardo, who passed away earlier this month, was a leading figure in the study of how situations can transform human behavior.

00:35:20 Speaker_06
As we noted in a previous episode, much of Zimbardo's research is controversial. And as with the Stanford Prison Experiment, critics have raised theoretical and empirical concerns. That's it for the Fact Check.

00:35:34 Speaker_06
Before we wrap today's show, let's hear some thoughts about last week's episode on excuses.

00:35:40 Speaker_08
Hi Angela and Mike, Sasha here responding to your episode in making excuses. I think there's a thin line between making excuses and standing up for yourself or protecting yourself.

00:35:52 Speaker_08
The word excuse to me has a judgmental and critical tone and kind of indicates an expectation that the person needs to complete what they committed to no matter what.

00:36:02 Speaker_08
This judgment lacks empathy and gives more weight to performance and expectations over human nature and self-care. It's okay to cancel plans because you need to take care of yourself.

00:36:15 Speaker_08
It's okay to give reasons to your management on why some tasks weren't accomplished and point out systematic issues in the company.

00:36:23 Speaker_08
An example of Simone Biles at the Tokyo Olympics comes to mind, where in the eyes of the public she failed to do what she was expected to do and her excuse, quote-unquote, was choosing her physical and mental health over achievement.

00:36:38 Speaker_08
Even calling it an excuse seemed demeaning and what she did was a heroic act and a precedent for everyone following her to be able to protect themselves too.

00:36:48 Speaker_02
Hi, Mike and Angela. As someone who has taught in elementary and middle school for 25 years and is fascinated with the development of personal responsibility, I really enjoyed your episode about excuse making.

00:36:59 Speaker_02
I did want to add one potential thought to the discussion, which is that there does seem to be a link between how deeply children feel the sting of making a mistake and their ability to take responsibility for the actions that led to the problem.

00:37:11 Speaker_02
Some children seem to feel every mistake as unbearable and have a hard time differentiating between small mistakes and big mistakes.

00:37:19 Speaker_02
This tends to mean that they also have a very hard time seeing that they had any agency in the creation of the problem. They need to blame it on outside sources and as a result problems tend to repeat themselves due to lack of a growth mindset.

00:37:33 Speaker_07
Hi Angela and Mike, my name is Cherry and I live in Singapore. I think sometimes making excuses can be good for ourselves and others. I've been married for 16 years to my wonderful husband Johnny. He often makes excuses to help the family and others.

00:37:49 Speaker_07
My daughter is in the drama club and often she has to make lots of props and the preparation can be really time-consuming.

00:37:57 Speaker_07
but she didn't really want to trouble us so he would just say something like he's been feeling really bored and looking for a project to work on anyways and he will volunteer to source the materials for hours so I think we should all be a little bit more like Johnny and make more excuses to help others

00:38:18 Speaker_07
It also ties in with the previous episode of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Because maybe sometimes making us feel good could be a good excuse to do more good.

00:38:28 Speaker_00
Hi Angela and Mike, Robert from Orlando. Wanted to comment on your recent episode on making excuses, but I'm sorry I just don't have the time.

00:38:38 Speaker_06
That was, respectively, Sasha Lutova, Tom Fisher, Cherry Chang, and Robert Shade. Thanks to them and to everyone who shared their stories with us. And remember, we'd love to hear your thoughts on costumes and disguise.

00:38:53 Speaker_06
Send a voice memo to nsq at Freakonomics.com, and you might hear your voice on the show. Coming up next week on No Stupid Questions, what's wrong with proud parents sharing photos and stories of their children online?

00:39:12 Speaker_01
Mom, you have ruined my life. Look at all the stuff that you've put out there about me.

00:39:18 Speaker_06
That's coming up on No Stupid Questions. No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio, People I Mostly Admire, and The Economics of Everyday Things.

00:39:31 Speaker_06
All our shows are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. The senior producer of the show is me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and Lierke Bowditch is our production associate. This episode was mixed by Greg Rippin.

00:39:44 Speaker_06
We had research assistance from Daniel Moritz Rapson. Our theme song was composed by Luis Guerra.

00:39:50 Speaker_06
You can follow us on Twitter at NSQ underscore show, and you can watch video clips of Mike and Angela at the Freakonomics Radio Network's YouTube Shorts channel, or on Freakonomics Radio's TikTok page.

00:40:03 Speaker_06
If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to NSQ at Freakonomics dot com. To learn more or to read episode transcripts, visit Freakonomics.com slash NSQ. Thanks for listening.

00:40:24 Speaker_01
I would escape and be wild and free in my own being.

00:40:33 Speaker_05
The Freakonomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything. Stitcher.