{"id":6218,"date":"2016-04-01T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/exploring-the-mind-of-an-april-fool\/"},"modified":"2025-03-18T16:18:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T23:18:42","slug":"exploring-the-mind-of-an-april-fool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/exploring-the-mind-of-an-april-fool\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the Mind of an April Fool"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n    \n                                \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-2301-690x432.jpg\"\n                    data-sizes=\"(min-width:1200px) 75vw, (min-width:768px) 83vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  alt=\"Exploring the Mind of an April Fool\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n  \n      <div class=\"image-caption\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  April Fool\u2019s jokes remind us of our immense trust in others, making us consider how much we take their words for granted.\n\n\n<\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n          <nav aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\" class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n        <ul>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\">News<\/a><\/li>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\/?category=faculty\">Faculty<\/a><\/li>\n                  <\/ul>\n      <\/nav>\n    \n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--page-title\">\n\n    \n  <h1>Exploring the Mind of an April Fool<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n    \n           <strong class=\"author-field\"><span >By<\/span><a href=\"mailto:communication@dornsife.usc.edu\">Henrike Moll<\/a><\/strong>\n    \n          <span class=\"post-date-field\">April 1, 2016<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--social-share \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--social-share\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"content-wrapper\">\n    <span class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list\" style=\"line-height: 32px;\">\n      <span class=\"title\">\n        Share\n      <\/span>\n                        <a class=\"a2a_button_copy_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/#copy_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Link\">\n            <span class=\"a2a_svg a2a_s__default a2a_s_copy_link\">\n              <svg height=\"19\" 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cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <p>Despite the fact that fooling others on the first day of April is a long-standing tradition in certain American, European and Asian cultures, April Fool\u2019s Day tricks <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bustle.com\/articles\/73387-these-nationwide-april-fools-day-jokes-had-everyone-in-the-country-convinced\">are often successful<\/a>. Wouldn\u2019t you think that because the knowledge of this custom is culturally shared, the deception should be expected?<\/p>\n<p>Take the time Google announced the launch of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gmail.com\/mail\/help\/motion.html\">Gmail Motion<\/a>, which purported to allow users to control their popular email platform with their bodies. Or when, in 1957, the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/tVo_wkxH9dU\">BBC jokingly reported<\/a> on a Swiss spaghetti harvest, which prompted hundreds of viewers to call into the station requesting spaghetti tree seeds.<\/p>\n<p>However, even anticipation does not necessarily help people identify the traps and pitfalls that have been laid out to make them believe false \u2014 and often pretty implausible \u2014 ideas. This lack of immunity shows how readily humans rely on the judgment and reports of other people. Our \u2018suspense of disbelief\u2019 shows just how much of our view of the world is shaped not by what we see with our own eyes, but by what other people have seen with theirs.<\/p>\n<p>As a psychology researcher, I believe April Fool\u2019s jokes remind us of our immense trust in others, making us consider how much we take their words for granted. At the same time, the nonsense we catch ourselves believing \u2014 even if just for a moment \u2014 reminds us that picking up knowledge from others should not imply that we suspend our rationality.<\/p>\n<p>We can also look at the foolery of April 1 through the lens of child development and the cognitive prerequisites that it takes to \u201cqualify\u201d as a fool. A fool is usually someone who, once he discovers the falsehood of what he believed, slaps his hand against his forehead in recognition of his ignorance. Interestingly, young children lack this attitude. They seem oblivious to what they falsely believed and are unaware that they have revised their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a good example:<\/p>\n<p>Show a 3 year old a box that would usually contain cookies (e.g., an Oreo-cookie box) and ask her what she thinks is inside. Most likely she will say \u201ccookies.\u201d Unexpectedly, however, it contains something entirely different. You open the box for the child and show her that it contains, let\u2019s say, a light bulb. Then you ask the child what she said or expected when you first showed her the unopened box.<\/p>\n<p>According to studies, the 3 year old will confidently claim that she always thought there was a light bulb in the box. Children at this age erase, or undo, their own prior false beliefs and act as if they never entertained such thoughts. But unlike adults, they do not do so out of embarrassment for having erred, but with utter sincerity.<\/p>\n<p>Do they just \u2018forget\u2019 they were wrong? Forgetting does not seem to be the problem. Let\u2019s change the scenario to say that the box at first did contain cookies, which you then replaced with a light bulb and played out the scenario with the child again. When you now ask the child what the box contained initially, she should have no problem asserting that there were cookies in the box at first. Memory for actual past events is therefore not the problem, but instead an inability to recognize beliefs that are counter to fact.<\/p>\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/labs\/mid-la\/\">Minds in Development Lab<\/a> at USC Dornsife, we explore children\u2019s abilities to reason with premises that contradict reality, and we consistently find that young children struggle. For them, objective reality rules over any subjective perspectives on the world. This is clever, because it prioritizes what is real over what could have been, but turned out not to be the case.<\/p>\n<p>At an early age, children are like na\u00efve realists, who let their minds absorb the truths from reality. This might take the fun out of \u2018tricking\u2019 young children, because it won\u2019t really work, not because they refuse to believe you \u2014 their trust goes a long way, so they probably <em>will<\/em> believe you \u2014 but because they won\u2019t recognize the clash between what you got them to believe and the truth that is later uncovered. Instead, they will probably think that they knew the truth all along.<\/p>\n<p>Ignorance is bliss, as they say.<\/p>\n<p>A related research question is whether the ability to recognize false beliefs in oneself and others is related to the skill of implanting false beliefs in others by telling lies. Though it certainly is not in our interest to see children endeavor to deceive others, the ability to intentionally distort the truth to get other people to endorse false representations of the world is a sophisticated skill. Those who can do it show that they understand the difference between objective reality and people\u2019s subjective representations of it.<\/p>\n<p>It would not surprise me if the two sides of \u2018fool-ability\u2019 \u2014 the ability to recognize when one was duped and the ability to trick others by portraying a statement as true that one knows to be false \u2014 are related and emerge at around the same time in life.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing this, the next time you hear something that sounds too good to be true, like that spaghetti grows on trees, you might think twice before believing it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Henrike Moll is assistant professor of psychology at USC Dornsife. She directs the Minds in Development Lab, which studies young children\u2019s cognitive development focusing on social cognition.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":6221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1128,112,95],"class_list":["post-6218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","tag-april-fools-henrike-moll","tag-psychology","tag-social-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Exploring the Mind of an April Fool<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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