Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The Current Transcript for January 19, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Perhaps you have figured it out by now. The little girls don't stay little forever. They grow into strong women that return to destroy your world.

LAURA LYNCH: Her name is Kyle Stevens and she's just one of the many who were abused by a former USA Gymnastics doctor. Those once little girls are indeed strong women today and they're using their strength and poised to do what they can to protect the next generation and the next and the next of young athletes from predators like theirs. First up today I'll speak with another of the young women who's been in a Michigan Courthouse this week speaking about how that former doctor has altered the course of her life. And Canadian gold medallist Kyle Shewfelt will join me for a Canadian perspective on this ghastly sex abuse scandal. Then New Year's resolutions. Remember those?

SOUNDCLIP

I did not make any this year. Last year my resolution was to stop procrastinating and I still haven't gotten around to it, so...

[Laughter]

I'm starting a new role. You shouldn't be allowed to make any New Year's resolutions until you finish your old ones.

LL: Good advice from Ellen. If you can remember your resolutions or if you are still trying to keep them up. Then you're doing better than most of us. But once again this year your resolutions were out the door sooner than the dried up Christmas tree, stay tuned for some advice on new ways to bring about that new you. And also today forget the patriarchy, baboons society seems to have it all figured out.

SOUNDCLIP

The way the dominance hierarchy works is you have the oldest adult female - you could call her a matriarch - So she's here and this is her youngest daughters, her second youngest, third youngest, fourth youngest.

LL: You heard her right. Not only do baboons live in a matriarchy but it's the youngest daughter who's next in line with the most power after mom. Just one of the fascinating female lead animal families will meet in a new documentary called Mommy Wildest. That's in an hour I'm Laura Lynch and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

'He could have been stopped in 1997': Survivor of Larry Nassar's alleged sex abuse says victims were ignored

Guests: Kyle Shewfelt, Rachael Denhollander

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: My deepest pain and fear was the thought of two young daughters having been hurt this.

VOICE 2: He took that trust and used it to molest not only myself. But over a hundred and forty girls. That's something I still can't comprehend. I still can't think about without crying.

VOICE 3: They were just kids. They were just kids.

LL: Victim after victim stood in court this week and faced the man who had abused them. Former USA Gymnastics team doctor. He has already pled guilty to seven counts of criminal conduct and he's already been sentenced to 60 years for child pornography. His victims had a chance this week to tell Larry Nassar exactly how his abuse had affected them.

SOUNDCLIP

You are no longer a doctor. You've been stripped of your medical license. And soon, you'll be known by your prison, for what I hope to be the maximum sentence. I find this fitting, as I was a thing: inhuman, or just a number to you

LL: The case of Larry Nassar has become the biggest sexual abuse scandal in the history of U.S. sports. And this week the Olympic gold medallist Simone Biles came out as yet another of the victims. Rachel denhollander was a gymnast when she visited Larry Nassar at a sports medicine clinic run by Michigan State University. She was the first woman to publicly accuse Larry Nassar of abuse. She's been watching the court proceedings this week and will give her own statement on Monday. And a warning there is some graphic sexual detail in this interview which some listeners may find disturbing. We reached her at the courthouse in Lansing, Michigan. Hello.

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: Hello. Thank you for having me.

LL: What has it been like for you this week, watching Larry Nassar's victims face him in court?

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: You know there are so many dynamics to what is happening this week. This is this is truly unprecedented to see this many survivors coming forward and even willing to come forward by name and face to put the shame and the blame exactly where it belongs on their abuser. We have never seen anything like this before. And so in one sense it is incredibly empowering and it is beautiful to see these women taking back their voice. But on the other hand, it is absolutely devastating not only because there has been so so much damage that Larry has done, but also because the vast majority of these victims were abused after the first allegations of sexual assault were raised MSU head coach Kathie Klages in 1997 by two very courageous teenagers who were silenced and even threatened by Klages. And she never reported.

LL: That brings me back to you. When did your own experience of abuse start?

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: My experience did not start until 2000. And by 2000 there were four more women in three different athletic departments who had raised concerns to MSU officials who had explained to - not only coaches but also athletic trainers and supervisors what Larry was doing in graphic detail. And each woman, each teenager was told that it was legitimate medical treatment. Each woman, each teenager was sent back to Larry to continue to be ... And I walked through his door, three years later.

LL: How much you feel comfortable telling me about what happened to you

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: I mean it's out there everywhere. I testified under - my under oath testimony with all the gory details is out there. So there's no hiding, there never was.

LL: So can you share with me what did happen to you

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: Yes. Larry would. He would do this procedure which he would tell us was like sports muscle massage where my [unintelligible] release. But what he would actually do is he would use his right hand to massage, externally, that was a hand that a parent could see. For most of us our parents or mothers were actually in the room at the time. He would position them at the head of the table with his body between them that they could not see would his left hand was doing. And then he would drape our [unintelligible] with a towel or just hide it with the clothing that we were wearing. And with that hand he would penetrate he would penetrate me vaginally, anally, there would be genital stimulation. He would on those visits he also went at my shirt and get a breast massage by turning me away from where my mother was. At the time for most of the visits until that last one, I did not realize that it was sexual assault. I found it very degrading very humiliating. But I was aware that pelvic floor treatments could be a legitimate procedure. And I presumed that Larry was licensed and certified in internal pelvic floor procedures because it was unthinkable that he would be allowed close to a child in intimate regions if he wasn't. And I trusted the authority figures at MSU to be properly supervising him. And it has heartbreaking to realize how misplaced that trust was not only in Larry but in the authorities at MSU.

LL: Who did you tell back then?

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: I did not tell anyone really until my mom started asking me questions. Around 2000 once she had noticed behavioral tendencies that caused her to believe that I had suffered abuse at some point that I had not disclosed to her. So she began to ask questions. At that point I closed only a very little bit because there was only a little bit that I recognized as abuse. But in 2004 I had begun to realize a little bit more, enough to know with confidence that Larry was a sexual predator and that he had sexually assaulted me. So I did tell a USDA certified coach at that point because she wanted to send a little gymnast that I coached, Hillary, for treatment for hip problems. And unfortunately - she remains a good friend and I value her very much - but she was not malicious but she warned me to stay quiet for my own sake because she was concerned about repercussions for me if it got out that I was saying the things about Larry, and she did send my gymnast and future gymnasts in to him until he was arrested.

LL: So you stayed silent about this all those years.

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: After 2004 when I told the coach the only conclusion that I could come to was that if I could not get a friend to believe me enough to not send gymnasts to him, there was no way anyone else was going to believe me. And I knew that Larry was backed by two very very powerful institutions and I was fully convinced that one anonymous voice would not be enough. Larry's assault on me was incredibly brazen. It was very clear even to me at 15 that this was something he did regularly. And the only thing, the only conclusion I could come to at 15 was that this couldn't be assault because there was no way that others had not raised red flags about what Larry was doing. There was no way that others had not come before me and given detail about what Larry had done. And I knew that if they had either MSU had investigated and found that Larry was doing proper medical procedure, or they had silenced the victim.

LL: Can you tell us about a woman named Larissa Boyce and how her accusation was dealt with.

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: Yes I can. I've gotten to be quite good friends with her. She is she's a gem. Larissa was a gymnast in the MSU athletic program in 1997. And she saw Larry for several treatments where he did this technique on her, where he would penetrate her with his fingers. And at one point a coach there asked her what was happening during her appointment. She described it to this coach and this coach became very disturbed and told her that she needed to go tell Kathie right away what was happening. So, Larissa went to Kathie and she described in graphic detail what Larry was doing. She told Kathie 'He was fingering me like a boyfriend'. And Kathy's response to her was to just leave that Larry would do anything like that. And then she called all the other teammates then, to question them in front of Larissa as to whether or not they felt uncomfortable with Larry's treatment. And there was another gymnast who has chosen to remain anonymous, but she had spoken at the hearing and she confirmed Larissa's account. She told Kathie the same thing, that Larry was penetrating her, and Kathie would not believe either one of them. She then sent the other gymnast's out of the room and she took out a report form and she held it up in front of Larissa and she said 'I could sign this report form that if you sign this it is going to have consequences for you and for Larry,' and then she called Larry and she told Larry what Larissa had told her. And then she required Loretta to go back for continued treatment. Larissa ended up apologizing to Larry for misunderstanding what he was doing and being subjected to repeated sexual assault.

LL: Let's come back to you. What was it like when you finally did go public with your accusation?

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: It was hellish. It was absolutely terrible. And I think that's something that that the people that are around predators need to understand. When you put victims in a place where they have to release every shred of privacy and every shred of dignity to make their voice heard, where they have to fight for themselves because no one else is going to protect them, the effects of that are extremely serious. It is really victimizing. It is very traumatizing and it should not have to be done that way.

LL: Did you find that people were attacking you

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: Absolutely. I mean the things that were said about me on social media, the things that were posted on Larry's Facebook page, I stayed away from it as much as I could because I knew that's what was coming. I knew that's what the cost was going to be. Kathie has actually asked the entire MSU gymnastics team to sign a card on Larry's behalf when my accusations came out against him.

LL: And yet you were you were determined to go public with this. I wonder when you finally decided to do that, when everything else came tumbling out, what kind of a burden was it for you to bear to know that there were all these other victims through all of these years after you had first said something about it

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: You know that wasn't a surprise because the one thing I knew about paedophilia is there's never never only one victim. And that's why I was convinced that my voice would not be heard if I stayed anonymous because I knew I wasn't the first. Larry had clearly been sexually assaulting people for years before he got to me. His movements were very rehearsed and very brazen. He knew precisely what he could get away with. And paedophiles don't stop. And so I knew he was continuing to sexually assault little girls during all the years that I could not do anything about it and that was horrific.

LL: Rachel who is ultimately to blame for all of this

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: Well Larry. Larry is to blame for his actions. Larry chose to do what he did. But the organizations that surrounded him, the organizations that kept him in power, the people that turned a blind eye - not just red flags but to direct reports of sexual assault - created a situation where Larry could prey on little girls for 20 years. And it did not have to be that way. Larry could have been stopped in 1997 when there was only a small handful of known victims. And instead we're sitting here in a courtroom with five days of victim impact statements because Larry was allowed to abuse women and children for almost 30 years.

LL: I wonder though you spoke earlier about giving away every shred of your dignity. And I wonder if through this experience you've been able to reclaim any of that back.

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: I think there's definitely an aspect of that. You know it is an incredible thing to see what has come of what was started and I am very very grateful. At the same time there is a reality that those details are out there now forever and I don't get a choice who I share that with. I didn't get a choice about whether or not I was going to be abused. And now I don't get actually with who I tell. And the level of detail that I have had to share to make this happen is really quite extensive. I mean there are photographs of me all over the Internet demonstrating exactly what Larry was doing. Larry got to read my journals. He got to read everything I thought and felt. He got access to the one thing I never wanted to get access to it which was my mind. And so those are things I can't change and that is that is part of the cost of doing what is right. But it is worth it.

LL: I'm so sorry you had to go through that. But you are going to get your chance to face Larry Nassar next week. What do you want him to know?

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: I'm not sure there's a whole lot I need to say to Larry. The truth and my hearing does not depend on Larry and it never did. And that was something that had to come to grips with years ago. You really have to reach a good place of healing before you can even begin the process of speaking publicly. I'm not sure there's a whole lot I need to communicate. And personally I'm still weighing that decision.

LL: Rachel I thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

RACHEL DENHOLLANDER: Thank you. I appreciate it.

LL: Rachel den Hollander was a gymnast when she was sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar at his sports medicine clinic at the University of Michigan. She joined us on the line from the courthouse in Lansing, Michigan. The coach, Rachel mentions, Kathie Klages has since retired from the university and her attorney denies Klages was informed of Nassar's alleged sexual abuse of his patients. Well Kyle Shewfelt has been listening in to our conversation today. He became Canada's first and only Olympic gold medallist in artistic gymnastics at the 2004 Games in Athens. Kyle was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 and is currently a coach and the owner of Kyle Shewfelt Gymnastics. He is in our Calgary studio. Hello.

KYLE SHEWFELT: Hello.

LL: What are your thoughts about what you just heard from Rachel?

KYLE SHEWFELT: My gosh. She is such an articulate amazing advocate for all of these survivors. How powerful are her statements. And I just can't commend her enough for coming forward and being the one who was willing to make this movement move forward.

LL: You knew Larry Nassor. What was your impression of him?

KYLE SHEWFELT: Well yes. I never was treated by Larry Nassar he was the U.S. women's national team doctor. He was the one that worked with Kerri Strug. He was the one that worked with the Olympic teams.

LL: Kerri Strug being the medallist herself.

KYLE SHEWFELT: Yes. A 1996 medallist who has that amazing moment where she lands on one foot on the vault. And Larry Nassar is that doctors that comes in. So he was very well revered in the community, very well respected and someone that had a great reputation as someone who was the best doctor in gymnastics.

LL: As far as you know was there ever a hint that Larry Nassar was abusing these girls.

KYLE SHEWFELT: Well now when all these stories come forward and you look at it, of course the grooming behaviours were there. He was the nice guy. He made friends with everyone. He had all these alliances and allegiances. He was the one that, for the women, you know in those hard days of training, he was the guy who was there to talk to them. And yet when you look back hindsight's it's 20-20, but really it was very shocking when those allegations first came forward.

LL: Why are gymnasts especially vulnerable to that grooming by a predator

KYLE SHEWFELT: Well I think that is it's not just gymnasts. I think it's athletes in general. Any young person who is involved in a sport where there is an authority figure who is an adult. And gymnastics is a sport that demands perfection. And it's never quite good enough. Right. You can always be a little bit better and that's tends to lend itself to a certain personality that's going to be involved in the sport. Someone that's always trying to achieve. And someone who is very obedient, someone who listens to their coach, their coach coaches do one more and then they do. And those days and training can be quite difficult. And so I think for someone like Larry Nassar it was it was just the perfect storm, the perfect breeding ground where these young women were being pushed their limits mentally, physically, emotionally. And then he saw that opportunity to come in and be the doctor that would you know bring them treats and give them massages and make them feel good and let them vent out about their hard days.

LL: We're talking about something that has obviously happened in the United States but is it something that's possible here in Canada too

KYLE SHEWFELT: Well I think it's absolutely possible anywhere in the world and I think that's why education is so important. I think we need to have strong policies and procedures in place. We all need to be in alignment. There needs to be black and white policies for doctors, and that's the thing right. Larry Nassar was a doctor. This happened not just with the U.S. gymnastics team. This was happening at Michigan State University. This was happening at a gymnastic club in Michigan. And it happened probably - a 140 women have come forward. It's probably happened to thousands. And that's the sad part is that no one stopped it.

LL: Let's just make it clear there are allegations here too. Canada's head gymnastics coach of the Rio Olympics has been charged with multiple sex offences, another coach in Edmonton has been suspended amid allegations. And then of course Bertrand Charest, the Canadian ski coach found guilty on 37 charges involving nine girls. When you when you look at all of that, especially with a focus on Canada, what can be done to ensure it doesn't happen again

KYLE SHEWFELT: That's a great question. I think that's why this conversation is so important to be having because we have to ask ourselves why and how. How did Larry Nassar get away with this? Why did people not believe these young women who were coming forward to their coaches? And you know how is he getting away with this in the room with the parents

LL: That is the question. How did he do that?

KYLE SHEWFELT: Well he - how are you going to question a medical doctor. Right.

LL: How do parents not know? Do they have stars in their eyes?

KYLE SHEWFELT: Well I don't know if it's stars in their eyes. I think it's just this guy was the doctor that everyone thought was the best doctor. And like Rachel was saying in her interview a lot of times he would position himself in a certain way so the parents can't see. He was a master.

LL: Manipulator I guess I'm also thinking though of the cases that we have here in Canada as well. I mean I'm not blaming parents. Don't mistake me for that. But how does it happen that they are not even aware that this is going on

KYLE SHEWFELT: Well I think trust is really key in any relationship and especially in a sporting relationship at the elite level. The athletes are spending a lot of time with their coaches in the gym. When I was a gymnast I used to train for four hours every night and two hours in the morning, and my parents were drop me off and trusted my coach and he was a great man who protected me. But sometimes there are people who aren't as great. And so I think going back to this, it's not the parents fault. It's education. We need to educate the athletes. We need to educate the clubs. We need to educate parents on what those behaviours are to look out for. And we need to have a process in place so that young people and parents, if there are concerns, they have a place to go to voice these concerns.

LL: And you say that process is not yet in place in Canada.

KYLE SHEWFELT: The process is in place if there's ever a sexual abuse allegation or a concern. It needs to go directly to the police. So if there is anybody out there who feels that they're in a situation where they're vulnerable they need to go to the police. But I think in terms of the education pieces is key letting the young people know you know what is appropriate behaviour, and be in alignment with that black and white, and making sure there's no question marks. Right. You should never have a coach alone with an athlete. It just shouldn't happen. And there's the rule of two that's come forward through the coaches association of Canada. There should always be two coaches in the room.

LL: Kyle Shewfelt, thank you so much.

KYLE SHEWFELT: My pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

LL: Canadian Olympic gold medallist Kyle Shewfelt it was in our Calgary studio. Well the CBC News is next. Then, if your New Year's resolutions aren't working out again this year, could be that you are just not quite doing it right. Some tips on a new mindset for those resolutions coming up after the news. I'm Laura Lynch and you are listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Using willpower to reach your New Year's resolutions? Don't, says psychologist

Guests: Sarah Konrath, David DeSteno

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Roars]

LL: OK. He may roar loudly but if you've always assume that the male lion is at the head of his family, you may be in for a surprise. In half an hour from now, father and Daughter documentary makers Mark and Caitlin Starowicz join me to talk about their new film Mommy Wildest. It takes us to the African Savannah and introduces us to some animal families where the matriarch is definitely in charge. But first: new hope for your failed New Year's resolutions.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I know you always try to be a better you, every day. It's better to have like bigger in like baby steps.

VOICE 2: Quit smoking [coughing]. Sorry. Hopefully. I've been trying to quit for a long time.

VOICE 3: At my age I don't make resolutions. I may be dead tomorrow [laughs]. I live my life the way I like it.

VOICE 4: My New Year's resolution is to go to sleep earlier and eat healthier. I come from a very dedicated family. So we're up to keeping with what we set our minds to.

VOICE 5: My New Year's resolution is to hit the gym more often. It's hard with time in school and work. It's hard to keep up with some resolutions.

LL: As the third week of the New Year draws to a close, it is time to ask how are you doing on your new year's resolution. If you're anything like some of those folks on the streets of Toronto yesterday or like most any of us anywhere. You're lucky if you're still hanging on by a thread. Research shows that only 8 percent of resolutions are kept throughout the year, while fully 25 percent fail within the first week. But there may be hope. According to our next guest that dismal failure rate is thanks to the fact that most of us go about reaching our goals the wrong way. We're relying on willpower when really we should be using something he calls the social emotions, gratitude, compassion and pride to reach our goals. David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and is the author of Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion and Pride. And he is in Boston. Hello.

DAVID DESTENO: Hello Laura, how are you?

LL: Fine thanks. Why isn't willpower enough

DAVID DESTENO: I think the statistics you're citing there are evidence. Even in our daily life research shows one out of every five or six times we try to resist the temptation and stick to our goals, we fail. And I think it's because when we're trying to use willpower we are trying to stifle desire we have for something that's more pleasurable in the moment, as opposed to something that is better for us in the future. But if you think about what really moves people and motivates people it's often not what we think. It's what we feel.

LL: Okay so if this is about prioritizing the future over a more immediate desire then, from an evolutionary perspective, why aren't we better at doing that?

DAVID DESTENO: I think we are. I think we are just using the wrong tools. If you think about it for millennia what what made us successful was the ability to cooperate with people. Right. That's what helped us thrive. And what underlies that, well you had to have a good character. You had to be fair. You had to be honest. You had to be generous and reliable. And those traits really involve some self-control. You know if if you give me ten dollars Laura and I don't pay you back, I'm ahead in the moment. But you're probably not going to want to interact with me ever again and I'll lose all those gains in the future. And so what underlie those behaviors? Being trustworthy, being fair, being kind. It's emotions like gratitude and compassion and an authentic sense of pride as opposed to arrogance. And what our research showing is that you can now pivot these emotions not only to make yourself cooperate with and invest in other people but also in your own future self.

LL: So let's go through this in a little more detail. Walk me through your argument. How exactly can emotions like gratitude and compassion help me to say lose weight or quit smoking? I don't smoke but say I did smoke. How could these emotions help me quit

DAVID DESTENO: Sure. So let me give you an example with savings and then we can we can translate it into that. So one thing that people tend to often do is be impatient with their money that they want to use it on something now. You know should I buy the new smartphone now or should I invest this money for the long term? And in our law we would bring people in and give them many different options. You could have a smaller amount of money now or invest it and get a larger amount of money, weeks to months to a year later. What we found is most people were pretty impatient. They would take 17 dollars now as opposed to getting 100 dollars in a year and I don't know about you. If you don't need those 17 dollars to survive the ability to quintuple your money in a year is a pretty good deal. If we made them grateful simply by having them take five minutes and recall something in their life that they're grateful for, count their blessings so to speak, we more than doubled their self-control. They wouldn't take that small amount of money. They would be much more willing to invest it. When other people have shown it is people who feel grateful more you value your future goals whatever they may be more. And so the easier way to not having the cigarette now that feels good in the moment but might lead to health poor health in the future, to studying now even though it's hard because in the future you might have a greater benefit. So unlike willpower where you're trying to stifle a desire to do something that you value in the present, feeling these emotions actually increases the value your mind attaches to your future goals and so they become easier to pursue.

LL: You actually make it sound so simple. Let's break down the three emotions that you're saying are key to this. Why is gratitude in particular such an important emotion for reaching your goal? I mean you seem to use that as a sort of the primary one.

DAVID DESTENO: Well if you think about it there are certain emotions that are only involve things we call social emotions, that exist only in the context of social exchange. I can be happy about many things but I'm only going to feel grateful if somebody gave me something and I have to pay them back. And so these are the emotions that make us willing to invest in other people. You know people often say to me 'if I want to be successful should I be a jerk or should I be a nice guy' and I say well what's your time frame. In the short term if you will if you want to get ahead you can exploit other people and you know treat them unfairly, but in the long term you have to invest in people so that they'll pay you back. An emotion like gratitude makes you willing to cooperate with other people. And therefore it makes you do so by valuing the future more. Same with compassion, if I'm going to help somebody I feel compassion for I'm willing to give them time, money, effort, a shoulder to cry on which it comes at some cost to me. But the reason I do it is because ultimately better for me to get those debts repaid when I need it. And same about pride, when you feel pride what you're doing is developing a skill that others around you value which makes you more of a cooperation partner. And as we've seen in our lab when you cultivate these states you'll persevere more on difficult tasks. You'll save more money. You'll behave more trustworthy. You'll do everything that is better for you in the long run.

LL: Pride. Let's pick up on that in particular because that doesn't seem like a social emotion.

DAVID DESTENO: Well that's right. It always seems like the odd person out and you're identifying the question always get asked. If you think about it first by pride I mean authentic pride, that is a pride in the abilities you have not kind of an arrogant hubris. But if you think about it you know those of us who have had kids, when you when children first start doing things - whether that's walking or drawing or whatever it may be - they're always looking to their parents and when parents praise them. That's a marker that this is a valuable admired behaviour that you should work on. The negative side of this influence of others we call peer pressure. The positive side is pride. So you know in our lab will bring people in and have them work on these difficult tasks. They don't care much about but will then give them social acclaim and praise them for it and say you know how much we value this and suddenly they'll persevere on them. Why? Because it's then useful to develop a skill that's important for the group because we humans can take a third person stance on ourselves. We can also be our own audience and I think that's why pride can seem more personal at times.

LL: Can I just pick up on something you mentioned a little earlier? You said if you want to be kind of a jerk you may have some success in the short term but not the long term. And it makes me think about people who have had what many of us would consider success such as becoming presidents or CEOs or something like that. And I wonder how that fits into what you're talking about here.

DAVID DESTENO: [Laughs] Yes well. I mean part of it is the power dynamic. So you know if you have the power to force other people to do what you want then then you can be a jerk or active on Twitter.

LL: And be a success by some measures.

DAVID DESTENO: And be a success. But in general with all the evolutionary models show there's great work by an evolutionary biologist at Harvard named Martin Novak that shows over time, the individuals who succeed are the individuals who are trustworthy, who cooperate who share success and resources. Because we're all going to face bumps in the road and we're all going to need help at times and through cooperation we can accomplish more. And so if you cheat others in the short run you will rocket to the top because you can exploit them. But in the long run, unless people are forced to cooperate with you, you'll lose those aggregated gains over time. But the other big problem is you'll also be socially isolated. The other big benefit these emotions give us is they solve the problem of loneliness and out there, I don't know in Canada but I know in the US and even in the UK, I saw they appointed a minister of loneliness yesterday. This is a big problem. But when you experience and cultivate these emotions not only do they help you reach your goals, they automatically make you act in ways that draw others to you and increase the quality of your relationships and thereby help you know your wellbeing. We know loneliness is about as bad for you as smoking in terms of your longevity.

LL: Does willpower still have a role to play in reaching our goals

DAVID DESTENO: Sure yes. I am you know I think we need every weapon in our arsenal to persevere toward these future goals. My argument is simply that willpower isn't the strongest one. It's also very effortful to do what we know over time is the stress of always trying to repress a desire for something to do something else causes poor health outcome there's a great study by a psychologist at Northwestern University in Chicago Greg Miller. He looked at kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who were using kind of willpower to get self-control. And he found that yes they could have more self-control but over time because of the stress of that it took a toll on their immune system, functioning more poorly. So the upshot of that is you know this increased stress yes you may achieve your goals but you're not going to be around as long to enjoy them.

LL: So business schools have been studying the social emotions in the workplace. Tell me about some more about their findings.

DAVID DESTENO: Yes what we're seeing again and again is what we're finding in the lab is being borne out in the real world. So you know there's great work by Adam Grant. He's a psychologist at Wharton School of Business. And you know what he finds is you know talk about a job where you actually need grit to succeed, they looked at individuals who were calling for fund raising, calling people to try and get money and were usually hung up on. And what they found is that when the supervisors actually expressed gratitude to these people and these people and then in return felt pride, not only did their efforts increase by 50 percent but so did their bottom line because they were willing to persevere. There's just lots and lots of stories like that over time. Even Google itself was looking at what factor predicted the success of their work teams. They thought it was going to be technical expertise because they're a high tech company. Ultimately the management teams that instilled a culture of empathy and compassion were the ones where people, not only were happiest, but had the best outcome through through dedication and trying to be innovative.

LL: Now there's research that shows that social emotions like empathy are actually in the decline - and we're going to hear about that from our next guest - what are the implications of that decline on what your arguing

DAVID DESTENO: Well it's clearly in decline. For me and it's always hard to draw one to one direction to this. But what that suggests is as these emotions are in decline, that can be one reason why are, not only our impatience is growing and we're seeing increasing debt, crumbling infrastructure, less investment the future and cooperation, but also why you know our well-being and our loneliness are declining as well. What I'd like to say is cultivating these emotions, these social emotions doesn't only give us great. It gives us grace rated balances. Our résumé virtues those we want to succeed in life in our eulogy on those we want to be remembered for and I think that's just leads to a better more healthy, more resilient success.

LL: So did you make any New Year's resolutions

DAVID DESTENO: I did. [Laughs] I did. So far so good. You know I mean I'm not pitching a program here and this is not the magic bullet to everything in your life, but I will say from trying to cultivate these and in my life I notice a difference.

LL: Okay. I have you. Have you kept all your resolutions so far, then?

[Laughter]

DAVID DESTENO: Mostly bumps on the road. Right. That's why you need self-compassion as well to keep you going rather than throwing in the towel.

LL: Okay. We'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

DAVID DESTENO: Thank you.

LL: David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and the author of Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion and Pride. And we reached him in Boston. Our next guest studies empathy and her research shows that it is declining particularly in young people. Sarah Konrath is a social psychologist and an assistant professor of philanthropic studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. She is in Indianapolis. Hello.

SARAH KONRATH: Good morning.

LL: Before we get to your research, what is the difference between compassion and empathy

SARAH KONRATH: That's a good question and actually I think there's lots of people who argue about this but not to compassionately, but I would say that there's different kinds of empathy. There's more cognitive empathy that we call perspective taking when you imagine someone's perspective but you kind of really use your mind and your thoughts and it takes some effort. And then there's the emotional empathy which we call empathic concern and I say that's compassion. So that's the feeling of care and compassion for somebody when they're in need.

LL: Good can you give me an example of that

SARAH KONRATH: You find out your friend is getting divorced and she's very sad and you just feel for her. You feel you want to be with her, you want to support her. That feeling of compassion. I think it's very common in our daily lives.

LL: Now tell me about what kind of decline your research showed

SARAH KONRATH: So we looked at empathy can be both an emotion in the moment that you feel like you know in that situation with your friend. Or it can be a trait. So some people are just more empathetic than others. And we track the trait of empathy in college students in the U.S. from 1979 to 2009 and we found actually that both cognitive empathy and emotional empathy have been declining over time.

LL: But by how much?

SARAH KONRATH: 48 percent for emotional and 34 percent for cognitive empathy.

LL: That is the percentage of decline, is it?

SARAH KONRATH: That is the percentage of decline. Yes.

LL: How do you measure that?

SARAH KONRATH: It's a self-report to scale with just asking people to what extent do they for example feel tender and concerned feelings for someone who is in distress, or how much are they likely to imagine the perspective of their friends and other people. So this is not you know a researcher imposing our view of whether empathy is declining. This is people's self-views you know their own reports of whether they are feeling those compassionate feelings, imagining other people's perspectives.

LL: So what's causing the decline in empathy?

SARAH KONRATH: That's something we can't really know because we're just tracking changes over time. As you know at the same time period there's all kinds of other things happening changes in family sizes, changes in schools with the rise of the self-esteem movement at that point. There is less community participation. So when you look at all of these different things that are happening. There could be political and economic causes as well. All we know is that this is in line with many other trends. They all kind of seem to go together. And we don't really know what's the specific cause.

LL: You mentioned rise in self-esteem movements. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

SARAH KONRATH: Well we also find - so that's another interesting thing - my colleagues find that self-esteem has been rising at the same time. And also narcissism has been rising.

LL: You don't know why but you say those that's going in concert with the decline

SARAH KONRATH: Yes and that makes sense because people who are more narcissistic, which is just a form of extreme unrealistic self-esteem, those people have trouble with empathy. They really struggle with it.

LL: Do you have any suggestion as to why that might be on the rise? I mean one thing that occurs to me is social media.

SARAH KONRATH: I think yes that always always comes up. I think that could be one of the reasons but I'm hesitant to say that because I think that it's too simple, because obviously we use social media to connect with others and it's enriches our lives in some ways as well. But also because in updates - these are unpublished data right now - but in an update where we looked at 2009 to 2015, we're not finding a continuation of the decline. It's actually stabilized. So that makes us think that we've only become more involved in social media and mobile phones and all this since then. So I don't know that that's the only cause, if that t has any role.

LL: So it's not declining any more. It sort of hit bottom so to speak, as far as you can see.

SARAH KONRATH: Bottom as a strong word. Because I wanted to say that. We measure it on a scale of 1 to 5. And the young people in the U.S. are still above the 3 on the scale. So I'm not seeing this as the end of the world. I just think that it is going to change.

LL: Can you explain that scale to me? One to five, what does that mean?

SARAH KONRATH: Yes. So 1 to 5. So. So how empathetic are you? The lower end, the number one is like 'not at all this doesn't describe me.' In the higher end is 'this totally is me'. So I think when people are saying three, they're still above three, they're still saying 'yes I'm apathetic, maybe a little less than in the past - than people would have said in the past' but it's not like people are saying 'no no no I'm not empathetic'.

LL: Now I understand that there also may be a link between anxiety and empathy.

SARAH KONRATH: Yes. Definitely people who are more empathetic are- It's almost like they can step outside of their own concerns and needs for a moment which helps them to set aside their own anxieties. And I have a study that found that- We measured empathy in the same way using that same scale. And then we also had people do something stressful. So it seems a little mean, but anyway we had them give a speech sort of impromptu in our lab and videotaped them and we measured their stress hormones. And what we found is that the people who scored higher in empathy actually they had a buffering. So they were actually less likely to have a physiological stress response. And there's been many other studies showing similar types of patterns even also in self-report anxiety measures.

LL: Right. So the reverse then or the obverse of that is if you're an anxious person you're not going to be empathetic.

SARAH KONRATH: Yes. I mean I'd say that's on that's on average but of course people are complicated. And you know there are cases of people who are both but what I would say is that if you're an anxious person, one way that you could actually help to manage your anxiety is to see if you can practice you know stepping outside of yourself and looking at someone else's concerns and just see if that helps you.

LL: Now you're working at an American university but you're Canadian. You've looked at some of the research measuring empathy here in Canada. How empathetic are we

SARAH KONRATH: Yes. Well okay. Well there's good news and bad news and good news. Which one do you want first?

[Laughter]

LL: Good news.

SARAH KONRATH: Well the good news is - I mean it's bad news for the U.S., good news for Canada. A study by my colleague Keith Hampton at Michigan State University tracked helping rates in U.S. and Canadian cities between 2001 and 2011. And what he found was that overall Canadians were more likely to help. He basically dropped a lot of letters all over the place like letters that were addressed and stamped but not delivered.

LL: You mean he dropped them on the streets?

SARAH KONRATH: Yes just all over the place. And the helping was what percentage of letters got returned. So it's kind of clever thing. But he found that overall in Canada the rates were in the 60s percentage point. So like 63 percent average of helper's. Whereas in the U.S. It was in the 50s. So yay Canada. [Laughter] And also in that time period in Canada there were no declines in helping across that time period 2001 to 2011. So that's great. That suggests to me that maybe there isn't a decline in empathy but who knows. And then whereas in the U.S. there was a 10 percent decline in helping across that time.

LL: And what's the bad news?

SARAH KONRATH: Okay the bad news. Two pieces of bad news, sorry. One is that when we look at just cross cultural differences in general, of different countries and their of empathy, we find that on average the U.S. ranks number seven in the world in empathy. That's pretty high. Pretty good. And unfortunately Canada ranks 12. Still good job Canada, but... We're a little lower and you know we can do better than.

LL: 12 out of what?

SARAH KONRATH: 63 countries

LL: Well what are the implications of this decline in empathy? What do we lose as a society when we lose empathy?

SARAH KONRATH: Well let's just start with our first speaker, David right. So let's think about that. I really like his work. So the idea of maybe that we're having trouble with with motivation our motivation because we think that the way to get ahead and be successful is all about our self and being alone and all this stuff. And actually you know we're missing some a very important point. But I think that's a selfish perspective. The real thing we're missing is we're actually losing connections with others. Empathy is one of the major motivators I find in my research and other people find, major motivators for volunteering, charitable donations, helping and giving friends to your friends. And so like all of these different ways that we're involved in the world, that we care, one of the major reasons we do it is because of empathy. So if we have a decline in empathy then the concern I have is that well what's going to happen to this this kind of social behaviour?

LL: So then what do you do to reverse it? Can you teach empathy?

SARAH KONRATH: It's totally teachable. First of all it is genetic and anyone who has more than one kid knows this, that one of their kids probably is a little more naturally empathetic than another. But it is also teachable at all age. So the story of Scrooge is right on. You can be like you know really really old and still learn how to develop empathy.

LL: Sarah Konrath, thank you very much.

SARAH KONRATH: You're welcome.

LL: Sarah Konrath is a social psychologist and an assistant professor of philanthropic studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. We reached her in Indianapolis. Over to you how do you keep your New Year's resolutions? Have you kept them? We'd love to hear from you. Find us on Facebook or on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or me @LauraLynchCBC or send us an email. Just go to our website at cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. Coming up in our next half hour we visit a beautiful part of the world where the women are in charge. On the wild plains of the African Savannah Mommy Wildest after the 90 second break. I'm Laura Lynch and you were listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

'Mommy Wildest': Female-led animal families smash the patriarchy

Guests: Mark Starowicz, Caitlin Starowicz

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: I Just Can't Wait to be King from Lion King]

LL: That of course is Simba the lovable cub from the Disney classic The Lion King. In the story young Simba is heir to the Pride Lands of Africa and expected to be king. And there's the added intrigue of an uncle who battles him for the throne. But, spoiler alert, it is Simba who takes his rightful place as the Lion King ready to rule with his wife at his side. It may be a heartwarming story but a nature documentary it is not. Because it turns out Disney got its lion pride politics all wrong. In truth it's the females that rule on the Serengeti plains of Africa and not just amongst lions, elephants and baboons live in powerful matriarchal societies too. Sunday on the Nature of Things a new documentary is looking at who really rules on the plains of Africa. Father-daughter producer team Mark and Caitlin Starowicz spent two months on the Kenyan Savannahs filming animals in the wild. Their new documentary is titled Mommy Wildest and Markin and Caitlin Starowicz are in our Toronto studio. Hello.

MARK STAROWICZ: Hi.

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Hi there.

LL: Now I just want to tell you off the top I was extremely jealous that you got to spend all that time there. It's a wonderful wonderful documentary. But Caitlin let's start with you. Why did you want to look at matriarchal societies in the wild?

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Well I've always been interested in strong female leads and of course my dad has done some great documentaries featuring very strong powerful women. And I was so fascinated because we see this in the natural world too. It's not just sisterhood amongst humans. Elephants, lions, baboons they have these amazing friendships where they support each other. And I just found that absolutely fascinating.

LL: Mark is there is there an assumption out there that males are the natural leaders in the animal kingdom

MARK STAROWICZ: Oh yes. And the clip you just played and the reputation of the lion as a symbol of empire even and statues everywhere, at entrances to banks, when in fact it's the females - the lionesses - that do the hunting - 85 percent of the hunting. They form an egalitarian society of females that run the tribe. The male lion comes around occasionally often to you know get leftovers and patrols the perimeter of the territory. But the society is essentially female leading males in the pride are the infant males who leave when when they reach puberty. So these are matriarchy. But the image that we have is of you know the powerful male, it's not the case at all.

LL: Well then let's talk about the lion pride that you followed in the Maasai Mara Savannah in Kenya. Caitlin what was it like to get so close to the big cats

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: It was absolutely incredible. It was a life changing experience. We were just so close to them and they're just so magnificent, so fascinating to study. And being able to be close to these incredible social dynamics was just absolutely breathtaking.

LL: How much time did you spend following the pride?

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Well we would wake up before dawn and we would go out and find our pride, which was called the old Dicky Dicky Pride, which had four mothers raising eleven cubs. And we would spend the entire day with them until dusk just waiting and spending time habituating them and getting them used to us. And they did a lot of sleeping but then there was some really explosive exciting moments when they would start a hunt or some really touching moments of all the little cubs playing together. It was amazing.

LL: Eleven Cubs. Mark, how do females work together to manage 11 Cubs? I can imagine it's a challenge.

MARK STAROWICZ: Well it's extraordinary. They call it a crèche. It's literally a day center in a school. There's four of them together and they manage the Cubs collectively. That is quite a sight to see this total of 15 lions in one spot.

LL: In fact I'd like to actually play a clip of Craig Packer. He is the lion biologist featured in the documentary.

SOUNDCLIP

In comparison to all the other carnivores lions are extraordinary. In dog packs, wolf packs, coyotes, foxes all of those it is just a single female who does the breeding. She's the alpha female. In the lions there are multiple females and each one can give birth any time. Not only they allow each other to give birth, they raise their kids together. So lions are one of the few egalitarian species on earth. This scene of a crèche is evidence of this extraordinary quality in lion society.

MARK STAROWICZ: Lion societies are a mammal democracy and the signals between them, how the appeared to coordinate a hunt, how they decide which direction to move in is striking. I mean after a while you get to see okay one of them tends to be more on the lookout, another one tends to teach the Cubs various things. But on the whole it's very hard to read. How did they make that decision together? Why are they moving in that direction now? How did the hunt explode around this and explode is the word? So we were filming a fairly static scene with a leopard in the tree when suddenly our guide said "Hurry let's move they're moving." Joshua's Seegars cinematographer then leapt into action and started filming the lions. It all happened so quickly that I didn't even know whether we had captured the hunt. I asked him "Joshua did you capture that?" And he said "I don't know I'll have to check. I think so." And in fact he had captured the entire hunt and that was for females acting in unison. How those decisions were made, how they divided the tasks is still a mystery to me.

LL: And it Caitlin as I ask you about that. So we get we have a good handle on this idea of lion and democracy and we already talked about the rather lazy male, like he doesn't seem to do to do much at all. We see him looking for scraps of food from the females. The females expect that that is their role, that they're not just hunting for the Cubs but they're also meant to feed the male

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: I don't know that they expect it but it's a fascinating evolutionary development, because the greatest threat to a cub is other males. So the females have chosen to band together so that they can protect each other's Cubs against roving males that will come and try to kill the cubs and then that way the females will go back into oestrus and they will be able to pass on their own genetic line. But the females largely hunt for their own family. But of course they welcome in the biological father to come and feed but largely it's sisters doing it for themselves. They're out there protecting their cubs and looking out for each other.

LL: And let's talk about territory for second Mark. What did you learn about the territory that the female lions control

MARK STAROWICZ: This is something I didn't know. They took quite a large territory several square kilometers. That's their hunting ground. Usually at the fork over a couple of streams where there's some vegetation and they will pass down that territory to their daughters. Remember that the the male cubs leave when they reach puberty, which biologically they have to, as they end up meeting with their sisters and their mothers. And if you come back ten generations the descendants of those lionesses will still be in that spot broadly in that spot studies in the Serengeti have shown that. So this is a kingdom or queendom that is being handed down the female line which is extraordinary. It's not just cooperation it's legacy.

LL: It is remarkable that that is a generational thing again and again and again. But we also have another species to look at in terms of matriarchy, generational change, generational traditions almost. Let's turn to the neighbours: the elephant. Pachyderms have long been known for wisdom for memory. Caitlin can you tell us about the march of the matriarchs

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Yes so the elephants were a very different kind of matriarchy in that it was a meritocracy. So the leader is always the oldest and wisest grandmother of the herd. And it was lovely because they had such a respect for wisdom because she knows where to find watering holes during drought. She knows how to teach her daughters how to raise their young. And it's a beautiful story of respecting a grandmother. And it was lovely to see and at one point in a march that we saw there was a baby that was only two days old. We saw it being born and it was on its march following its grandmother.

MARK STAROWICZ: Elephants are always on the move. In this case there was a 200 mile migration between around the foot of foot hills of Mount Kenya and they are migrating to where the rainy season is expected to come in Samburu and replenish the rivers and replenish the vegetation. So you literally see hundreds of elephants on the move. It is probably among the top three or four special moments of my life. I mean you just you look around and you might as well be in Jurassic Park. There's all these brown spots appearing in the bush and suddenly you're surrounded by these magnificent- They are the largest animals, land animals on Earth. So they're moving from one part into Samburu around north Kenya into Samburu National Reserve for food, for watering holes. So the key in preserving elephants is to preserve those migration routes. You know the population of East Africa is going to be the same as the population of India today by 2050. And as land gets converted to agriculture, as subdivisions start popping up, they intersect these ancestral, millennial migration routes and that's why the key to conserving elephants is not only fighting the poachers but preserving those migrations. And that's where the wisdom comes into. It's the it's the mothers and the grandmothers who know in a dry season that watering hole will be empty but a kilometer away there's another watering hole that tends to be full. As one person in the documentary says, from the Kenyan Wildlife Service veterinarian, killing a matriarch it's like shooting the president of a country.

LL: Mark you keep anticipating me. I like to play a clip of Matthew Matinda now he is with the Kenya Wildlife Service.

SOUNDCLIP

Killing the matriarch elephant is like killing the president of the country. The matriarch elephant knows all the routes, knows where all the water [unintelligible] are, knows all the grazing and the feeding areas during the dry season in the wet season. And then you come one day and boom! This matriarch is dead. What will the family do

LL: So, Caitlin, it's important that the information be passed down. Do you have an idea of how the matriarchs communicate to the herd?

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Well they’re very tactile animals. They use their trunks for so many more things than just for eating or for drinking. They use them to comfort each other. They teach their children sometimes how to use twigs as fly swatters. And they have such close close bonds. They are constantly touching each other. They're constantly in physical contact but they also communicate through sound - infrasound - where they're able to compute tiny communicate tiny tiny messages through things that are almost inaudible to the human ear.

LL: One of the most powerful scenes I found in the documentary is when you come across an elephant that was killed by farmers and we know elephants are also being poached. Tell me about that scene and what happens when a mate dies too soon.

MARK STAROWICZ: Well it was stunning. It was one of one of the saddest things I ever saw. What was striking also is our guide Semarro began to perform a ritual at the head of the elephant and some young boys who were herders with their cattle came by and as well joined the ritual. The text of the ritual is: 'Your head is dry. My head is wet. Mine will be dry soon and we will be together. We are all one'. The respect that the Samburu have for the elephant they regard them as very closely humans. The skin is very soft and an elephant that looks like it’s hard hide but it isn't. The elephants form intense family bonds, friendships that last a lifetime and even go down generations. So it was probably the most moving moment stunning.

LL: Of the elephants that you you followed Caitlin, can you tell us about some of them? Can you tell us about Cinnamon

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Yes Cinnamon was an amazing matriarch. She's in her 60s and she's the leader of the Spice's family. The scientists name each family after a theme and each elephant within that family, each female, has a name related to that theme. So Cinnamon is the leader. Her daughter where Celery, Dill, [unintelligible] and she's a beautiful older elephant who never grew tusks through a genetic abnormality and the leader of a very successful herd. But she came across at one point there was another family, named the Swahili ladies, and all of the adults had been killed by poachers leaving just the young females alone, left to die. They were too young to make it on their own. And Cinnamon, even though she was completely unrelated to these elephants, took them in and she fostered them and led them to water and raised them under her own watch. Because one of her daughters had been friends with Habiba one of the elephants of the Swahili ladies and because of that friendship bond she took them in and they were able to survive. And Habiba is now a young leader of her own family, in her own right simply because of the compassion of Cinnamon.

LL: That's remarkable that they bring with them this idea of adoption and friendships within this group of elephants. It's something that you would never have expected.

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: It's emotional bonds that are as complex as humans. It was remarkable.

MARK STAROWICZ: And you know scientists- we are used to scientists being cautioning against anthropomorphic analogies or human analogies. But in all cases here the scientists made human analogies and no one more particularly than George [unintelligible] with the elephants. The comparisons to human society, the importance of family, the importance of empathy, friendship, the complexity of their communication, as Caitlin said they're constantly sort of texting each other in their own way. And another lesson that I've found really striking was the importance of grandmothers. Elephants’ families that have a grandmother - because some are led just by mothers some are led by grandmothers. But the ones that have grandmothers as the matriarchs live longer. The family prospers better. And this parallels certain human and the scientists themselves were making analogies to humans that families that have grandmothers in them do better.

LL: Okay let's move on to the baboons. In this case the yellow baboons. This is the one species that I have had some personal experience with baboons, having come across them in South Africa but they were rather aggressive. Caitlin, tell us about the baboons that you've followed.

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Well the baboons were really surprising. I mean it's something that we're not as used to. But whereas the lions were a democracy, the elephants were a meritocracy. The baboons were almost a royal family because each member of the family, each female, has a rank. And you can number at one to 80 because they're huge families of about 80. And every single baboon knows everyone's social rank and exactly where they are. And one of the remarkable things about baboons is that it's always the youngest female who rises to the top, who'll be the next queen. So it's not like a royal family where it's the male it's always the female and it's the youngest female which was really incredible to see.

LL: Yeah I'm going to actually play some tape that refers to that. This is Elizabeth Archie who is a scientist with - I hope I am saying this correctly - Amboseli Baboon Project.

SOUNDCLIP

The wave of dominance hierarchy works is you have the oldest adult female living in a matriline. Okay maybe you could call her a matriarch. So she's here and this is her youngest daughter. So the one that's most recently born, her second youngest, third youngest, fourth youngest. So this youngest daughter has what we call youngest ascendancy because she has what's called the highest reproductive value. She has a long life ahead of her. And has a lot of time left still to produce kids. The older daughter is probably not that much younger than the mom might be only five six years older than the mom and so doesn't have as many years left to produce kids.

LL: So youngest female holding all the power. How did you witness that playing out among the baboons

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Well we were following a specific family and they had a new baby. So Rhoda was one of the top ranking females had a new baby named Rijeka and Rijeka was this adorable sweet little pink baboon. And she was very young still and all of the members of the family would come to pay court to her because baboons being primates, like us they love babies. So everybody of the baboon family would come and greet the baby and kind of smell her and groom her mother just to show respect. And it was lovely to see because all of the sisters you would think that maybe they would be resentful that this new baby is rising to the top but they want her to rise as high as possible. They it's in their genetic interest for her to have a strong future and a successful life.

LL: Where the male baboons doing the same thing

MARK STAROWICZ: There were some males doing some of some of the same. But Caitlin coined the phrase is this Downton Abbey of baboons and this hierarchy was just a total revelation to us. And of course the reason they have this hierarchy is because food is scarce. You don't want to fight over every herb or every fruit you find on a branch somewhere. So everybody eats in order. They line up in effect according to hierarchy.

LL: Mark what are the Baboon mothers then teach their daughters? We were talking about how the elephant mothers teach.

MARK STAROWICZ: Well this is really interesting. The scientists emphasize that social skills are among the major things that are taught: how to form friendships, how to groom each other, how to care for each other. They form a female like minded social groups. The older females hang around together. The new mothers hang around together. And once again as in elephants, the more friends you have, the longer your family lives. Baboons were literally a sisterhood and they form sisterhoods. And I was surprised that one of the scientists actually used the phrase that's in the documentary that baboons are the quintessential Amazonian society.

LL: You said that they live longer because of their female friendships. They have studied that, have they?

MARK STAROWICZ: They have. The more friends you have, the more you groom each other. And you groom each other, you remove ticks. The more ticks you remove, the higher your red blood cell count is. So you are literally healthier being groomed more because you have friendships.

LL: Now Caitlin you did coined the phrase Downton Abbey a bit of a soap opera there. What were some of the emotional complexities that you were finding common, in not just this, but in all the animal societies

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Well in terms of emotional complexity, I was very very impressed and surprised by the cooperation, by using friendship as a evolutionary tactic. That friendship is not just some kind of feel good thing. It really helps animals survive. And as you said with the baboons they look out for each other. They groom each other and it's something that we see in humans as well. It's a direct parallel that individuals that are socially connected have a better life than socially isolated individuals.

LL: My last question goes to both of you. You spent months observing these animals in their habitat. What do you want us to learn from these matriarchal societies? Mark why don't you go first

MARK STAROWICZ: First of all the assumption that the old Darwinian image or caricature of a Darwinian image that the males rule the society is inherently red, tooth and claw, vicious Darwinian in that sense, is not always true. Evolution not sentiments has created collaboration among females, particularly among females, and as a survival strategy. It is as natural to Darwinian study as the old idea that it is brutally hierarchical and cruel.

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: I would agree with that and I would say that one thing I would like people to take away is that patriarchy is not the defacto structure and that these amazing species are matriarchy and matrilineal societies. It's also very interesting that science is always changing. Of course we think of the lion king. We think of the king of the jungle but because of these incredible scientists and researchers that have changed the way we think about social structures in animal societies, we are seeing that they're much more complex than we ever thought.

LL: Interesting that you were doing this at the side of your father learning about matriarchies at his side. I thank both of you for coming in. I say again it's a really wonderful documentary and I know you had a great time shooting it. Thank you very much.

CAITLIN STAROWICZ: Thank you.

MARK STAROWICZ: Thank you Laura.

LL: Mark and Caitlin Starowicz's documentary is called Mommy Wildest. It premieres this Sunday at 8 p.m., 8:30 in Newfoundland on CBC Television. Well that is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for Q. Today Tom Power welcomes actor R-J Mitte who had a breakout role as Walt Jr. on Breaking Bad and who, like the character he played, has cerebral palsy. They'll talk about the role that made R-J Mitte's career and the way forward in Hollywood for actors with disabilities. And remember you can always take the current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It lets you browse through past episodes of our show and start listening in just a few seconds. You can search for stories you missed or you want to hear again or listen live to your local CBC station right from your smartphone or your tablet, hear the day's top stories, even make your own playlist of your favourite stuff to listen to later. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. And coming up Monday here on The Current. Anna Maria Tremonti will be convening a media panel to talk about the first year of the Donald Trump administration in the United States. Of course the president took a big jab at the news media earlier this week, awarding his so-called fake news awards. Not to be outdone, producers of the CBS comedy show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert decided to hand out a host of awards to Donald Trump himself by putting together a real of honors he had already given himself through the years. Here's how it sounded. I'm Laura Lynch. Thank you for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

ANCHOR: In anticipation of Donald Trump's Fake News Awards, The Late Show presents even fakier awards that President Trump has awarded himself.

[Sound: Laughter and applause]

DONALD TRUMP: I am the most conservative person in the world.

The greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that.

I'm the strongest person on the Second Amendment that exists.

I am the most militaristic person.

I'm the best thing that ever happened to the Secret Service.

I have one of the great temperaments.

I am the least anti-Semitic person that you have ever seen in your entire life.

One of the greatest memories of all time.

I could be the most presidential person ever.

I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed.

I had the best words.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Friday January 19, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This