Speaker 1: Pushkin. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, to trust is
Speaker 1: to believe that someone is good and honest and will
Speaker 1: not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable.
Speaker 1: As loyal listeners to Cautionary Tales, you will have heard
Speaker 1: countless stories of people who were not good and not
Speaker 1: honest and did do harm people such as Ponzi scheme
Speaker 1: fraudster Samuel israel I, art forger han Van Meghrin, and
Speaker 1: the murderous Dr Harold Shipman. And yet these men were trusted.
Speaker 1: Why I've told you about people who trusted in technology
Speaker 1: when they shouldn't and those who didn't trust it when
Speaker 1: they should Again, why to help us get to grips
Speaker 1: with issues of trust, I am joined by my friend
Speaker 1: and fellow Pushkin voice Rachel Botsman. Rachel lectures in Trust
Speaker 1: at Oxford University, and her new audiobook, How to Trust
Speaker 1: and Be Trusted, is available via Pushkin, dot FM or
Speaker 1: wherever else audiobooks are sold.
Speaker 2: Hello Rachel, Hello Tim, it's nice to see you.
Speaker 1: It's great to see you as well. So we have
Speaker 1: asked listeners to Cautionary Tales and subscribe us to your
Speaker 1: newsletter Rethink to get in touch for this special trust
Speaker 1: based edition of Cautionary Questions. Before we dip into the mailbag, though,
Speaker 1: please tell me why is this topic so interesting to you?
Speaker 2: For so many reasons?
Speaker 3: But I generally am interested in things that aren't always visible,
Speaker 3: that are quite difficult to see or complex to understand.
Speaker 3: And trust is one of those forces you can't see
Speaker 3: or touch trust, and yet you feel it, you know
Speaker 3: when it's gone. So I like topics that are very
Speaker 3: complex and ever changing and that impacts so many different
Speaker 3: areas of our lives. And I guess that's very true
Speaker 3: for trust. It's hard to think of an air of
Speaker 3: our life that isn't touched by trust.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I should say, just before we started recording,
Speaker 1: you caught a glimpse of my script with that definition
Speaker 1: of trust from the Cambridge Dictionary, and you said, well,
Speaker 1: that's boring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's wrong as well, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm listening.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, first of all, good is a terrible word, right,
Speaker 3: Like good is so subjective. Trust is subjective. But what
Speaker 3: does good and honest mean? And something that is safe
Speaker 3: and reliable? Well, I don't like that because it's making
Speaker 3: a distinction that the way you trust someone and the
Speaker 3: way you trust something. There's a distinction there which doesn't
Speaker 3: seem right in the age of intelligent technology.
Speaker 2: But also so many.
Speaker 3: Definitions of trust are about knowing what to expect or
Speaker 3: knowing what the outcome is, and that is not really
Speaker 3: the flexity of trust. The way I defined trust is
Speaker 3: it's a confident relationship with the unknown. So trust it's
Speaker 3: much more in the space of risk and uncertainty. And
Speaker 3: I think it's when people think, oh, I know, I
Speaker 3: can trust someone because they're good and they're honest, or
Speaker 3: they're safe and reliable. That's when we make really bad decisions.
Speaker 1: Fascinating. We will get into all of this, but before
Speaker 1: the questions you can trust, cautionary tales to give you
Speaker 1: this music, I'm sitting with Rachel Botsman, the author of
Speaker 1: How To Trust and Be Trusted. Rachel, you ready for
Speaker 1: some questions.
Speaker 2: I am. I think they're good questions, so reveal to everybody.
Speaker 2: You've already seen the questions.
Speaker 1: It's fine, it's fine, we're being trustworthy and transparent. Okay,
Speaker 1: this question, which is a total surprise and you have
Speaker 1: not seen before. I have not. She's seen the questions.
Speaker 2: They were my newsletter, Tim, so I had to collect them. Okay.
Speaker 2: Our first question, as you very well know, is from Lee.
Speaker 1: In Iowa, and Lee asks, is trust given, earned or
Speaker 1: buried so deep in our psychee that we don't even know?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: My sense is Lee kind of knows the answer to
Speaker 3: this question. But it's a very interesting question because trust
Speaker 3: is given and it's earned, and sometimes we do those
Speaker 3: things without even thinking. We just lead with our intuition. Now,
Speaker 3: the way that works can differ. You could give me
Speaker 3: your trust by saying, come on this show, and then
Speaker 3: I have to earn that trust back, so I have
Speaker 3: to show up, and if that works, we form this
Speaker 3: really nice.
Speaker 2: Loop that's what we call by trust loop.
Speaker 3: But if you give my trust and it turns out
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about this, that is broken. Also
Speaker 3: can happen is you can give your trust to someone
Speaker 3: and they can choose not to trust you back. Slightly different, right,
Speaker 3: So you can choose to trust the leader in your
Speaker 3: organization and they're not ready to trust you, and that
Speaker 3: can really hurt as well. But most trust decisions we
Speaker 3: do without even thinking about them, and that's because we
Speaker 3: couldn't function if we're always thinking about giving an earning trust.
Speaker 3: But particularly in new relationships. You want that loop to
Speaker 3: be really, really healthy.
Speaker 1: This idea that it's buried so deep in our psyche
Speaker 1: that we don't even know. Is it a very mysterious
Speaker 1: process who we trust in, who we don't or or
Speaker 1: do you think it's perfectly explicable.
Speaker 3: It is often led by intuition and not information. You
Speaker 3: don't always think about why am I trusting this person,
Speaker 3: especially when you make decisions when you're under pressure or
Speaker 3: you really want to trust that person. Then it is
Speaker 3: buried deep within us. Also, our trust relations form very early,
Speaker 3: around three or four. We develop our trust profile, which
Speaker 3: is tied to risk and safety and protection. So so
Speaker 3: much of that is environmental conditioning that is set from
Speaker 3: a really young age.
Speaker 1: So that suggests that there's a type of person who
Speaker 1: is trusting or who is not trusting.
Speaker 3: It is so around seventy percent of people are naturally trusting.
Speaker 3: That is their instinct to trust, and that is a
Speaker 3: lot to do with nurture and environment versus nature.
Speaker 1: They've learned from experience that most people do deserve to
Speaker 1: be trusted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can depend on you. I've got that feeling.
Speaker 3: By the time children hit primary school, if they've never
Speaker 3: felt that relationship teachers will talk about this right. They
Speaker 3: have children that they don't know how to trust an
Speaker 3: adult because they've never had that experience and can lead
Speaker 3: to all kinds of unraveling. And thirty percent of people
Speaker 3: won't give their trust until they have proof, so they
Speaker 3: hold their trust back, which is actually quite tricky to
Speaker 3: live life like that.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the famous marshmallow test. It's a
Speaker 1: psychological experiment. These children were given a marshmallow and said,
Speaker 1: you can eat this marshmallow now, or if you don't
Speaker 1: eat the marshmallow while I go away, I'll be back
Speaker 1: in a few minutes and I'll bring you another marshmallow.
Speaker 1: And if you can wait, you get to eat two marshmallows.
Speaker 1: And some kids eat the marshmallow and some kids don't.
Speaker 1: The psychologists who led this experiment was Walter Michelle. Turns
Speaker 1: out this was predictive of success later in life. So
Speaker 1: the kids who had the will power to hold on
Speaker 1: and wait for the second marshmallow, that was a wonderful
Speaker 1: predictor of going on to be an incredibly successful human being.
Speaker 1: There are lots of different arguments about what this really shows,
Speaker 1: but one possible interpretation I would guess is some children
Speaker 1: are told if a grown up promises to bring you
Speaker 1: on marshmallow, they are actually going to show up with
Speaker 1: a marshmallow. And others have learned from painful experience, do not,
Speaker 1: in fact follow through on their promises, and you might
Speaker 1: as well eat the marshmallow while you can.
Speaker 3: And some people they see that as an experiment in
Speaker 3: self discipline, but I see it as an experiment in trust.
Speaker 3: And you probably noticed him, but many people have tried
Speaker 3: to recreate that experiment, and I can't remember when they
Speaker 3: did it, but someone changed who the person was that
Speaker 3: gave the instructions.
Speaker 2: This is really interesting.
Speaker 3: So a teacher, parent or a grandparent, someone that was
Speaker 3: familiar to them, and a total stranger, and it turned
Speaker 3: out the key variable was the person giving the instructions.
Speaker 3: So that's because oh, I trust you, I trust that
Speaker 3: you're going to bring the other marshmallow, versus my own
Speaker 3: self discipline. So it was really interesting that the outcome
Speaker 3: of the experiment changed depending on how much they trusted
Speaker 3: the instructor.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. You have a question from MJ who asks
Speaker 1: why do people continue to trust someone after finding out
Speaker 1: that they've been lied to.
Speaker 3: It's a very common one, both in personal relationships and
Speaker 3: professional relationships. I tell a story in the book about
Speaker 3: my parents who trusted her nanny. They hired her because
Speaker 3: she said she belonged to the Salvation Army and she
Speaker 3: liked helping people, and she had a Scottish accent, and
Speaker 3: accents are very influential in how we trust. For a signal,
Speaker 3: long story short, she came into her house, she was
Speaker 3: wearing the uniform, she was carrying a tambourine.
Speaker 2: She lived with us for.
Speaker 3: About a year before they realized she was stealing money
Speaker 3: and doing various other things. I mean, the story culminated
Speaker 3: with her stealing our car and using it as a
Speaker 3: getaway and an armed robbery.
Speaker 2: So this did not end well.
Speaker 3: Right, But the point is to the question she lied
Speaker 3: to them so many times, And what I wanted to
Speaker 3: find out for my dad is exactly this question, like
Speaker 3: why did you continue to trust her? And they said, well,
Speaker 3: she was actually a really good nanny, so in the
Speaker 3: context of taking care of us, it didn't matter that
Speaker 3: she was dealing drugs on the side. In the context
Speaker 3: they needed her her, she was trustworthy and.
Speaker 1: Was that also your experience that she was a good
Speaker 1: she was.
Speaker 3: She was actually very friendly. But the thing is, like
Speaker 3: when I was taping my dad, he did confess. And
Speaker 3: this is a big one. It would have been inconvenient
Speaker 3: to get rid of her. You know, she'd been in
Speaker 3: our lives. She understood how everything worked, and so to
Speaker 3: find someone else felt like effort. They were really busy
Speaker 3: in their lives and they were traveling lots and their
Speaker 3: businesses in that real period of pressure inconvenience is a
Speaker 3: big one. But also we don't like the uncertainty of
Speaker 3: getting rid of that person. So there is a certain
Speaker 3: certainty of placing your trust in an untrustworthy person. And
Speaker 3: I think that speaks volumes to how much as human
Speaker 3: beings we hate the unknown.
Speaker 1: Did your father know and decide it's fine, Okay, she
Speaker 1: might be an armed robber, but she's a good nanny
Speaker 1: and we haven't got time to find another honey now.
Speaker 1: Or was it more a case if he was in
Speaker 1: denial just choosing to overlook or or not wanting to
Speaker 1: believe the evidence that were starting to accumulate.
Speaker 2: I think it was a bit of both.
Speaker 3: I think they were in denal so they didn't look
Speaker 3: harder or they didn't look further into the situation, so
Speaker 3: she once lied that her uncle had died. And then
Speaker 3: so when her mum rang, you know my dad's and
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry about your brother's loss, and she was like, well,
Speaker 3: uncle Charlie's having a cup of tea a digestive right
Speaker 3: next to me, and he just made all these excuses
Speaker 3: for her that now when he looks back, he's like,
Speaker 3: how did we miss so much? And it wasn't until
Speaker 3: the police came to arrest him because it was our car,
Speaker 3: And then they went into her room and they realized
Speaker 3: the extent of the fraud because she'd been using his
Speaker 3: credit cards. So yeah, I think they definitely turned a
Speaker 3: blind eye to things they just didn't want to see.
Speaker 3: And they're not stupid people, and they're very good parents
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask about the relations between wishful
Speaker 1: thinking and misplaced trust. So a couple of cautionary tales
Speaker 1: that come to my mind, both involving people who were
Speaker 1: not stupid. So one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who famously
Speaker 1: was fooled by a teenage girl into believing that there
Speaker 1: were fairies at the bottom of her garden. Here are
Speaker 1: some photos of the fairies, and he really wanted to
Speaker 1: believe in fairies. He wanted to believe, more broadly, in
Speaker 1: a spiritual realm. He'd lost his son in the Great
Speaker 1: Influenza of nineteen eighteen. He'd lost his wife, she had
Speaker 1: died quite young. He'd lost his mother, and he really
Speaker 1: missed his mother. The idea that they might still be
Speaker 1: out there somewhere was really important to him, and so
Speaker 1: he was absurdly receptive to this idea of fairies at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the garden, despite being not only a
Speaker 1: doctor but also a semi professional photographer. That was wish
Speaker 1: for thinking. And then another example, one of our early
Speaker 1: cautionary tales involved the art forger han van Megrevin, and
Speaker 1: he painted a Vermiir that was designed to appeal to
Speaker 1: a particular art critic who had a particular theory about
Speaker 1: Vermir's career. There were some paintings that had never been found,
Speaker 1: so he'd speculated publicly that he thought Vermiir had painted
Speaker 1: this particular Caravaggio influenced canvas, but we'll never know because
Speaker 1: it'll never be found. And then along comes this Caravaggio
Speaker 1: influenced canvas. It was a spearfishing attack really van Megrin
Speaker 1: knew that this critic, Abraham Bradius, believed that this painting
Speaker 1: had been painted, and so he was so vulnerable to
Speaker 1: the con even though really objectively not convincing, but subjectively
Speaker 1: perfect because of the power of wish well thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for wishfall thinking. I mean as a concept, it's
Speaker 3: so interesting. Like when I think of wishful thinking, I
Speaker 3: think of hope, and I think of possibility, and I
Speaker 3: think of creativity and pegging your ideas and your mind
Speaker 3: or something where you're not quite sure whether it exists.
Speaker 3: And that's when most discovery exists. You kind of have
Speaker 3: to be a wishful thinker to be creative, to be
Speaker 3: an entrepreneur, to be a scientist. But where it gets
Speaker 3: sad is where people play into the vulnerabilities. Think of
Speaker 3: all the hacks people fall for around their health, like
Speaker 3: the wishful thinking around this vitamin or this drink called
Speaker 3: this thing is going to make you feel better.
Speaker 1: So Maria Konnikova, who presents a Pushkin podcast Risky Business,
Speaker 1: but who's also made a study of cons she told
Speaker 1: me she doesn't want to be the kind of person
Speaker 1: who could not be fooled by a con artist, because
Speaker 1: to become that person, you also have to be a
Speaker 1: person who doesn't trust anybody at all.
Speaker 3: Maria's actually in the book because there's points she makes
Speaker 3: that if you can't be wish for and you're not
Speaker 3: open to being conn you're just cynical.
Speaker 2: And there's a.
Speaker 3: Difference between that and just being totally gon and I
Speaker 3: think the difference is that some people don't slow down
Speaker 3: enough to get enough of the right information to make
Speaker 3: a good decision.
Speaker 2: And that's the real problem.
Speaker 3: Where do you go to find reliable factor information to
Speaker 3: make a decision in a high risk situation? So most
Speaker 3: bad trust decisions are made very quickly.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Thank you, Rachel, Rachel Botsman and I will be
Speaker 1: back after the break for more questions of trust.
Speaker 2: We are back.
Speaker 1: You are listening to a special Q and a episode
Speaker 1: of Cautionary Tales. I am Tim Harford. I'm here in
Speaker 1: the studio with Rachel Botsman, the author of How To
Speaker 1: Trust and Be Trusted, and we're answering your questions on trust.
Speaker 1: Another question, yes, okay, right? Andy in Connecticut writes that
Speaker 1: my whole life, people, often complete strangers, have been entrusting
Speaker 1: me with their secrets. They always say the same thing.
Speaker 1: I've never told anyone this. I don't know why I'm
Speaker 1: telling you. I don't probe, I don't pressure. Most of
Speaker 1: the time we're just chatting. The thing is they are right,
Speaker 1: they can trust me. I'm not a judgmental person, and
Speaker 1: I'm dedicated to the principle of keeping secrets. As they
Speaker 1: say in Seinfeld, it's in the vault. But his question is,
Speaker 1: how do they know that after just fifteen minutes of chatting.
Speaker 1: Is there such a thing as a trust aura? I
Speaker 1: love this question. It's quite a weird question. I like it.
Speaker 3: I love this question too because Andy I have the
Speaker 3: same I know if it's a gift or a problem
Speaker 3: because I can't tell you the stuff that people tell me,
Speaker 3: whether it's friends. But then yeah, like total strangers on
Speaker 3: a plane, this happens to me a lot.
Speaker 2: So I'm with Andy.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's like energy and his aura. But
Speaker 3: he's probably not giving himself enough credit that it's his presence.
Speaker 3: It's the way he's listening, it's the questions that he's asked,
Speaker 3: that he's genuinely curious about that other person, and that
Speaker 3: other person feels a very quick sense.
Speaker 2: Of confidence in them, and you have.
Speaker 3: To be really careful because the worst thing is, you
Speaker 3: know when people say, I shouldn't tell you this because
Speaker 3: someone told me it in secret, And what goes over
Speaker 3: my head is, I'm never telling you anything, right, because
Speaker 3: you've just you've opened the vault.
Speaker 1: The relationship between trust and gossip and trust and secrets
Speaker 1: is an interesting one. If you spread a bit of gossip,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you are clearly violating trust. You're
Speaker 1: telling a secret that you shouldn't be telling. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're building a sort of conspiracy with
Speaker 1: the person you're trusting with the gossip. You're trusting them
Speaker 1: not to tell other people that you were the source.
Speaker 2: Of the gossip. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I think once that trust has been broken, once
Speaker 3: it's broken, Yeah, they told you and you're telling me,
Speaker 3: so you've kind of given me permission to tell someone else,
Speaker 3: like you've broken the chain. But you know what's really interesting,
Speaker 3: I think secrets aren't the enemy of trust. Actually, people
Speaker 3: that you really trust should be able to keep secrets.
Speaker 3: It's deception. And I think once you actually tell someone
Speaker 3: else's secret, you've come out of that space of secrecy
Speaker 3: into the place of deception. And this applies to leaders
Speaker 3: as well, that they should be able to have secrets
Speaker 3: if we trust them. It's when they deceive us that's
Speaker 3: what's really damaging to trust.
Speaker 1: Yeah. At the same time, if you tell somebody a
Speaker 1: secret and you you confide on them and then you
Speaker 1: say no, you're not allowed to tell anybody else. I've
Speaker 1: heard this described by Dan Savage, the advice columnist. It's like,
Speaker 1: if you're queer, you're in the closet, you tell somebody else,
Speaker 1: but they're not allowed to betray your secret either. Well,
Speaker 1: now they're in the closet with you. So in the
Speaker 1: sense that secrets is the way Dan Savage expresses it,
Speaker 1: it's a kind of a burden that you haven't halved'
Speaker 1: you've forced on them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's actually a really good point because a
Speaker 3: good friend or someone who's very self aware, they were
Speaker 3: asked for permission. I'd really love to share something with you.
Speaker 3: It might impact how you see so and so. Is
Speaker 3: it okay? I think sometimes we are in a culture
Speaker 3: of oversharing, and we don't sometimes ask for that permission
Speaker 3: to offload that thing on the other person, and therefore
Speaker 3: they can't carry it they have to break the trust.
Speaker 3: I have one for you, tim that I think will
Speaker 3: be of interest. It's from a listener called Nagar, and
Speaker 3: she writes, Dear cautionary Crewe, I'm curious about trust within cults.
Speaker 3: I was in Montana during the heyday of the Church
Speaker 3: Universal Triumphant. Their leader, Elizabeth Claire Prophet, famously predicted the
Speaker 3: end of the world and ordered all of her followers
Speaker 3: to take extreme measures to be prepared for it. I
Speaker 3: remember this story when it also famously felt to take place.
Speaker 3: Her followers didn't seem to lose any of their trust
Speaker 3: in her. Instead, they stuck with her under the rationale
Speaker 3: that her prediction and their evasive action had in fact
Speaker 3: prevented the predicted apocalypse from taking place. How can this
Speaker 3: kind of blind trust prevail in the face of such
Speaker 3: obvious and abundance evidence to the contrary. I've wondered about
Speaker 3: this story, so I'd love for you to answer this question.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll have a go. I mean, it's really an
Speaker 1: exact replay of an earlier incident involving an end of
Speaker 1: the world cult called the Seekers, which operated in Chicago
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, and like a lot of other
Speaker 1: cults that the world's going to end, the aliens are
Speaker 1: going to come, they'll destroy the world. But if you
Speaker 1: believe in the message of the aliens, and you act
Speaker 1: in the right way, and you remove metal items, take
Speaker 1: the clips out of your bra take the zip out
Speaker 1: of your trousers, and the aliens will preserve you. And
Speaker 1: it's all going to happen at midnight on I think
Speaker 1: it was December the twenty third, nineteen fifty three, something
Speaker 1: like this. It was a very specific date. What's interesting
Speaker 1: about that cult is a group of social psychologists had
Speaker 1: found out about them and sent some grad students to
Speaker 1: infiltrate the cult and basically be there on the day
Speaker 1: when the aliens were supposed to arrive. And it's a
Speaker 1: very famous book about this episode called When Prophecy Fails
Speaker 1: because spoiler, the aliens didn't come. The world didn't end.
Speaker 1: And so we covered this story in a very early
Speaker 1: episode of Cautionary Tales called Buried by the Wall Street Crash,
Speaker 1: which was mostly about great economist Irving Fisher, who predicted
Speaker 1: that stocks have reached a new and permanently high plateau.
Speaker 1: He predicted that two weeks before the Wall Street Crash,
Speaker 1: began in nineteen twenty nine and wiped eighty nine percent
Speaker 1: off the value of stocks and destroyed Fisher's reputation. It's
Speaker 1: all about do you change your mind when your forecast
Speaker 1: went wrong? And Fisher didn't, a lot of these cultists didn't.
Speaker 1: And the psychological theory that was promulgated was called cognitive dissonance.
Speaker 1: So the basic idea is you've got two different ideas
Speaker 1: in your head. So one is I believed this cult
Speaker 1: leader who told me that the aliens were going to come,
Speaker 1: and the other belief is I'm a perfectly sensible human
Speaker 1: being who does not make bad choices. And then when
Speaker 1: those two beliefs are in conflict, you've got to change
Speaker 1: one of them to ease the cognitive dissonance. So which
Speaker 1: one are you going to change? Are you going to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: turns out I'm an idiot, or are you going to say, actually,
Speaker 1: there's some reason, there's some excuse I'm going to make
Speaker 1: on behalf of this cult leader. And in this particular case,
Speaker 1: the people who were most committed to the cult beforehand,
Speaker 1: who you might have expected to feel most betrayed and
Speaker 1: be most angry when the prophecy failed Actually, they doubled down,
Speaker 1: so they started issuing press releases, they started phoning the journalists. Previously,
Speaker 1: they hadn't been very interested in talking to the press,
Speaker 1: but at the very moment where the whole thing just
Speaker 1: seemed absurd, that's when they started calling the Chicago Tribune
Speaker 1: and going, hey, great news, aliens haven't destroyed the world.
Speaker 1: And it's the same story as Naeger is relating. Because
Speaker 1: of our prayers, because of what we did, we successfully
Speaker 1: averted the apocalypse. Aren't we brilliant? That's the theory of
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance. It's incredible. But yeah, all I can say
Speaker 1: is Naga's experience is this is not the first time
Speaker 1: this has happened.
Speaker 3: I think it's one of the most fascinating theories because
Speaker 3: it's like the wrestling of the mind. But it's really
Speaker 3: helpful to understand when it comes to trust, because so
Speaker 3: much of our lives focuses on what we believe, not
Speaker 3: why we believe things, and understanding the motivations behind your belief,
Speaker 3: why you need to believe something is true, why you
Speaker 3: really want to trust that person. It explains misplaced trust
Speaker 3: so well. This is also really helpful in terms of
Speaker 3: understanding other people that if you focus on what someone believes,
Speaker 3: it leads to judgment, right, those silly people who believe
Speaker 3: in that cult or in that politician.
Speaker 2: Or whatever it may be.
Speaker 3: But if you really dig deep and say why does
Speaker 3: that person need to believe that, it's usually because of some.
Speaker 2: Air of vulnerability.
Speaker 3: There's usually some hole in their life that this thing
Speaker 3: or this person is trying to feel. And then you
Speaker 3: come from a place of compassion, not from judgment. They
Speaker 3: have to place their trust somewhere. They may not be
Speaker 3: placing it in the most trustworthy thing.
Speaker 1: I think. Another point that it's worth emphasizing is that
Speaker 1: we are all influenced by the people around us, and fundamentally,
Speaker 1: a lot of what we believe is based not on
Speaker 1: first principles, but on our trust in some authority or another.
Speaker 1: So a friend of mine believes that vaccines cause autism.
Speaker 1: She's wrong, but you know she believes it. I believe
Speaker 1: that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change, and I'm right. However,
Speaker 1: the reason that she believes that vaccines cause autism and
Speaker 1: that I believe that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change
Speaker 1: the same basic reason, which is that there are people
Speaker 1: who we trust who've told us that, and they've presented
Speaker 1: us with evidence that makes sense to us, but that
Speaker 1: we're not really qualified to understand. And I believe what
Speaker 1: they believe, not because I've read every scientific paper, not
Speaker 1: because I understand climate physics, but because that's where I've
Speaker 1: placed my trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ready for another question, Yeah, let's go for it. We've
Speaker 1: got one from another Andy, and this Andy writes that
Speaker 1: he is a massive fan of yours. Rachel is a
Speaker 1: man of taste. He is a fraud manager, and he
Speaker 1: writes that I often find that victims of fraud are
Speaker 1: too trusting of their scammers, with some evidence suggesting that
Speaker 1: some victims get scammed multiple times. So the question what
Speaker 1: advice would you offer to encourage more trust in good
Speaker 1: fraud advice and to have less trust of the nasty
Speaker 1: little blighters who commit fraud.
Speaker 3: So really hard one to answer, because I feel like
Speaker 3: the foldsters now replicate the trust signals, So like a
Speaker 3: bank sending you a text to authorize a payment, they're
Speaker 3: using the same mechanisms for you to give your trust
Speaker 3: to the wrong personal thing. I fell for one the
Speaker 3: other day, and it's like you have a pass l
Speaker 3: but someone didn't pay the whatever duty, click on this
Speaker 3: link put in your credit card.
Speaker 2: So I did, and that.
Speaker 3: Was so stupid, But it's because I was doing something
Speaker 3: else and I didn't really think, well, who wouldn't pay
Speaker 3: tax and who wouldn't pay the duty? And I think
Speaker 3: it's a huge societal problem as to how we have
Speaker 3: better signals and marks to.
Speaker 2: Know when it's coming from a trustworthy source.
Speaker 1: So in my book How to Make the World That
Speaker 1: Up that the Data Detective in the US, I argued
Speaker 1: that a lot of the mistakes we make when we're
Speaker 1: thinking about statistics that are presented to us on social media,
Speaker 1: they're basically the same mistakes we make when we've presented
Speaker 1: with any factual claim. We are rushed, we are angry
Speaker 1: or otherwise emotional, and that is very often why we
Speaker 1: believe things that we shouldn't believe, because we've actually not
Speaker 1: got the headspace and the calm to really take a
Speaker 1: step back and ponder and think seriously. So the first
Speaker 1: piece of advice I give people when they're thinking about
Speaker 1: a statistical claim is search your feelings. Yeah, quote my
Speaker 1: all time statistical hero, Darth Vader. Searchial feelings, any emotional
Speaker 1: reaction is it's all perfectly valid, but it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: putting you in the space to logically evaluate what's been
Speaker 1: put in front of you. And actually, I think the
Speaker 1: same thing is true for that email that comes in
Speaker 1: that says, oh, by the way, you've sent three hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety nine dollars to somebody via PayPal. If you
Speaker 1: didn't send this transaction, just click here and we'll fix it.
Speaker 1: Just slow down a moment. Is that email real? So
Speaker 1: it's giving yourself that time, it's noticing your emotional reaction.
Speaker 2: I think that's really good advice.
Speaker 1: Ready for another question. This is absolutely your area of expertise.
Speaker 2: I think I think this is something I actually shared.
Speaker 1: Well, the meme may or may not have come from you, Rachel,
Speaker 1: but in any case, Betsy from California has sent it
Speaker 1: to us, and the meme she has sent to us
Speaker 1: says this nineteen ninety eight, don't get into a car
Speaker 1: with strangers two thousand and five. Don't meet strangers from
Speaker 1: the internet twenty eighteen. Use Uber to summon a stranger
Speaker 1: from the Internet and get into their car. She says.
Speaker 1: Many transactions online and off rely on rating systems as
Speaker 1: a proxy for trust. How can we make these systems
Speaker 1: more reliable and less vulnerable to scams and fraud. It's
Speaker 1: a good question, Betty, is my cover te this question?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is how I got into studying trust
Speaker 1: was two thousand and six. I first started looking at
Speaker 1: how trust works in these platforms. The investors were really
Speaker 1: interested in the efficiency to match supply and demand. So
Speaker 1: you have something and I want it, and we can
Speaker 1: now be matched. But the piece that no one was
Speaker 1: studying was the trust signals, the trust mechanisms. This is amazing,
Speaker 1: like how are we going to trust strangers? And to
Speaker 1: Betsy's point, like things that we described as hitch hiking
Speaker 1: and dangerous have now become these massive, multi billion dollar platforms.
Speaker 1: Like that's a remarkable thing. Now, the thing that is
Speaker 1: as amazing is that the trust systems, or the reputation
Speaker 1: systems haven't improved that much. Yes, we have far better insurance,
Speaker 1: we have far better identity checks, so checking this person
Speaker 1: who they are, who they say they are.
Speaker 2: We have better.
Speaker 3: Payment mechanisms, but the repute pation system is still Think
Speaker 3: about eBay and the five stars that were given by
Speaker 3: Haunted Pirate. We haven't come that far. Now, there are
Speaker 3: some that have got a lot better. Ebimi introduced the
Speaker 3: double blind system, right, so you wouldn't just give a
Speaker 3: good review to get a good review. They introduced context,
Speaker 3: so if I'm traveling with my two kids and I'm
Speaker 3: looking at a place, that's a completely different context than
Speaker 3: say a business traveler. And they just introduced very good
Speaker 3: filters and markers and categories that men it became less subjective.
Speaker 1: Although from my subjective experience, no really bad experiences, but
Speaker 1: several way you get there and you're like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I see how this looks so good on the photos,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of not that great, and then in
Speaker 1: the end you're like, I really want to give a
Speaker 1: three star review, or maybe it's just easier to click
Speaker 1: five stars and contribute to the problem.
Speaker 3: Yes, I stayed in one in Australia recently and it
Speaker 3: described itself as a remote farm getaway, but it was
Speaker 3: literally ten minutes from the equivalent of the twenty five
Speaker 3: the traffic right, not really the remote farm cicadas I
Speaker 3: had in my head. And they also failed to mention
Speaker 3: that it came with a cat. Now, my friend who
Speaker 3: was staying with me is very allergic to cats, and
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't leave a bad review because
Speaker 3: this person is really dependent on the income.
Speaker 2: Sounds like they should mention the cat, the cat and
Speaker 2: the motorway.
Speaker 3: But that feeling of guilt is wrong because you actually
Speaker 3: have a responsibility to the community to protect others.
Speaker 1: But the feeling of guilt is wrong. But it's also real, real,
Speaker 1: and that's a problem for these kind of decentralized trust platforms.
Speaker 3: It is, and also who's responsible for when it goes wrong.
Speaker 3: We still haven't solved that problem.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Rachel. We are going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break and we'll be back soon with more questions of trust.
Speaker 1: We are back. I am sitting with Rachel Botsman and
Speaker 1: we are answering your questions. I should reveal we have
Speaker 1: been for a run together.
Speaker 2: We have you are very well dressed. No one has
Speaker 2: ever accused me of being well dressed. I've meant he
Speaker 2: had lots of clothes on.
Speaker 1: It was a cold day and we weren't running that fast.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to ask about fitness trackers because I've
Speaker 1: become fascinated by these things, these connected watches that will
Speaker 1: measure your heartbeat. They're really just the last few years,
Speaker 1: but they're now ubiquitous. My watch really helped me to
Speaker 1: run more and to vary my runs and so on.
Speaker 1: But I'm aware that there are certain risks that first
Speaker 1: of all, I might not be able to trust all
Speaker 1: the data I'm getting from the watch. Second, I might
Speaker 1: not trust the data the watch is revealing about me,
Speaker 1: or third that this training program might not be very
Speaker 1: well suited in principle, which knows I'm an old man,
Speaker 1: but in practice it doesn't seem to take that into consideration.
Speaker 1: So this idea of trusting your body to this thing
Speaker 1: on your wrist, that's what I wanted to get your
Speaker 1: reflections about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so can I ask do you feel like the
Speaker 3: watches in control of you?
Speaker 1: Hmm, No, But I do. I do care about what
Speaker 1: the watch thinks.
Speaker 2: I do too.
Speaker 1: I do like to sort of get enough activity. I
Speaker 1: don't really care about calories as such, but the watch's
Speaker 1: estimated calorie consumption is sort of an indicator to me
Speaker 1: of how active I've been. I kind of like to
Speaker 1: get that to a particular number, and I get a
Speaker 1: bit fidgety if I haven't. And there is this absurdity,
Speaker 1: of course, if sometimes you forget to wear the watch,
Speaker 1: or you forget to switch it on, and actually it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter because you're still getting the exercise whether or
Speaker 1: not the watch is paying attention. But actually, of course
Speaker 1: it does matter.
Speaker 3: So I've run with people where they say, oh, this
Speaker 3: one doesn't count. I'm like, what do you mean in
Speaker 3: the like because I haven't got my watch, and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 3: it's gone a bit fast.
Speaker 1: I just talked to a sleep scientist at Oxford who
Speaker 1: did an experiment where he got people who were having
Speaker 1: trouble sleeping and gave them a sleep tracker. In the morning,
Speaker 1: they were asked, well, how are you feeling. Are you
Speaker 1: feeling sharp, You're feeling full of energy, and the same
Speaker 1: question was asked at twelve and at three, But after
Speaker 1: they'd first given their feedback how you feeling, the watch
Speaker 1: would tell them, Yeah, you had a terrible night sleep
Speaker 1: or you had a brilliant night's sleep. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day they went back to the sleep clinic
Speaker 1: and he said, okay, I'm sorry, but all of that
Speaker 1: was a lie. But what people were told by this
Speaker 1: sleep tracker in the morning governed how they felt all day.
Speaker 1: Totally have a good night's sleep. Your watch told you
Speaker 1: had a bad night's sleep, you will act as though
Speaker 1: you had a bad night's sleep. It's incredible.
Speaker 3: It does really tie to trust, because sometimes we really
Speaker 3: trust things when we want to be in control. And
Speaker 3: so you know, you can see like amazing indicators and
Speaker 3: it is very rewarding, like if you're putting the work
Speaker 3: in all these things, especially as you get older, you
Speaker 3: have to work quite hard at it. But I do
Speaker 3: think when it takes the enjoyment out of it, where
Speaker 3: you can't run without the watch, I know someone who
Speaker 3: runs with three a whoop, a garment, and an apple, okay,
Speaker 3: And that is obsession and that is like clinging onto
Speaker 3: something so tightly. And anyone that's done sport knows that.
Speaker 3: The magic thing about sport is it's a journey into
Speaker 3: the unknown. It's the ultimate trust in yourself. That's why
Speaker 3: I love long distance running, is that you don't know
Speaker 3: what's going to happen when you get over sixteen seventeen
Speaker 3: eighteen kilometers, Like it's so interesting where your mind goes
Speaker 3: and the.
Speaker 2: Watch I do, what's going to happen? Stop, you're going
Speaker 2: to stup? Yeah? I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I usually need the toilet around them, but that's probably
Speaker 3: too much information. But the point is, like a lot
Speaker 3: of trust is it's a confident relationship with the unknown. Right,
Speaker 3: So my watch can tell me exactly today what my
Speaker 3: marathon time is. And it could be boiling hot, it
Speaker 3: could be freezing cold, my niker bloke, it could trip
Speaker 3: on a cut what. So many things can happen, Like,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be disappointed if I hold onto that time.
Speaker 3: Too much trust in fitness trackers, bad bad thing. I'm
Speaker 3: wearing three. Do you know some of the insurance plans
Speaker 3: like if you measure all these steps that they'll give
Speaker 3: you discounts and things. But I've seen people in airports
Speaker 3: tapping their feet if you're not seeing that, they take
Speaker 3: the watch off, they put it round their ankle to
Speaker 3: keep up their step count.
Speaker 2: I've seen it on the train people do that.
Speaker 3: Like that's that's too much, right. I have one last
Speaker 3: question for you, Tim. I love this question. It caught
Speaker 3: my eye. It's from Cayenne in New York State. So, Tim,
Speaker 3: why do people trust podcasters so much? Even on topics
Speaker 3: they aren't knowledgeable about?
Speaker 1: Ah, I feel seen. I mean, there's a good question,
Speaker 1: but I think that people trust cautionary tails and they
Speaker 1: trust other podcasters because trust is often placed not on
Speaker 1: the basis of a rational assessment of expertise on other intuitions.
Speaker 1: So do I like this person? Do I know this person?
Speaker 1: People have me in their ears every week they get
Speaker 1: used to my voice. I feel like someone they really know,
Speaker 1: and somebody you really know is somebody you can trust, right,
Speaker 1: So that's part of it. Or maybe I sound fluent,
Speaker 1: I have a nice accent. I don't stumble over my words.
Speaker 1: Of course, I don't stumble over my words, because I've
Speaker 1: got a producer cutting all the uns and the ears
Speaker 1: out or retaking if I stumble. But because I sound fluent,
Speaker 1: well that also sounds trustworthy. And these are just proxies
Speaker 1: for actually being deserving of trust. But I think they're
Speaker 1: proxies that that work. You're the expert on trust, Does
Speaker 1: that make sense to you?
Speaker 3: So if you think about the way trust used to
Speaker 3: work was who that person, and war was what they
Speaker 3: were saying, and then lastly, how they made that person feel,
Speaker 3: and that has completely been inverted. So Number one is
Speaker 3: we make most trust decisions, particularly through social media or
Speaker 3: audio content, based on feeling how that person makes you feel,
Speaker 3: and then who they are and then what they say.
Speaker 3: And that's why people that make us feel comfortable. You know,
Speaker 3: there's some podcasts and it does literally feel like Kirsy
Speaker 3: Young does this, like if I'm stressed, just turn But
Speaker 3: there's others that are funny, and there's others that are salacious.
Speaker 3: But it's such an important point because people with feeling
Speaker 3: that understand that mechanism how I make you feel is
Speaker 3: whether you're going to engage with me, they are the
Speaker 3: ones rising to the top more so than ever before.
Speaker 1: So there we go. Thank you so much for sending
Speaker 1: in your questions, and thank you so much to Rachel
Speaker 1: Batsman for answering them. Rachel, this has been a lot
Speaker 1: of fun.
Speaker 2: It has. Yes, we've gone all over the place.
Speaker 1: So Rachel's audiobook is How to Trust and Be Trusted.
Speaker 1: It's available via pushkin. Rachel, you also have a newsletter
Speaker 1: remind us of the name and where people can sign
Speaker 1: up for it.
Speaker 3: It's called Rethink and it's on substack and I love
Speaker 3: writing it, I genuinely do.
Speaker 1: We will be back again next week with another classic
Speaker 1: episode of cautionary Tales. In the meantime, if you have
Speaker 1: a question for us for our next episode of cautionary questions,
Speaker 1: please send it in the email addresses tales at Pushkin
Speaker 1: dot fm. That is t a l e s at
Speaker 1: Pushkin dot fm. Send in those questions because we do
Speaker 1: love hearing from you. Thank you for listening. For a
Speaker 1: full list of our sources, see the show notes at
Speaker 1: Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales has written by me Tim Harford,
Speaker 1: with Andrew Wright, Plis Fine and Ryan Dilly. It's produced
Speaker 1: by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and
Speaker 1: original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound
Speaker 1: design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Bend
Speaker 1: A Dafhaffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice
Speaker 1: talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah jupp
Speaker 1: Messeam Monroe, Jamal Westman, and rufus Wright. The show also
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
Speaker 1: Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Pautionary Tales is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardore Studios in London
Speaker 1: by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember
Speaker 1: to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference
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Speaker 1: page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fam slash
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