Russell Brand, Conspiracy Theories and Cognitive Biases

0:04 This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Dunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Welcome to another solo episode of Crappy to Happy. This week, I'm really interested to talk to you about cognitive biases and particularly this occurred to me that I wanted to talk to you about this in light of the accusations that have been made about Russell Brand. Now, I don't necessarily want to get into my opinion about Russell Brand or anybody else's opinion about Russell Brand, but the fact is he has been accused by several women of rape or sexual assault, and he has come back and positioned those accusations as a targeted attack by the mainstream media to discredit him because he is somebody who has been very vocally outspoken against the mainstream media. So this is apparently a coordinated attack by various media organizations because it was a kind of a collaboration I guess, between The Times and Channel four to put this news piece together. It was published as

1:35 an article as well as a documentary. So he has said that this is a coordinated attack by the mainstream media to silence him. When I first saw this news come out, I immediately went to his Instagram page to see what his followers had to say about this, and unsurprisingly I saw many, many of them coming out in support of him, saying that yes, of course this is a witch hunt. He's being attacked, Stay strong, lots of love and compassion to you. In fairness, there are other moderate voices saying, look, I've always been a fan, but you know, we need to just not automatically believe celebrities just because they say that they're innocent, equally people saying innocent until proven guilty. Let's wait to see what the judge and jury has to say about this. If there are criminal charges to be laid, well let's have that happen.

2:22 Let's not have trial by media. So there were moderate voices in there, but I was really curious about this just unwavering and unconditional support that was being offered to him in light of these very serious allegations, very detailed, specific allegations made by not just one, but several women over a extended period of time. So it really got me to thinking about some of these themes that we have been discussing recently on this podcast. Number one, I guess, being parasocial relationships. I was curiously, you know, reading through the comments, looking at the ones that work along the lines of you're too good a person, You're too compassionate a person, this, you're not the type of person who would ever do this kind of thing. You remember, this guy's a stranger to them. He is a celebrity, he's in the public eye, and this idea that they think that they know him based on what he presents to the public, and they're so aligned and so invested in their perception of him. So there was that. There's also this I will unpack this further in a minute, but there was the nature of his counter claim, which I then realized. I thought he had put this out after this documentary had aired, but in fact, it had come out a day before, So he was aware that this documentary was coming out, and he preempted it with the video saying, you know, this is what's happening on being attacked, and so he was kind of getting on the front foot before this actually came out. So I'll unpack the

3:54 way he positioned that statement and what I think he was trying to do. And then there's just this whole idea of the mainstream media and the establishment. I mean, I don't even know who the establishment is, but the idea that the establishment is about to bring him down because he is such a threat to the establishment and to the mainstream and so it's there in amongst the under the broad umbrella of conspiracy theories. And he also I haven't really closely followed him for a while, but you know, he's also has very much been aligned with questioning the efficacy of vaccines or we told the truth about vaccines, we told the truth about necessity of lockdowns, and you know, whatever your opinions are about that, he's sort of been part of that kind of cohort. I guess that has been very much questioning what are we being told or we being told the truth? Are we being lied to? When this is very much the nature of the conspiracy theories that flowed around. So I wanted to really unpack that as well. And I guess all of this kind of broadly falls within this category of cognitive biases, the various unconscious biases that we all hold, the way we filter information, the way we interpret information, while we believe the things that we do, while we continue to believe the things that we do even in the face of contradictory information. And you know just how some of this stuff plays out. And even if you are not necessarily invested in this particular situation, even if you don't have an opinion one way or the other, cognitive biases affect us all. We are all susceptible to them.

5:24 We are all influenced, and we all can jump to conclusions and form opinions without necessarily being completely impartial, and then we kind of get fixed, We get very locked in on our opinion, and they can be very hard to shake. So I wanted to just talk about the psychology of that as well. I think this is just really it's interesting from a psychological perspective, and it's also very useful self reflection. It's very useful for us to think about, what are the conclusions that I automatically jump to, what are the assumptions I immediately make, what's the filter that I view this information through. Am I being completely partial in this scenario? And all of this has ramifications for not only our decision making, but for the broader society.

6:07 It's polarization that's happening in society, them and us mentality. Oh, you're seeing it in Australia right now with the Voice referendum, the misinformation that is being spread, that people being shouted down for questioning what it's all about. These are the same sorts of arguments that were made back when there was the gay marriage referendum, back when there were people were questioning vaccine efficacy, all of these things. So we've seen it happen quite a lot over recent years, and I just think it's kind of useful for us all to take a pause and to have a look at, you know, what are the sorts of things that influence our opinions and our decisions. So to use Russell Brand as the kind of the case in point at the moment.

6:53 It isn't like I said, it's not all about him, but just let's just use this particular situation as an example. First up, Russell Brand is somebody who has been very vocal and very honest about his history of addiction. He's been a heroin addict, alcoholic. He has been open about the fact that he had a sex addiction, and he has been in a lot of trouble. And I actually wasn't even aware really of how much trouble he had been in, because I didn't live in the UK. I had never watched his programs, for example, when he was on the TV here in the UK, I never listened to his radio station. Those of us who are from other places probably wouldn't be aware of his celebrity status.

7:33 I guess here in the UK even before he went over and kind of made his mark in Hollywood, which came later. But he was very much rebellious, pushing the boundaries, said some things on air on his television programs, on his radio program really in hindsight, whether people considered it to be at the time or not, like really kind of reprehensible things, demeaning of women, very sexist, really inappropriate kind of behaviors that he eventually was called out for and he, you know, the BBC was fined, he lost his job at one point. He then just went on to go on to bigger jobs and better jobs and went to Hollywood, and made it big over there as well.

8:16 So he never really seemed to have any major consequences for any of this kind of behavior. But he even in his stand up act very publicly joking, you know, sexual jokes and talking about mistreating women. In his own biographies, he's written about mistreating women. And I'm not saying that that makes him a sex offender, but I am saying that he has been very open and very public about his bad behavior, and he's I mean, it's been on display, it has been absolutely on displays, it's recorded. So why then do people find it so hard to believe that he may have mistreated women, that he may have treated them badly. So what's happened is he has kind of I guess he's now no longer in that Hollywood kind of world. He's removed himself from that. He has talks about how he has recovered from his addictions. He lives a very different lifestyle now. He's restyled himself as a bit of a spiritual kind of a self helpy Guide, does a lot of meditation, a lot of yoga. He talks about us needing to let go of our attachments tool that fame and power and all that that is offered, and because it will just bring us undone those we all have our own kind of neurosies, our own addictions.

9:26 And so as a psychologist and as somebody who was really interested in Buddhist philosophy and the attachment being the source of suffering, like all of that sort of messaging really appealed to me. And that's probably when he really first came on my radar, was when that was who he was positioning himself to be. And so I was interested in his meditations. He was talked about Cundlini meditation, he talked about all of these things that had helped him to recover and overcome his addictions. And you know, leader, healthier life, now married, he's now got young children, so that's all fine. And then in more recent years he has again he's no longer on any sort of mainstream TV or radio, but he has a YouTube channel, he has a podcast, a couple of podcasts. I think, he has his social media accounts, and he has millions and millions of people following him. So he is still very much in the public eye. He is just removed from what you would call mainstream media. He runs his own show very much. And like I said, since the pandemic, he seemed to have and I haven't paid close attention, but he does seem to have moved more towards this really questioning a lot of the mainstream kind of messaging that we've all been receiving about COVID and vaccinations and lockdowns and now you know what's going on in US politics.

10:48 He's very much into that. I would say it appears to the casual observer that he does appear to question a lot of the more left leaning media outlets CNNMSNBC. He appears to be platforming commentators who I would say tend to align with more right wing conservative kind of politics. He has not necessarily I don't know if he has actually come out and said that he is a Trump supporter, but he certainly highlights that he feels that Trump may have been unfairly attacked by the media. He has profiled and platformed people like Tucker Carlson, very outspoken Fox News journalist, so as somebody who while always an anarchist, very anti government, very anti institution, he appeared to have more of a socialist kind of a bent. He was more always about feeding the hungry housing the homeless, distributing wealth. Whereas now his political agenda, while he doesn't come right out and say it, it appears to be very much leaning towards the right and a lot of those kinds of ideologies.

11:54 I guess he refers to his followers as awakened wonders. He wears a lot of robes, and he does a lot of this kind of chanting things. You could say, he's kind of styling himself as a bit of a guru, and people, certainly you know, are inspired by him and look up to him, and they listen to what he has to say. So that's a little that's a little Russell brand kind of an update if you weren't familiar. So, first of all, I guess to start with, when we start thinking about cognitive biases and the kinds of faulty thinking or the factors that can influence how we make decisions and how we interpret information, let's talk a little bit about what you might call a conspiracy theory. Now, I'm even a little reluctant to use the term conspiracy theory because I feel like that that term is it's used in a kind of a derogatory way, like if you're accused of being a conspiracy theorist. It's like you're of a nut job. You're wearing a tinfoil hat. You know, it's you're stupid, you don't know what you're talking about, Like you're a whack job. Very very derogatory, I make no mistake. And so anybody who is questioning of messages that we might receive from government, or from media or from whatever, you're not going to win them over by calling them a conspiracy theorist, because in their mind, or even in your mind, what you are doing is rightfully

13:24 questioning and being being skeptical, and you know, not just swallowing everything that somebody wants you to believe. And you would consider yourself to be kind of a little bit more informed than perhaps somebody else. So I don't want to use the term conspiracy theory too much, but I kind of can't help it, because that's kind of what it's called in psychology. So a conspiracy theory, according to social psychologists, and I have taken my advice here from somebody who specializes in this area, a conspiracy theory is it's like a propososed plot carried out in secret, usually by powerful people. With some kind of a sinister goal.

14:08 So this is some a powerful group of people who've got something going on that they're not really sharing and for their in their own self interest, not in the interest of the public, or not not in your interest. So certain people are more inclined to believe these kinds of ideas, these kinds of proposed supposed conspiracy plots and objectives. Certain people are you know, psychologically speaking, there are particular motivations that people have psychological drivers. I guess that incline people to buying into these kinds of conspiracy ideas, and I want to break those down just now, because this is one example of a cognitive bias Like this is like if you if you're presented with some information and you question skeptical of that, or if you think, I do not buy this, this is clearly there's a hidden agenda here. I'm not going along with this. I'm not going to be suckered into this. Then what is it?

15:11 What are the factors that cause you to either believe what you've been told or to dismiss and discount what you've been told and in fact to actively deny what you're being told. So I guess we all fall along the spectrum to some degree, Like we all can have a healthy skepticism. And it's true sometimes we are right to question things. Sometimes we have been lied to. That's the tricky bit, Like the government isn't always honest with us, the media isn't always upfront. There's absolutely there is bias in the media. We know this. But where does healthy skepticism stop, and where does this kind of I don't believe anything, this real conspiracy, like there is some hidden agenda going on here. Where does that kind of start?

15:51 You know, As I said, we all fall along that spectrum to some degree, and to some degree, being a little bit skeptical is an adaptive response, Okay, So it helps us to maintain a sense of control and a sense of certainty, especially when things are out of control or uncertain. It's it's a coping mechanism that can help us to get through really difficult times. And I think in times of crisis, in times of up people. I mean COVID was a classic example. We've never experienced anything like that in our lifetime. Then there was this proliferation of conspiracy theories because people were questioning and people just looking for something to hold on to some sense of certainty to make sense of what this is that's going on. So, according to Professor Karen Douglas, who's actually an assio psychologist who is now based over here in the UK and is an expert in conspiracy theories, our belief in conspiracy theories is driven by three particular psychological needs that we are seeking to satisfy. So the first is epistemic and this is our need for knowledge or for certainty. There's our psychological need to have some certainty, particularly when things are ambiguous or uncertain. So if there is a big event, there is a big catastrophe, planfalls out of the sky, global pandemic, then we look for Our brain is looking for a way to make sense of that, and that can lead us to latch onto an idea that may not be rooted in truth or reality, but it can lead us to grab a hold of an idea and kind of run with it, this kind of idea that

17:21 there is something else at play. Apparently, people who have a lower level of education are more likely to buy into conspiracy theories, to believe conspiracy theories, and she makes the point that that is not because they are less intelligent, but perhaps because of having not as much access to education and critical thinking skills, that they may be less likely to be able to differentiate, you know, where they get their information from, less likely to kind of critically analyze sources of information and look at where that's coming from. You know, what's driving that, what's the agenda? Why is somebody wanting you to believe that? The other psychological need at play here is existential reasons. So this is our need to feel safe and secure, and it speaks to our need for autonomy, our need for some power and some control. So the first one was more about certainty.

18:15 This one's about when we feel powerless or out of control and we're looking to regain some sense of control. Then we are inclined to believe something that may or may not be true. We're feeling disillusioned, you know, that's when we're more likely to be drawn into a conspiracy theory. I have also read that people who have you know, maybe early you know, I always go back to early childhood experiences, But people who have reason to be mistrusting, people who have maybe had difficult childhood experiences, some trauma, and tend to just generally be less trusting then they are also potentially more likely to believe conspiracy theories. You know, there's just that kind of part of your nature, part of your programming, that you know, to question everything, to not fully one hundred percent trust that people have got your best interests at heart. And the third is a social need, our psychological need for community and belonging, our need to feel good about ourselves, and our need to feel good about the group that we belong to. So when we're believing conspiracy theories and having this kind of deep cynicism and doubt about what we're being told, there is something here about feeling like you know something that other people don't know, that somehow you are more special or you've got access to, you know, some knowledge that the rest of the people don't know, and feeling a little bit superior about that. And if you've ever been

19:45 on the receiving end of somebody saying just you just go and do your research, like I'm not going to do it for you. Go do you know this whole Go do your research. You know you don't know what you're talking about, because I've done my research and I know more than you know. And then there is this belonging to a community and this sense that the group that you're involved in, and particularly if that group has a sense that they are somehow oppressed or they're being silenced, or they're being shut down, or they're being unappreciated or invalidated, then there is this kind of strength and power that comes from the affiliation of being in that group and this rising up against the powers, whoever they may be, you know, taking a stance as a group and as a community, and you're having this kind of over inflated sense of importance. You know, you see this a lot like this group that I belong to is the good, the right, the moral, the upstanding. We're the truth tellers, we are the we're the keepers of the truth, and all of the rest of you you're on the wrong side.

20:46 You're you're the ones ruining it for everybody. And this is where this polarization gets set up. This is them an US kind of mentality. So speaking of it feeling special and unique, Yes, people who have narcissistic tendencies, and I've talked about narcissism quite a lot. You know, people who are narcissistic, they have that a sense of entitlement, this sense of specialness, this sense of being fantasies about wealth and power and beauty and being unique and special and talented. And yes, they are more prone to believing in conspiracy theories. Now, I don't know if Russell Brand is a narcissist, but certainly he has positioned himself and presents himself as some kind of messiah. I mean, I think he even calls himself a messiah. And you may say, oh, that's just tongue in cheek, or that's just you know, that's just Russell being that's always so funny. But he you know, he wears the robes and he goes around and he holds people's hands and he calls us, he calls everybody my awakened wonders and together we are rising up and you know, we know the truth. So he's really pandering to these psychological need to belong, to be superior, to be to be special, and you know, to be part of that in group. He has absolutely cultivated that in his community. Now, this is a person remember who has who also has been very public about going through recovery, going through a twelve step program, having to completely let go of his ego, having to completely own the terrible

22:20 things that he has done in his past, to take it, to be accountable for the things that he has done. So this guru kind of thing, it's just doesn't fit. I mean, and we see this a lot. I mean, you will see plenty of very spiritual, self helpy gurui type people who go on to do terrible, terrible things. Buddhist monks have been accused of sexual assault, of been treating people very very badly. Nobody is immune. Go back and listen to Gwen Ad said, like, nobody is immune to being seduced by power and control. And certainly Russell Brandt has been very open about his previous seduction by power and control. Absolutely, he has been very honest about that.

23:05 So is he a little narcissistic, Well, that's not for me to say, but certainly you could say that some of his behaviors have a little touch of the narcissism to them, that's for sure. So once you subscribe to a belief, any belief at all, then something happens in our brains called confirmation bias. And you've probably heard of this. Confirmation bias happens when when you hold something to be true, whether it's that the sky is blue, or that right wing is bad or dogs are better than cats. Then what your brain will do as a way of shortcutting the thinking process and conserving energy is it will filter in all of the information that you are presented with that confirms your existing belief. It will look for, seek out, and filter in anything that confirms what you already believe to be true, and it will filter out, or it will dismiss or deny or minimize any information that comes in that disconfirms your pre existing belief. So, once you believe something, it becomes very very hard. It is very challenging to change a belief, to suddenly not believe that thing is true, to actually say, oh, I've been completely wrong about this, especially if it is something that's almost become a part of your identity. You think about religious beliefs, political beliefs to some degree, you know what footy team you go for, your ideas about animal welfare or refugees

24:36 or any of these kind of controversial topics like where you stand. And once you align yourself with that belief and that view, and you align yourself with a group of people who hold the same sort of belief, then it becomes very hard to shake that because it's not that somebody just needs to tell you the opposite, just to show you all of the ways and the reasons why what you think is not the right way to think. Think that what you believe is true is not true because your brain is actively working to discount any counter information. You know, you will go on social media, and it's not just your brain then that is just filtering in information or having you keep scrolling and you know, ignoring and dismissing anything that you see that runs counter to what you already believe. It is that then the algorithms are working to keep on feeding you information that also confirms what you believe to be true. The algorithms will show you accounts and show you groups and show you pages that are aligned with the same sort of viewpoint that you have, So you are continually being represented with more information that confirms or you're already believed to be true.

25:45 So this is how our beliefs become very, very fixed. We become very convinced of the truth of what we believe, and it is really hard to shake that. So again, if we go back to Russell Brand, the situation is said over the weekend, for I believe four women who he either had a relationship with or who he worked with, both in the UK and in the USA, have accused him of rape or sexual assault. These women don't know each other. They've shared quite similar accounts of, you know, particular personal characteristics like his eyes closing over his eyes, him sort of disappearing and his eyes going very black, and they've given detailed accounts. One of these women attended a rape crisis center after this happened. They have text messages where he has apologized to them and said I'm really sorry. I should never have done that. There's arguably there's plenty of evidence here, and no, it hasn't been to the police, and it hasn't been to a judge or jury. But it was very clear to me watching the documentary that the researchers who put it together had spent some time corroborating all of these accounts. They had gone to witnesses to confirm, they had verified phone numbers on text messages, they had copies of rape crisis reports at things like that after one incident, they had they spoke to family members and friends of people who were in the situation or people who had been around the situation at the time. Now, remember this is a person

27:16 who has been very open about the fact that he's bragged about sexual conquests, and yet people fail to believe these women. So what is going on that they find it so difficult to believe the things that these women have said. So part of the reason is because of the way Russell Brandt has positioned himself to date. So one thing we know about conspiracy theories is that one way to get ahead of them is to pre empt So basically, if you tell people you might see some things. You might see some news articles that say this, this, and this, you might see some conspiracy theories that I're going to tell you that climate change is not really Now, here's the facts. Here's what you need to be armed with.

28:03 Here's some of the information you need to be armed with to be able to decipher this information, to make sense of this information, to verify this information for yourself that is proven to be. Like, once somebody's already believed something, it's really hard to shake. But if you can get ahead of them believing it and you can say, look, you might be presented with some information here that's a bit dodge, but here you go, like, this is what you need to understand and this is where you can go to get the facts. Then that is shown to be effective. So what Russell Brand has done is he has pre emptied this documentary. He has come out ahead of time and he has said, guys, I got a situation. I'm obviously paraphrasing here, but you mean it's on his instagram.

28:45 You can go see yourself. But he has said, what is happening to me now is that I am being the target of the mainstream media. I've been talking about this for ages, about how the mainstream media is trying to silence people who questioning them, and now it seems they're coming for me. So he's pre empty. You're about to see something. But remember what we've been talking about all this time is how they are not telling the truth, about how they are targeting and silencing people. And oh now it's my Now I'm the victim. Not once, not once, did he mention any of the actual victims or any of the or I should say, any of the women who have made claims against him. He completely made this about the media. The other thing he said is and I thought this was really interesting. He said, you guys have been telling me you guys have been in the comment saying to me, watch out, Russell, It's only a matter of time before they come for you. And lo and behold, my time has come. He's essentially saying to them, you guys knew you're the smart ones. You saw this coming.

29:48 All of my awakened people, we know better than this. Oh. Then he said, this is interesting. I have been very transparent. In fact, maybe I've been too transparent about my previous behaviors. In other words, I've been too honest, and now they're using my honesty against me. I've been so open, and I have left myself exposed, and now people are using this to come back, now that I am disrupting, Now that I've become a problem because I'm speaking up against them, Now they're using that to come for me. It was a very cleverly worded statement. Again, like I said, not once, no mention of any of the women who he obviously knows, you know, he had relationships with them. He said, I all of my relationships have been consensual, and again which sort of sidesteps the fact that you can be in a consensual relationship and still be raped. You can be in a consensual relationship and still be sexually assaulted. So all of my relationships have been consensual. Doesn't really address the fact that there may have been within those consensual relationships particular incidents that were not consensual. So again sort of didn't really address that. Then he said, obviously, I categorically deny, I refute these these allegations you know, absolutely not true, and stay free. So that's his tagline. Now,

31:21 everybody's stay free because other people are trying to the mainstream. They're trying to shut you down, silence, you take away your freedom. So stay free. So very clever, very cunning, very interesting way to position that. I also find it interesting that as somebody who is a recovering addict, like I said, who has been very open about the twelve step process, you know, step step four, I'm pretty sure it is. And the twelve step process is to take an inventory and to make amends for anything that you've done. And and like I said, he's he's really self styled himself as a spiritual guy. Has somebody who is deeply spiritual and very much one with the universe. And you know, above all of this materialism and fame, I've had all of that. It didn't satisfy me. I've realized that that is not where we find our happiness. That's not where we find our satisfaction. We have to rise above all of that. So this kind of spiritual message, this humble kind of message, you know, about dropping your ego and letting go of all of that, the trappings of fame and wealth. And yet there was not once, you know, in any of this statement, not even an if I have inadvertently hurt somebody, if I have somehow done something to harm somebody and I have been unaware of that, I unreservedly apologize. You know, there wasn't even that. There was just this is lies. This is a mainstream media.

32:45 They're attacking me, which completely diverted everybody's attention to the mainstream media and away from these women. Now, speaking of the women, I went through, as I said, I went through the comments, and the people are so invested, so invested, and so I identified with him and his message that they are even dismantling like that, they're even coming out with things like I watched the show completely scripted, like they didn't even give their names. How can you believe these women when you don't even know their names. They're unwilling to come forward, they're anonymous. They're obviously like just completely discrediting these women who have really put themselves out there to make these to make these accusations. It's interesting to me that just in the last week as well, there's been another big news article, and that was about Ashton Kutcher and Miller Kuhnis, his wife, who came under attack for writing character references for Danny Marsterton. So Danny Marsterton was somebody who worked with them on that seventies show back in the day when they were all very young.

33:49 They've known him for twenty five years or so. And he was found guilty of sexually assaulting to women, and he was about to be sentenced, and they wrote a character reference. So he was found guilty, he was going to jail, and they wrote a character reference saying that he had always been a great friend, he'd been a great mentor, that they didn't feel like it was the right thing that his daughter be deprived of her father. And they intended these letters to be read by the judge, but it came out publicly that they had written these letters, and they were crucified because again completely failing to acknowledge the impact on the victims, almost minimizing his crimes because he's such a good guy, Like he really doesn't deserve to go to jail forever because he's such a nice guy.

34:49 He's done all of these great things, and they had to come out and put out a plan. I think it was a very pr driven apology. Like even their apology was kind of you know, ripped it to pieces. But it's this idea. I mean, what were they thinking. They've fed up a charity based on, you know, saving children from sex trafficking, and they were going into publicly bad for a convicted sex offender, you know, who committed crimes against very young women. I think they were teenagers when the crimes happen. So this idea that our perceptions are influenced, they're tainted by our opinion of somebody that we can't reconcile in our mind that this person that I have this relationship with, that I know to be a good and kind and decent person, that they could do that thing and this kind of blind spot that they would write a letter, they would write a character reference and have that go public. When we're talking about a convicted sex offender, and so part of me thinks, well, I don't know, can you really judge them? Because have you ever had a friend, a very very dear, a close, long standing friend, accused of a crime and had them say, you know, please, could you just it's done. I've done it, I'm guilty. I'm gone to jail. But anything that you could do that might, you know, make that they might take into consideration when sentencing me for my daughter because dahlahlah blah blah blah blah, this was thirty years ago.

36:19 I'm a different person now, you know whatever. Would you feel a little bit torn? It's I think it's very easy to say, oh my god, I would drop that person like hot potato. They would never hear from me again. What an absolutely horrible, horrific thing to do, Not a chance in the world. It's easy to say that, but that is not the reality. Like that is that, that is not how most people's brains and emotions work in these sorts of situations. We all know that people aren't all good and all bad. We're all influenced by our personal experience of somebody. And that's again, it's another kind of cognitive bias that affects all of us. I know in my own life people who have come out of marriage breakups and there's been a stack of evidence that the person has been an emotional abuser, and people just hang in with them, hang and be friends, you know, even when they're friends with both parties. People don't want to believe you know bad things about people that they know and respect and admire and like. So there's a lot of that going on with Russell Brandt. People have this cognitive dissonance, like I know you as this person, and it's really challenging for me to accept that you could be that person. And therefore I will come up with all of the reasons and all of the justifications to make this make sense to me, because I can't bring myself to believe that you would do that, which brings me to parasocial relationships. The people who have this alignment,

37:52 this affiliation with Russell Brandt, the people who are so strongly believe in his message and his goodness, and some of the comments on his page, why would such a good, kind, charismatic person like he would never do this? They have never met him. These people have never met him. He has a public persona that they feel some connection to they've invested in this public persona because they align with some of his messaging and and they absolutely they're so invested that they find it really challenging to then have to unwind that and to consider that this person is not the person that they thought he was. Too. It's too big a gap, and our brains don't like that.

38:41 Our brains will come up with a if we this is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when you have a belief about something, but then your behavior doesn't line up with that, and how do you reconcile that. So let's say I'm a I'm a committed vegetarian because I believe in animal welfare. This happened to me actually in my own life. I was, you know, committed vegetar because I really believed in animal welfare. And then I found out that, like, you know, dairy cows got treated really badly, and you know, there's all these other things that I was doing that would really we're not very supportive of animal welfare. And so, you know, my after some sort of grappling, I eventually became vegan for a while, but not forever. And I guess you know, when I decided to eat meat again, or eat eggs, or eat cheese or whatever it was, it was a step by step sort of process. I had to come to some way of reconciling that in my mind, justifying to myself why that was okay. So, typically what happens if we are doing something, If we're acting in a particular way, but we have a belief that doesn't or an attitude that is contrary to that that conflicts with what we are doing, we are much more likely to adjust our thoughts than to adjust our behavior.

39:54 We are more likely to come up with a way to justify or minimize or downplay, or you know, find an excuse for what we're doing to make it feel okay than we are to change our behavior. So people are aligning themselves to somebody who is now an accused sexual offender, sexual predator. Hasn't been convicted. We know that, but you know, people have come out and so these are people who would probably in day to day life be supportive of women, you know, stand up for sexual assault victims, maybe strong feminists, maybe very anti you know, violence, anti male abuse against women, all of these things, but are finding a way to justify their support of him by either dismissing these women, finding fault with their testimony, somehow coming up with some convoluted way in their own mind to justify their continued support of him. Because these things don't make sense. These two things don't line up in my head. So in order for me to continue to support this person and be aligned with this person, because this has become such a big part of my identity, that I have to find a way to make this other thing not an issue for me. So I have to find a way to discount or dismiss or to be able to reject that, to be able to reject that premise that he actually might be a sexual predator, because that is too uncomfortable for me because I'm so

41:25 invested in this public persona. I've attached so much of myself and my own a sense of community and who I am and what I believe and what I stand for is so much invested in this that I can't have that not be true. So I'll find a way to make it make sense. And you know, this is just one example like we do these in big and small ways every day of our lives. We come up with rationalizations and justifications and excuses to reduce the amount of cognitive dissonance that we all experience when I behavior doesn't necessarily line up with our attitudes or our beliefs. So, like I said, that went on for quite a little bit longer than what I had intended. A lot to unpack there. I did start off by saying that I was it's not about whether I think he's guilty or he's not. I don't know if I gave away my own you know, my own initial reaction when I saw the news, and I don't know what your initial reaction was when you saw the news. But I think when we see people who are rallying in support, I think it can help to have under some understanding for why that might be the case, for what is going on with people, because I don't think I don't think it is at all helpful. And you are not going to change anybody's mind by calling them a conspiracy theorist, rape apologist.

42:46 You know, all of these kinds of accusations that get made, Those kinds of attacks only make people dig in deeper like that only often, you know, cause people to kind of double down on what they believe. So we just need to you know, be able to find a way to to understand and to communicate. It's nothing that any of us have got, you know, at stake. In this particular case, we will just wait to see how it plays out. But in other areas of your life where you see people doubling down or spreading, you know, con buying into conspiracy theories, or you know, just behaving in ways that you don't necessarily understand, I hope that that has just helped you to be able to understand, you know, why we think the way we do, while we have the biases that we do, how these ideas get entrenched, and how they can be so hard to shift. And even if this is not you, even if this particular, if you are not a Russell Brand supporter in this case, I guarantee there'll be somewhere else in your life that you are doubling down and you know, really holding on to your beliefs about something that somebody else might have a completely different belief about. And it's just you know, worth knowing that we don't all have all the answers.

43:54 There is no ultimate truth, and so we've got to be aware of our own kind of cognitive bias as well. Anyway, that's enough for me, Glad I've got all of that off my chest. Interestingly, Elon Musk Andrew Tate were two people who immediately came out and support of Russell Brand, but you know what, there's a lot of other people who came out and support of him who I was really surprised by. I mean, people who I thought were really just people that I did not expect have come out in support and so that's what really astonished me and had me wanting to talk about it a little bit. So I hope you found that interesting food for thought. And next week I've got a really great guest. It might be a little late next week just because of timing of my interview and the fact that I'm going away this week, but I cannot wait to bring you that one, and I will see you then next week on another episode of Crappy to have you