BIG QUESTIONS FROM SMALL MINDS

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About The Guest: Associate Professor Sabina Kleitman

Sabina Kletman is a psychologist from the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney.

She has conducted research on various topics including the detection of psychopathic traits in emotional faces, the impostor phenomenon, and metacognition.

Summary of Episode:

In this episode, Sabina explains the concept of reverse psychology and how it can be used to trick rebellious individuals into doing what you want.

She also discusses the difficulty of determining if someone is a “bad person” based on their facial expressions and the challenges of detecting lies.

Sabina explains that our initial impressions of people are influenced by their facial expressions, body language, and our previous experiences. She also discusses the phenomenon of feeling terrible before class presentations and explains that it is a natural response known as the fight or flight response.

Associate Professor Kletman provides techniques for managing anxiety before presentations, such as deep breathing and adopting a confident posture.

She also discusses the concept of impostor syndrome, where successful individuals feel like frauds and fear being exposed. Sabina explains that metacognition is the ability to think about our own thinking and how it can help with learning and decision-making.

She also addresses the fear of missing out and provides strategies for managing it, such as practicing gratitude and limiting social media use.

The Enigma of Reverse Psychology

Reverse psychology is a fascinating concept that has intrigued many of us. But what exactly is it?

According to Associate Professor Kleitman, reverse psychology involves telling rebellious individuals something that you want them to do the opposite of, in order to trick them into doing what you actually want.

It’s a clever way of manipulating behavior by appealing to a person’s desire to defy authority or expectations.

However, the effectiveness of reverse psychology varies from person to person. As Kleitman explains, “It works on everyone if you know how to push the buttons.”

Some individuals are more prone to rebelling against rules and regulations, making them susceptible to reverse psychology.

On the other hand, people with low motivation or those who prefer to follow instructions may find reverse psychology confusing.

Decoding Facial Expressions and Detecting Deception

Can we judge a person’s character by looking at their face? This is a question that has intrigued many of us.

Kleitman’s research suggests that facial expressions alone are not reliable indicators of a person’s true nature. She states, “We could not see that people could do it. People were terrible at it.”

When it comes to detecting deception, the situation is no different. Kleitman’s research shows that humans are generally poor at detecting lies.

Unless someone is particularly bad at lying, it is challenging to discern the truth from their facial expressions or body language.

Those twitches and scratches we often associate with deception may simply be signs of anxiety or discomfort.

The Mysteries of Memory

Memory is a complex and fascinating aspect of human cognition. When it comes to forgetting something like a word, Kleitman explains that it could be due to the information being stored in our long-term memory, making it difficult to retrieve.

Additionally, factors such as sleep deprivation, chronic stress, or mood can affect our working memory, which is responsible for processing and storing information temporarily.

We all have our techniques for remembering things, such as association or repetition. However, Kleitman highlights the importance of attaching significance to the information we want to remember.

Merely memorizing something for an exam without truly understanding its relevance may lead to forgetting it shortly after.

The Anxiety of Presentations

Many of us experience anxiety before public speaking or class presentations.

This fear is a natural response known as the fight-or-flight response. Our bodies prepare us for potentially threatening situations by increasing blood flow to our muscles and flooding our brains with adrenaline.

While a moderate amount of adrenaline can enhance performance, excessive anxiety can hinder our ability to think clearly and perform well.

Professor Kletman suggests various techniques to manage presentation anxiety, such as deep breathing exercises and adopting a confident posture. However, she acknowledges that everyone is different, and what works for one person may not work for another.

It is essential to find strategies that help regulate anxiety levels and promote a sense of calm.

The Imposter Phenomenon

The imposter phenomenon is a psychological experience where successful individuals feel like frauds, believing that their achievements are due to luck or external factors rather than their own abilities.

Kleitman explains that this phenomenon can have a negative impact on mental well-being and may lead individuals to self-sabotage.

While some people genuinely experience imposter feelings, others strategically adopt the role of an imposter to elicit help and support from others.

On the other hand, there are individuals who are genuinely imposters, lacking the skills or qualifications they claim to possess. It is crucial to differentiate between these different types of imposter experiences and provide appropriate support and guidance.

Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking

Metacognition refers to the ability to think about our own thinking processes. It involves being aware of what we know and what we don’t know.

Kleitman highlights the importance of metacognition in learning and decision-making. By understanding our own knowledge and limitations, we can make more informed choices and avoid overconfidence.

Metacognition also plays a role in knowing when to give up on a problem or task. Kleitman’s research explores the concept of “miscalibration,” where individuals may have high confidence but low accuracy.

Being aware of our own biases and limitations can help us switch to a more systematic thinking process and make better decisions.

The Fear of Missing Out

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is a prevalent phenomenon in today’s digital age. Social media often exacerbates this fear, as we compare our lives to the seemingly perfect lives of others. Kleitman suggests strategies to combat FOMO, such as limiting social media use and practicing gratitude for what we have.

It is essential to remember that social media often presents a curated version of reality, and the happiness we perceive may not reflect the full picture.

By focusing on our own experiences and cultivating gratitude, we can overcome the fear of missing out and find contentment in our own lives.

Conclusion: Unraveling the Complexities of the Human Mind

In this thought-provoking podcast episode, we explored various aspects of psychology with Professor Sabina Kletman.

From reverse psychology to the imposter phenomenon, we gained insights into the intricacies of the human mind. While many questions remain unanswered, ongoing research and exploration continue to shed light on the complexities of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

As we move forward, it is crucial to approach psychology with an open mind and a willingness to challenge our assumptions.

By embracing the uncertainties and complexities of the human mind, we can foster a deeper understanding of ourselves and others.

Let us continue to ask big questions and seek answers that will shape the future of psychology.

Keep listening to Big Questions from Small Minds as we delve into more fascinating topics and explore the depths of human psychology.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to big questions from small minds, the podcast where we ask professors questions that seem too massive, too complicated or even stupid. We also have lots of intelligent questions. No, not ours. They’re questions from actual small minds, children’s Tom, get your great stuff ready. Today we’re talking psychology. Oh, you know what? We were going to get a child psychologist, but they were too young. We’re talking with professor Sabina Clayton.

00:29

a psychologist from the faculty of science at the University of Sydney. Previously, she’s researched the detection of psychopathic traits in emotional faces, the imposter phenomenon and metacognition. This episode is going to be all about the brain. And you know what that means? Totally mental. How does your brain work? What will the world be like in a hundred years if we don’t fix climate change? Why do I have to sleep? Can robots have emotions?

00:59

Questions from Small Minds Sabina, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. So a little bit about you. When you were younger, were you always analysing your parents, going, they’re doing it wrong, or you’re looking at adults and thinking, they’re doing it wrong. How did you get into psychology? You’re absolutely right. I always analysed my parents. It used to drive them insane.

01:24

It still does. I got into psychology, trying to understand people and people’s behavior. Guess what? I’m still trying to do that. Many years later. Okay. First up, the question that I really want to know reverse psychology. What is it? Um, it’s telling rebellious people something which you want them to do the opposite of.

01:50

So you trick them into doing something which you want them to do by telling them the opposite. If you’re listening to this, please do not like our podcast. Do not tell all your friends about us and definitely do not send us $10. We will not accept it. I’m still real. I’m confused. Yeah, you’ve reversed psychology yourself. And does it work? I think it works on everyone if you know how to push the buttons. Are you just saying that as a reverse psychology and it doesn’t actually work?

02:20

Possibly. Did it work on you? Yeah. I think your question Tom should be reverse psychology. What is it and why doesn’t it work? Is there a difference between obviously saying the opposite to what you want and using reverse psychology? Like if I went home tonight and said to my wife, whatever you do tonight, do not bake me a chocolate cake. The chances of me getting a chocolate cake is still zero. It typically works on kids. If you keep nagging them, make your bed. Make your bed.

02:50

make your bed and nothing is happening. Try saying, I order you not to make your bed. Just don’t do it and see whether it worked or not. But you might have a kid who likes to do what he or she is told. And so that would be very confusing for them. I have two sons. For one of them, reverse psychology worked very well. For the other one,

03:13

He found it totally confusing. Everybody was looking at him going, okay, he’s actually doing that now. So be careful who you’re addressing. It works for the people who like to not follow the rules and regulation. So for these people, if you tell them to do something, they might as well do the opposite, but you might have people with a low motivation like that, and they would be as confused as my little one. So it doesn’t work on everybody all the time. No.

03:42

Good luck with that people! We’re going to go to our first kids question now. If you look at someone’s face, can you tell if they’re a bad person? Well we’ve done a study on that and we could not see that people could do it. Oh no. So people were terrible. Can machines do it? I think you really need to look at the people’s behaviour rather than their faces.

04:10

behavior, the way they present themselves, the way they answer, the way they talk, the way they relate to people. I don’t think by looking at their faces, we are very good at detecting those. What about if someone’s lying, where people say there’s tells, like their eyes look to the left, or they have a nervous twitch. Is that something that you can tell through psychology? Is that possible? We’ve done a study on that too. And no.

04:38

We had terrible detectors of people who are lying, unless people really bad at lying. And then all of us are very good to see that. And all these twitches, all these sort of scratches, they could be because somebody is anxious and want to get out or just really itchy. So we’re terrible at figuring out if someone’s gonna be trouble and we’re terrible at figuring out if someone’s lying. You’re absolutely right. Wow. So we don’t know what’s going on most of the time.

05:06

Do you think that’s an evolutionary trait? Because if we were suspicious of everyone all the time, we’d never progress as a society. I think it did have an evolutionary advantage. Because once we make this assumption, oh, this person is a trouble. We don’t connect to people. So if we keep believing that we can make this assumption just by looking at someone, we might not be able to make the good connections to so many people.

05:36

isolate yourself because you don’t trust anybody else. Exactly. Okay. Kids question. Is it true that you’ll know if you like someone in the first five seconds of meeting them, how is this even possible? Facial expression, body language, how people present themselves, whether they smile or whether they kind of give you this staring look and your previous experience also may play a role.

06:04

If somebody looks like someone you knew and you already like this person, it may give you an instant positive feeling towards these people. But if somebody looks like somebody you really did not like, you may not react to this person positively. But the way we look and present ourselves does matter. That’s why when we go for the job interviews, we dress our best. If I want someone who I didn’t know to like me.

06:33

I should just find five other people who look a little bit like me to go up and be nice to them.

06:42

And then when I turned up, they’ll be like, oh, I like people who look like this already. I like this guy. Oh, some people do that. Do they? It’s called the corn artist. That is true. They have the whole grip. Yeah, but I didn’t think they were like people who looked like them at the same time. That’s blow my mind. I’m gonna look out for an army of Phil’s now. There is an army of Phil’s out there. They don’t want you to know. Maybe I’m the Rube. You are the Rube. In fact, I remember the first time I met Phil and he was.

07:10

Stinky and he was smelt of beer and I thought this is a guy I could love Okay on to a kids question

07:22

How do I know if my brain can’t remember something? Like a word.

07:29

They have different types of memory. The word it’s stored somewhere in your longterm memory and it’s too far away and you’ve forgotten. The short term memory is also unpacked in a working memory. You can think about that as a window of opportunity when the information goes inside of your brain into the longterm storage. If your working memory is affected, it could be because of a sleep deprivation, because of a chronic stress.

07:57

because of mood, it could affect your working memory. The window may get smaller and smaller and smaller. And so this information is not getting in or out very well. Everyone’s got a technique on how to get that word. And my technique, when I can’t remember a word, I try and play, I try and play what? I play a… Association? Are you doing it right now? Someone fills it in and it’s great!

08:25

I see what you’re doing. Sometimes you’ve forgotten because we didn’t attach importance to something. So it might be lurking somewhere. I see that all the time that people learn the information, just pass the exam, pass the exam, off it goes and forget immediately. That’s not a great strategy because if it was an exam, you probably may need it in your future life. You’d hope so. Trigonometry. Don’t remember any of that. Never needed it.

08:54

Driving on the other hand, that’s very true. Different types of memory. So is that why if my wife tells me something to do in the morning, I can forget it instantly, but I can remember all the words from ice ice baby from 1993? Possibly. I would not want to be your wife listening to this podcast right now. But what you really want to hear is him doing all the lyrics from start to finish.

09:18

All right, stop collaborate and listen. I said back with that’s enough. And more importantly, is there a way I can get ice ice baby out of my head? I don’t need that anymore. It’s taking up space. I presume. It’s a real question. Yeah. Can you get rid of stuff you don’t want to remember? Um, not my area. Don’t really know, but if there’s something you want to stop, you can either replace it with something else. Is there another catchy song?

09:48

which you don’t want to remember. No, but I don’t want to replace it. Like song I don’t want with another song I don’t want. I put a Kylie Minogue song in there instead. Kylie Minogue is like the answer though. If I can’t get a song out of my head, I think about a Kylie Minogue song and it disappears. There you go. But then it comes back the minute I hear, stop, collaborate and listen. Stop, collaborate, locomotion. Look, I’ll give it a try. I’ll let you know how it goes. Okay, kids question.

10:18

Why do I feel terrible before class presentations? That’s a good one. Quite a lot of people feel terrible before something they may not like or they may be afraid. It’s our natural response to survive the unpleasant situation, known as fight-or-flight response. Our body gives us help. Blood rushes to our muscles, more oxygen to our brain.

10:48

and we get pumped with adrenaline. For some people, it gives us a kick and we sort of learn to enjoy this feeling. And we have to remember that a moderate dose of that adrenaline actually helps us to speak better. That’s how we were designed to handle the strange and scary situations. But if we get too much, we start feeling unwell. And our brain switches off.

11:17

And this is when we feel my brain needs to function really well, but it doesn’t. I went blank.

11:25

Our anxiety levels went through a critical point and now it’s detrimental to our performance. And sometimes our body will feel really nauseous or terrible butterflies, our muscles can start to feel stressed. But there are techniques to help. Can you give us a couple of those techniques? I like to have breathing fingers. I go and I go over the finger. Well, it’s going to be listening.

11:53

Savina is going up and down each finger into the grooves of a finger while breathing in and out. That slows down the supply of oxygen and allows us to relax a little bit. But there are tons of techniques people in the theatre use.

12:11

something.

12:15

Some do what is known as a lion pose. I’m a bit scared to demonstrate. I want to describe it. She’s pretending to be Simba. She’s standing on a rock right now holding up a tiny lion cub to the prairie and yelling the Lion King. I’m going to drop you! Not quite that. The way you pretend to be a lion, you open your mouth very wide.

12:44

and you stick out your tongue and you breathe and you roll. Wow. And while you’re doing that that gives you this burst of confidence.

12:57

helps you to self-regulate your breath. And because regulating your breath is extremely important. This is the most exciting podcast we’ve done. I did exercise at once before one of the exams and person walked in while I was doing that, I don’t think that person ever was the same again. They might’ve had a bit of fight or flight themselves.

13:24

What is imposter syndrome? We try to stay away from the word syndrome. Imposter syndrome or phenomenon, it’s about successful people that feel that they are fakes. The person feels that achieved that level of success because that they were at the right place at the right time, the right people knew them, or because it was just a pure luck. And they feel next time they have to replicate this success, they wouldn’t be able to.

13:54

and people will find out what their frauds.

13:58

It has a negative effect on their mental wellbeing. And they know that people who have these feelings tend to self-sabotage themselves. Obviously the people in the right place at the right time did achieve the first time. So they might not actually be imposters. Well, there is another research which suggested that some people are strategic imposters. Strategic imposters? They pretend that they struggle so the others run to rescue them.

14:28

and give them a help which they would not do otherwise. Like the weakest link in the pack. Sort of. Like reverse imposters. Strategic imposter. And some people, really successful people at the top of their career, would come to us and go, I feel like that a lot of the time. What can I do? And there are some people who are actually imposters. They’re wrong. You know, they probably are in the wrong place. You’ve never met those? Yeah, well, that’s really sad.

14:58

That’s a really sad person to be. Anyone listening out there? I hope you’re not one of these people because it sounds, sounds awful. Unfortunately, we don’t have one type of help, which helped all different types of people. They are still figuring it out. But one thing which I keep advocating is think out of hundred times, you try to do something. How many times did you succeed? 90% of the time? Well, everybody fails sometimes.

15:28

It’s a normal part of the process. Well, if you succeeded more than 50, 50, you’re doing something right. You probably are not an imposter. You probably can’t replicate it. Embrace that was because you’ve done something amazing due to your talents, which puts you in that sport. So is feeling like an imposter, is that almost the opposite of being like really egotistical?

15:53

By egotistical, you mean narcissistic? Yeah. Like where you assume everything you do is amazing. I’ve done another research in which I wanted to separate the competence from arrogance. And I think this is where you’re going with that. Yes. What we’ve seen, the typically smarter people have a higher confidence. Thank goodness for it. Just imagine our world if it was another way around. Imagine your brain surgeon going in, Oh, I don’t know.

16:21

I can do this! But sometimes something happens and the confidence and the accuracy are very separate. They call it miscalibration. So we have the people who are well calibrated, their confidence is anchored in their accuracy, in their previous experiences, in how well they did. But people who are not well calibrated, we see people with high confidence, but their accuracy is nowhere to be found.

16:51

Their confidence is anchored in their personality. And this is where narcissism comes in. Those are these people who think that their best thing, their self-esteem is very high and they’re unrealistically optimistic. Those are the type of people who think if they come out, the chances of rain are less. I mean, that’s pretty confident. If you’re outside and you think it’s not going to rain just because you’re outside, that’s a lot of confidence. I always thought people were confident with the way they walk.

17:20

That could be the case. Do the people who volunteer for your experiments know they’re being experimented on? Every single time we have to go through a very thorough process of what is known as ethic approval. Sometimes it’s a low risk, sometimes it’s a high risk, but we cannot start a single experiment without getting the approval from the committee. And

17:50

We inform people before we start any experiment that this is what we do. Sometimes we hide the real reason, but then we explain it to them later on. And everybody who is a part of experiment knows very, very well that this is a part of experiment. We are the scientists. Yeah, that’s probably a good line to draw really. If you go in there and say, I want to be experimented on, I’m really keen to be experimented on.

18:19

So they just go, no, you’re crazy. But if you go in there with reverse psychology and say, I don’t want to be experimented on you, yeah, we’ll take you. It’s very important to make sure that every person who is a part of the experiment consent. Well, I consent. Can I volunteer? And how much do we get paid? It depends on the type of experiment. Do you get paid? You actually get paid? Yep. Some people do. We’ve just found the moment where Tom discovers his side hustle. And you know what volunteers wear?

18:48

Participants. That’s a good one. Next question.

18:58

How did you collect data during COVID as you were not supposed to see people? Oh, that’s a really brilliant question. Thank you for asking. We do experiments in different ways. Sometimes we program the questions as a survey online and we send people the link and they submit their answers, which we receive electronically. And then we don’t have to see them. Other times we do experiments in the lab.

19:29

And then we do see people, it did not obviously happen during COVID, especially lockdowns. But there are different ways of conducting the psychological experiments. In the lab or online, it could be paper and pencil or using a softwares or giving people different type of stimuli and looking how they react to it. How they react to noise, to colors, to something surprising.

19:58

I would have thought with a lot of the experiments, you want to observe them while they’re answering the questions. So if they’re online, would you have as much control as say if you were interviewing them or talking to them face to face? There are potentially differences online because you cannot see what people are doing and you might start thinking they might be just faking, right? So we have the algorithms to check whether the data is consistent.

20:26

and that somebody ignored the instructions or did something which was just ticking the boxes. We can screen it out, identify these people and not use their data because we know they didn’t do what we asked them to do. And if you do fake it, this is a very important question, if you do fake it, do you still get paid? That’s a good question.

20:50

Once again, sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. I think what Tom’s asking is if you sign up to do a questionnaire and then get your 10 year old son to do it, do you still get money? He’s very clever kid. He’s much smarter than me. So what is metacognition? Metacognition is thinking about your own thinking. It’s knowing about what you know and what you don’t know. Um, is it a bit like, I think therefore I am, I think.

21:20

This is something which helps us do better learning, smart learning, not hard learning. Because if you know that you know something, you don’t learn it again. If you know that you don’t know something, this is where you need to focus. It’s great for our decision making because if we are aware that we could be overconfident, we need to listen to the skeptical narrator, the careful voice in our head going, come on think again.

21:49

Ah, you need to think it over. My brain sends out a lot. Do do the thinking. So the switch our brain to what is known as a type two system too. Then we don’t act on our gut, but we start processing information systematically. How do you get your brain to flick over to system two? You’ve never been in the system one for so long. Where’s the switch? So metacognition should help.

22:16

It’s when you detect that something is funny happening and I should really think about it and think about this carefully. This is what metacognition is. It’s knowing about knowing or thinking about thinking. Wow. Thinking about thinking of knowing about knowing. Does thinking about how you think make you think more or less? And can you feel about feel feeling? You can always feel about feel. Was that a Freudian?

22:43

Okay. Back to your question. So the question was, so does thinking about how you think, make you think more or think less? Typically it should make people think more, but sometimes people just want to go enough and make a decisive choice in terminating thinking. It’s actually something which one of my PhD students is working on. How do you know when to give up? Oh, really?

23:10

And when you realize, okay, this is unsolvable or I cannot solve it, or I better invest my time into something else. I hope she finishes it before she doesn’t finish it. Yeah. Well, it’s him. We’re open about that. Well, he already published one of the papers and about to submit his second one. So I think he will finish and not to give up on a PhD about giving up.

23:39

So if you’re thinking about thinking, then who’s really doing the thinking? We don’t like to talk about the homo-culus. Why? Why don’t you like to talk about it? Is it scary? Yeah. A homo-culus sounds quite scary. Sounds like a spider. Whenever I talk about metacognition, my slide starts with a brain and instead of a lamp goes on, the little person sort of inside of the lamp goes on.

24:07

A person inside the person. Oh, a genie. Like a genie. Oh, right. And this is when you start processing. It’s still happening in the brain. We don’t know quite as yet where is it happening. Frontal lobes or prefrontal lobes. And there is some evidence for both. And is it possible that there’s a person inside that little person inside that person? Depends on the person, perhaps for Tom it might be. Person’s all the way down. Little Russian doll.

24:35

That’s a really good Why do we hate missing out? Good one Because we jealous because it makes us feel bad because we think other people have more fun We think somebody else does it right and I’m not doing right because look at their social media We’re all laughing and smiling can look amazing and I’m sitting here looking at their social media. What am I doing wrong? That’s probably why they feel bad Wow

25:04

That sucks. I’ve missed out a few times. Yeah. It’s not so bad. You know, you get over it after six years. The fear of missing out is something which social media contributes to a lot.

25:20

And if you do look at somebody’s social media profile and notice that they are smiley than normal, they look better than normal, you should realize that because people smile in the photograph doesn’t necessarily mean that their life is wonderful. And if you keep feeling that you’re missing out, there are a few things you can do. A, get away from social media. Not helpful. B.

25:47

Try to practice some gratitude. Think of the things which you’re actually grateful for, your house, your health, your ideas, your imagination, even your dream. Beautifully said, lovely, yeah. Or your dad listening to music with you.

26:04

and talk about that music he cannot get out of his head. Collaborate and listen. Sabina, thank you so much for coming on the show. Everything you’ve told us has been really, really interesting. Thank you for having me. It’s been fun chatting to you. And as always, you can find links to what we’ve talked about today on smallminds.au. Keep curious people and keep asking the big questions. Remember, fake it till you make it. No, no, that’s how imposter phenomenon happens. All right, don’t fake it till you make it.

26:34

Big questions from small minds.