Just kidding. My name is actually Michael.

That part when I said that I was Vanessa...

that was a lie.

So you're welcome.

Humans love lies.

More precisely,

we love things that aren't entirely true--

because we have to.

It's often all we have.

Completely proving something can be difficult,

if not impossible.

So instead, we have the faith of the believer,

the confidence interval of the scientist.

What we think we know,

we really only believe we know.

On this episode of Mind Field, I'm going to take a look at

a kind of lie we tell ourselves.

And I'm going to use belief to turn a lie...into a truth.

( theme music playing )

Michael: If I'm going to harness the power of belief,

I need to find a good way to study belief and behavior.

So I'm paying a visit to UCLA's Dr. Aaron Blaisdell,

who I worked with on last season's

"Greater Good" Trolley Problem episode.

( train whistle blowing )

Dr. Blaisdell, great to see you again.

Nice to see you again, Michael.

Thank you for your help last season,

but I've got this new thing I want to look into.

I started thinking a lot about belief

and how we form them.

Specifically beliefs about what causes our behavior.

I want to be able to break it down

and just look at how people respond to the environment around them

and how it changes their belief.

Well, a Skinner Box is a great place to start.

because what I tell my students is,

a Skinner Box, for a psychologist like myself,

is like a test tube for a chemist.

Dr. Skinner, what are you doing with this pigeon?

I'm getting ready to demonstrate a fundamental principle of behavior.

Michael: Invented by Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner,

a Skinner Box is a chamber in which animals

can be isolated and exposed to carefully controlled stimuli.

In one of his landmark experiments,

Skinner released food to pigeons in the boxes

at regular intervals.

What he found was that the pigeons seemed to believe

that whatever they happened to be doing

just before the food came

actually caused the food to appear,

and would then repeat that behavior over and over--

for example, hopping around or spinning in circles.

Skinner called this "superstitious behavior."

So what do you want to do-- what's your dream test?

Basically a replication of Skinner's superstitious experiment,

but instead of with pigeons, with people.

I would love to see: will people develop

their own sort of superstitious rituals or beliefs.

Have we done this with people before?

I don't think such a rigorous test of this has been done.

I think primarily, from the literature I know, it's pretty much pigeons.

B.F. Skinner's work showed that if you

regularly deliver a reward to a pigeon,

regardless of how it actually acts,

the pigeon won't figure that out.

Instead, the pigeon will develop superstitious behaviors

as if it thinks it is in control,

despite the lack of any evidence that it is.

But what about humans?

Watching people form new superstitions

might show us how beliefs are created, but here's the thing:

You can't just put a person in a Skinner Box.

People are quite clever, and so instead,

along with Dr. Aaron Blaisdell,

I have developed a much more elaborate ruse.

Welcome to Victory Vault.

♪

Michael: "Victory Vault" is a fake game show we made up

to draw our unsuspecting subjects

into taking part in a human Skinner Box.

To accomplish this, we rented a sound stage

and constructed what appeared to be a game show set,

but was really our study.

We outfitted the room with a checkboard floor,

a button that serves no purpose,

multiple cameras and a live microphone,

all of which have absolutely no connection to winning the game.

We also included an ATM slot on the wall where, instead of food,

dollar bills would be fed into the room

at regular intervals.

Meanwhile, I would be playing the role

of the executive producer of this new game show

testing out the concept for a television network.

Our first subject is Rebecca.

Yes, I know nothing. I'm excited.

Excellent, excellent.

Well, I'll you some things that you need to know.

One, you will get to keep all of the money that you get today.

The object of the game is to collect as much money as possible.

- OK. ( laughs ) - Now, you will have ten minutes,

and that's all I'm going to tell you.

- Go. OK? - OK.

- Rebecca: OK. - Michael (over loudspeaker): All right, Rebecca, begin

in three, two, one, go!

Blaisdell: Of course, right to the button,

but she's not fixated on it,

she's definitely looking around there.

Rebecca: I'm trying to figure out

if there's, like, a puzzle, or what this is about.

Am I supposed to just get out?

No, not supposed to get out. OK.

Oh! OK, there's money. Is that one clue?

Rebecca: I've earned one dollar. ( laughs )

See? She's "earned" one dollar. Earned.

I mean, she thinks she caused it to happen.

Let's see. I think I might be onto something

- with this door, maybe? - Uh-huh.

- OK. - Blaisdell: The second dollar bill

came out really shortly after she manipulated the door.

That's what Skinner would call "adventitious reinforcement."

She accidentally just happened to be doing something,

- and now look. - Hello?

Look, it reinforced that behavior, look how strong it's become.

Now she's doing a lot with the door,

and this dancing, just like one of Skinner's pigeons.

- Anything? - See?

Michael: For the first two minutes,

Rebecca believed a specific combination

of the door and the button

were triggering the money.

She had created a superstitious ritual.

But when her old ritual ceased to line up with the reward being delivered,

she started exploring new actions.

Would you like to keep sending money?

Is it something with this? Hello, dollar bill.

Michael: This change in Rebecca's behavior

indicates that she stopped believing that pressing the button

is associated with money coming out.

Skinner called this "extinction."

( singing ) ♪ Keep sending money, what if I dance? ♪

Michael: Not it seems she believes

her new actions might connect to the reward.

- Five, four, three, - ( Rebecca yelps )

- two, one... - Let's try coming out again.

- zero, stop. - And... OK.

I don't think I solved this mystery.

( laughs )

Michael: Rebecca! You got some money, huh?

- I did! - Come take a seat.

So, first of all, how'd it go?

Oh! Very confusing.

I wasn't able to fully figure it out,

but it was something to do with the 20 white squares on the floor.

Something to do with the red button as well, like a pattern, maybe?

Oh! Maybe I should have tried clicking on the button 20 times.

- Yes! - OK, you wanna know what makes the money come out?

Yes. It's probably something really crazy.

- It's just 30 seconds passing. - Blaissdell: Yep.

- It has nothing to do with what you do. - Ohh!

You would have gotten the same amount,

but you could just sat on the floor and done nothing.

- ( laughing ) - Yeah.

This is actually a psychological experiment

based on some work done by B.F. Skinner,

and we are looking at the kinds of behaviors people invent

that they think controls the money.

- But I think this was fascinating. - Blaisdell: Yeah.

- And you really do get to keep the money. - Yay!

- Rebecca, thank you for your help today. - Cool. Thank you, guys.