Nir Eyal

I think that's an unexplored path that I think is a hack, is a unlock for doing exactly what those rats did, changing that belief around what we're going through.

You know, people call it autopilot about them.

What do you think about that?

I think that's a very apt observation that these beliefs always come from somewhere.

They come from priors is what we call them.

Prior experiences.

And why do we have these prior experiences?

And why do we hold on to these beliefs even when they don't serve us?

It's because at some point they did.

Right?

There was a line of research, which I'm sure every one of your listeners is going to be familiar with, called Learned Helplessness, Seligman and Meyer.

They had these experiments where they showed that people, and they did animal studies as well, would learn to give up.

They would learn helplessness.

And this seemed to explain persistent poverty and inequality and all kinds of social theories came out of this idea of learned helplessness.

Well, a few years ago, didn't get much press, unfortunately, but a few years ago, Seligman and Meyer concluded that not only were their studies conclusion incorrect, that the conclusion was 180 degrees the opposite of what they thought.

That we don't learn helplessness.

Helplessness is our default state.

That's what they concluded.

And if you think about it, it makes evolutionary sense, right?

A baby, when a baby is born, it is helpless.