Episode 103 The 5 Best "AmITheAsshole" Posts (And Insights About Social Grooming)
Is there any psychological benefit to reading about assholes online and how they’ve ruined their relationships? Or is it just harmless amusement?
Reddit is mostly known for internet announcements, shower thoughts, and funny memes. But somewhere amongst the cat videos and on-the-toilet questions, a new and insightful subreddit has emerged. A subreddit that encouraged assholes to post their stories, and ask the audience to vote on whether they were in the moral right or not. This subreddit is r/AmITheAsshole?
Today, Todd and Joe delve into AITA (Am I The Asshole) to share the most upvoted stories with you. Then we turn to evolutionary psychologists, behavior experts, and artificial intelligence to help us determine if reading about assholes online is actually helping us adjust our own behavior, or if it’s just schadenfreude of the highest caliber. We also share our own stories about times we’ve asked ourselves (and our mentors) if we were being dicks. And we talk about why it’s so important to our development as humans to have mentors - whether we get them from the cave of wisdom, or we find them online in a reddit forum.
Science Links:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201502/why-you-were-born-gossip
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kxkd3/am-i-the-asshole-reddit
https://hbr.org/2022/01/can-ai-teach-us-how-to-become-more-emotionally-intelligent
History Links:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/birkjn/wibta_if_i_ask_my_pregnant_wife_to_move_out/