WEBVTT - Authenticity, Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.480 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:16.040 is Robert. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.680 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.440 part three of our series looking at the concept of authenticity. Now, 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:25.200 we had a little break in the middle of our 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.120 series there because on Tuesday of this week we had 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.280 an interview that you recorded, Rob that was already scheduled 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.120 to come out on that date, So there's a little 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.319 bit of discontinuity here, but we are picking up where 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.840 we left off last Thursday, that's right. So in part 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.240 one of this series, we started by trying to pick 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.920 apart the different common usages of authenticity, and I explained 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.839 why I became interested in the subject. It's one of 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.520 those ideas that I think is very very good for 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.640 exploration because it's like a commonly used concept that actually 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:02.320 is very vague, and there's a lot of equivocation and 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.120 using the idea in different ways. So we tried to 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.000 pick apart some of these different usages of authenticity what 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.880 people mean when they invoke the idea, and we looked 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.360 at a study showing that we are not as good 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.720 as we think we are at perceiving authenticity in others. 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.200 In Part two of the series, we talked about authenticity 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.880 in art and entertainment, what it means to look for 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.880 authenticity and musical artists and other types of art. We 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.880 talked about the Orson Wells movie F for Fake, and 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.640 then we discussed a specialized idea of authenticity that was 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.720 proposed by the art critic Walter Benjamin and how it 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.360 relates to changes in media technology over the centuries. And 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.920 here we are once again to examine a couple other 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.840 facets of authenticity. Now, the thing I wanted to talk 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:54.520 about today was the interaction between and relationship between honesty 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.559 and authenticity. We talked about this a bit in part 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.000 one of this series because we we're alluding to the 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:06.640 way that there is an apparent relationship between authenticity and honesty. 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.880 You know, there is some overlap between the two ideas, 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.600 but they are not usually understood to be the same thing. 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:19.160 And an easy illustration of that is characters both real 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.119 and fictional, who are known to tell lies but are 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.840 often thought of as authentic. And yet, despite this clear 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.519 illustration that the two concepts are not exactly the same thing, 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.040 we sometimes behave as if they're the same thing. We 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.880 like forget that we use these ideas differently because we 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.160 feel like if somebody is authentic, well, that means we 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.080 can trust them. So I ended up looking at a 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:46.600 paper for a trying to find a careful analysis of 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.880 the similarities and differences between honesty and authenticity, how these 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.600 ideas are culturally understood, and in how they manifest in behavior. 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.400 So this paper is by Erica R. Bailey and Sheena 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.440 Siing are published in current opinion in psychology called Yours 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:08.320 Truly on the Complex Relationship between Authenticity and Honesty published 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.560 in the year twenty twenty two, and Erica Bailey was 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.040 also one of the authors of the study we looked 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.360 at in Part one, the one about how we're not 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.720 as good as we think we are at determining whether 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.080 other people are being authentic. Now, as a starting point, 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.120 this paper gives essentially the same understanding of authenticity that 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.359 we talked about in part one. This will be complicated 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.320 when we start introducing survey responses and how people actually 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.640 use the idea of authenticity and how it relates to 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.760 honesty and so forth. But we start off with the 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:42.119 idea that quote a person is authentic when they genuinely 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.520 express their true inner qualities and feelings. In other words, 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:51.000 the inside matches the outside. Our outward behavior is consistent 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.960 with our private inner feelings, thoughts, and character. So by contrast, 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.640 a person would usually be considered inauthentic if they say 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.720 things they don't really feel or think, or if they 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.280 act in ways that are inconsistent with who they are inside, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.640 or if they don't express their inner self in the 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:14.960 outside world. And The authors begin the paper by mentioning 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.640 an episode in the life of the eighteenth century Swiss 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:22.120 philosopher Jean jacqu Rousseau, where they write, quote, in order 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.360 to be more authentic, he committed to expressing himself honestly 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.080 in every single moment of his day, certain that this 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.920 brutal truth telling, devoid of any cowing to the social context, 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.680 would allow him to manifest his authentic self. And I 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.320 gotta say that sounds absolutely insufferable. 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.400 Yeah, who wants to hang out with this guy? 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:45.920 I mean? And I'm a big fan of being honest. 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.600 I think honesty is a good virtue that people should have. 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:50.360 You know, you should not tell lies to people. You 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.839 should try to be honest with people generally. But this 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:59.119 is actually describing something different than honesty, saying every thought 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.440 that pops into you head, telling friends and family everything 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.599 they do that bothers you. Being being honest, you know, 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.920 quote honest in the most brutal way is always seems 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.120 like a kind of nasty way to live. It's going 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.080 to cause other people grief and just alienate you from 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:16.880 everyone and everything you care about. 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.240 Yeah, I mean this, you're talking about a life without decorum, 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:25.520 without patience, without you know, the limited capacity to be 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:30.360 supportive of others because sometimes and being supportive of of people, 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.800 you know, friends and family with their maybe sometimes half 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.320 formed ideas in some cases, like you don't want to 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.920 be brutally honest. You want to be supportive. You want 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.160 to you want to maybe push them in the right direction, 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.479 But being you know, completely brutally honest is maybe not 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:47.520 the right approach. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:49.719 I think that's right. I mean, I think there is 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.960 a lot of middle ground between lying to people and 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:58.760 or enabling delusions versus being brutally honest to people in 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.039 a way that you know is like to hurt them 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.080 and just like avoiding tact altogether. 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:05.599 Yeah, imagine just deciding a right from here on. Now, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.560 I'm just going to be brutally truthful about everything. But 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:10.480 then like the then we get into that other quese 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:11.440 like what is truth right? 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.279 Right? You may in fact be mistaken about some of 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.040 the things that you think are brutally true when you 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.279 say them, in which case it would turn out that 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.479 it was really unproductive. Uh yeah, So this like raises 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.520 the question of whether it would even really be possible, 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.240 Like is this kind of radical authentic truth telling even 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:35.839 self consistent because there are momentary thoughts we have but 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:40.479 don't express, And are those actually truer reflections of our 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.880 inner selves than what we would say if we thought 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.880 about it some more before we talked? Mm hmm yeah 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.000 so or also is it are those more are like 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:57.400 expressions of momentary opinions or thoughts truer reflections of our 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.920 inner selves even than the choice not to speak certain situation. 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.760 Wouldn't that choice also flow from the self? 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.040 Yeah? Yeah. It reminds me of something I've mentioned before 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.640 on the show, the medieval doodle of a Christ like 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.360 bird or a bird like Christ if you rather, in 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.040 the margins of various manuscripts, and the idea it seems 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.520 based on what I've read is that thoughts rise from 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.920 the heart, they travel up through a very long neck 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.480 before they reach the lips, and therefore, like it's about 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.560 deciding whether you actually want those feelings to come out. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.840 That is why the neck of the christ like individual, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.000 the christ like bird here is very long, because there's 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.320 plenty of time to reflect on said thoughts and perhaps 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.360 decide not to say them yeah. 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:49.120 Or even decide whether you genuinely feel them exactly. Yeah. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.040 I think we've probably all had the experience of feeling 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.120 like we wanted to express something, only to think about 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.040 it for a minute and think, that's not really what 0:07:58.080 --> 0:07:58.560 I feel. 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.720 Yeah, write out that great email, but don't send it today, 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:03.760 set it aside for tomorrow, and then a lot of 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.160 the times you'll realize, you know, that's not exactly what 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:06.880 I meant to say. 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.680 So, anyway, to come back to this relationship between authenticity 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.880 and honesty, from this example of Rousseau, you know, we 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:19.760 see someone at least partially equating authenticity and honesty, assuming 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.200 that to be authentic is the most honest way to live, 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:28.200 and that authenticity entails NonStop, moment to moment displays of 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.959 quote fearless honesty or brutal truth telling. And the authors 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.840 also quote another another writer in this paper named Valor, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.240 who makes a similar equivalent, saying that honesty is defined 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.640 as quote a willingness to put one's authentic self in play. 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.240 But the authors actually propose a counter hypothesis in this paper. 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.559 They write that quote honesty is one of many tools 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.959 in the pursuit of authenticity, and that people will disregard 0:08:56.120 --> 0:09:00.840 or discount honesty as authentic under specific condition. And I 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.199 want to be clear that they're not making a normative 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.960 argument like about how people should use the concepts of 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:12.200 honesty or authenticity. They're just trying to be descriptive and 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.880 discover how people actually do already use these concepts in 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:18.960 their day to day lives and in their self image. 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.280 So the authors investigate this idea of the relationship between 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.400 authenticity and honesty in several ways, and one thing they 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:31.920 do is a simple small survey with an open ended question. 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.679 They asked participants if they could describe a time in 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.120 their life when they quote, lied or did not tell 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.319 the truth in a way that was authentic or true 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.959 to themselves at the time, and the results of this 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:50.400 were that quote authentic dishonesty really did not generally seem 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.720 to people like an impossible situation or an incoherent concept. 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:59.280 People generated autobiographical examples of when they were dishonest in 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.160 a way they thought was authentic to themselves. Furthermore, and 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.040 here's the interesting part, the authors say that the examples 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:10.120 people gave of their own authentic dishonesty fell into basically 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.360 four categories. And I'll list these and describe them as 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.000 I go. So the first example is when the subject 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.040 was dishonest with other people in a way that they 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:23.000 were also not honest with themselves. So this category might 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.600 not be immediately intuitive, but I think it makes sense 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.000 if you see examples. So, the stories people tell seem 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:33.240 to be about lying to others about some objective situation, 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:38.559 for example, about a worrying health prognosis or bad outcomes 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.160 at work or school, or mental health struggles or something 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.240 like that, at the same time that they themselves were 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.880 in some way deluded or quote lying to themselves about 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:54.400 the situation. So, for example, I'm telling my parents that 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.160 I'm doing fine at college, but in reality, I am 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.240 failing my classes and I'm going through a mental health crisis, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.240 and the person who says this might say, even though 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.080 I was lying to my parents about how well how 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.800 I was doing, I was being authentic because I was 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.640 also lying to myself. Essentially, I managed to truly convince 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.319 myself of the false things I was telling them. 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.199 Yeah, to borrow the catchphrase from stand up comedian Dusty Sligh, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:24.359 we're having a good time like that can essentially be dishonest, 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.760 but you can believe in it, and other people can 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.280 believe in it even if it's not true in the moment. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.640 Yeah. And actually that raises an interesting facet of this, 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.600 because it raises the question of what exactly it means 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.880 to quote lie to yourself. This is a common enough 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.679 concept that we've all heard of it, and probably you 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.960 have used it ourselves to describe something we've done. And 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.280 it seems to not be the same thing as simply 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:54.160 being convinced of a delusion. There's some overlap, but being 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.360 delusional can be entirely involuntary. You know like you, don't 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.080 you don't feel like you, or in any way the 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.560 cause of being deluded about something. But when people say 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.199 I was lying to myself, I think they usually mean 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.480 there is some element, even if just a small element 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.480 of willfulness in believing in the delusion, like some part 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.439 of them knows better, but they are they are purposely 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.000 disregarding or ignoring that knowledge. 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.040 Yeah, Like I mean, one easy example of this is, 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:26.599 like you thinking back to like the old days of 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.079 buying CDs, especially as a young person with money's a 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.240 lot tighter, Like you spend your money, you cannot you 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.199 can buy no other album this week, maybe this month, 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.000 And afterwards you're maybe a little less won over by 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.640 the album than you'd hoped, but you're kind of like 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.040 fooling yourself and like, Noah, this is good. I'm getting 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.040 I'm jamming to this. This, this was worth my money, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:49.839 This is worth my time. 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:51.440 It's even got the bonus tracks. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.560 Yeah, it's got the bonus tracks. It's like I thought 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.320 it was ten tracks. No, it's twelve tracks. I'd be 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:58.480 losing money if I didn't buy it. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.640 Yes. So, However, despite this element of wilfulness, it seems 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.240 to at least in some cases, not rule out seeing 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.440 yourself as authentic when you represent that same misunderstanding of 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.120 reality to other people. So, like you take that CD 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.600 that you're talking yourself into thinking is so great, and 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:18.440 you show it to your friend and say it's so great. 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.800 You might not think you were being inauthentic there, because 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.920 you really worked yourself up to convince yourself it was great. 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:29.400 Yeah, I was authentically delusional about the quality of this record, 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.400 and honestly, if you know me, you should have seen 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:33.800 that in me. You should have seen that in my 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.800 eyes and known to approach this recommendation with caution. 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.920 Okay. Other examples of quote authentic dishonesty that people gave. 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.120 There were some examples that were when being honest would 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:50.120 have threatened the subjects basic needs survival or employment. This 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:54.280 is the self protection category. A lot of these seem 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.320 to have to do with employment, which I think is 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.640 kind of revealing, but things like lying at work to 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.679 avoid revealing a mistake that could have cost the subject 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.959 their job. Another one that somebody gives is lying about 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.880 former job experience in order to get a new position, 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.080 and the subject in this example specifically says they feel 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.120 it was a good thing to do because they ended 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.079 up doing exceedingly well at the new job that they 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:19.160 lied in order to get. 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:22.400 Fake it. Do you make it right? I mean, that's 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:24.160 basically what we're alluding to. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.800 That's what they're claiming. I mean, we can't evaluate if 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.000 it's true that they did exceedingly well, but you know, 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:34.400 for the sake of argument, we'll take it. Another one was, 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:39.320 and you understand this, somebody lying about psychiatric symptoms in 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.200 order to get admitted to a psych ward to avoid 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.800 being homeless. The subject says that this was authentic because 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.600 they were trying to escape living on the streets during winter, 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.760 which was extremely hard. So that is a lie. It's 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.320 hard to blame somebody for that. But in this case, 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.680 the subject not only saw that as justified, but they 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.880 said for that reason, it was authentic that they did that. 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.680 Yeah, I mean, they're talking about survival here right. 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.360 At the same time, it does raise questions about what 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.200 authenticity means in this case. But we can come back 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:15.280 to that third question. When honesty would harm an important relationship, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.680 you protecting a relationship, this is probably People can think 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.720 of examples like this. A close friend says, does my 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.160 new haircut look good? And maybe you find nice things 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.680 to say about it, even if you don't actually love it. 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.800 People thought this was still authentic behavior. And then there 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.080 are much more serious examples such as like within family 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.760 and marital relationships, like protecting loved ones from negative judgments 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.760 that you or others would have made about them. 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.880 Yeah. Yeah, I think both these are very understandable. I mean, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.040 the haircut is probably the best example, because there is 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.560 a line, there is a line at which your close 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.680 friend's haircut has become so bad that you do have 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.440 to say something. You have to say, actually, this doesn't 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.400 look good. Come with me, we're gonna go get fixed 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.040 right now. You have a job interview tomorrow or something. 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.960 You know, we I'm a good enough friend to let 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:08.720 you know that we have to go fix this. But 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.800 there's a lot of room on that spectrum for just 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.960 saying yeah, it looks great, and that's what you're expected 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:17.720 to do as a friend. 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.520 Or in fact, in the haircut example, in this paper, 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:25.920 they're like the person describes things they found to say 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.320 about the haircut that were true, even though overall they 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.040 did not actually think it was good. 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.600 Yeah, because I mean, bad, bad haircuts happened, and you'll 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.760 grow out of them. You know, it's gonna be pretty 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.400 bad to take it to that next level and say 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:40.280 we've got to go fix this. 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.680 Yeah. Yeah. I think the example was like, yeah, this 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.560 will really stand out, you know, putting a positive sounding 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.960 tone on that, but that'll grow in nicely. Yeah. And 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.840 then fourth final category, this one you can very much understand. Again, 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.360 it's hard to blame people for this when honesty would 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.360 threaten the survival or well being of someone else in 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.800 the protection of other people, So examples would include like 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.239 lying to protect people from physical danger, maybe like a 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.200 counselor lying to potentially abusive family members that you don't 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:16.960 know about somebody's whereabouts, or maybe to protect someone from 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:21.600 information that would be devastating to them. So it's interesting 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.720 that some of these versions of authenticity do sort of 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.720 go along with the inside matches the outside definition, but 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.639 some do not. Some of these are simply cases of 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.840 people lying or misrepresenting themselves in a situation where they believe, 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:41.120 in some way it was justified. So in those cases, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.520 authenticity would seem to mean something different than than the 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.200 way we've been using it. It would seem to mean 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:53.439 morally justified, regardless of whether you were expressing your true 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.920 feelings on the outside or not. And these examples just 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.879 seem to reinforce to me how fluid our concept of 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.879 authenticity is. Once again, despite how important it is in 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.119 these day to day judgments we make about people and 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:11.280 about ourselves, it seems to have ill defined boundaries, and 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:15.080 the authors review some other findings that further illuminate and 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:19.520 complicate the relationship between honesty and authenticity. For example, and 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.719 this came up in Part one, in order to evaluate 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.399 whether your external behavior is consistent with your true self, 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.600 you have to both know what your true self is 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.320 and be able to objectively observe and analyze your external behavior, 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.600 and both of those tasks are non trivial. The authors 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.560 point out that both of them are problematic even given 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.840 what we know from other psychology studies, because studies show 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.280 systematic biases in how we perceive ourselves. People tend to 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:54.000 see themselves as morally better than the average person, and 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:58.600 experiments show that people have selective memories of events end 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:02.640 of information that help bolster a positive self image. So 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.400 this can make research about honesty and authenticity rather difficult 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:12.360 because both honesty and authenticity people take to have moral implications, 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.600 so people are motivated to exaggerate the extent to which 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.240 they are both in self reports. Though the authors do 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.000 point to one pretty interesting study from twenty twenty that 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.359 used a bit of trickery to look into whether self 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:31.760 reported and even test evaluated authenticity might be biased or 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:36.040 strategic self presentation. So this other paper I went and 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.439 looked at was by William hart at All, published in 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.119 Personality and Individual Differences in twenty twenty, called to be 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.879 or to appear to be evidence that authentic people seek 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:52.120 to appear authentic rather than be authentic. So the authors 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.479 in their abstract right quote participants numbering two hundred and 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:01.440 forty completed a bogus color gazing task under the presumption 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:07.640 that authentic people see colors become more or less intense 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.280 while gazing at them. And these were the two conditions, 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:13.320 the more intense condition and the less intense condition. And 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.040 they say that quote participants reported perceiving color as more 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:21.200 intense in the more intense condition. But this biased responding 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:27.000 consistent with appearing authentic, was enhanced by trait authenticity indicators. 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:33.240 So to paraphrase there, participants were told that other studies 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.399 have found that more authentic people will see the color 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.560 of this block either intensify or de intensify, and in 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.360 reality the colors did not change at all. And then 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:48.560 the experiment found that on average, people who rated themselves 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.440 as more authentic on a self assessment test were more 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.520 likely to claim they saw the color change in line 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.960 with whatever they thought an authentic person was supposed to see. So, 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.239 in other words, there was some amount of interest in 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:06.080 either lying or in perceiving reality differently in order to 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.840 protect the idea of an authentic self. So this is 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.320 a piece of evidence that maybe not all the time, 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:15.760 but probably some of the time, maybe a lot of 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:20.879 the time, authenticity itself is a strategic performance e g. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:27.479 Inauthentic behavior in service of appearing to be authentic. So 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:31.080 it's interesting to pair this with that study, that finding 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:33.719 from part one about how people are not good at 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.560 judging who is authentic and who is not, at least 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.200 when compared with self assessments, which of course are themselves 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.160 possibly misleading. So I want to pause briefly here before 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.959 you lose all hope, because remember that studies like this 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.439 are observing trends and tendencies on average in behavior, not 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:54.679 like totalizing realities about all people all the time. So 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:57.919 I would not walk away from these kinds of findings thinking, 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:00.840 oh my god, life is a lie. Nobody is ever 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.440 been genuine. I don't think that's the takeaway. Personally, I 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.240 would think about it more like these types of studies 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:12.280 offer limited individual pieces of evidence, that often the social 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:16.720 impressions of authenticity that we form are misleading, that social 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.879 impressions of authenticity are often not what they seem, and 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:23.399 we should be careful about placing too much weight on 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.680 the authenticity assessments of people that we form, especially after 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:30.879 superficial interactions. So in other words, you know, I'd say 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:34.359 it's probably not a good strategy to decide whether you 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.680 trust someone with something important on the basis of whether 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.360 they give off an authentic vibe or not. It might 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.479 be better to look at like an objective track record 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.919 of their behavior in the past or something like that. Yeah. 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.399 But though, of course the conundrum is we do this 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.080 all the time, right, Yeah, And a great deal goes 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:57.040 into making sure that individuals put forward that vibe that 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.760 we trust, be that individual, sale person, a company spokesman, 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:08.920 a politician, a newscaster, I mean, you name it. We're 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:13.080 supposed to to instantly feel like, yeah, I trust this person. 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:14.840 This person seems to know what they're talking about, they 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:16.920 seem authentic. I don't need to look at a track 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:19.320 record I don't need to see any papers. 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:21.879 Yeah, and again, you know, it's not that nobody is 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:25.560