Severance: Supply Closet - Personality Traits & The Science of Self

[00:00:05] Hey everyone, David here. Severance is back. The Lorehounds are partnering with Properly Howard to bring you in-depth weekly coverage of Season 2. Join me, John, Anthony, and Steve as we unpack every twist, theory, and revelation. We've created a dedicated feed just for our Severance coverage. Simply search for Severance Lorehounds in your podcast app or find the direct link to Severance Lorehounds.

[00:00:35] in our link tree. Our weekly episodes dig deep into the show's mysteries, themes, and bigger questions about identity and consciousness that make Severance so compelling. Season Pass and regular community subscribers get ad-free access to our weekly episodes, plus exclusive content like our Supply Closet Bonus Series, featuring fascinating conversations with experts like the team from Nevermind the Music. We've explored the neuroscience of memories, and we've been exploring the

[00:01:05] memory and personality, decoded the memory and personality, decoded the hidden meanings in the show's musical themes, and there's much more to come. You'll also get Steve and Anthony's complete Season 1 rewatch series. We believe in total transparency with our listeners. And unlike Mammalians Nurturable, we're happy to share all of our secrets.

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[00:02:15] Hey everyone, David here. If you have been listening to our regular weekly coverage with Anthony and Steve, you might have heard me mention our bonus Supply Closet episodes where we're talking to various people in our community, experts in particular fields.

[00:02:36] I know Anthony has a Supply Closet episodes coming up very soon here, and we've had a couple of conversations with Nicole and a conversation with Mark, both from Nevermind the Music. So we've been making those available to our monthly subscribers and to our season pass holders.

[00:02:55] Well, this particular conversation I felt was just too good to not make public, to share this topic and some of the ideas as they relate to modern psychological theory with how personality types are constructed relative to the show and to the temperaments, the four temperaments that Keir says make up an individual.

[00:03:22] So this conversation was just too good to not share with everyone and gives you a kind of taste to what we're doing with the bonus episodes. We know that there's a lot of fatigue for subscription models in the marketplace.

[00:03:40] So we have what we call a season pass, which is a single one-time purchase that gets you access to a feed that has no ads on it and includes the season one recap that Steve and Anthony did, as well as our ongoing coverage. And then all of these bonus episodes, you can buy that with just a couple of clicks and then you'll have that feed forever. As long as the internet exists, that will be available.

[00:04:10] If you want to be a regular subscriber, either monthly or annually, you can do that either on our Supercast or our Patreon sites. It's a really important part of the Lorehound's operations is being able to have that ongoing support. So if you're a current subscriber, thank you very much.

[00:04:28] And if you're considering subscribing, we get a lot of great benefits as well as the warm comfort of knowing that you're getting some great value entertainment and supporting a really fun, cool group of creatives. So here is my conversation with Nicole. Again, I know Anthony has a bonus episode coming up as well. If you're interested at all in supporting the podcast one way or the other, there's a link in the show notes.

[00:04:58] And if that's not for you, totally fine. We're just happy to have you on board and listening. Come by the Discord, send us some feedback by email. We love to get your comments, thoughts, theories. Season's been great so far and we're looking forward to a great back half. So thank you again, everyone, and enjoy my conversation with Nicole.

[00:05:25] Nicole, the other day on your Nevermind The Music podcast, you and Mark were breaking down the Dua Lipa levitating song. And as you got into the, okay, the flip side of this is these psychological traits or trait theory. My brain exploded as I was listening to the podcast.

[00:05:47] I was like, oh my God, you know, the four tempers in severance and, you know, personality trait theory and, you know, the big five and, you know, all of this kind of stuff. And I was just like, oh, I have to talk to Nicole. I can't not not talk to Nicole. It's like ridiculous. I agree. There's so many connections. I can't wait to explore them.

[00:06:07] And if you think personality theory is cool, wait till you hear about nature versus nurture in terms of like the severance and ease and outies, because that's really where a lot of cool stuff is happening in terms of personality development for these characters. So let's get into it. Yeah. Where do we even start? So in the show, we have the animatronic Kier, a recording of Kier talks about the four traits, the four tempers.

[00:06:36] And he says that the, a person is made up by varying percentages of these. And so in the macro data refiners are doing the refinement work. They're, they're trying to identify these numbers. They click on them and then they filter into these buckets. Now, what's interesting is, is that there are five buckets at the bottom of the screen, but they only talk about the four in the show. So, you know, I think there's something going on there, but we'll set that aside.

[00:07:02] But the fact that we have these four categories or criteria or descriptors that the show is saying is what makes up the essence of a person. And if you can balance those, or if you can understand those, then you can have some sort of effect over the human condition. Right.

[00:07:25] And, you know, on the license plate of the car, there's a Latin phrase, which means like the, the cure for humanity, like we've got the cure or, you know, we can cure humanity, you know. So there's all this stuff about description, but also prescription or prescriptive, right? Like, oh, we can predict some things. Yeah. So that's sort of the basis of what the show is playing with.

[00:07:46] But in our real world, we have a long history in humanity of trying to understand our personalities and our conditions and what we're dealing with. Some of it's rooted in survival. Like, I don't want to get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger or I don't want to drink the dirty water to get sick. But then as we've evolved as a society or as a, as a species and then our societies and our cultures, we have lots of time to think about these things.

[00:08:15] We have people who specialize in, in understanding them a little bit more. And we have a long history of things, you know, we have zodiac signs. Yeah. We have, certainly in more modern terms, we have the MBTI type personality theories, which are very recent relative, I think, because the big five, the trait theory is a little bit older.

[00:08:37] No, I think MBTI came first and then the big five and like the Hexco kind of branched off of that because, well, I have a lot of thoughts about what you're saying. Okay. So I'm just going to, I'd love to just dive in. The point being humanity, like we're, we're, we're always grappling with ourselves. We're always looking, there's a part of us that's always looking inwards, both from a survival standpoint, but also to just understand our human condition a little bit more. And so we come up with these tools and theories and descriptors and things.

[00:09:04] And again, are, is it, are we trying to get at causal nature or are we just trying to describe things that are occurring for us? Are we trying to be able to predict the future? Oh, you know, when you and Mark were talking about the Dua Lipa song, you were like, well, Mark, if I use these distinctions, these linguistic distinctions, I can understand you a little bit more and I can predict your behavior a little bit more.

[00:09:26] And I can, as a conscientious person, I can adapt myself to your behavior so that we are more agreeable as a, as a, as friends and professional colleagues and stuff. And I think that, you know, we talk about this long history of what really you're identifying is our desire to make sense of each other and to code each other in some way. Right. So if I say to you like, oh, I'm a Virgo, you know what that means. And if you're a Virgo too, you say, oh, we're the same in that way. I have Virgo rising.

[00:09:55] I'm a Gemini with a Virgo rising. You give Gemini vibes like you for sure do. Like you can code switch really quickly. Right. And you like to do a lot of different things all at the same time. A hundred percent. Those are, yeah. And like I, even that astrological sign, which seems so like woo woo to some, it gives us information and it gives us context of where we can put you as a human in the spectrum of all the other humans. And I can put myself somewhere too. Yes.

[00:10:24] That helps me as I move through society. And it helps you develop your self-concept in a way. And self-concept is, you know, if we were to answer the question, who am I? You know, I am a mother. I'm a teacher. I'm a Virgo. And those things have weight to them. Those things ascribe duties to me. They ascribe class to me. And that helps me figure out where I fit. So I don't have to just be Nicole. I can be Nicole and all these other things.

[00:10:54] What do your students call you? They call me by my last name, which is not professional. I'm a tried professor. You know, sometimes I'll get missed. Feels weird sometimes, right? Sometimes they call me by my first name, which I don't have any like ethical problems with, but it just like surprises me. It hits my ear in a weird way in that environment. And when someone's like, oh, hey, Nick. Hey, Nicole. I'm like, oh, what? Like, who are you? Like, you're 12. But that's all signaling, right?

[00:11:22] Like, I could say that to you, right? Because we have a different relationship. So, yeah. Right. I mean, I'm very casual. All of these identities have functional relationships out in the real world. Right. And so, understanding ourselves helps us navigate all of those blocks, right? It helps us orient, right? Right. So, like if my kid calls me Nicole, it trips me up more than if my students do. Because to her, I'm a very different role. Absolutely.

[00:11:52] If my kid called me professor, it would be very confusing. Sometimes I bring her to school with me if I have to. And she watches me teach. And she can't figure it out. Amazing. How can you be my mom and this other person? So, I think we all have kind of some in the outie. It's so important for her to see that, though. Yeah. I mean, I think so, too. To see that you can switch between these roles. And then that's a normal thing for you as a child. As you're developing, you switch roles. Well, it's true.

[00:12:19] And I think kids have, well, I know that children, especially around preschool, are very egocentric. That's their job. Right. And I remember there's one circumstance that I dropped my child off to preschool. And when I came to pick her up at the end of the day, she goes, oh, where did you sit and wait for me all day? I was like, what? She's like, didn't you sit and just wait for me to get out of school? I was like, no, I lived a very full life. Like, very, very busy because I'm a three-dimensional person. That's hilarious.

[00:12:49] And it's developmentally appropriate for a kid to view things outside of themselves that way. But it's a good example of how we do, we're the main character in our own stories, right? And we see ourselves code switch, but other people don't see us that way. But back to, you know, welcome to The Nicole Show, where I just go on tangents about things that are not related to our topic at hand. Welcome to the warhouse. We're a good fit. Yes. So, yes.

[00:13:18] Personality theory and severance, right? Trait theory and severance. This whole Four Tempers vibe that they're establishing is very on brand with this Big Five Ocean personality traits. There's more content on that. You can check out our latest Nevermind Music episode about Dua Lipa, somehow about personality theory. So I'm just going to dive in. That in these Big Five traits, you're not assigned one trait or the other, like in some other personality assessments.

[00:13:47] History, you're put on a spectrum. And the goal is to find regulation and find clarity in your own behavior. Like, depending on when you take the test and what mental environment you're in, while you take that assessment, you're going to code different ways. Like if I took the assessment at work, I would code more as an extrovert than introvert. But when at home, I'm much more introverted than I am like when I'm out in the wild.

[00:14:17] I've also noticed that I've – my response to questions, like I was messing around with a couple of these online personality tests before we jumped on the microphone. And I even noticed that in my thoughts about was like, oh, I'm in my mid-50s. My answer now is a little bit different than when I was in my 20s or 30s or something. Right. I might be, you know, rather than being strongly agree, I might be more neutral now or something. Yeah.

[00:14:46] And my guess is you're more conscientious now. Yeah. You're probably less risk-averse. You're probably less open to new experiences now than you were in your 20s. And that's for a couple different reasons. First, your brain has developed. You know, you're frontal lobe. You're fully cooked at this point. Like your frontal lobe has more regulated decision-making than it might have. You're not in any biological male under the age of 25, right? Right.

[00:15:15] And also, your life experience has changed. Right. You're probably less risk-averse because you're – you have more at stake now than you did. Like if something happened to you, there's more consequences now than there were when you were a teenager. Broken bones don't heal as fast when you're on a certain physiological point. And minimally. Like, yes, minimally, right? Yeah.

[00:15:35] And that's the thing about personality that I'm really interested in severance is that as outies, you and I, we have lived experience, right? We have things that have shaped us, not only circumstantially, but like even things like how our parents raised us, like our birth order in our family, right? Like I'm a – I have an older sister.

[00:16:03] I give such younger sibling vibes. Like I want someone to take care of me. I'm like going on family vacations unprepared. I just want – I joke around a lot. I don't have a lot of nervous energy around like obligations. And my older sister for sure does. And I think about – We fit into these roles. When we get with our families, we fall into these patterns that are established. It's like bad. It's really bad.

[00:16:34] But the innies don't have any of that, right? And I think about Mark S., right, as an outie. He's very casual and like funny and loose. And he gives like younger sibling vibes. I tried to do some research to see if his sister was – if Devin was older or younger. And I couldn't really find any if she was his older sister. Do you know? I know I've come across that information somewhere or I heard it in the show.

[00:17:03] And I'm pretty sure she is the older sibling. It like gives that feeling. And he gives the feeling of like a younger brother when he's an outie. Not super conscientious. Really like a jokester. Very agreeable, right? And then Mark's innie is super different. He's really polished and tight and very, very conscientious. According to one of the Severance wikis, he is the younger.

[00:17:33] Yeah, it reads that way. And that's great acting and really – well, it really helps me out with my theory. So I'm glad that that worked out for me. I love that confirmation. But then I start to think like maybe Mark's innie is the way he is because he doesn't have that familial influence, right? He exists like in this lumen bubble. That his only nurturing experience is the kind of corporate indoctrination.

[00:18:02] And we see that with the other innies too. Helena is very polished and Heli is not. Maybe Helena was born – And she's much more under control, right? Yes. Where Heli R is a lot more wild and prone to – And maybe like as a kid, Helena was wild. But her life experience made her more subservient.

[00:18:29] Maybe her life experience made her have the need to be polished and the need to be in control to fit into her family dynamic, right? So her life experience changed her personality. And we're seeing that all across the board. Dylan for sure. Dylan's innie is confident and cocky in some ways, but still has this like air of sadness kind of. It's interesting. But also like he's empowered.

[00:18:58] And Dylan's outie is not because his life experience beat him down so much. And now we're starting to see when his wife enters the picture and the wife is exposed to the innie, that the innie is starting to feel self-doubt. The innie is starting to – Oh. Because he's seeing it mirrored back from his wife. It's interesting.

[00:19:19] Again, it goes back to what we talked about before on one of our first conversations where I had a friend long ago who had a brain injury and then slowly reverted to a version of his old self because everybody was reflecting back to him. Wait a minute. You're not this nice jovial guy. You're an asshole. So he slowly became an asshole. Yeah. It's actually called the looking glass self theory. That's the name of the sociological theory about self. Wow. Okay.

[00:19:50] Do you know what a looking glass is? Great. Another Wikipedia hole. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't stop. The looking glass self theory is a really – it's my favorite theory of self. Any student that's listening to this now is rolling their eyes because I talk about it all the time. So we call it the looking glass self because it is just as you described that we look to other people to hold a mirror up to us so we know how to act.

[00:20:16] When we talked about self-concept at our start here, I said certain things that describe my sense of self. Like I'm a mother. I'm a teacher. Those are how I identify. But I can't be any of those things without other people. Like without my students. I'm not a teacher at all. I'm just some intelligent person with a couple of degrees and a dry erase marker in my hand. Like that's all I am, right?

[00:20:44] But I need students to be a teacher. Just like – That's really interesting, yeah. Your friend needed the reflection back to be an asshole, right? And our innies in severance need each other to be their full self, right? Helly can't be rambunctious without other people to play off of. Interesting. And they need to see her that way.

[00:21:10] And what happened in our latest episode is they started noticing differences, right? Irv started noticing personality differences in Helena. That was like, you know, Helly was never mean, right? Right, right. And that's when they started – spoilers – putting the pieces together, right? Honestly, I put those pieces together long ago, but that's fine. We don't have to – Well, yeah. From the beginning of the season, that's been one of the primary theories.

[00:21:39] Absolutely, that's what's going to happen. Right. And it was awesome. Right. And then, you know, – And kudos to the writers for ramping that tension and then paying it off at a really important time rather than just holding on to the mystery for the sake of the mystery. I love it. And then he pulled her out and he hugged her and said, I'm so sorry. It's like, oh my gosh. The acting was amazing. So on point. And then imagine going from being on stage at a black tie to being drowned in a mountain river. Right?

[00:22:09] Like, because she wasn't lucid. Like, Helly wasn't there any of that time. It must be like – and you're in the woods? Like, what is the sky? You know? Right. What is water? What is a waterfall? But Irv, I think specifically, the difference between his and Neonauti is the most profound to me in terms of like, yeah, we can talk about the big five. We can talk about the hexago traits for sure.

[00:22:37] But this nature versus nurture piece in terms of personality development. Irv on the outside seems broken. He seems a little bit broken. Mm-hmm. I mean, I'll say a little bit. I don't want to project. But like, if I'm staying up all night drinking coffee, painting the same painting over and over again in like a really interesting vibe, like the way that he paints doesn't seem like healthy.

[00:23:06] I don't know. There's a lot there, right? Well, I think some people are theorizing that he's trying to communicate with his inny self somehow through a kinesthetic and latent visual form of communication. Like to root something into the subconscious. Exactly. Yeah. And we've seen he's had bleed over. Yeah. Right. He's had the oil, you know, stuff coming through. And yeah, he's one of those reasons that he's attracted.

[00:23:36] Well, maybe not a reason why he's attracted to Burt, but one of their common bonding things is talking about art. Yeah. And visual representation and things like that. It's interesting. The overlap between Irv's inny and outy leads me down a rabbit hole of other theories about what's going on with Irv, but that's not what we're going to talk about today. Right? Outside, he's pretty punk rock and inside he's not at all. And I think that that difference is really interesting.

[00:24:05] Like outside, he seems really loose and has this like manic flavor. And inside, he doesn't. He's really polished, really regulated, really refined almost. The most refined than many of them. Yeah. And I think that that's so different. And I wonder like what happened to if we all if we work under the assumption. That the innies are the baseline personality of these characters.

[00:24:33] And that their personality has changed and shifted over time because of the epigenetic influences. They're like the nurturing influence. What happened to Irv that made them so different? Hmm. So like his military background. Is it his family structure? I mean, those are. I can't wait to explore Irv's outy more. And I hope we see that moving forward. I have a feeling we're going to because he seems pretty badass. Irv's my favorite character.

[00:25:03] Anyway, John Turturro is like amazing. So he's a monster of an actor. And that performance. It's wild. It was over the top. Not over the top. It was in a long and distinguished career. That single episode is such a high mark for what he has delivered over the course of a career. That tells you how high his mountain is as an actor. Right. It's a master class. Yeah. For sure.

[00:25:32] So, so much here in terms of personality trait. And I think that the four humors are really referencing like not the humors. What is it? The four tempers. Four tempers. Excuse me. Woe, frolic, dread, and malice. I mean, I do that all the time. I do humors. I get stuck with that a lot because that's obviously an old theory in humanities. Right. Exploration of personality.

[00:26:02] Right. That we have these like pillars, right? I wonder, have you ever looked at like what character represents each of the four? Anthony started to do some of that questioning. Was it in the last episode or the episode before last? But yeah, thinking about is there a one-to-one match? And I think it's, we kind of came to the conclusion that it kind of can't be because if you're made

[00:26:28] up of percentages, which I think goes into the, we should start talking about maybe the big five. Yeah. Or these, there's a core that seems to be strongly agreed upon. And then there's some slight variations around the outside design, hexaco, ocean, whatever. But yeah, we were looking at it and going, can they be a single representation or manifestation? Well, that, that would then break the rules of the world because. Right. And Kier said that you're, you're varying percentages of these things. Yeah.

[00:26:58] And that's what we talk about in the big five personality traits. So trait theory has been around for a really long time. Like we started with Freud, had some kind of buds of these ideas. And then Jung got into what we now think of as the Myers-Briggs personality traits, even though he didn't write them.

[00:27:19] A mother-daughter team took his work and manipulated it without his consent into the MBTI test and assessment. So, and they knew each other and it's actually a really interesting story, but that's for a different day. Different side track. Different, different day. Cause they were weird, but whatever. And then after the MBTI was kind of in the mix for a while, or maybe concurrently, another

[00:27:48] theorist named Raymond Cattell developed the big five personality traits or another way to assess personality. Jungian personality assessment in the MBTI really works on a binary that you're either introverted or extroverted, or at least that's how the Myers-Briggs codes us. You're one or the other. I was, I did a Myers-Briggs this morning. I'm consistent at least over time. So that's good.

[00:28:14] But the modern incarnations of MBTI feel very organizational, institutional, corporate, right? Because it's used a lot in those industries and fields. Yeah, it is. Myers and Briggs, they never copy, put a copyright on their test. So everyone uses it. And you see a lot of different iterations of it in higher ed. It's used for a lot of corporate team building and leadership. Yeah.

[00:28:41] And in colleges, we have like a do what you are survey, which is just an MBTI. Okay. Strengths, quests. There's all these like different like corporate iterations, but it all comes down to these 16 personalities in an effort to code us, right? Right. And it does like either you're, you're one or the other, right? And that's flawed because we're all nuanced and we're all different.

[00:29:04] So the big five, it expands on that Myers-Briggs motif and puts us more on a spectrum. So maybe I'm 60% extroverted and 40% introverted, or maybe some people are 90% extroverted and 10% introverted. So, and instead of four different quadrants, Cattell had five. We call them the ocean traits because ocean is an acronym and it helps us remember stuff.

[00:29:34] So those five traits are openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extroversion with introversion being the inverts of that, agreeableness, and what he called neuroticism. We typically don't say neuroticism anymore because- Right. It's a loaded word. It has contextual history. It's just loaded. And it's so, it's gross. That's a technical term. Right. So we refer to that as more like emotional stability or emotional lability.

[00:30:02] Um, like how measured you are, right? Mm-hmm. When bad things happen or when things are slightly out of whack for you, do you dysregulate or not? Mm-hmm. How resilient you are emotionally, I suppose. Yeah, that's, that's for sure a way to think of it in more modern and more like, um, kinder language. Right. So because- I had a dysregulated moment the other day as a parent where we were at this outdoor event

[00:30:31] and, and my daughter shifted suddenly what she wanted to do. And I had food and we had gotten lunch. She hadn't finished her lunch. And then another parent was wanting to sit where we were sitting. And I was just like, ah! And then later I went back to her. I said, hey, I'm really sorry. I kind of lost my cool. She's like, I'm a parent too. I totally get it. We, but we get dysregulated. And so, but it's like, how, how much does it take to push you out of your, your stable zone? And some people get dysregulated really easily.

[00:31:01] And, you know, we see it, especially in little kids, especially in like neurodivergent kids and it's, we all can re-regulate, right? Like some of us know how to do it. Like as a grownup, I know if I'm dysregulated or my kid's dysregulated, I need to feed her, right? Or I need to rest or I need to put my noise canceling earbuds in for a minute and just like chill out. Cause there's too many noises.

[00:31:29] That's how I get dysregulated and we've learned that about ourselves, but our inies here in severance have it, right? They're not giving the opportunity to be dysregulated. They're not allowed to, if they're dysregulated, they get sent to a closet with maybe a dead woman. Like what's going on with that? Like, I don't know. Something's happening. We got the candle that she stole from the garage. Like no one's talking about that. Whatever. Oh, wait a minute. Okay.

[00:31:58] Well, you need to send us in on a piece of feedback about that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. The candle that she had in there was the one that Mark found in the bin of her stuff. Oh my God. I totally missed that clue. That's awesome. There's so much. Yeah. It's gone deep. Sending me all these TikToks. What was I talking about? Ocean. Yeah. We're talking about the five big traits. The big traits. Yikes.

[00:32:24] But yes, this idea that our innies haven't had the chance to practice skills that would advance their personalities. They're stuck in this vacuum that they have to be regulated all the time. They can't be super extroverted. They're not allowed to make new friends. They're with each other. And over time, you need to branch out from a primary group to a secondary group to test out the skills you learned in that primary group.

[00:32:54] Oh, that's interesting. See if your personality is developed or not. So for our outies, that was their families were their primary groups. And then their secondary groups were the people in their periphery. But our innies don't have that. They only have each other. So our daughter's in the fourth grade. And man, fourth grade's drama for girls is like a switch gets flipped, right? And suddenly it's all about stuff. Oh, just wait. But then I think back to my high school time.

[00:33:23] I was just constantly moving around between groups and then kind of just in this pattern circling around. And that's interesting. Maybe I was experimenting on myself. How do I interact with this people? How do I interact? And learning skills to be sociable. You absolutely were. That's what every adolescent's job is to do. Right. Is to try on different senses of self to see what's a great fit. Like if I said to you in high school, what costume did you wear?

[00:33:52] My guess is when you probably went to high school in the mid-90s. Yeah, I graduated 87. Oh, buddy. Okay. So my elder, I'm in the elder class of the Gen Xers. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So my guess 87, you probably had like my guess. I don't know you that well, but you were probably like a Jude Law breakfast club costume.

[00:34:19] Well, no, because as I said, I rotated. Oh, sure. So I started out as a punk, did some preppy time. Yeah. Did some sort of 70s detective, grew a chin beard and wore a leather jacket. You know, wore combat clothes for a while. Like it just, it would rotate it. I was constantly changing my costume. Yeah. And we, we do that. Like we have. Where other friends were static and rooted and they're like, oh, Dave's back. Like what? He went away.

[00:34:48] He was here with us for a long time and now he's gone again and now he's back again. And my guess is like some of it stuck and some of it didn't. Like, you know, when I was in high school, I wore a hippie costume most of the time and did hippie-ish things. Um, but I also had like, I went to, I graduated high school in the year 2000. So, um, I had like a grunge Nirvana Pearl Jam era. Right. And we all do have these, these different eras and those do stick with you. Right.

[00:35:19] I'm going to throw another theory at you because I can't help myself, but there's one, I can't help it. Uh, there's one called the dramaturgical approach to self in that we all have like, it's like our life is a play and we're like acting like ourselves. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And we, yeah. And we have like a front stage self and a backstage self. Sure. And the front stage self is the one that wears the costume. Right. And the backstage self is the- Life is but a stage. Right. You know, Shakespeare, blah, blah, blah. Well, et cetera.

[00:35:48] And, and backstage, you're like practicing your lines and making sure your costume looks right before you go out and perform. Now, our, our innies don't have a backstage self. Right. Or they didn't at first, but now they're getting to it. They're having like an internal monologue that seems to have more depth than it did season one, episode one for me. Okay. That they have internal motivations that are separate from coding data.

[00:36:14] That they have other plots that they're exploring individually. Well, and that, and they have this quest to find Mark's wife now in season two. So many quests to find out what the export hallway is all about. So, right. Where's Mark's wife? Mammalians, nurturable. Yeah. The, the goats. What about the goats? Like, what are we doing with the goats? Um, I mean, I have theories, but we're not going to talk about them now.

[00:36:40] Um, so there's a lot here in terms of like exploration of self personality is a big part of it, but also like development of self concept is a really big part of it too, because our, our innies don't have all the variables that the Audis have to develop their sense of self. They're really in a, a white windowless room with each other. So all they have to develop their sense of self is what Lumen is issuing to them.

[00:37:10] Which is really fascinating because they've severed them at this point where they can function physically. They know what a copy machine is. They can make coffee. They can operate a, a, a very weird machine called a computer. They can understand that art, what art is. And, and so there's a whole bunch of stuff going on, but yet they don't have any memories of self. Yeah.

[00:37:38] They, and we, we talked about this in a previous chat about the difference of like semantic and declarative and non-declarative episodic memory. And like, where's the line? Right. And for me still in severance, that line is blurry. Like where does the line of memory exist in this severed procedure?

[00:38:00] I'm eager to see more of, um, Mark as he manipulates his, the dysregulation between innie and outie and the switching back and forth. I'm eager to see like where that progresses, but like Mark's any, he had a big day. The little guy, he had a big day. He did. A lot happened. I think, I think, I don't know if it was Anthony or Steve on the main, uh, podcast said not only was he introduced to fire, but he had his first sexual encounter as a,

[00:38:30] you know, let alone sleep, uh, and, and eating barbecue, you know, so like. It's a lot. It's a lot. Wow. And he didn't even sleep that much. He's probably, he's very, probably very tired. Right. Um, so I'm eager to see how that plays out. Um, and I feel bad for him. He got played. He got played. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Non-consensual encounter. Uh, in some degrees.

[00:38:57] Can we talk a little bit more about the five traits in trait theory early, you know, the big five that we have. And I know there's some, some alternate versions of the, of trait theory. Yeah, for sure. Um, so from the big five, we noticed that there was, um, a gap, like a research gap essentially in how we identify humans according to the big five that didn't allow for personal morality,

[00:39:28] you know, or like some like unconscious drive and motivation. Mm-hmm. So later came the Hexaco model. It's not as fun of an acronym. Um, but they added to the existing big five traits to add a quadrant for humility and honesty. Interesting. To make the H of Hexaco. Okay. And, um, we're, we don't really see a ton of humility with the Innes, but we're getting

[00:39:57] to like an honesty place, which is really interesting. Um, but that was the kind of iteration of that, uh, to, to add that quadrant. And there's a lot of question about, you know, our humility and honesty connected. Like, can we bin that together in one trait? And, you know, my students have a really interesting conversation always to try to unpack how those two are connected. Um, so that's really the iteration of personality trait theory.

[00:40:25] We, we now like industry standard, I think is still the big five. Okay. And then the MBTI as well does have a lot of clout. The interesting thing about the big five is that we can root it back to biological trait theory in terms of personality development. That a lot of the big five personality traits are heritable. Um, which means that it's passed down to you. There's some epigenetic, uh, is epigenetic the right word?

[00:40:55] The inherited traits that's different. Epigenetic is like in a Venn diagram between nature and nurture. Okay. Epigenetics is like the middle of that Venn diagram. So like the intersection between nature and nurture. And I think, uh, when I was doing a little bit of reading on the, one of the wikis that I was digging around in, there was also this distinction between traits versus states.

[00:41:20] I may have a state of happy or angry or, or feeling some sort of emotion, but that's a short term thing as opposed to a trait, which is somehow persistent over time. You could sample me at various points along my lifespan. And if a particular trait is, if, if a particular description is present to a reasonable degree,

[00:41:45] then that we could identify as a trait as opposed to feeling particularly motivated in a, in a moment of time, which then fails. Yeah. And that you described that in your example of being at the, um, dysregulated picnic, which now that's what I'm thinking of it as, um, you're at this picnic and like, you're having a great day. The sun is shining, but there's a moment that you just know, like it's not working anymore. Yeah. Right. You typically. I'm being demanded of too many things.

[00:42:14] I got to. Too much. It's too much. And you kind of glitch. Right. Yeah. And we all have those moments, right? So there's a difference between trait, which is who you are inherently and state, which is what the environment is asking of you. We also think of that in more of like a counseling lens as mood and affect, um, that your affect is like,

[00:42:42] if think of it this way, if you were your own geographical region, right? Your affect would be like the climate of that region. Okay. And the mood would be like the weather that day. Got it. Got it. So like I'm in the Northeast, it's winter. Typically we have a pretty cold and snowy affect, but like some days it's sunny, even though it's winter.

[00:43:07] So that might be a day that you have a bright, happy mood, but the affect is still like always meh. Right. Yeah. Climate versus weather. That's a really good, uh, parallel. A parallel. Right. And that's like a way to conceptualize like our own ecosystem of emotion and personality. Right. So we know that sometimes people have a flat affect. Like Dylan has a pretty flat affect. He's pretty regulated. You're not getting a lot of like emotionality in his voice.

[00:43:37] And when you do, you know, it means something. Right. You know, when Dylan's agitated that like there's something real happening. Right. But like Hellie, you know, she's always got a pretty high affect. Right. Mark has a really personable affect. So when he doesn't, you know, something's up, you know, there's something else internal happening. And while his traits are very regulated, very conscientious, sometimes his states become dysregulated.

[00:44:06] Right. When he's running through the hall looking for his probably cloned wife. I don't know. Maybe Mrs. Huang is his cloned wife. Like, I don't know. I don't know what's happening. It's just an idea. So that's a kind of a difference between trait and state and mood and affect and how our personalities change and develop, not just over time longitudinally over a long period of time, but also like day to day. Right.

[00:44:36] Like some days I'm happy go lucky and some days I'm not. And that's okay. So there's a couple of last thoughts that I have. One, we can tackle these in whatever order you feel like you want to. One is the nature of these distinctions, these linguistic distinctions. The question of causality versus description, right?

[00:45:05] Is there some sort of causal agent that we're, you know, we're getting to the quarks and the positrons and the neurons, you know, whatever of, you know, the subatomic particle physics of personality versus, oh, we're just described, we are applying a word gravity to this weird effect that's happening. Gravity itself is a concept describing a physical reality. Right.

[00:45:33] So there's this whole thing of causal versus descriptive that I'm interested in. But the other thing I'm slightly interested too is the MBTI and big five, do they account for neurodivergence and conditions like inattentive or hyperactive disorders? Yeah. Because it doesn't seem to account for those, which does then affect personality, which does affect behavior, which then ultimately affects personality as well.

[00:46:01] Because how you feel that mirror self theory, right? If I'm a particular way, I'm always messy or I'm hyperactive in a classroom or a workplace setting, that's going to reflect back to me from my peers. And that's going to make me think things about myself. Yeah. So descriptive versus causal and then neurodivergence. Those are my last two sort of topics.

[00:46:26] Well, there is kind of a confirmation bias that happens in personality testing. So go back to like the beginning of our conversation when I said like, I'm a Virgo, right? There are times that I'm disorganized or my list is not color coded appropriately. Then I'm like, oh, this isn't very Virgo of me. I need to get it together. I need to act more like I've been told I should act based on this code. So we do.

[00:46:55] It's like what comes first, right? Like, are we born one way or do we become that way over time? That's like the founding question of psychology. And we're not going to figure it out on this pod. But there's a lot there to say like, oh, I'm supposed to be agreeable because this test told me so. So I should be acting more agreeable. And we see it even now. If you checked out our discourse, especially in the Nevermind Music feed right now is really popping off. It's great.

[00:47:24] It went from music to psychology, which is what your podcast is. I love it. Thank goodness. Finally. But we do. You can just start confirming. Like, I think of my co-host Mark. And now that like I know what his MBTI score is, I'm like, oh, right. Of course. Of course. And that's I'm not sure if that answers your question, but it is really hard to determine which comes first.

[00:47:50] We can see it with the innies because it is really a great case study in nature versus nurture because they don't have a ton of nurture. Maybe care is just like a behavioral psychologist trying to manipulate people with reward and punishment to be a certain way. That's actually now that I say it out loud, I think exactly what's going on. So that's one.

[00:48:13] There's lots of Reddit theories too about workplace training and ideal human condition and longevity and being, you know, there's just a plethora of things. But it's all about this idea of how do we, you know, how we exist and persist within a human lifespan. And can we persist beyond a human, a physical, theological? There's a ton about like operant and classical conditioning, which maybe we should book another recording to talk about that.

[00:48:45] So much. But so that's how I feel about your first question. It's a good question. And short answer, we don't really know which comes first, but we know that the phenomenon happens. At a minimum, we're applying a linguistic distinction on an observable, describable thing because we can measure it over time. We can measure these traits over time.

[00:49:11] And then we're using those distinctions to be able to, like, we had gravity. We always had gravity. But until somebody said the word gravity and started studying it, interrogating it, did we have a functional concept? Oh, now we can use it. Now we can make machines with it. And we can, you know, we can oppose it and get into orbit and all of these kinds of things.

[00:49:33] So linguistic distinction enables us as tool users and makers to be able to engage with this natural phenomenon. Well, I mean, and that's not even like we're talking about it in a real like meta sense here, but we do that with language in general. So did you realize that on the intellect imagination percentage of big five, I scored a 91%? No, I can tell. It's clear.

[00:49:58] So your second question about neurodiversity is a really great question. And the short answer is these tests are for sure biased towards people that are neuronormative. Right. And it actually is very problematic. Right. Because as we mentioned, which goes back to my first point, because if we have, if our tools are wrong, our assumptions are wrong. Yes. The tools are degraded. People get redshirted quite a bit because.

[00:50:27] Say you are someone that exists on the autism spectrum and you take the MBTI as a. Workplace assessment to see if you're qualified for a job. Right. Um, and that's super duper common in the hiring process that they'll give you some version of a personality test and a bot screens it. And then if you pass the test, you move on to the next round. What happens is because.

[00:50:53] Which gets into so many great science fiction story stuff like that's a whole other topic. It's so messed up because people do, if you consistently score quote unquote wrong on these personality tests, it's marked on you moving forward. Right. Because they're all using the same companies to do it. Right. And there's not a ton of them. So you, your file. Privacy rights. Right. Yeah. It's so much. So your file gets. Worse than having a renter's history.

[00:51:23] It's, it's what it is. You get like this stamp on your file saying like, no, no. Right. Essentially. Uh, there's a great documentary about that called. It's like the truth and personality testing that does a lot of case studies about people that are, um, neurodivergent and their struggles with personality testing. Um, it is a very real problem. Uh, and one that our industry has worked to course correct, but because.

[00:51:49] Myers-Briggs, that wacky mother daughter team never put a copyright on their work. But anyone can take it. Right. And iterate it any way they want. Right. And that's dangerous. Right. That's a dangerous thing. Um. Right. In the world we live in. But I'm going to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. And we don't have all day here, folks. But this has been a really awesome conversation. I love talking with you and literally anyone that'll listen about this stuff. So now that I have this microphone, wow. So much power.

[00:52:19] Your extroversion has a, uh, actual outlet now. You don't have to leave the house and you can expound. It's great. Like I'm under a weighted blanket right now. I'm just talking about stuff I love to talk about. It's perfect. Absolutely. And we're only, we're not even at episode five yet at the time of this recording. So we have. I'm rewatching from the beginning. I'm starting today and I'm rewatching all of it. Oh, wow. Okay. There's too many Easter eggs. I've been missing them all and I need to go back.

[00:52:49] Yeah. It's, it's a lot to stitch together. It's a lot to stitch together. And yeah, we have reintegration to deal with. And now we have the Ortbo to, to deal with. And so it's, and I'm, I'm really curious too, from a production standpoint, from the writer's room standpoint, you know, how much research and how this is really where I think human creativity shines, LLMs and any sort of AI type tool.

[00:53:15] It's like, uh, uh, using a, a hand screwdriver versus a power screwdriver, right? It's like, it can empower us and it can save us time and do all these kinds of things. But ultimately it's somebody still putting a screw into a piece of wood, right? And that's a human driven thing. And so when you sit down with a group of writers who have varying experience and you put them into this set of constraints, I'm just so fascinated about what elements of psychology

[00:53:44] and sociology did these writers have access to individually as well. I mean, obviously we have a world of research at our fingertips. Yeah. But they have folded it into this dramatic story so well and not hidden it, but also not made it obvious. You know, some shows are very obvious with their points of views. The show is not obvious within its points of views, which is a lovely thing for us podcasters to be able to do because then we get to take it apart and examine and explore it and really

[00:54:13] work on our intellect and imagination. Right. It makes viewership more interesting if you're like us, that you like the lore and you like the puzzle of it and you like to scratch at things. It makes us like thirsty to watch more because we want to be the first ones to figure it out. Right. And like they've already figured it all out. Right. And now they're watching this. Yes. And it must be fascinating. Right.

[00:54:40] Even I've been looking at like the posters in the background of scenes. I love the Easter eggs. Right. Do you know that in the scene that Helena is at the end of season one where Helena is like at the ball or whatever, there's a poster of her in the wall, like with the screens that are playing. And she's wearing a shirt that has Dylan's face on it. And that's, you have to go back and watch this stuff. It's like, do they have merch?

[00:55:09] Do they have like any merch? Right. It's crazy the level of detail and like the long conning that's happening to us. Like we're clowns. We're just clowns over here trying to figure it out. And how much is the show? Yeah. How much of the show? Modern shows are written with Reddit detectives in mind, with podcasters in mind. Thank goodness. I'm so sick of like superficial stuff. I just want to like dig deep. I like having a good mix of both. Yeah. Yeah. I get it.

[00:55:37] But this has been delicious to unpack. Yes. For sure. And we have more heavy stuff coming at us. We got, you know, the Wheel of Time fans are super excited. The Last of Us is coming. Andor is coming. We've got some White Lotus thrown in there. So we're going to be covering a little bit of, well, we're going to be covering those three major and then we'll do a light coverage of White Lotus because we just don't have time. So there's so much going on. I'm excited for your Yellow Jackets coverage. I'm catching up on that now. I never really got into it. Is Alicia doing something with that?

[00:56:07] I think so. I'm going to get roped into that for sure. Because it's like also a lot of cool subconscious stuff happening in that show. I was a little frustrated with it because I wanted the horror mystery stuff to be a little bit more present. I'm only halfway through season one. So we can't really talk about it yet. And I'll let you know. I'll let you know when I'm ready. Right. It's been awesome talking to you today. Yeah. As always.

[00:56:37] Thank you. Where can folks find Nevermind the Music? Great. You can find Nevermind the Music wherever you get your podcasts. We're in the Lorehounds Network in the Linktree, I bet. That's stuff you guys say all the time. Yeah. You can check us out. We have a whole channel for you guys on the community Discord. Yeah. The Discord is hilarious. Please engage with us. It's been really fun.

[00:57:00] And we drop new episodes every Tuesday, alternating between full hour-long episodes and maybe 15, 20-minute sidetracks. Because as you've noticed, I have a tendency to talk, as does my co-host Mark. And together. I was going to say, don't sell yourself short there. You're not alone. Mark's a talker, too. And the two of us together, we really can go on tangents. So if you like this, Bob, go check it out. I see up in the queue, you've got a sidetrack coming up.

[00:57:30] Mark geeks out about minimalism. Oh, gosh. Right. And then after that, long train running by the Doobie Brothers. Oh, that's a great. Flashbulb Cadences. Oh, my gosh. That's a great, great episode. Nice. We talk about the different iterations of the Doobie Brothers band and talk about flashbulb memories and how memories are formed. So if you're interested in memory formation. Oh, another perfect episode. I'm sure there's going to be another spin out of that for Severance. I hope so. But yeah, check us out.

[00:58:00] If you can leave us a rating or subscribe to our pod, that'd be awesome, too. And you can email us at nevermusicpod at gmail.com. We're also kind of on Instagram, but not really. Kind of. Discord's where it's at. Great. Well, thanks again. And we'll definitely be talking to you. If anything, if the past is any predictor of future behavior, you and I will be speaking again before long. I'm happy to help. Thanks, Nicole. Talk to you soon. Bye.

[00:58:28] This podcast is a joint production of The Lorehound and Properly Howard. Click the link tree in the show notes for links to more podcasts, our Discord server, and ways to support the show. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Is it the Frank or the Bean? Hey, everyone. David here. Severance is back.

[00:58:56] The Lorehounds are partnering with Properly Howard to bring you in-depth weekly coverage of Season 2. Join me, John, Anthony, and Steve as we unpack every twist, theory, and revelation. We've created a dedicated feed just for our Severance coverage. Simply search for Severance Lorehounds in your podcast app or find the direct link in our link tree.

[00:59:24] Our weekly episodes dig deep into the show's mysteries, themes, and bigger questions about identity and consciousness that make Severance so compelling. Season Pass and regular community subscribers get ad-free access to our weekly episodes, plus exclusive content like our Supply Closet bonus series featuring fascinating conversations with experts like the team from Nevermind the Music.

[00:59:50] We've explored the neuroscience of memory and personality, decoded the hidden meanings in the show's musical themes, and there's much more to come. You'll also get Steve and Anthony's complete Season 1 rewatch series. We believe in total transparency with our listeners. And unlike Mammalians Nurturable, we're happy to share all of our secrets. Find the link for the Severance feed in the show notes below,

[01:00:19] or search Severance Lorehounds wherever you get your podcasts. Come theorize with us about what's really happening at Lumen. Of the episode that thinks...