Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Thu, 13 Mar 2025
Everyone knows that $19.99 is really $20. And we know that gas sold at $3.49 and 9/10 per gallon is really $3.50. We get it. So why do retailers and gas stations still price things this way? The answer is more interesting than you might think so we begin this episode by explaining what’s going on.https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/the-psychological-difference-between-1200-and-1167/384993/ Your memory isn’t as good as you like to think. You forget a lot of things and your memory distorts a lot of other things so that what you remember to be true – isn’t. Given how sophisticated the human brain is, why are our memories so prone to error? That’s a fascinating question I explore with Gillian Murphy, an associate professor in the School of Applied Psychology at University College Cork and coauthor of the book Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember (https://amzn.to/41J9nu1). What does it mean to love well? Whether a lover, a friend or family member, there are people in your life you love who you could probably love better. What might that look like? Here with some insight into this is Yung Pueblo who has sold over 1.5 million books worldwide that have been translated into over 25 languages. He has an online audience of over 4 million people and has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS Mornings and other media outlets. His latest bestselling book is How to Love Better: The Path to Deeper Connection Through Growth, Kindness, and Compassion (https://amzn.to/41LOZZ7) Could having a dishwasher lead to allergies? It is part of that theory that living in a squeaky-clean environment can cause health problems. While it might sound a little odd, there is good evidence to support the idea. Listen as I explain. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/289832 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off QUINCE: Indulge in affordable luxury! Go to https://Quince.com/sysk for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. TIMELINE: Get 10% off your order of Mitopure! Go to https://Timeline.com/SOMETHING SHOPIFY: Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! HERS: Hers is changing women's healthcare by providing access to GLP-1 weekly injections with the same active ingredient as Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as oral medication kits. Start your free online visit today at https://forhers.com/sysk INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why are prices like $19.99 so common?
Why are things we buy priced so strangely? Why is it $19.99 and not $20? Why is gas $3.259 per gallon? Well, let's talk about that. Hi, welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. We all know that $59.99 is closer to $60 than it is to $50, right? Or do we? Economist Tim Hartford describes something called the left digit effect.
That's the theory that consumers, we can't be bothered to read the whole price. We just see the five at the front of $59.99 and we think more like $50 than $60. Which is exactly why retail stores price things this way. But it gets more interesting. Two professors of marketing conducted five experiments and found that different prices are evaluated in different ways.
For instance, consumers are more inclined to buy luxury or recreational products if they have rounded prices. So, for example, consumers prefer a $40 bottle of champagne rather than a bottle priced at... $39.72. However, for purchases that are more utilitarian, like, say, a calculator, participants were more likely to buy at the higher non-rounded price, like $29.99, instead of $30.
In another experiment, participants were told that a camera had been purchased for leisure, like a family vacation, or other participants were told it was for a class project. And the participants preferred rounded prices if the camera was for a vacation and non-rounded prices if it was for a class project. And that is something you should know.
A topic of never-ending fascination for me is memory. Because who you are, what you think of yourself, how you relate to others, all these things are the result of memories. Without memories, who would you be? And yet our memory system is severely flawed. We don't remember things the way we like to think we do. Not even close.
And that has ramifications for all of us, which you're about to discover from my guest, Jillian Murphy. Jillian is an associate professor in the School of Applied Psychology at University College Cork, and she is co-author of a book called Memory Lane, The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember. Hi, Jillian. Welcome to Something You Should Know.
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Chapter 2: How does memory work and why is it flawed?
Thank you so much for having me, Mike.
So I imagine we should probably start by talking about what memory is and all that, but I'm going to jump over that. We'll come back to that later because there's something I've always wanted to know about And I think most people want to know is, you know how some people are labeled as, oh, he has such a great memory. What is that? Why do some people have great memories?
Or is that just they remember some things really well? Or do some people really have great memories?
A really interesting question to start with, because you've kind of stumbled into a huge debate, I think, that would be active amongst memory researchers. There's a few questions within that, and I know we all have that experience of saying, so-and-so has such a good memory, they're amazing.
I suppose if you think about what we're often referring to in that regard would be maybe that they're really good at remembering trivia. I would say that about my dad. My dad is...
someone that I would want on my pub quiz team he's one of those people that seems to know something about everything and he just retains information and he reads a lot and so he just seems to absorb it whereas other people I suppose like you said maybe would describe an event and would be extremely confident in their memories they would say you were there and she was there and you were wearing your brown shoes and they seem to have an amazing memory maybe for personal events rather than for trivia
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about is that because, you know, I've gone to like reunions and stuff and people say, you remember that time when we did the thing? And then a couple of years before that you did that. And I don't have. And then when they say it, it starts to it starts to trigger something where I go, oh, yeah, actually, I do. But they remember the details.
Like you said, they remember the shoes and the thing. And I wonder, how do you hold on to that?
We definitely differ in that regard. Some people are kind of better at that than others, but there's a lot of other factors going on there. I think the main one is that typically you don't have any means of checking whether or not that person is correct. They might just be very confident in their memories.
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Chapter 3: Can memories be intentionally improved?
When I think, and I think when most people remember their childhood or remember the past, they tend to remember it fondly, that they remember the good times. And yet when we look in the future, we tend to worry about it. We worry about the bad that might happen in the future, but the past we think of fondly. Is that, you think, a fair statement?
Yeah, it is. And I suppose in looking back fondly, that often means we're not doing so accurately. And that's OK. I was just telling some students the other day a story about when I was a child. My parents had this like broken down old car and they bought us tickets to go and see this Power Rangers show. It was like a, you know, like a circus kind of outdoor show, but it was Power Rangers.
And I was really young, like maybe four or five. And I have two older brothers now. And it was taking place like an hour or two away from where we live. And we were on the way there and something broke in the car, in this terrible car that we had. And the windscreen wipers stopped working and it was lashing rain, like torrential rain. And so like we couldn't drive.
And so we pulled over and we were all upset. You know, we were small kids and we wanted to go to the show. And my parents went into a petrol station and came back out with some shoelaces. And they tied them around the windscreen wipers and they had one each. And they developed a sort of, you know, pulley system to make the windscreen wipers work enough. We were nearly there to get us there safely.
And we got to Power Rangers and we were delighted. And we tell this story a lot. And certainly as an adult, I look back now and I think it's an example of how
my parents would do anything for us and they always made things happen even if they didn't have you know necessarily the resources to make things happen they had a can-do spirit that I really appreciate as an adult and as a parent now but I was telling someone this the other day and I really thought about it and I thought you know I was four or five years old I of course I wasn't laughing and happy at the fact that I was sitting in the back seat of the car and the rain was coming in and it was freezing and we were late and
And when I really thought about it, I think actually we were complaining and whinging in the back of the car through this whole episode, even though when I look back on it now, I see it as this kind of triumphant solution that my parents came up with. And I think a lot of us have that experience. And maybe as we become parents ourselves and as we get older,
we look back with maybe a more shrewd eye and we realize that maybe that didn't go exactly as we thought it might have gone. But there are huge benefits to that. You know, I enjoy that memory and it shapes how I think of our family and how I think of my parents. And And the two things feed into each other, you know, because I think of my parents as in this particular way.
That probably is why I have misremembered that event, because I'm misremembering it in line with who they are and what they're like. And I think that's ultimately a really good thing. And like I say, you know, there's not necessarily a lot to be gained by having a perfectly accurate memory of that scenario when the inaccurate memory actually might be very adaptive and functional in its own way.
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Chapter 4: How does nostalgia affect our perception of the past?
I think one of the special things that we don't quite fully accept and understand about this historical moment is that There are so many different modalities that people are encountering and using and utilizing to really improve their lives. And through different therapy methods, you can learn how to let go. Through different forms of meditation, you can learn how to let go.
Even through self-reflection and simple acceptance of the past and letting the past be what it is. But I think we live in a special time where people know that they should let go They know that the idea of letting go would be beneficial in their lives. And then they find their own route to get to that point.
So I think, you know, certainly in any relationship, whether it's a love relationship or, you know, family or whatever, that when there are arguments, when there are fights, things get said and things happen that are hard to take back and that many of us anyway don't fight well, that we don't understand things.
What we're really doing, we just kind of want to make our point and have everybody agree. But so seldom does everyone agree.
Even that, right, we were talking about that sort of like evolutionary tendency and it feels almost animalistic when you are, you know, you've fallen into an argument and all of a sudden you feel like you're in a battle and the only option is to gain dominance, to like, you know, have your viewpoint be the dominant one and for the other person to yield.
And what my wife and I learned over trial and error and over years of making these mistakes is that when we're both trying to win, we actually both lose. We leave the argument dissatisfied and sure, there are times when people have to apologize, but
there's still a great value in switching the framework from trying to win to trying to understand each other and taking literally taking a moment to try to understand where she's coming from, understands like, you know, how did the series of events move for her and get to this point and how, and you know, why is she feeling like this in this moment?
And then simultaneously her giving me that opportunity to share and show that you know, how I got to this point.
And there's this magic that happens when you really try to understand each other, because when you can really see a person and where they're coming from, yes, there may still be a need for accountability, for apologies, but the attention fizzles out and evaporates much more easily when you can see each other clearly.
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Chapter 5: What are unique aspects of individual memory?
I think it's easy. It's like, I check in within myself if it's, you know, if she really wants to watch Pitch Perfect, like it's not my favorite movie, but if that's what, if she really feels like she wants to enjoy it, then, It's fine with me. I think we both just sort of check in, like, how is my sort of inner resilience today? And I know that this will give my partner great joy.
And then, you know, see if you can actually just support them and giving them that hour and a half of joy that they want.
So you talk to people about this a lot. And I'm wondering, like, what do people say to you? Yes, but... And then here's my problem. Here's the big thing and something that perhaps you hear over and over again that people get stuck on.
Yeah, the biggest question I get is, should I break up with my boyfriend? And my answer is, I don't know. We just met. I have no idea. Yeah, I think a lot of these things are, you know, people like we live in a culture where so much of it is designed to make life easier for things to be faster. Like we live in the culture of Uber and DoorDash, right? Like everything is just super fast and easy.
But relationships are not like that. Personal growth is not like that. These are things that are gradual. These are long journeys. So I try to remind people that, yeah, You have to throw away the attachment to perfection because even the most epic, beautiful relationship that you could have is going to have down moments. It's going to have challenges.
There are going to be moments where it's very trying and you have to see if it's right for you to continue. And I just think the most beautiful things of life, like if you want to build inner peace, if you want to build harmony, harmony in your relationship, if you want to build better connection with friends, these are all things that are gradual. They take time.
Really, the biggest question you get is, should I break up with my boyfriend?
It's very consistent. And the former question that I used to get, you know, back in like, uh, Probably from 2017 to 2020, it was like, how do I let go? Which I'm glad we talked about. But lately, I think in the past four years, that's been the number one question is like, my boyfriend does X, Y, and Z, and I'll get a big paragraph about it in the DMs. And I have no idea. I don't know.
And if anything, I'm only seeing one side of the story. I have no idea.
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