How y'all doing?
Good.
I came here to give you a science lesson about animal mating systems and why defining monogamy has been a challenge for scientists.
But you won't need a textbook or to download an online lecture.
All you'll simply need to do is revisit the song "OPP" by Naughty by Nature.
(Laughter) It was released in 1991.
Now, "OPP" is a call-and-response song.
So throughout the talk, I'm going to put lyrics up on the screen, and I'm going to recite some and I'm going to prompt you when it's your turn to do the response, OK?
(Cheers) Now, I know some people in this audience know this song, so I need you to lead the way with the tempo and the rhythm, if that's alright, OK?
Right, y'all ready?
You down with OPP?
Audience: Yeah, you know me!
DNL: You down with OPP?
Audience: Yeah, you know me!
DNL: You down with OPP?
Audience: Yeah, you know me!
DNL: That was perfect.
Thank you.
"OPP, how can I explain it?
I'll take it frame by frame it.
To have y'all jumping shout and singing it O is for other, P is for people. scratch your temple.
The last P, well, that's not that simple."
Now, in the song, the MC hints that it's a five-letter word, but to keep it rated PG, he simply refers to it as "property."
(Laughter) The song is about cheating on your significant other.
Now, around the time that this song was in heavy rotation, biologists were in deep discussion about whether bird species, notably songbirds and waterfowl were actually monogamous or not.
See, for decades, generations of science students were taught that well over 90 percent of the bird species were monogamous.
A male and female mating faithfully for life.
That was until the late 1980s, when a new laboratory technique came on the scene, which could copy DNA from a small tissue or fluid sample and decode the genetics of individuals.
Now, before that technique, we were never ever certain about, 100 percent, who the parents of baby birds were.
All we had were our field notes.
And we would know which adults lived in a nest and which ones fed the baby birds.
Well, come to find out, study after study kept coming in and we found so much evidence of infidelity -- (Laughter) among bird species, particularly these songbirds that we thought were the pinnacle of monogamy.
It would have made Maury Povich jealous for the ratings.
(Laughter) It rocked biology and ornithology so hard, we had to modify and expand the entire definition of monogamy.
Now, it was so bad that this was the headline of the "New York Times" science section, August, 1990.
"Mating for Life?
It's not for the Birds or the Bees."
(Laughter) We had to come up with new definitions.
The situation where an individual would change partners, either between breeding seasons or just simply because they didn't like their partner anymore?
We now call this "serial monogamy."
(Laughter) I didn't know it was going to be this funny.
(Laughter) The situation where we know the male and female pair together and all the babies belong to both partners?
We call that "genetic monogamy."
And we now recognize that it only holds true for about 14 percent of the songbird species, which we were very certain were truly monogamous.
And with this reclassification, we realized that in a lot of those field observations where we saw a male and female sharing a nest, comaintaining a territory, even provisioning offspring together, often included a few baby birds that did not belong to the male partner.
We call this "social monogamy."
(Laughter) And the mechanism responsible?
Extra-pair copulation.
"It's OPP, time for other people's what you get it there's no room for relationship, there's just room to ..."
Audience: "Hit it!"
"How many brothers out there know just what I'm getting at?
Who thinks it's wrong because I was splitting and cohitting that.
Well if you do, that's OPP" Actually, that's EPC Which is the abbreviation for extra-pair copulation.
(Laughter) Now, we define extra-pair copulation as the mating outside of a pair bond.
And just like we were discovering via science, it can lead to babies that don't belong to the male partner.
Alright?
Now, I first learned about EPCs years later, after all the science news broke while I was in graduate school.
And as we were taking a class, talking about current discoveries and mating systems, this topic comes up.
And as my professor's going through the definition and recounting all the dramatic turns of events that lead to these new revelations, I'm sitting in class and a familiar song starts bopping in my head.
I'm like, "You down with OPP?
Yeah, you know me!"
(Laughter) I mean, that's exactly what that song was about: EPCs.
And what I recognized is that this gives us an opportunity to revisit this song.
Let's switch the lyrics up.
So say EPC.
Audience: EPC.
DNL: Say it, EPC!
Audience: EPC!
"I like to say it with pride now, when you do it, do it well, and make sure that it counts.
You're not down with a discount."
You down with EPC?
Audience: Yeah, you know me!
Now, I had always been playing songs in my head while I was in science class, kind of tapping into this index of pop culture and hip-hop songs.
But when I would share my analogies with my science professors, all of whom were older white men, I often got blank and confused stares as responses.
(Laughter) But when I would share this with people from communities like mine, or other colleagues -- so, diverse communities -- this hip-hop science remix was a hit.
That's because I was either talking to people who looked and sounded like me, or at the very least, you know, listened to some of the same songs.
We were sharing a common cultural lexicon.
And with that lexicon, I was able to bring new science terms to them, and together, we were sharing a new comprehension of science for the culture.
Now, hip-hop song references are a really good tool for teaching content to students from hip-hop culture or urban communities.
And I use it intentionally to connect to those students, tapping into vocabulary that they already know and systems that they already comprehend.
And what it does in that process is it ratifies them, us, our culture as knowledge purveyors.
I use hip-hop to frame and communicate science because I'm intentionally communicating science to broader audiences that public science outreach has traditionally overlooked.
And in the process, I am affirming the genius that thrives in the young minds of people from every hood everywhere.
So let me ask you one last time, you down with EPC?
Audience: Yeah, you know me!
DNL: You down with EPC?
Audience: Yeah, you know me!
DNL: You down with EPC?
Audience: Yeah, you know me!
DNL: Who's down with EPC?
Audience: All the homies!
Thank you.
(Applause and cheers)
What an intriguing group of individuals you are ...
to a psychologist.
(Laughter) I've had the opportunity over the last couple of days of listening in on some of your conversations and watching you interact with each other.
And I think it's fair to say, already, that there are 47 people in this audience, at this moment, displaying psychological symptoms I would like to discuss today.
(Laughter) And I thought you might like to know who you are.
(Laughter) But instead of pointing at you, which would be gratuitous and intrusive, I thought I would tell you a few facts and stories, in which you may catch a glimpse of yourself.
I'm in the field of research known as personality psychology, which is part of a larger personality science which spans the full spectrum, from neurons to narratives.
And what we try to do, in our own way, is to make sense of how each of us -- each of you -- is, in certain respects, like all other people, like some other people and like no other person.
Now, already you may be saying of yourself, "I'm not intriguing.
I am the 46th most boring person in the Western Hemisphere."
Or you may say of yourself, "I am intriguing, even if I am regarded by most people as a great, thundering twit."
(Laughter) But it is your self-diagnosed boringness and your inherent "twitiness" that makes me, as a psychologist, really fascinated by you.
So let me explain why this is so.
One of the most influential approaches in personality science is known as trait psychology, and it aligns you along five dimensions which are normally distributed, and that describe universally held aspects of difference between people.
They spell out the acronym OCEAN.
So, "O" stands for "open to experience," versus those who are more closed.
"C" stands for "conscientiousness," in contrast to those with a more lackadaisical approach to life.
"E" -- "extroversion," in contrast to more introverted people.
"A" -- "agreeable individuals," in contrast to those decidedly not agreeable.
And "N" -- "neurotic individuals," in contrast to those who are more stable.
All of these dimensions have implications for our well-being, for how our life goes.
And so we know that, for example, openness and conscientiousness are very good predictors of life success, but the open people achieve that success through being audacious and, occasionally, odd.
The conscientious people achieve it through sticking to deadlines, to persevering, as well as having some passion.
Extroversion and agreeableness are both conducive to working well with people.
Extroverts, for example, I find intriguing.
With my classes, I sometimes give them a basic fact that might be revealing with respect to their personality: I tell them that it is virtually impossible for adults to lick the outside of their own elbow.
(Laughter) Did you know that?
Already, some of you have tried to lick the outside of your own elbow.
But extroverts amongst you are probably those who have not only tried, but they have successfully licked the elbow of the person sitting next to them.
(Laughter) Those are the extroverts.
Let me deal in a bit more detail with extroversion, because it's consequential and it's intriguing, and it helps us understand what I call our three natures.
First, our biogenic nature -- our neurophysiology.
Second, our sociogenic or second nature, which has to do with the cultural and social aspects of our lives.
And third, what makes you individually you -- idiosyncratic -- what I call your "idiogenic" nature.
Let me explain.
One of the things that characterizes extroverts is they need stimulation.
And that stimulation can be achieved by finding things that are exciting: loud noises, parties and social events here at TED -- you see the extroverts forming a magnetic core.
They all gather together.
And I've seen you.
The introverts are more likely to spend time in the quiet spaces up on the second floor, where they are able to reduce stimulation -- and may be misconstrued as being antisocial, but you're not necessarily antisocial.
It may be that you simply realize that you do better when you have a chance to lower that level of stimulation.
Sometimes it's an internal stimulant, from your body.
Caffeine, for example, works much better with extroverts than it does introverts.
When extroverts come into the office at nine o'clock in the morning and say, "I really need a cup of coffee," they're not kidding -- they really do.
Introverts do not do as well, particularly if the tasks they're engaged in -- and they've had some coffee -- if those tasks are speeded, and if they're quantitative, introverts may give the appearance of not being particularly quantitative.
But it's a misconstrual.
So here are the consequences that are really quite intriguing: we're not always what seem to be, and that takes me to my next point.
I should say, before getting to this, something about sexual intercourse, although I may not have time.
And so, if you would like me to -- yes, you would?
OK.
(Laughter) There are studies done on the frequency with which individuals engage in the conjugal act, as broken down by male, female; introvert, extrovert.
So I ask you: How many times per minute -- oh, I'm sorry, that was a rat study -- (Laughter) How many times per month do introverted men engage in the act?
3.0.
Extroverted men?
More or less?
Yes, more.
5.5 -- almost twice as much.
Introverted women: 3.1.
Extroverted women?
Frankly, speaking as an introverted male, which I will explain later -- they are heroic.
7.5.
They not only handle all the male extroverts, they pick up a few introverts as well.
(Laughter) (Applause) We communicate differently, extroverts and introverts.
Extroverts, when they interact, want to have lots of social encounter punctuated by closeness.
They'd like to stand close for comfortable communication.
They like to have a lot of eye contact, or mutual gaze.
We found in some research that they use more diminutive terms when they meet somebody.
So when an extrovert meets a Charles, it rapidly becomes "Charlie," and then "Chuck," and then "Chuckles Baby."
(Laughter) Whereas for introverts, it remains "Charles," until he's given a pass to be more intimate by the person he's talking to.
We speak differently.
Extroverts prefer black-and-white, concrete, simple language.
Introverts prefer -- and I must again tell you that I am as extreme an introvert as you could possibly imagine -- we speak differently.
We prefer contextually complex, contingent, weasel-word sentences -- (Laughter) More or less.
(Laughter) As it were.
(Laughter) Not to put too fine a point upon it -- like that.
When we talk, we sometimes talk past each other.
I had a consulting contract I shared with a colleague who's as different from me as two people can possibly be.
First, his name is Tom.
Mine isn't.
(Laughter) Secondly, he's six foot five.
I have a tendency not to be.
(Laughter) And thirdly, he's as extroverted a person as you could find.
I am seriously introverted.
I overload so much, I can't even have a cup of coffee after three in the afternoon and expect to sleep in the evening.
We had seconded to this project a fellow called Michael.
And Michael almost brought the project to a crashing halt.
So the person who seconded him asked Tom and me, "What do you make of Michael?"
Well, I'll tell you what Tom said in a minute.
He spoke in classic "extrovert-ese."
And here is how extroverted ears heard what I said, which is actually pretty accurate.
I said, "Well Michael does have a tendency at times of behaving in a way that some of us might see as perhaps more assertive than is normally called for."
(Laughter) Tom rolled his eyes and he said, "Brian, that's what I said: he's an asshole!"
(Laughter) (Applause) Now, as an introvert, I might gently allude to certain "assholic" qualities in this man's behavior, but I'm not going to lunge for the a-word.
(Laughter) But the extrovert says, "If he walks like one, if he talks like one, I call him one."
And we go past each other.
Now is this something that we should be heedful of?
Of course.
It's important that we know this.
Is that all we are?
Are we just a bunch of traits?
No, we're not.
Remember, you're like some other people and like no other person.
How about that idiosyncratic you?
As Elizabeth or as George, you may share your extroversion or your neuroticism.
But are there some distinctively Elizabethan features of your behavior, or Georgian of yours, that make us understand you better than just a bunch of traits?
That make us love you?
Not just because you're a certain type of person.
I'm uncomfortable putting people in pigeonholes.
I don't even think pigeons belong in pigeonholes.
So what is it that makes us different?
It's the doings that we have in our life -- the personal projects.
You have a personal project right now, but nobody may know it here.
It relates to your kid -- you've been back three times to the hospital, and they still don't know what's wrong.
Or it could be your mom.
And you'd been acting out of character.
These are free traits.
You're very agreeable, but you act disagreeably in order to break down those barriers of administrative torpor in the hospital, to get something for your mom or your child.
What are these free traits?
They're where we enact a script in order to advance a core project in our lives.
And they are what matters.
Don't ask people what type you are; ask them, "What are your core projects in your life?"
And we enact those free traits.
I'm an introvert, but I have a core project, which is to profess.
I'm a professor.
And I adore my students, and I adore my field.
And I can't wait to tell them about what's new, what's exciting, what I can't wait to tell them about.
And so I act in an extroverted way, because at eight in the morning, the students need a little bit of humor, a little bit of engagement to keep them going in arduous days of study.
But we need to be very careful when we act protractedly out of character.
Sometimes we may find that we don't take care of ourselves.
I find, for example, after a period of pseudo-extroverted behavior, I need to repair somewhere on my own.
As Susan Cain said in her "Quiet" book, in a chapter that featured the strange Canadian professor who was teaching at the time at Harvard, I sometimes go to the men's room to escape the slings and arrows of outrageous extroverts.
(Laughter) I remember one particular day when I was retired to a cubicle, trying to avoid overstimulation.
And a real extrovert came in beside me -- not right in my cubicle, but in the next cubicle over -- and I could hear various evacuatory noises, which we hate -- even our own, that's why we flush during as well as after.
(Laughter) And then I heard this gravelly voice saying, "Hey, is that Dr. Little?"
(Laughter) If anything is guaranteed to constipate an introvert for six months, it's talking on the john.
(Laughter) That's where I'm going now.
Don't follow me.
Thank you.
(Applause)