WEBVTT - From the Vault: Authenticity, Part 3 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.760 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.840 is Robert Lamb. Today we have a vault episode for you. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.520 This is going to be Authenticity Part three, Part three 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.920 of three. This originally published on three twenty eight, twenty 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:19.520 twenty four. 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:25.919 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.240 of iHeartRadio. 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.200 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:37.360 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.760 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:44.199 three of our series looking at the concept of authenticity. Now, 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:45.919 we had a little break in the middle of our 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.840 series there because on Tuesday of this week we had 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.000 an interview that you recorded, Rob that was already scheduled 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.840 to come out on that date. So there's a little 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.040 bit of discontinuity here, but we are picking up where 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.560 we left off last Thursday, that's right. So in part 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.000 one of this series, we started by trying to pick 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.640 apart the different common usages of authenticity, and I explained 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.600 why I became interested in the subject. It's one of 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.240 those ideas that I think is very very good for 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.360 exploration because it's like a commonly used concept that actually 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.039 is very vague and there's a lot of equivocation and 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.840 using the idea in different ways. So we tried to 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.720 pick apart some of these different usages of authenticity what 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.600 people mean when they invoke the idea, and we looked 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.080 at a study showing that we are not as good 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.440 as we think we are at perceiving authenticity in others. 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.920 In part two of the series, we talked about authenticity 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.600 in art and entertainment, what it means to look for 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.600 authenticity and musical artists and other types of art. We 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.600 talked about the Orson Wells movie F for Fake, and 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:55.360 then we discussed a specialized idea of authenticity that was 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.440 proposed by the art critic Walter Benjamin and how it 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.640 relates to two changes in media technology over the centuries. 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.440 And here we are once again to examine a couple 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.320 other facets of authenticity. Now, the thing I wanted to 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:14.480 talk about today was the interaction between and relationship between 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.960 honesty and authenticity. We talked about this a bit in 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.600 part one of this series because we were alluding to 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:26.640 the way that there is an apparent relationship between authenticity 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:30.800 and honesty. You know, there is some overlap between the 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.080 two ideas, but they are not usually understood to be 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.920 the same thing, And an easy illustration of that is 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.600 characters both real and fictional, who are known to tell 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.320 lies but are often thought of as authentic. And yet, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.600 despite this clear illustration that the two concepts are not 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.959 exactly the same thing, we sometimes behave as if they're 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.480 the same thing. We like forget that we use these 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:00.320 ideas differently because we feel like if somebody is authentic, well, 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.320 that means we can trust them. So I ended up 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.160 looking at a paper for a trying to find a 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:11.160 careful analysis of the similarities and differences between honesty and authenticity, 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.960 how these ideas are culturally understood, and in how they 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:19.120 manifest in behavior. So this paper is by Erica R. 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.560 Bailey and Sena S. A Ingar, published in Current Opinion 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.960 in Psychology called Yours Truly on the Complex Relationship between 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.799 Authenticity and Honesty published in the year twenty twenty two, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:33.640 and Erica Bailey was also one of the authors of 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:35.880 the study we looked at in part one, the one 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.000 about how we're not as good as we think we 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:41.560 are at determining whether other people are being authentic. Now 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.120 as a starting point, this paper gives essentially the same 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.400 understanding of authenticity that we talked about in part one. 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.960 This will be complicated when we start introducing survey responses 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.720 and how people actually use the idea of authenticity and 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:57.680 how it relates to honesty and so forth. But we 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.800 start off with the idea that quote, a person is 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:05.960 authentic when they genuinely express their true inner qualities and feelings. 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.080 In other words, the inside matches the outside. Our outward 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:15.080 behavior is consistent with our private inner feelings, thoughts, and character. 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.240 So by contrast, a person would usually be considered inauthentic 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.719 if they say things they don't really feel or think, 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.560 or if they act in ways that are inconsistent with 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.479 who they are inside, or if they don't express their 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.680 inner self in the outside world. And the authors begin 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.000 the paper by mentioning an episode in the life of 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:42.279 the eighteenth century Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, where they write, quote, 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.880 in order to be more authentic, he committed to expressing 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:50.360 himself honestly in every single moment of his day, certain 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.640 that this brutal truth telling, devoid of any cowing to 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.680 the social context, would allow him to manifest his authentic self. 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.080 And I gotta say that sounds absolute insufferable. 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:04.120 Yeah, who wants to hang out with this guy? 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.640 I mean, and I'm a big fan of being honest. 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.360 I think honesty is a good virtue that people should have. 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.080 You know, you should not tell lies to people. You 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.640 should try to be honest with people generally. But this 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.839 is actually describing something different than honesty. Saying every thought 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.159 that pops into your head, telling friends and family everything 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.320 they do that bothers. You be being honest, you know, 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.640 quote honest in the most brutal way is always seems 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.800 like a kind of nasty way to live. It's going 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.800 to cause other people grief and just alienate you from 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:37.640 everyone and everything you care about. 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.960 Yeah, I mean this you're talking about a life without decorum, 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:46.240 without patience, without you know, the limited capacity to be 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:51.080 supportive of others, because sometimes and being supportive of people, 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.520 you know, friends and family with their maybe sometimes half 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.040 formed ideas in some cases, like you don't want to 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.640 be brutally honest. You want to be supportive. You want 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.880 to you want to maybe push them in the right direction, 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.200 but being you know, completely brutally honest is maybe not 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:08.240 the right approach. 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:10.440 I think that's right. I mean, I think there is 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.680 a lot of middle ground between lying to people and 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:19.520 or enabling delusions versus being brutally honest to people in 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.760 a way that you know is liable to hurt them, 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:23.800 and just like avoiding tact altogether. 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.320 Yeah, imagine just deciding all right, from here on now, 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.599 I'm just going to be brutally truthful about everything. But then, 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.400 like then we get into that other question like what 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:32.160 is truth right? 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.000 Right? You may in fact be mistaken about some of 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.440 the things that you think you think are brutally true 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.720 when you say them, in which case it would turn 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.640 out that it was really unproductive. Yeah, So this like 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.240 raises the question of whether it would even really be possible, 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.960 Like is this kind of radical authentic truth telling even 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:56.600 self consistent because there are momentary thoughts we have but 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:01.200 don't express, and are those actually truer reflections of our 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.600 inner selves then what we would say if we thought 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.760 about it some more before we talked m Yeah so? 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.840 Or also is it are those more are like expressions 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.320 of momentary opinions or thoughts truer reflections of our inner 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:20.800 selves even than the choice not to speak in a 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.240 certain situation, wouldn't that choice also flow from the self yeah. 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.880 Yeah, it reminds me of something I've mentioned before on 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.800 the show, the medieval doodle of a christ like bird 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.320 or a bird like Christ, if you rather, in the 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:40.760 in the margins of various manuscripts, and the idea it seems, 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.240 based on what I've read, is that thoughts rise from 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.640 the heart, they travel up through a very long neck 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.200 before they reach the lips, and therefore, like it's about 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.280 deciding whether you actually want those feelings to come out. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.560 That is why the neck of the christ like individual, 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:00.760 the christ like bird here is very long, because there's 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.040 plenty of time to reflect on set thoughts and perhaps 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.080 decide not to say them yeah. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.880 Or even decide whether you genuinely feel them exactly. Yeah. 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.760 I think we've probably all had the experience of feeling 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.840 like we wanted to express something, only to think about 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:18.760 it for a minute and think, that's not really what 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:19.280 I feel. 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.440 Yeah, write out that angry email, but don't send it today, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:24.480 set it aside for tomorrow, and then a lot of 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.920 the times you'll realize, you know, that's not exactly what 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:27.640 I meant to say. 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.400 So anyway, to come back to this relationship between authenticity 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.600 and honesty, from this example, of Rousseau. You know, we 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:40.480 see someone at least partially equating authenticity and honesty, assuming 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.920 that to be authentic is the most honest way to live, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:49.680 and that authenticity entails NonStop, moment to moment displays of quote, 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.960 fearless honesty, or brutal truth telling. And the authors also 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.880 quote another another writer in this paper named Valor, who 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.080 makes a similar equivalence, saying that honesty is defined as 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.360 quote a willingness to put one's authentic self in play. 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.960 But the authors actually propose a counter hypothesis in this paper. 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.319 They write that quote honesty is one of many tools 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.679 in the pursuit of authenticity, and that people will disregard 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:21.560 or discount honesty as authentic under specific conditions. And I 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:23.920 want to be clear that they're not making a normative 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.680 argument like about how people should use the concepts of 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.920 honesty or authenticity. They're just trying to be descriptive and 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.600 discover how people actually do already use these concepts in 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:39.680 their day to day lives and in their self image. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.000 So the authors investigate this idea of the relationship between 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.120 authenticity and honesty in several ways, and one thing they 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:52.680 do is a simple, small survey with an open ended question. 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.400 They asked participants if they could describe a time in 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.760 their life when they quote lied or did not tell 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.040 the truth in a way that was authentic or true 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.679 to themselves at the time. And the results of this 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:11.160 were that quote authentic dishonesty really did not generally seem 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.439 to people like an impossible situation or an incoherent concept. 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:20.000 People generated autobiographical examples of when they were dishonest in 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.880 a way they thought was authentic to themselves. Furthermore, and 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.760 here's the interesting part, the authors say that the examples 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.840 people gave of their own authentic dishonesty fell into basically 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.080 four categories, and I'll list these and describe them as 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.720 I go. So the first example is when the subject 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:38.760 was dishonest with other people in a way that they 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:43.719 were also not honest with themselves. So this category might 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.360 not be immediately intuitive, but I think it makes sense 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.720 if you see examples. So the stories people tell seem 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.960 to be about lying to others about some objective situation, 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:59.280 for example, about a worrying health prognosis or bad outcomes 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.880 at work or school, or mental health struggles or something 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.960 like that. At the same time, that they themselves were 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.640 in some way deluded or quote lying to themselves about 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.079 the situation. So, for example, you know, I'm telling my 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.560 parents that I'm doing fine at college, but in reality, 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.760 I am failing my classes and I'm going through a 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.400 mental health crisis. And the person who says this might say, 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.200 even though I was lying to my parents about well 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.360 how I was doing, I was being authentic because I 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.880 was also lying to myself. Essentially, I managed to truly 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.000 convince myself of the false things I was telling them. 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.959 Yeah, to borrow the catchphrase from stand up comedian Dusty Sligh, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:45.079 we're having a good time Like that can essentially be dishonest, 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.480 but you can believe in it, and other people can 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.000 believe in it even if it's not true in the moment. 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.360 Yeah. And actually, that raises an interesting facet of this, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.320 because it raises the question of what exactly it means 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.600 to quote lie to yourself. This is a common enough 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.400 concept that we've all heard of it, and probably you 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.679 have used it ourselves to describe something we've done, and 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.000 it seems to not be the same thing as simply 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.880 being convinced of a delusion. There's some overlap, but being 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:19.079 delusional can be entirely involuntary, you know, like you don't 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.360 you're not you don't feel like you are in any 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.680 way the cause of being deluded about something. But when 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.280 people say I was lying to myself, I think they 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.400 usually mean there is some element, even if just a 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:34.400 small element of willfulness in believing in the delusion, Like 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.400 some part of them knows better, but they are they 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:42.040 are purposely disregarding or ignoring that knowledge. 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:44.760 Yeah, Like I mean, one easy example of this is, 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.280 like you that thinking back to like the old days 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.800 of of buying CDs, especially as a young person with 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:54.480 money's a lot tighter, Like you spend your money, you 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.439 cannot you can buy no other album this week, maybe 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.720 this month, And afterwards you're you're maybe a little less 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.839 one over by the album than you'd hoped, but you're 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.199 kind of like fooling yourself and like, no, this is good. 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.400 I'm getting this, I'm jamming to this. This was worth 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:10.559 my money, this is worth my time. 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:12.160 It's even got the bonus tracks. 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.280 Yeah, it's got the bonus tracks. It's like I thought 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.040 it was ten tracks, No, it's twelve tracks. I'd be 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:19.280 losing money if I didn't buy it. 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.400 Yeah. So However, despite this element of wilfulness, it seems 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.960 to at least in some cases, not rule out seeing 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.160 yourself as authentic when you represent that same misunderstanding of 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.840 reality to other people. So, like you take that CD 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.320 that you're talking yourself into thinking is so great, and 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.160 you show it to your friend and say it's so great. 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.520 You might not think you were being inauthentic there, because 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.679 you really worked yourself up to convince yourself it was great. 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:50.120 Yeah, I was authentically delusional about the quality of this record, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.120 And honestly, if you know me, you should have seen 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:54.520 that in me. You should have seen that in my 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:58.520 eyes and known to approach this recommendation with caution. 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.640 Okay. Other examples of quote authentic dishonesty that people gave. 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.840 There were some examples that were when being honest would 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.840 have threatened the subjects basic needs survival or employment. This 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.400 is the self protection category. A lot of these seem 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.640 to seem to have to do with employment, which I 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.960 think is kind of revealing, but things like lying at 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.880 work to avoid revealing a mistake that could have cost 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.760 the subject their job. Another one that somebody gives is 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.960 lying about former job experience in order to get a 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.400 new position, and the subject in this example specifically says 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.400 they feel it was a good thing to do because 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.360 they ended up doing exceedingly well at the new job 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.720 that they lied in order to get fake it. 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.160 Do you make it right? I mean, that's basically what 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:44.880 we're alluding to. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.560 That's what they're claiming. I mean, we can't evaluate if 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.720 it's true that they did exceedingly well, but you know, 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:55.160 for the sake of argument, we'll take it. Another one was, 0:14:55.360 --> 0:15:00.120 and you understand this, somebody lying about psychiatric symptoms in 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.920 order to get admitted to a psych ward to avoid 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.520 being homeless. The subject says that this was authentic because 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.320 they were trying to escape living on the streets during winter, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.480 which was extremely hard. So that is a lie. It's 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.040 hard to blame somebody for that. But in this case, 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.400 the subject not only saw that as justified, but they 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.600 said for that reason it was authentic that they did that. 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.400 Yeah, I mean, they're talking about survival here right. 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.080 At the same time, it does raise questions about what 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.920 authenticity means in this case. But we can come back 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:35.320 to that third question. When honesty would harm an important 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.400 relationship protecting a relationship, This is probably people can think 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.440 of examples like this, A close friend says, does my 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.880 new haircut look good? And maybe you find nice things 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.360 to say about it, even if you don't actually love it. 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.520 People thought this was still authentic behavior. And then there 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.800 are much more serious examples, such as like within family 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:00.480 and marital relationships, like protecting loved ones from negative judgments 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.440 that you or others would have made about them. 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.600 Yeah, yeah, I think both these are very understandable. I mean, 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.760 the haircut is probably the best example because there is 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.240 a line. There is a line at which your close 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.400 friend's haircut has become so bad that you do have 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.200 to say something. You have to say, actually, this doesn't 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:20.760 look good. Come with me, we're going to go get 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.400 this fixed right now. You have a job interview tomorrow 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.520 or something. You know, I'm a good enough friend to 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:28.880 let you know that we have to go fix this. 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.240 But there's a lot of room on that spectrum for 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.240 just saying yeah, it looks great, and that's what you're 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:38.440 expected to do as a friend. 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.240 Or in fact, in the haircut example, in this paper, 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:46.640 they're like the person describes things they found to say 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.040 about the haircut that were true even though overall, they 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:51.760 did not actually think it was good. 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.320 Yeah, because I mean bad, bad haircuts happen, and you'll 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:57.120 grow out of them. You know, it's going to be 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.120 pretty bad to take it to that next level, say 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:01.520 we've got to go fix this. Yeah. 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:03.640 Yeah. I think the example was like, yeah, this will 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.720 really stand out, you know, putting a positive sounding tone 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:08.080 on them. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:09.240 That'll grow in nicely. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.240 Yeah. And then fourth final category, this one you can 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.800 very much understand. Again, it's hard to blame people for 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.920 this when honesty would threaten the survival or well being 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.399 of someone else, dishonesty in the protection of other people. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.400 So examples would include like lying to protect people from 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:31.440 physical danger, maybe like a counselor lying to potentially abusive 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:36.040 family members that you don't know about somebody's whereabouts, or 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.880 maybe to protect someone from information that would be devastating 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:40.320 to them. 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:41.000 Yeah. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.120 So it's interesting that some of these versions of authenticity 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.280 do sort of go along with the inside matches the 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.399 outside definition, but some do not. Some of these are 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.879 simply cases of people lying or misrepresenting themselves in a 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.920 situation where they believe in some way it was justified. 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.560 So in those cases, authenticity would seem to mean something 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.000 different than than the way we've been using it. It 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:12.399 would seem to mean morally justified, regardless of whether you 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.919 were expressing your true feelings on the outside or not. 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.080 And these examples just seem to reinforce to me how 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:23.760 fluid our concept of authenticity is. Once again, despite how 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:25.960 important it is in these day to day judgments we 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.800 make about people and about ourselves, it seems to have 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:34.399 ill defined boundaries, and the authors review some other findings 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:39.040 that further illuminate and complicate the relationship between honesty and authenticity. 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.320 For example, and this came up in Part one, in 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:46.040 order to evaluate whether your external behavior is consistent with 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:49.400 your true self, you have to both know what your 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.119 true self is and be able to objectively observe and 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:57.880 analyze your external behavior, and both of those tasks are 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.760 non trivial. The authors point out that that both of 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.160 them are problematic even given what we know from other 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:08.080 psychology studies, because studies show systematic biases in how we 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:12.760 perceive ourselves. People tend to see themselves as morally better 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:16.439 than the average person, and experiments show that people have 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:21.200 selective memories of events end of information that help bolster 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.960 a positive self image. So this can make research about 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:30.440 honesty and authenticity rather difficult because both honesty and authenticity 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:34.399 people take to have moral implications, so people are motivated 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.280 to exaggerate the extent to which they are both in 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.040 self reports. Though the authors do point to one pretty 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.320 interesting study from twenty twenty that used a bit of 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:48.879 trickery to look into whether self reported and even test 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:55.360 evaluated authenticity might be biased or strategic self presentation. So 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:57.680 this other paper I went and looked at was by 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.119 William hart at All, published in Personality and Individual Differences 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.040 in twenty twenty, called to be or to appear to 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:09.280 be evidence that authentic people seek to appear authentic rather 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:13.959 than be authentic. So the authors in their abstract right 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:19.080 quote participants numbering two hundred and forty completed a bogus 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:24.639 color gazing task under the presumption that authentic people see 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.600 colors become more or less intense while gazing at them. 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.040 And these are the two conditions, the more intense condition 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.840 and the less intense condition. And they say that quote 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:39.080 participants reported perceiving color as more intense in the more 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.800 intense condition. But this biased responding consistent with appearing authentic 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:49.400 was enhanced by trait authenticity indicators. So to paraphrase there, 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:54.359 participants were told that, you know, other studies have found 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.520 that more authentic people will see the color of this 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.919 block either intensify or d intensify, and in reality the 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.919 colors did not change at all. And then the experiment 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:10.040 found that on average, people who rated themselves as more 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.679 authentic on a self assessment test were more likely to 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.800 claim they saw the color change in line with whatever 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.679 they thought an authentic person was supposed to see. So, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:21.960 in other words, there was some amount of interest in 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:26.800 either lying or in perceiving reality differently in order to 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.560 protect the idea of an authentic self. So this is 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.040 a piece of evidence that maybe not all the time, 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.480 but probably some of the time, maybe a lot of 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:41.600 the time, authenticity itself is a strategic performance e g. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:48.240 Inauthentic behavior in service of appearing to be authentic. So 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.800 it's interesting to pair this with that study that finding 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.439 from part one about how people are not good at 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.280 judging who is authentic and who is not, at least 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.920 when compared with self assessments, which of course are themselves 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.919 possibly misleading. So I want to pause briefly here before 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:07.679 you lose all hope, Because remember that studies like this 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:12.199 are observing trends and tendencies on average and behavior, not 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.399 like totalizing realities about all people all the time. So 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:18.679 I would not walk away from these kinds of findings thinking, 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:21.560 oh my god, life is a lie, nobody is ever 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.159 being genuine. I don't think that's the takeaway personally. I 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:27.960 would think about it more like these types of studies 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:33.000 offer limited individual pieces of evidence that often the social 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:37.440 impressions of authenticity that we form are misleading, that social 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.600 impressions of authenticity are often not what they seem, and 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.119 we should be careful about placing too much weight on 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:48.400 the authenticity assessments of people that we form, especially after 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.600 superficial interactions. So in other words, you know, I'd say 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.080 it's probably not a good strategy to decide whether you 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:58.399 trust someone with something important on the basis of whether 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.080 they give off an authentic vibe or not. It might 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:04.199 be better to look at like an objective track record 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:06.560 of their behavior in the past or something like that. 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:10.000