×

We use cookies to help make LingQ better. By visiting the site, you agree to our cookie policy.


image

Happiness, 3.01 (V) Week 3 Video 1 - The need to be loved

3.01 (V) Week 3 Video 1 - The need to be loved

[MUSIC] Hello. I can't believe that we are already in the third week of this course. It seems like only yesterday that we met. How time flies! Anyway, given how little time we seem to have left with each other, I decided that I am going to start greeting you in various languages, from around the world, from now on. So here goes. Salaam Alekkum. Hi to all my friends who speak Arabic and also to everybody else. I hope you're enjoying the course. And talking of the course, the focus this week is on the third deadly happiness sin, the third habit of the highly happy, and the third exercise. The third deadly happiness sin comes in two varieties. The need to be loved or its opposite, the need to go it alone. Like this second sin, the need for superiority, this sin too is very common; and it's also totally understandable at one level why you would commit it. Later this week, I'll talk about the antidote to the sin, which is the need to love and give. And also talk about the third exercise which is something I call Creative Altruism. But first, in this video, let me introduce to you the third deadly happiness sin by discussing how human beings are probably the most social of all creatures. As Michael Norton and Elizabeth Dunn noted in their book Happy Money, if you were to wake up the happiest researcher in the middle of the night, and ask her quick, tell us one thing that we need to do in order to be happy. She'd probably tell you get our of my bedroom first. And then, she would quickly add double-up and maintain healthy relationships. There is nothing really more important for happiness than having healthy relationships. And most people seem to recognize this. Which is why if you look at the results of the genie question, great relationships is among the top three wishes. What this tells us is that we have a deep seated need to be connected with other people. Or more generally, as psychologists refer to it, we have a deep seated need to belong. There are many ways in which this need is expressed. One funny way in which we express it is by mimicking other people. We mimic others in order to signal to them that we're just like them and by doing that we hope that the other people will like us better, and therefore want to form a bond or a relationship with us. Here's a funny video that shows how prone we are to mimicking others. » The gentleman in the elevator now is a candid star. These folks who are entering, the man with the white shirt, the lady with a trenchcoat, and subsequently, one of the member of our staff will face the rear. And you'll see how this man in the trenchcoat. [SOUND] [LAUGH] Tries to maintain his individuality but little by little. He looks at his watch but he's really making an excuse for turning just a little bit more [LAUGH] to the wall. Now we'll try it once again. Here's the candid subject. Here comes the Candid Camera staff, three of them, at least. And this man has apparently been in groups before. » [LAUGH] [LAUGH]. » As I've mentioned sometime back, one reason why we mimic others is because we want to be liked by them. And why do we want to be liked by others? Because we are a highly social species. We have a deep-seated need to belong and to be loved. Although it seems obvious that the need to be loved is a very important need, we didn't know exactly how important it was until someone named Harry Harlow conducted a series of experiments back in the 1940s, and 1950s with our ancestral cousins, the monkeys. In one experiment, Harry separated baby monkeys from their mothers and put them in a cage with two mother figures. One mother figure was made out of wire and was harsh to the touch, the other figure was made out of cloth and was soft to the touch. The catch was, that the wire mother was a source of food for the baby monkey. It was the one with the milk bottle. The cloth mother was not a source of food. The only thing that it provided was warmth and comfort, something that Harlow called the contact comfort. Harry's question was how much time would a baby monkey spend with the wire mother, and how much time would it spend with the cloth mother? Now if love or a sense of being comforted by touch is not that important to monkeys than the monkeys should spend all their time with wire mother but that's not what happened. It turned out that in a 24 hour period, the baby spent hardly one hour with the wire mesh figure, that to suck on the milk. the rest of the time it spent with the cloth mother. Here's Harry Harlow summarizing his results » He's back on the cloth mother, and he'll stay on the cloth mother. Actually, this baby spends 17 to 18 hours a day on the cloth mother, and less than one hour a day on the wire mother. We had predicted that the variable of contact comfort would be a variable of measurable importance. But we were unprepared to find that it completely overwhelmed and overshadowed all other variables, including those of nursing. » In another what I think is a more cruel experiment, Harlow introduced a dangerous-looking object into the baby monkey's cage. Watch what happens. » Now here we have a peaceful, resting, baby monkey. Let's find out what his reaction to his mother are when we frighten him. [NOISE] » He's scared, all right. And he does what any child will do in a similar situation. He runs away. It's more than running away. He was running to his mother to touch her, to drive away his fear. Contact with the mother changes his entire personality. Look, now he's actually threatening the diabolical object. [SOUND] » As you just saw, when a threatening object was introduced into the cage, the baby monkeys instinctively ran to the cloth mother for comfort, and not to the wire mother. Even though the wire mother was the source of food. Conclusion from his experiments, was that baby monkeys need love In order to grow into healthy adults, and that the need for love may, in fact, be even stronger than the need for food and nutrients. I have to confess that I have a hard time watching these videos. My heart goes out to these little baby monkeys. But there's no doubt that we learned something very, very important from Harlow's experiments, namely that baby monkeys need love in order to be psychologically healthy. Given that we human beings share so much similarity with monkeys, it wouldn't surprise you to know that we too have a huge need to be loved and nurtured. And when this need for love and nurturance is not provided to us, we turn out to be psychologically damaged, as well. So, for example, orphans who aren't held and comforted for the first few years of their life, generally grow up to have huge psychological issues, as RenĂŠ Spitz and many others have discovered. Interestingly, this desire for love does not go away when we grow up into adults, it stays with us, as I'm sure you have realized. Being in love is one of the most cherished feelings worldwide, so long of course, that it is reciprocated. So to summarize, it's hugely important to have a sense of belongingness, a feeling that you're cared for and loved in order for you to be happy. In the next video I'm going to share with you some additional interesting findings that underscore just how important this need for social connections is. Mascelina. Till then, stay connected. [MUSIC]


3.01 (V) Week 3 Video 1 - The need to be loved

[MUSIC] Hello. I can't believe that we are already in the third week of this course. It seems like only yesterday that we met. How time flies! Anyway, given how little time we seem to have left with each other, I decided that I am going to start greeting you in various languages, from around the world, from now on. So here goes. Salaam Alekkum. Hi to all my friends who speak Arabic and also to everybody else. I hope you're enjoying the course. And talking of the course, the focus this week is on the third deadly happiness sin, the third habit of the highly happy, and the third exercise. The third deadly happiness sin comes in two varieties. The need to be loved or its opposite, the need to go it alone. Like this second sin, the need for superiority, this sin too is very common; and it's also totally understandable at one level why you would commit it. Later this week, I'll talk about the antidote to the sin, which is the need to love and give. And also talk about the third exercise which is something I call Creative Altruism. But first, in this video, let me introduce to you the third deadly happiness sin by discussing how human beings are probably the most social of all creatures. As Michael Norton and Elizabeth Dunn noted in their book Happy Money, if you were to wake up the happiest researcher in the middle of the night, and ask her quick, tell us one thing that we need to do in order to be happy. She'd probably tell you get our of my bedroom first. And then, she would quickly add double-up and maintain healthy relationships. There is nothing really more important for happiness than having healthy relationships. And most people seem to recognize this. Which is why if you look at the results of the genie question, great relationships is among the top three wishes. What this tells us is that we have a deep seated need to be connected with other people. Or more generally, as psychologists refer to it, we have a deep seated need to belong. There are many ways in which this need is expressed. One funny way in which we express it is by mimicking other people. We mimic others in order to signal to them that we're just like them and by doing that we hope that the other people will like us better, and therefore want to form a bond or a relationship with us. Here's a funny video that shows how prone we are to mimicking others. » The gentleman in the elevator now is a candid star. These folks who are entering, the man with the white shirt, the lady with a trenchcoat, and subsequently, one of the member of our staff will face the rear. And you'll see how this man in the trenchcoat. [SOUND] [LAUGH] Tries to maintain his individuality but little by little. He looks at his watch but he's really making an excuse for turning just a little bit more [LAUGH] to the wall. Now we'll try it once again. Here's the candid subject. Here comes the Candid Camera staff, three of them, at least. And this man has apparently been in groups before. » [LAUGH] [LAUGH]. » As I've mentioned sometime back, one reason why we mimic others is because we want to be liked by them. And why do we want to be liked by others? Because we are a highly social species. We have a deep-seated need to belong and to be loved. Although it seems obvious that the need to be loved is a very important need, we didn't know exactly how important it was until someone named Harry Harlow conducted a series of experiments back in the 1940s, and 1950s with our ancestral cousins, the monkeys. In one experiment, Harry separated baby monkeys from their mothers and put them in a cage with two mother figures. One mother figure was made out of wire and was harsh to the touch, the other figure was made out of cloth and was soft to the touch. The catch was, that the wire mother was a source of food for the baby monkey. It was the one with the milk bottle. The cloth mother was not a source of food. The only thing that it provided was warmth and comfort, something that Harlow called the contact comfort. Harry's question was how much time would a baby monkey spend with the wire mother, and how much time would it spend with the cloth mother? Now if love or a sense of being comforted by touch is not that important to monkeys than the monkeys should spend all their time with wire mother but that's not what happened. It turned out that in a 24 hour period, the baby spent hardly one hour with the wire mesh figure, that to suck on the milk. the rest of the time it spent with the cloth mother. Here's Harry Harlow summarizing his results » He's back on the cloth mother, and he'll stay on the cloth mother. Actually, this baby spends 17 to 18 hours a day on the cloth mother, and less than one hour a day on the wire mother. We had predicted that the variable of contact comfort would be a variable of measurable importance. But we were unprepared to find that it completely overwhelmed and overshadowed all other variables, including those of nursing. » In another what I think is a more cruel experiment, Harlow introduced a dangerous-looking object into the baby monkey's cage. Watch what happens. » Now here we have a peaceful, resting, baby monkey. Let's find out what his reaction to his mother are when we frighten him. [NOISE] » He's scared, all right. And he does what any child will do in a similar situation. He runs away. It's more than running away. He was running to his mother to touch her, to drive away his fear. Contact with the mother changes his entire personality. Look, now he's actually threatening the diabolical object. [SOUND] » As you just saw, when a threatening object was introduced into the cage, the baby monkeys instinctively ran to the cloth mother for comfort, and not to the wire mother. Even though the wire mother was the source of food. Conclusion from his experiments, was that baby monkeys need love In order to grow into healthy adults, and that the need for love may, in fact, be even stronger than the need for food and nutrients. I have to confess that I have a hard time watching these videos. My heart goes out to these little baby monkeys. But there's no doubt that we learned something very, very important from Harlow's experiments, namely that baby monkeys need love in order to be psychologically healthy. Given that we human beings share so much similarity with monkeys, it wouldn't surprise you to know that we too have a huge need to be loved and nurtured. And when this need for love and nurturance is not provided to us, we turn out to be psychologically damaged, as well. So, for example, orphans who aren't held and comforted for the first few years of their life, generally grow up to have huge psychological issues, as RenĂŠ Spitz and many others have discovered. Interestingly, this desire for love does not go away when we grow up into adults, it stays with us, as I'm sure you have realized. Being in love is one of the most cherished feelings worldwide, so long of course, that it is reciprocated. So to summarize, it's hugely important to have a sense of belongingness, a feeling that you're cared for and loved in order for you to be happy. In the next video I'm going to share with you some additional interesting findings that underscore just how important this need for social connections is. Mascelina. Till then, stay connected. [MUSIC]