The Pendulum of Progress: Understanding Societal Shifts

Summary

Podcast Summary: Books With Your Besties
Episode Title: The Pendulum of Progress: Understanding Societal Shifts
Hosts: Emily and Ashley
Release Date: May 16, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of Books With Your Besties, hosts Emily and Ashley delve deep into the dynamics of societal progress, exploring how advancements in areas like human rights and equality often face backlash, creating a "pendulum" effect. Blending personal anecdotes, psychological insights, and current events, the duo provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the complexities involved in societal shifts.

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Update on Previous Cases

Idaho Town Hall Incident

Emily begins by revisiting their most impactful episode—the Idaho Town Hall incident involving Teresa Bor. She updates listeners on significant legal developments:

• Legal Charges: As of April 30, 2020, four men—Paul Truitt, Russell Dune, Christopher Berg, and Jesse Jones—have been charged with battery, false imprisonment, and violations of security agent duties and uniform requirements.
  "They have all been charged," [03:12] Emily announces.

• Business Consequences: Lear Asset Management's business license in Coeur d'Alene has been revoked due to multiple code violations. Ashley emphasizes the importance of holding violators accountable:
  "You should never set that precedent that you're okay with violence toward anyone." [03:24] Ashley asserts.

The hosts reflect on the public's initial reactions and the importance of allowing due process:
"Sometimes it just takes a little bit of time. So you have to just be careful how you react completely." [04:02] Emily advises.

Kyron Horman Case Update

Ashley shares optimistic news regarding the Kyron Horman case:
"Our new district attorney, Nathan Vasquez, came back out and said he's looking at the case again and wants to reaffirm his continued commitment to the case." [14:30] Emily reveals. The involvement of the FBI and the digitization of case files suggest a thorough re-examination of the evidence.

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Main Discussion: The Pendulum of Progress

The core of the episode revolves around the Pendulum Effect, a concept describing how societal progress often swings back and forth rather than moving in a straight line. Emily articulates the idea:
"Progress is made non-linearly... it's like the pendulum has swung back in response to pushing really far." [15:20] Ashley explains.

Examples of the Pendulum Effect

1. Transgender Rights:

   • Progress: Acceptance of transgender individuals in the military and societal acknowledgment of their rights.
   • Backlash: Resistance to initiatives like gender-neutral bathrooms, leading to polarized debates.
   • Ashley provides a poignant example:
     "Instead of saying, wait a minute, whoa, slow your roll, make a law... Instead, they said, no trans rights for anyone." [18:27] Emily discusses the rapid shift and the ensuing resistance.

2. Women's Rights and Economic Shifts:

   • Progress: Increased participation of women in the workforce and advocacy for equal pay.
   • Backlash: Emergence of movements opposing dual-income households, with some advocating for traditional gender roles.
   • Ashley connects economic factors to societal expectations:
     "The economy and the way that our society functions actually probably was really impacted by that." [27:32] Emily adds concerns about young women embracing restrictive roles:
     "It feels like this dramatic shift... how are these young women so like white Christian nationalists?" [26:14]

3. Body Positivity Movement:

   • Progress: Acceptance and celebration of diverse body types.
   • Backlash: A resurgence of unrealistic thinness standards, reminiscent of the 1990s.
     "Body positivity seems to be going back to looking like you are like the 90s. Very, very unhealthy thin." [30:09] Ashley observes.

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Psychological Insights

Moral License

Ashley introduces the concept of Moral License, explaining how individuals justify immoral actions based on perceived moral behavior in other areas:
"Moral license is the concept that we behave in a way that we think is moral and then it gives us license to act immorally." [19:43] She provides the example:
"I'm not racist. I voted for Obama. It is okay for me to vote for Trump who behaves in a racist way because I already proved I wasn't racist." [20:22] Emily adds examples related to LGBTQ+ support:
"Because I have a gay friend, it's okay if I vote for somebody who's going to try to strip away gay rights." [20:53] Ashley underscores the subtlety of these justifications.

Implicit Influence on Behavior

The hosts discuss studies illustrating how subconscious priming affects actions:

1. Aging Stereotypes:

   • Participants exposed to words related to the elderly walked 13% slower.
     "We are influenced non-consciously by ideas." [22:26] Emily expresses amazement.

2. Rudeness Priming:

   • Those exposed to rude words interrupted conversations more quickly, while those with polite primes delayed interruptions by up to 20 minutes.
     "People are just really strongly influenced by the things around us." [24:14] Emily reflects on societal reactions:
     "We throw the whole baby out with the bathwater." [24:37]

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Political Polarization

Emily and Ashley analyze the current political climate, illustrating it as a manifestation of the pendulum effect:

• From Obama to Trump:
  "It's the Obama to Trump example," [19:33] Emily states, highlighting the dramatic shift in political attitudes and policies.

• Eugenics and Research Funding:
  Ashley raises alarms about discriminatory practices in scientific research funding, emphasizing the detriment to marginalized communities:
  "You can't use the words gay, lesbian, anything to do with LGBTQ... All funding to breast cancer research... you can't use the word pregnant fetal... it's a push and a movement to only support research on white men." [31:13]
  Emily echoes the horror:
  "That's awful that it seems like the whole point is cruelty." [33:24]

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Impact of Education and Social Media

The hosts discuss the role of education in mitigating the pendulum effect, stressing that:

• Education Prevents Radical Swings:
  "Education is the number one thing that prevents poverty... and makes people more open-minded." [22:32] Emily and Ashley agree that informed individuals are less susceptible to extreme shifts in societal norms.

• Social Media's Role:
  Rapid information dissemination can exacerbate the pendulum effect by fostering impatience and pre-judgment:
  "In this information age, we think we have access to the whole truth and we forget that we don't." [06:31]
  Ashley adds:
  "It's easier to jump to conclusions without being part of the situation." [05:41]

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Future Content and Closing Remarks

Emily and Ashley tease upcoming content, including updates on the Kyron Horman case, discussions on eugenics, and another true crime episode. They emphasize their commitment to tackling controversial and critical topics despite potential backlash.

Ashley concludes with a call to action for listeners to engage on Patreon for bonus content, while Emily wraps up the episode with a heartfelt farewell:
"Thanks for listening." [35:51]

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Key Takeaways

• Societal Progress is Non-Linear: Advancements often encounter backlash, creating a pendulum-like swing between progressive and regressive states.

• Psychological Underpinnings: Concepts like moral license and subconscious influences significantly shape behaviors and societal trends.

• Education and Awareness are Crucial: Empowering individuals with knowledge can mitigate extreme swings and promote sustained progress.

• Critical Evaluation of Information: In the age of social media, exercising patience and critical thinking is essential to forming informed opinions.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Sometimes it just takes a little bit of time. So you have to just be careful how you react completely." — Emily [04:02]

• "Moral license is the concept that we behave in a way that we think is moral and then it gives us license to act immorally." — Ashley [19:43]

• "We are influenced non-consciously by ideas." — Emily [22:26]

• "It's easier to jump to conclusions without being part of the situation." — Ashley [05:41]

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For more discussions, insights, and updates, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to Books With Your Besties and support the hosts on Patreon for exclusive content.

Transcript

[Emily]

Hi, I'm Emily. I'm Ashley and this is Books with your besties. Okay. Hi. Hi, besties. We're here to just kind of talk about everything. Catch up episode. Right, Em?

[Ashley]

Catch up episode.

[Emily]

Catch up episode. What do you want to catch up on?

[Ashley]

Well, I want to talk about you. You have a little bit of case updates. I want to hear those and chat about those. And I want to talk today about something you and I keep talking about, which the extremes of politics and progress.

[Emily]

Absolutely. And I think we'll get more into it later. But since we started talking about it, I have now seen so many more examples of it in my real life. I have a fascinating story I have been holding to this episode to tell you and I'll use code names also. Do you like my microphone I'm using today? It's Hunter's from video gaming. It has an LED light in it.

[Ashley]

That's awesome.

[Emily]

Thank you. I want to start with an update because our most listened to episode, Em, is our Idaho town hall episode. It is our most downloaded. It is our most commented on. Kyron Horman is second, but it is our most downloaded episode. So the day that this Update hit our DMs from our creepy book club and books with your besties, accounts completely exploded from people sending us this. This update. So.

[Ashley]

Wow. Well, and let's just remind people what that was about. Right? Yeah.

[Emily]

So on February 22nd, Teresa Bor, a former Democratic legislative can. Legislative candidate, was attending a town hall organized by a Republican committee. At the town hall, she said some things and she was instructed to leave. When she refused, three plainclothes security personnel from a place called Lear Asset Management forcibly removed her, dragging her out of the auditorium. There were videos which went viral. And our episode was about people immediately asking why didn't anybody, why didn't anybody help her. So if you haven't listened to that episode, go back because Emily does a really fantastic job explaining to us why the situation looked a certain way and why many of us reacted that way. Is that a good summary?

[Ashley]

I think it's a great summary. But yeah. So I would encourage people to go listen to the episode because I do think it's a take that I haven't seen a lot of places.

[Emily]

No. And you know, we got so many comments on it from others who, like myself, admitted like, yeah, my gut instinct was, oh, I for sure would have stepped in. I would have done something. And after listening to the episode realized, oh, I probably wouldn't have. And that might not have been the most helpful thing. To do so. Thank you for informing people so they could look at it differently. So this is the update. Da da da da. The update is as of April 30, 2020 5th. This was reported on KTVB. A significant development has occurred, and that is that all five of the men. So I'm going to say their names. No. Four of the men, Paul Truitt, Russell Dune, Christopher Berg, and Jesse Jones, have all been charged with battery, false imprisonment and violations of security agent duties and uniform requirements.

[Ashley]

Yeah, baby. Yep.

[Emily]

So they have all been charged. Not only have they been charged, but the city of coeur d' Alene revoked lear asset management's business license for violating multiple codes.

[Ashley]

What's amazing about this is I feel like it was so frustrating to see people defend their actions. And it's because they like that they were not listening to her political side or whatever. That's how extreme we are. So they were pro violence, inappropriate violence. You should never set that precedent that you're okay with violence toward anyone. When the tables turn, are you okay with it against you? Right. So I. I love that the district attorney's office and the city of one of the most conservative towns in America both said, despite being conservative, you can't do this.

[Emily]

Yeah. I also think it's a good reminder of what we talked about when we were talking about the Idaho murders and how we reacted to what we thought. The. The girls, quote, unquote, didn't do that. Sometimes these things take time. So we wanted, a number of people wanted to know immediately what was going to happen and how could you let this happen? Well, now it appears the right steps are happening and they're going to be held accountable. So sometimes it just takes a little bit of time. So you have to just be careful how you react completely.

[Ashley]

And I know as we talked about one of the books in one of our book episodes, I won't spoil it for you so that if you haven't read it, you don't know. But if you happen to hear this episode, we talked about the Idaho murder case as well. That in that case, the two surviving roommates have been pressured so much, so very similarly, the way that we like to insert ourselves and say, this is how I would behave in this situation. And we're so certain about the way we behave and we actually have no idea. And we shouldn't be saying the things that we're saying in terms of judging other people's behavior. For the most part. For the most part, I'm not saying. But just what we would Do. And we talked about that and there's apparently a new date line out that came out Friday that I'm really excited to watch. I haven't had a chance. My in laws were here all weekend. And so today I'm going to watch it tonight, I hope. And in that I saw some comments that people were like, wow, I had no idea they had so much evidence. Right. Let police do their jobs. Let the time happen. Let the district attorney bring forward the charges and go to the grand jury and make sure that it's sufficient. But if they have all of that, who are you to say, I think the roommates did it?

[Emily]

And I can be, you know this from being my best friend for 24 years. I can be very like. It takes me a while sometimes to take a step back and not. I can be reactive and I can get really hot and bothered about things. And just through having these discussions, I've been able to be more patient with these situations where I would usually get extremely upset, want to say something publicly, want to just like, completely try to immediately be on what I see as, like, the correct side of things, when really it's like, no, you ha. You don't know if you are not a part of these situations, be it the town hall, be it these Idaho murders. You act, you actually have no facts except what you are finding on the Internet or through somebody you follow. So take a hot minute before you insert your uneducated opinion.

[Ashley]

I think you. You just touched on something that is really at the root of a lot of this is in this information age, we think we have access to the whole truth and we forget that we don't. And we forget that, like the influencers that we watch and the people that we watch on TikTok, we're literally seeing, let's say they're even making five videos a day, which. Which many of them are making one, maybe two. We are seeing five minutes of their whole life. The whole rest of the day. We have no idea what they're doing, what they're like, what's actually happening. We don't know them in real life. It's just we tend to believe, oh, I can read the Facebook post of what everybody's saying about what happened in this case. But you're not in the room interrogating the suspect. You're not talking to the witnesses on the ground. You're not looking at the crime scene.

[Emily]

Right. Well, and we've talked about this on other episodes too, where some, in some of these cases where you do jump to conclusions you then make mistakes that can't be fixed. Right. Like in the JonBenet case, the way they initially messed up that, that scene so much because they immediately jumped to, oh, she had to have been kidnapped. So I think it's, I think it's human instinct to make these assumptions based on very minimal information that you know what has happened when really you. You don't. So this is me saying thank you to you for helping me take a step back sometimes and think, just take a minute. Let the people who know what they're doing provide information and then decide kind of how you feel about this situation.

[Ashley]

No, same. I have to do the same thing for myself. It's not that I practice what I preach all the time. It's just that it's good to take a beat, I think.

[Emily]

Can I tell you one thing about the Idaho murders from the Dateline episode? No.

[Ashley]

Is it a spoiler?

[Emily]

Well, I'll just ask this. Have you, have you heard anything on the interwebs as we're talking about not listening to people about his car, that.

[Ashley]

It was like, on camera, outside?

[Emily]

Yes.

[Ashley]

Okay, I did see that little tiny spoiler. So, like they saw his car on camera and they just never released that footage, right?

[Emily]

Yes. So exactly what you're saying, that they had this footage and I don't know why they're releasing it now, but they held it where you see his car going around and it approaches the house a number of times and then it goes out of frame, I believe. But then 13 minutes later, you see it speed away. So it's this 13 minute window of seeing the car, not seeing the car, and then it speeds away.

[Ashley]

I know. I, I also saw somewhere that his. He had done this like 23 more times. 23 times before this, where he had driven to the house.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Ashley]

The hours of the morning and left.

[Emily]

An FBI cell phone expert said his phone connected to a cell tower 300ft. Exactly what you said 23 times.

[Ashley]

So this is the thing, is it drives me crazy because the Internet spirals. And so then if you go and look at like the YouTube shorts or reels or TikToks or whatever about this case, people are like, he did not do it. And here's how I know, because I read a comment on Reddit and it made me believe he's a fall guy for a government conspiracy. And you're like, what, what is happening here? Right. But people get really compelled by this by thinking they have more information than the detectives. And then the detectives are like, well, here, here's like literally the smoking gun.

[Emily]

And you're like, oh, okay, I couldn't be a detective. I couldn't. Because I would, I would just have to tell people. I'd be like, stop saying this stuff. You have no idea. Like you have none.

[Ashley]

I know. People are so impatient. That's the other thing is, I think it's just a failure of acknowledgment or recognition of how the, how legal proceedings work. Like we have a constitutional right to not be tried twice for the same crime. Right. It's double jeopardy. It's basically because in place, because they could be like, I've decided Ashley committed this crime, so I'm going to try you before a jury. And that jury's like, no, we don't think she did. And I'm like, let's just do it again. Re rack it, keep her in jail in between. And we'll just do it like 40 times until finally a jury says you did it. Right. So it's a really great constitutional right. Like if a jury of your peers says you're innocent, you're innocent one time, then you're innocent, you can't be tried again. Which is actually also problematic because of people like O.J. simpson. Right, okay. But we have this right. And so what do detectives and district attorneys need to do if they believe someone actually committed a crime? They have to take the time that it requires and be as meticulous and detailed as possible to compile all of the evidence they could possibly ever find and leave no stone unturned before they get to the point of trial. So they can't just in three days be like, arrest that dude and let's like throw him up there and be like, we found his ninth sheath knife sheath in there. Because everyone's gonna poke holes in that.

[Emily]

This actually makes me think of, I don't know if you're following this, and I wasn't and I'm not really now I'm listening to a podcast that updates me on it every day. But the Karen Reed trial, I've never.

[Ashley]

Listened anything on it. I don't, I know so little about it. I can't wait to watch about it.

[Emily]

So it's just, she's being tried a second time now because it was a hung jury. But it's, it's also fascinating to see the differences between how these same people are cross examining because they were able to look at the first trial and be like, it's almost like it was a, like a, like a warm up trial or whatever. Because the questions they're asking now. You're like, oh, you see where the holes are that you left last time?

[Ashley]

Is it the same. Is it the same team? Does she have the same attorneys? Yes. Wow, that's surprising. Well, I do think. I do think there's something there. Like, we actually were covering the, the Abby Williams and Liberty German case, the High Bridge Delphi murders for our Patreon folks, and there is stuff there about like, wow, the trial you gets. The trial you get. And that can be really impactful.

[Emily]

I'm checking updates every day for his appeal because they've turned it in every day. I look to be like, have they made a decision?

[Ashley]

I mean, there literally is. You can. You can win. You can't. You can't get granted a new trial on no basis. Right. You can't be like, I just want to try again. But if there's brand new evidence in a case, you can. Or there is a violation. I believe I may. Where I.

[Emily]

Let me see.

[Ashley]

Hold on one second.

[Emily]

Well, there are also the violations where it's like, if you can prove your attorney was not fit, that you did not have the type of representation that you deserve preserved, where it's not just based on, oh, we have new evidence. It's like, whoa, that was not. That was not the type of defense that you should have been provided.

[Ashley]

Yeah, it's. I, I forget what it's called. There is. You can get a new trial based based on it. Insufficient defense, violation of insufficient defense. And I think it's part of the Brady Rule, but it's basically that, like, well, the Brady Rule is actually about the prosecution turning over information, I think. But at any rate, you can get a new trial based on. If somebody looks at the defense and goes, what is that?

[Emily]

Yeah, two quick things. One, if people haven't. If you're not old like Emily and I, not we're not super old, but old enough. This makes me think of the movie Double Jeopardy, and I love that movie so much.

[Ashley]

I know that's a good movie.

[Emily]

I love Ashley Judd. I love Tommy Lee Jones. I love that whole movie. But one other update, and this is just perfect timing because we're talking about new evidence, new trials, new whatever. We covered Kyron Horman, and we'll have some updates personally about our involvement with talking about that case soon. But our new district attorney, Nathan Vasquez, came back out and said he's looking at the case again and wants to reaffirm his continued commitment to the case. They're digitizing all of the files so they're using technology they didn't have before to look at everything again with fresh eyes. And the FBI is involved with them.

[Ashley]

That's amazing.

[Emily]

I know. I just. Ugh, I'm so hopeful.

[Ashley]

The thing is, the hope would be that some of the evidence in there, in the emails, something that there would be some hole that AI might be able to identify that we couldn't write. Pattern recognition could identify that humans may not catch.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

That would lead to some more questions or answers or something. That's really cool. I loved covering that case, even though it's so heartbreaking. Yeah.

[Emily]

He said that they'll. It's an active investigation, so he can't say anything now, but that they should have updates in the fall.

[Ashley]

Awesome.

[Emily]

So there's, there's a there there, right. If they're still, they're still going. Desiree's been so committed to keeping it alive. Okay, can we get into what you have taught me about. And now I see it everywhere, which is the pendulum effect.

[Ashley]

Okay, here's the thing. Here's what Ashley and I have been talking about. This is a totally random topic. And look, we all know that politics have become really divided the two party system. It's really extreme right now. We're seeing a lot of what feels like very extreme behaviors and kind of some bizarre things going on that like both sides are sort of questioning why are we trying to buy Canada. What kind of things? So I, I want to talk about progress and how progress is made non linearly. And we know this for everything, right. We know that success is not a straight line. There's all kinds of inspirational graphs around if you are going for a goal. And you know this like from running marathons. You do not just be like, I got faster and faster. Every single marathon, every single time was a little bit better than the last till I reached my goal at the peak. Instead it's like I was faster and then I had a massive fall off and I had a tough one and then a tough another one that was even worse. And it looked like, oh no, I've gone way downhill in my skill. But then it goes up. And over time you see progress, right? You see progress critical. And I think the exact same thing is true for progress in terms of literally anything. Women's rights, humans rights, equality. Right. All of these things that we think about that are things that if we can look back 100 years, we didn't have. Right. Was what we have made significant progress. Does it mean we reached the end finish line? No. So I think we are in a moment where the pendulum has swung back in response to pushing really far. So let's give the most basic example we talked about. And then, Ashley, you had some really good examples, I think, of this. So the fir. The one that we can think of the most is that I really think that people are throwing the baby out with the bath water based on, like, trans athletes and trans bathroom rights. Okay, so we made progress. We were like, wait a minute, the military should accept folks who are transgender. We as a society should be accepting people who are transgender. In fact, let's create rights around and practices around using proper pronouns and, like, thinking about these things, right. That transgender people exist, like the acknowledgement of them. And I think there were a lot of people who felt like progress went too fa. Far too fast. Like we went to. And I do think this is kind of a mistake that we make in progress is that we push too fast to the end goal. Let's make sure there are all gender bathrooms available everywhere. Well, that's really costly. You're going to get a lot of pushback. People are not going to want taxpayer dollars spent to convert every single building in that, you know, federally funded in the United States to have non binary bathrooms. And so then instead of them saying, wait a minute, whoa, slow your roll, make a law, we're going forward. New buildings have to accommodate this. Right? And in the meantime, if we can convert one, let's convert it. Right? But let's, like, slow this down instead of that. They said, no trans rights for anyone.

[Emily]

Right?

[Ashley]

That's the pendulum. And this was actually, this idea was first introduced to me by a colleague at my university who's now retired. But he was a gay. Well, he is a gay man. He's not was, but he was my colleague. He is a gay man who said. He said, I am part of the community who is pressing these issues. And the way that it's happening. I can see the pendulum's gonna swing all the way back before it can go forward any further.

[Emily]

So it's almost like exactly what you're saying. It has to be these baby steps, because otherwise it's just this immediate hard stop. And whether it's fear or panic or whatever it is, then it's the whole, like, two steps forward. Oh, three steps back. Instead of just one step forward, another step forward.

[Ashley]

Right. But I really think it is like, actually three steps forward, two steps back, because a whole bunch of us have bought in already and aren't going all the way backwards. Right. And so then the next time we Take three steps forward and two steps back. We still have made progress, right? We will make progress. It's just that the steps backward, really hurt, are really painful and hard to see.

[Emily]

Do you think not. Do you think? This seems to be also one of the most obvious cases of this that people could relate to now, which is the Obama to Trump.

[Ashley]

Totally.

[Emily]

Right? Like, yes, Trump's reaction to that, Let.

[Ashley]

Me just tell you what that actually is. So it's another way to look at it or frame it. It's called moral license. Moral license is a research, evidence based process that we operate by. Moral license is the concept that we behave in a way that we think is moral and then it gives us license to act immorally. I'm not racist. I voted for Obama. This is literally a research study is based on Obama and Trump. Okay, I'm not racist. I voted for Obama. It is okay for me to vote for Trump who behaves in a racist way because I already proved I wasn't racist.

[Emily]

I've never heard it like that.

[Ashley]

It's it. And that's a, that's a true thing, right? We're like, I. And every, every LGBTQ person who hears this is going to be like rolling their eyes because, you know, we talk about this in my class and when everybody sort of laughs at how ludicrous it is, oh, no, I'm fine with gay people. I have a gay friend.

[Emily]

Oh, oh. I, I mean, it's go. It also goes for, no, I'm not racist. I have. Right, a black friend. I have a black girl. No, I can't that, no.

[Ashley]

So, so because I have a gay friend, it's okay if I vote for somebody who's going to try to strip away gay rights or vote for something that's going to strip away gay rights. And, and it's maybe not as explicit as that. Right. We're also not, well, self aware. It's not a, like, maybe a conscious behavior, but we are really, really influenced implicitly by things that are around us and the way that we behave is influenced. Can I tell you a story about Bargain Colleagues, this research study? We can link for you. Okay. Bargain colleagues did a study where they gave people word lists. And so people came into this room and the word lists were either completely neutral words where they were like, you know, forest garden, it doesn't matter, whatever, just random words, or they were words that were stereotypically associated with the elderly. And this was like a word unscramble task. So it might be like bingo, gray, wrinkle, right? Like words that you would associate with getting older, with aged, the aged folks. So older adults. List, neutral, list, unscramble word tasks, sentence completion task. Did people recognize that this was about the elderly? Of course. You're, you're, you're alive. You can see the connection. You're like, oh, these are words about older adults. Here's what they did after the study. They timed how long it took people to walk down a very long hallway to the elevator. Folks who had been consciously primed with words related to the elderly walked 13% slower than folks who were not. No, I swear.

[Emily]

So just like exposure to those words. That is nuts.

[Ashley]

We are influenced non consciously by ideas. And it is so freeing to accept that and recognize that because we don't need to think that we are agents of free will every second. We can recognize and acknowledge I'm a product of some things that have been influencing me and maybe I need to more intentionally expose myself to things to make myself a better consumer.

[Emily]

That's fascinating.

[Ashley]

There's also a study of another study similarly where they did the same kind of concept, except for the words were rude, related to being rude, interrupt, unkind, whatever, cold, or words that were meant polite were related to polite. And then words that were neutral. Right. They had these three groups. And when the participants were finished with their unscrambled task, they were to turn in their packet to a researcher, and the researcher would be talking with another participant, quote unquote. In research, this is a funny word because. And people are always like, what? No, not that. No, it's not. It doesn't mean this. Pretend participants are called confederates. Okay, they're in. They're in on it. Okay, but they are pretend participants. So you think they're a participant, but they're not a participant. So the researcher is talking to a confederate and they're engrossed in this deep conversation. And what they did is when the participants who were real participants and did their unscramble and word completion tasks and all of that came up to turn it in. They timed how long it took them to interrupt the conversation. People who had been primed with rude words interrupted way more quickly than people who had been primed with neutral words. People who had been primed with polite words waited up to 20 minutes when the experimenter would discontinue the conversation.

[Emily]

Minutes.

[Ashley]

Minutes.

[Emily]

Oh, my gosh.

[Ashley]

So we're just, we're just really strongly influenced by the things around us. Right. So the pendulum swing thing is we can start to find ourselves getting irritated by one little case of something, right? One little example. And instead of stepping back and looking at the big picture and being like, wait, let's look at this whole thing. What are the actual demands that we have here? We throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. We get pissed off.

[Emily]

Well, one of the ways, I don't know if this is exactly pendulum effect, and you can tell me if it is or not, but it's definitely a trend and it's one that's disturbing to me personally because I like to be personally impacted by things I have. I'm going to keep their names off of this, but I have two very close friends who are around our age, so in their mid-40s to early 50s, and they both have young women in their lives. So the young women are closer to 20, 21, 22. These young women were raised in homes where it was more liberal, progressive, and they, both of these young women have now gotten married very young and gone full maga. So not just like conservative, but full. I am now a mega church attendee. I am fully maga. I am all in on this. I want to be a stay at home mom. I, I like God, stop telling me that I can work. I don't want that. I want to be home. So it feels like this dramatic shift from our moms having to fight really to, to work and, and have that not be seen as such a negative to now these young women being like, how dare you say that being a stay at home mom is not enough? Which nobody said that. It's the fact that you should have a choice to stay home if you want. But it's just this crazy swing. And both of the women my age are horrified. They're like, how did this happen? How are these young women so like white Christian nationalists? And it happened in a span of like 12 months to, to 18 months.

[Ashley]

It's such a good example because here's the thing, I've actually seen this just among people that regardless of their political beliefs, like there was a trend on social media for a while, people being like, I'd like to speak to the people who made it that women are have to work. I'm trying to stay home, right? And here's the thing is that push that fight for women to be allowed to work or treated equally at work, which by the way, we're not. We still have so much evidence. Women are paid less for equal jobs and experience. Even if they're doing a better job, they are paid less generally on average. Okay, so we know we're not fully equal yet. Except for that we made all this progress and it went so fast and the economy and the way that our society functions actually probably was really impacted by that. So now it's really hard to be a single income household. And now it's almost like you have to have two working parents. And that may have contributed to it. Right. The fact that there were women in the workplace and that we had more productivity and that there were families that were bringing in two incomes made that more of a status quo. I don't know. Right. But in terms of economics and supply and demand, it would make sense that there was some influence in that. And so now there's this pushback to like, not only do I not want to work, I'm not sure that women should have financial freedom.

[Emily]

Right. And the, the piece you talked about, which is just the exposure that it took such a small amount of time for these young women to be exposed to this mega church culture where now they're all in. Right. Because in a way it's easier probably going to catch all for saying this, but to have a mindset where you're like, God is in control. I'm not every. Everything that happens in my life is because that's the way it's meant to be. And it's just. Anyway, I'm gonna get really upset. I'm gonna stop talking about it now.

[Ashley]

And I think, I think we really wanna believe that we are thinking so carefully about everything and there's nothing except for our own special analysis that has made us take the position that we have. And the first day of my social psych class, I, I show pictures, I think I've told you this. I show pictures of like slavery in modern day America and Abu Ghraib prison that Americans were involved with like torturing prisoners and the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda. And I, and not to be gratuitous, but to say by the end of this class you should be able to say, I guess I could have been a Nazi. Because we really should be acknowledging that we could be in a very different position. Now look, there are things that actually prevent you from being as easily swayed. Education. We, we know that education is the number one thing that prevents poverty. We know it is something that makes people more open minded and we know it makes people more capable of consuming material and understanding sources. Right. So like those are just facts. Right. And so there are things that can help prevent a quick swing. Not to say that those women weren't that way, but also educated folks do the same thing. We could all do It. Right.

[Emily]

I think the part that's such a hard pill to swallow is because you and I have the wisdom of being 45ish, we understand your life might not go to plan. So as much as you might have extreme joy in being a stay at home mom, and you might, it might completely work out. I really want you to recognize it might not. And a plan B would be an excellent plan to have. Like, I've just seen women's lives go completely sideways who don't have a plan B and you just think you just can't bank on it working out. And I just get so scared for young women who aren't giving themselves an option to have a different path if it doesn't work out. I hope it does, but if it doesn't, that's just a scary place to be.

[Ashley]

That's true.

[Emily]

And I think the worst pendulum thing we have seen and then maybe we can go on to some questions people asked if we have time. But unfortunately is the. It felt like we were making progress in the body positivity movement and now it seems like it's going back to like looking like you are like the 90s. Very, very unhealthy thin. Have you noticed this trend also?

[Ashley]

Yep. Yeah, I think, I think thin is in again. Super thin is in. And that's going to be, you know, it's one of those things where culture influences it also. Right. And so we culturally are going to start valuing that more and more and then that's going to impact behaviors. It sucks having a little girl who is going to be raised into that desire in her teenage years.

[Emily]

Yeah. It's just, it's part of social media and culture and all that's. I mean, there's so much that's toxic about it, but that's just really.

[Ashley]

Can we talk about with the pendulum too? I think another piece of it is the science, anti science, science thing.

[Emily]

Go, go, go.

[Ashley]

I am blown away. And there is no planet on which you can convince me that this is to anyone's benefit. But if you have not already, you should Google the banned now banned words in scientific grant funding. So you can't use the words gay, lesbian, anything to do with lgbtq. You can't use the word minority, marginalized, black, anything like that. And you also can't use any words related to women. So, I mean, essentially all research on ovarian cancer has been halted or grant any funding to it. All funding to breast cancer research, pretty much anything. You can't use the word pregnant fetus, anything like that, so there's a very much a push and a movement to only supporting research on white men and the things that afflict white men. That's explicit. That's explicit. You can't tell me there's a good reason for that. You can't convince me that it is for a purpose. That grant funding would be halted for anyone that is not a white man.

[Emily]

That is terrifying. And also just when it felt like we were starting to make the most baby amount of progress on like, oh, menopause is a third of a woman's life. Should we maybe study it and like help these women out? And then there are jokes that are clearly now not a joke from you teaching us this, that if you're not a white man, it doesn't really matter what's going on with your health.

[Ashley]

It's really disturbing to me that even not only we're not going to make progress in these areas, but we're going to go backwards for a while and we have to, we have to do our episode. I know it's super controversial and we'll probably get so much hate, but I don't think I care on eugenics because I really feel like that's the point.

[Emily]

I'm happy to do an episode on that because I feel like that's the point. And I, I feel like the people I follow who have literally made it their life's work to study these things would agree.

[Ashley]

Yeah. I mean, it, it's felt like that for a long time. But when you're pulling anything to help low income folks, health insurance, anything from any marginalized identity other than white men, that in terms of research or funding, you want people to die. That's the point.

[Emily]

Right.

[Ashley]

You want to cleanse. You want to cleanse your ethnic group to white men.

[Emily]

It's awful that it seems like the whole point is cruelty.

[Ashley]

I know. I just, I like, I. You can support whoever you want politically, but if you, if you can't look at that and criticize that, then you, that's a you problem. That's a you problem big time. And, and I, I feel sorry for you. But also, I just told you how you can identify that maybe you've been influenced in this freaking one episode. And if you're at the end of this episode and you're like, I'm a Trump supporter and F you for saying that. Okay. You're the target audience. You're who I was talking to. Get smarter and stop being a sheeple, to use your terms. Right, right.

[Emily]

Like, you are the exact audience who is being influenced by these hot takes that you are taking as God's gift to.

[Ashley]

I mean, we're not saying criticize all of Trump, but criticize that whatever is happening right now in terms of research funding is really dangerous.

[Emily]

Ugh. I didn't know they had taken out, like, pregnant. And I mean, day one, they took down anything from the site that had to do with reproductive care. Like, it was just gone. Well, on that note, do we have any time or do we not have enough time to answer a few questions that we got on Instagram?

[Ashley]

Why don't we save them for next time?

[Emily]

Okay, they're. They're good questions, and some of them are. Yeah, they would. This would be a whole nother episode they take. They would. These would take us a while.

[Ashley]

Let's do it. Let's do a whole ask us anything episode again. And then, you know, tell us on Patreon what it is we should be talking about, because we don't have anything in our brains to talk about. Interesting.

[Emily]

And then we won't finish the Quiet Librarian, so we can't talk about that. I know.

[Ashley]

I actually have, like, 10 pages left, but I didn't want. I don't want to finish it. I like. It's so ridiculous, but I don't want to. It's so good.

[Emily]

I know.

[Ashley]

Okay. And then we'll talk about the Quiet Librarian. We'll. We'll do that coming up really soon. Eventually, we'll talk about eugenics when I just see something that makes me just mad enough.

[Emily]

We'll have part two of Abby and Libby this month on Patreon.

[Ashley]

Patreon. And then we're gonna do another true crime case, since people really appreciated the Karen Harmon case. Right?

[Emily]

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we'll do. Yes, we will do another one. And we should have an update about Kyron and a podcast that we are going to be on talking about it, but I'm not going to share that until it's confirmed.

[Ashley]

That sounds good.

[Emily]

All right. Bye, besties.

[Ashley]

Bye.

[Emily]

Oh, my God. What if I press stop and the whole thing goes away? I'm gonna press stop. Thanks for listening.

[Ashley]

For more content, find us on Patreon at the Creepy Book Club.

[Emily]

Happy reading.