Speaker 1: There are lots of occasions where unethical people won't behave badly,
Speaker 1: for example, if they think they'll get caught, or if
Speaker 1: the incentives aren't high enough.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 2: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 2: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 2: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 2: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 2: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking
Speaker 2: our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 2: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 2: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 2: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Our guest on this episode is doctor Peter Kim, Professor
Speaker 2: of Management and organization at the University of Southern California's
Speaker 2: Marshall School of Business. His research concerns the dynamics of
Speaker 2: social misperception, with a particular focus on the violation and
Speaker 2: repair of trust. Today Peter and Eric discuss his new book,
Speaker 2: How Trust Works, The Science of how Relationships are built,
Speaker 2: Broken and Repaired. I also wanted to mention that the
Speaker 2: One You Feed podcast is now on YouTube, so please
Speaker 2: go on there and subscribe. You can actually watch video
Speaker 2: of some of your favorite podcast episodes at the One
Speaker 2: You Feed pod on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Hi, Peter, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Eric. It's great to be here with you.
Speaker 3: We're going to be discussing your book, which is called
Speaker 3: How Trust Works, The Science of how Relationships are Built,
Speaker 3: Broken and Repaired. But before we get into that, will
Speaker 3: start like we always do with the parable. In the parable,
Speaker 3: there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 3: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 3: are always a battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 3: other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 3: hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about
Speaker 3: it for a second. They look up their grandparent and
Speaker 3: they say, well, which one wins, and the grandparent says,
Speaker 3: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 3: by asking you what that parable means to you and
Speaker 3: your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: I think the parable speaks to a fundamental truth about
Speaker 1: human nature. And it's interesting how well that parable sums
Speaker 1: it up, because this duality that we have in us
Speaker 1: is something that has been shown in neuroscience that we
Speaker 1: have a primitive brain that's very instinctual, and then you know,
Speaker 1: a higher order area of the brain that can override
Speaker 1: those instincts. Different areas of psychology talk about the same thing.
Speaker 1: If you get to Freud, you know, he talks about
Speaker 1: the id super ego and ego, and the ego regulates
Speaker 1: those two battling rules. Evolutionary psychology talks about what is morality,
Speaker 1: and there's a view that morality is about overriding our
Speaker 1: genetic predisposition. And for me and the book, there too
Speaker 1: is a duality, which is that we have a choice
Speaker 1: in how we view the world and how we view
Speaker 1: others and ourselves. And there's one choice that is very
Speaker 1: automatic and very easy to make, and then there's a
Speaker 1: different kind of choice we can make that leads to
Speaker 1: a more deliberative process that can hopefully lead to a
Speaker 1: better assessment of others.
Speaker 3: That yeah, I agree with everything you just said. There
Speaker 3: in your book really does get into some of the
Speaker 3: defaults we have when it comes to trust and some
Speaker 3: of the common mistakes that we might make when it
Speaker 3: comes to trust. But before we get into all that,
Speaker 3: let's start off with why is trust important to ourselves,
Speaker 3: to our society? Why care?
Speaker 1: Trust is the fundamental ingredient in society that makes it work.
Speaker 1: Our ability to interact and work with others depends on
Speaker 1: the expectation that others are worth it, that we can
Speaker 1: make ourselves vulnerable to them and do things with the
Speaker 1: expectation that they will follow through on their end of
Speaker 1: the bargain, and that that expectation will be fulfilled. And
Speaker 1: if we don't have that, then everything falls apart. How
Speaker 1: can we even walk out the door if we don't
Speaker 1: trust others to follow the law, to not take advantage
Speaker 1: of us. The level of trust is so important for
Speaker 1: society that it's even been shown to have an implication
Speaker 1: for the national gross domestic product right. The success of
Speaker 1: nations has been correlated to the level of trust in
Speaker 1: that nation. It really is the grease that makes all
Speaker 1: the wheels turn in society. It really allows us to
Speaker 1: work with one another, to cooperate and to work for
Speaker 1: things that are beyond our immediate self interest.
Speaker 3: One of the things that you start the book with,
Speaker 3: and it's a little bit counterintuitive, is that we tend
Speaker 3: to actually have a high level of initial trust in people.
Speaker 3: There's that phrase like, you know, you have to earn trust.
Speaker 3: Some of your research shows not necessarily that's right.
Speaker 1: The default assumption for ages has been trust starts at
Speaker 1: zero and only builds gradually over time as we get
Speaker 1: to know one another. There is an element of truth
Speaker 1: in the sense that the more we know others, the
Speaker 1: more we have a sense of how much to trust
Speaker 1: and so on. But it turns out that when we
Speaker 1: first meet other people in the world, we also rely
Speaker 1: on a host of cues that tell us whether or
Speaker 1: not someone should be trusted. Things like did we live
Speaker 1: in the same town, go to the same school, share
Speaker 1: the same interests, and have the same affiliations. More generally, so,
Speaker 1: all of that can tell us whether or not someone
Speaker 1: is like us, and we tend to trust people that
Speaker 1: are more similar to ourselves. And then things like you know, reputations, credentials.
Speaker 1: There are all sorts of cues that are out there
Speaker 1: that give us an indication of whether so on is trustworthy,
Speaker 1: and all that helps us to work with others, to
Speaker 1: interact with others right off the bat, and essentially make
Speaker 1: ourselves more vulnerable than we would have if trust really
Speaker 1: did start at zero, because if it did start at zero,
Speaker 1: all the wheels would stop.
Speaker 3: Purty great, right, you say, though, there's a problem because
Speaker 3: that high initial trust that we're talking about is also
Speaker 3: very fragile. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: It's precisely because that trust is based on the superficial
Speaker 1: cues that we get into trouble. We presume someone might
Speaker 1: be trustworthy simply because of how they look, what they're wearing,
Speaker 1: where they're from, and that may not necessarily be a
Speaker 1: good indication of how trustworthy they will be. And so
Speaker 1: that's where we are often in a situation where our
Speaker 1: evaluations of others are very fragile. Yeah, they can be
Speaker 1: changed dramatically based on the additional cues we get within
Speaker 1: the first few minutes of that interaction, a day later,
Speaker 1: and so on, And so it really is about how
Speaker 1: we hone that trust, that initial provisional trust over time
Speaker 1: as more information comes our way about the other side
Speaker 1: and about the situation. So that's the journey that we're
Speaker 1: all on how do we navigate the start where trust
Speaker 1: is high to a sustained level of trust in someone
Speaker 1: as we get to know them further.
Speaker 3: Are some of us more naturally trusting than others?
Speaker 1: There is a predisposition to trust, so some of us
Speaker 1: are more psychologically inclined to trust others. That has been
Speaker 1: reported in the scientific literature. And you know, the nice
Speaker 1: thing about that is that we'd like to think, you know,
Speaker 1: based on the assumption that that might be foolish, you know,
Speaker 1: we'd like to think that they'd be taken advantage of
Speaker 1: by others quite readily. But it turns out that that's
Speaker 1: not the case. Those who are inclined to trust wind
Speaker 1: up better off. According to the evidence, They wind up happier,
Speaker 1: They are sought after by others as desirable partners. And
Speaker 1: so it turns out that when we trust others, that
Speaker 1: tends to be an expectation that's fulfilled and that we
Speaker 1: wind up in a much better place.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I've often thought about that basic idea around an
Speaker 3: orientation to whether we trust others generally or not. And
Speaker 3: I think we all know people, some of whom are
Speaker 3: far more trusting and other people who are just far
Speaker 3: more suspicious of everybody kind of right out of the gate,
Speaker 3: And I agree, I think some of it's probably inborn,
Speaker 3: and then like anything else, it's conditioned by countless experiences.
Speaker 3: And I also think there's an element of agency in
Speaker 3: it too, which is what orientation do we want to take?
Speaker 3: And I've often thought I would much rather think the
Speaker 3: best of everybody and occasionally be disappointed, then think bad
Speaker 3: about everyone and very occasionally protect myself from some downside.
Speaker 3: And I think it gets to kind of what you
Speaker 3: were just saying there that people with a higher trust
Speaker 3: orientation tend to have a better level of happiness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Also it gives us those who are more trusting
Speaker 1: have more opportunities. They have more opportunities to build relationships,
Speaker 1: opportunities to have fruitful collaborations, and a host of other
Speaker 1: possibilities open up. And that's where, yes, there will be
Speaker 1: a subset of those opportunities that will turn out well,
Speaker 1: But on the whole, the evidence indicates that you are
Speaker 1: going to be better off as compared to someone who
Speaker 1: is not trusting, who is always suspicious and forecloses those opportunities.
Speaker 1: And they're saying they've mitigated the upside. But what they're
Speaker 1: not aware of is that they've mitigated a lot of
Speaker 1: upside too, and part of that upside is created merely
Speaker 1: by the decision to trust. Because it turns out that
Speaker 1: when we trust others, they don't see this as an
Speaker 1: opportunity for exploitation in general. In general, what they see
Speaker 1: it as is they see it as a precious resource
Speaker 1: to preserve for the future. They want to prove you right.
Speaker 1: So if you trust me, I don't want to say, well,
Speaker 1: you are a fool. I'm really actually an untrustworthy person.
Speaker 1: I think I'm trustworthy, and I want to fulfill that
Speaker 1: expectation that you have in me. And that's the general
Speaker 1: tendency that people have, and so that's part of the
Speaker 1: reason why trusting others can be a good strategy.
Speaker 3: You talk about two really powerful determinants of trust that
Speaker 3: are different, the first being competence and then the second
Speaker 3: being integrity. Can you explain what you mean by each
Speaker 3: of those and maybe give us an example of what
Speaker 3: we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: Competence concerns the sense that others will have the skills
Speaker 1: and knowledge to fulfill a task. So it's a very straightforward,
Speaker 1: you know, consideration that we have when we work with
Speaker 1: others or rely on someone to do something for us.
Speaker 1: Integrity is the sense that others will adhere to principles
Speaker 1: you consider acceptable. So that gets to you know, do
Speaker 1: they share the same values? Will they prioritize the same
Speaker 1: things as you in life for example? And so those
Speaker 1: are the two basic dimensions that have been found to
Speaker 1: be consistently the most important in determining trust in others
Speaker 1: across all sorts of situations, whether you're evaluating peers, leaders,
Speaker 1: or subordinates and so on. So it's been a pretty
Speaker 1: robust finding across all sorts of contexts.
Speaker 3: So, can you give me an example of a violation
Speaker 3: of trust and whether we would see it as a
Speaker 3: matter of competence or integrity?
Speaker 1: Sure. So, some of the studies that I've conducted with
Speaker 1: a bunch of collaborators has essentially given a different explanation
Speaker 1: for the exact same event. So in these studies, we
Speaker 1: would have someone interviewing for a job at an accounting
Speaker 1: firm and it turns out that this person had misfiled
Speaker 1: the tax return at that job, and then as that's
Speaker 1: being discussed, the candidate either explains it as a matter
Speaker 1: of not knowing the tax code that was relevant to
Speaker 1: that situation, So that would be a competence related issue.
Speaker 1: She just lacked that knowledge, or she had a misfiled
Speaker 1: that tax return intentionally in order to please an important client.
Speaker 1: So that was a deliberate choice to fudge the numbers
Speaker 1: or do something a little bit shady for the sake
Speaker 1: of making someone happy. And so that would be one
Speaker 1: way of making that distinction. Another way of thinking about
Speaker 1: the distinction is to think about it as a difference
Speaker 1: of intent. So if you had done something unknowingly or
Speaker 1: you just screwed up somehow, that would be a competence
Speaker 1: related violation. If you did something knowingly intentionally, then that
Speaker 1: would be more a matter of integrity. It would be
Speaker 1: a reflection of them not sharing the same value as
Speaker 1: you and committing the violation as a result. And so
Speaker 1: that's the high level distinction between those two ideas. But
Speaker 1: one of the things I delve into further in the
Speaker 1: book is what does integrity even mean? Because on the
Speaker 1: one hand, we can say integrity is about whether others
Speaker 1: you know will do things like we would do that right,
Speaker 1: they adhere to principles we consider important. But in the
Speaker 1: real world, things get really messy on that front, and
Speaker 1: that's where what integrity means is far more complicated than
Speaker 1: most of us presumably, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it gets to intention to some degree.
Speaker 3: In conversation about harm these days, we talk about intention
Speaker 3: and impact, and I think your book argues that both
Speaker 3: those things matter, that both those things are actually important.
Speaker 1: Right, So, I think the impact element gets to whether
Speaker 1: or not harm was created, whether violation occurred, and then
Speaker 1: there is this element of intention, which gets to why
Speaker 1: why did this happen? And that's the part that well,
Speaker 1: it gets to the two wolves parable you brought up
Speaker 1: at the start of the podcast. We are inclined to
Speaker 1: believe that when something goes wrong, the other side had
Speaker 1: done this intentionally, they meant to do it, or they
Speaker 1: were intentionally negligent and so on. But there is this
Speaker 1: alternative explanation, which was they didn't know, they didn't have
Speaker 1: enough information about what would be appropriate in the situation,
Speaker 1: or they lacked the perspective necessary to make the right choice,
Speaker 1: And that too can be just as legitimate an explanation
Speaker 1: for what happened, and the choice we make about that
Speaker 1: attribution can lead to very different reactions in the eyes
Speaker 1: of the perceiver.
Speaker 3: Makes me think of a phrase I've heard somewhere. Don't
Speaker 3: attribute to malice what could be explained by incompetence, basically
Speaker 3: sort of saying exactly what you're saying here, which is,
Speaker 3: first assume like that somebody was trying to do the
Speaker 3: right thing and just didn't know how or made a mistake,
Speaker 3: and then you know, from there you can kind of
Speaker 3: move on to where they are. You keep using the
Speaker 3: word attribution, and one of my favorite I think is
Speaker 3: considered a cognitive bias. It's called the fundamental attribution error,
Speaker 3: which states that when I make a mistake, I look
Speaker 3: at all the circumstances around it. You know, if I
Speaker 3: kicked the vending machine, it's because I didn't get enough
Speaker 3: sleep last night and I'm under a lot of pressure.
Speaker 3: But if you kick the vending machine, it's because you're
Speaker 3: an angry person. And so you're talking about attribution a
Speaker 3: lot in this book, say more about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is part of what affects our inclination
Speaker 1: to make this decision that the act was intentional. Due
Speaker 1: to a lack of moral principles, we often lack insight
Speaker 1: into all the forces that might be at play that
Speaker 1: that might explain why something happened. So an example that
Speaker 1: comes to mind is the Wells Fargo scandal that occurred
Speaker 1: a few years ago, where you know, the bank was
Speaker 1: accused of opening these fraudulent accounts for their clients. A
Speaker 1: number of workers at Wells Fargo had been involved in
Speaker 1: doing this, and our initial explanation from why this has
Speaker 1: happened is that these bank employees were, you know, just
Speaker 1: trying to get ahead by you know, doing a fast one,
Speaker 1: taking liberties with the power that they had to create
Speaker 1: these accounts on behalf of these clients. So that was
Speaker 1: very much an integrity based attribution. It turned out related
Speaker 1: to the fundamental attribution error that what they were doing
Speaker 1: was largely due to a system of incentives and pressures
Speaker 1: that were created by Wells Fargo as a whole. They
Speaker 1: created a pressure cooker where if you did not open
Speaker 1: enough accounts, you were essentially fired or pass over for promotion.
Speaker 1: There were all these consequences, and so here was a
Speaker 1: situation where they didn't have full control over their actions.
Speaker 1: They were being induced to behave in a certain way,
Speaker 1: and so that provided a very different lens onto the
Speaker 1: same situation. Maybe we wouldn't necessarily put it into competence
Speaker 1: one hundred percent as an attribution, but it gets closer
Speaker 1: to that it's not necessarily something they would have done
Speaker 1: on their own if given the choice.
Speaker 3: So listener, consider this. You're halfway through the episode Integration reminder.
Speaker 3: Remember knowledge is power, but only if combined with action
Speaker 3: and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute
Speaker 3: to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a
Speaker 3: detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause
Speaker 3: and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and
Speaker 3: how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously,
Speaker 3: just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It
Speaker 3: can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop
Speaker 3: and be present, can't it. If you want to keep
Speaker 3: this momentum going that you built with this little exercise,
Speaker 3: i'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders
Speaker 3: SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with
Speaker 3: insightful little prompts and wisdom from podcast guests. They're a
Speaker 3: nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life,
Speaker 3: and they're a helpful way to not get lost in
Speaker 3: the busyness. And forget what is important. You can join
Speaker 3: at oneufeed dot net slash sms and if you don't
Speaker 3: like them, you can get off a list really easily.
Speaker 3: So far, there are over one and seventy two others
Speaker 3: from the one you feed community on the list, and
Speaker 3: we'd love to welcome you as well, So head on
Speaker 3: over to oneufeed dot net slash sms and let's feed
Speaker 3: our good wolves together. And you say that we are
Speaker 3: more willing to forgive competence based breaches of trust versus
Speaker 3: integrity based breaches of trust.
Speaker 1: Yes, And it gets to some odd asymmetries we have
Speaker 1: in our mental basements. So we are predisposed to view
Speaker 1: negative information about competence as less informative than positive information
Speaker 1: about competence. So if you were a baseball player and
Speaker 1: you hit a home run, you're considered a home run hitter,
Speaker 1: even though you might strike out afterwards. That one instance
Speaker 1: of positive information is considered very diagnostic in our minds.
Speaker 1: And it's because we believe that only people who are
Speaker 1: super competent can perform at that level. And that's the
Speaker 1: bias that we have in all sorts of domains when
Speaker 1: it comes to matters of competence. You can only really
Speaker 1: be successful at something if you're truly competent, and even
Speaker 1: successful people might fail sometimes or not do well because,
Speaker 1: for example, you might have an injury, or you might
Speaker 1: be really distracted, or you may lack the motivation to
Speaker 1: perform well. So the negative information about competence is just
Speaker 1: not considered very informative because there are lots of explanations
Speaker 1: for why that might happen. But when it comes to
Speaker 1: matters of integrity, that bias is reversed. We consider negative
Speaker 1: information about integrity much more diagnostic than positive information about integrity.
Speaker 1: So if you get caught cheating on your spouse once
Speaker 1: and you say, well, I didn't cheat on you yesterday,
Speaker 1: that's not going to work so well, right, because that
Speaker 1: negative information is considered so diagnostic. And why is this.
Speaker 1: It's because we believe that only people who lack integrity
Speaker 1: would do something like that, Whereas there are lots of
Speaker 1: occasions where unethical people won't behave badly, for example, if
Speaker 1: they think they'll get caught, or if the incentives aren't
Speaker 1: high enough for them to break the rules or so on.
Speaker 1: So that's where that asymmetry arises. We just don't see
Speaker 1: that positive information about integrity to be very helpful, because
Speaker 1: bad people can avoid doing bad things on a given
Speaker 1: moment for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with their values or ethicality.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about apology a little bit. And I
Speaker 3: think it's important to make a distinction about what we're
Speaker 3: talking about in this book, because we're talking about trust
Speaker 3: and the repair of trust, not necessarily forgiveness. For example,
Speaker 3: say in what ways those are different.
Speaker 1: They're different in the sense that forgiveness can occur even
Speaker 1: if you don't intend to ever interact with that person again.
Speaker 1: So there are many instances when real harm was done
Speaker 1: and people who have been harmed choose eventually to forgive
Speaker 1: the harmdoer as a way of getting past what happened,
Speaker 1: so they no longer ruminate over what happened. They are
Speaker 1: able to move on as a result of that forgiveness.
Speaker 1: So forgiveness, it's a one sided action that can be
Speaker 1: very beneficial. You can forgive as a way of letting
Speaker 1: go and moving forward. Trust, on the other hand, is
Speaker 1: always a two sided decision because it involves the decision
Speaker 1: to make yourself vulnerable to that person again, and so
Speaker 1: that becomes a thornier issue. It requires the expectation that
Speaker 1: the other side will redeem themselves if they've done something bad,
Speaker 1: and that is not necessarily something that people will believe
Speaker 1: depending on the attribution that they make. And this gets
Speaker 1: to your point about apologies. Apologies are well, they've been
Speaker 1: considered sort of the gold standard for addressing these kinds
Speaker 1: of incidents, and in many situations they can be quite helpful.
Speaker 1: But the problem with apologies is that they're double edged
Speaker 1: in nature. They are helpful in the sense that they
Speaker 1: signal a desire to do better. It signals regret and remorse,
Speaker 1: and so by extension, it indicates that they won't do
Speaker 1: this again. But apologies also do something else which is
Speaker 1: not so great, and that's it confirms guilt. Right, you
Speaker 1: apologize when you've done something wrong, so you're saying, yes,
Speaker 1: I did something wrong, and then I'm going to fix
Speaker 1: this in the future. And so it really conveys these
Speaker 1: two signals, and the question becomes, well, which signal becomes
Speaker 1: more important? Do we focus on these positive signals of
Speaker 1: redemption or do we focus on these negative signals of guilt?
Speaker 1: And it turns out that that's where the biases that
Speaker 1: we've been just talking about with regard to competence and
Speaker 1: integrity place a huge role. So for matters of competence,
Speaker 1: we'll focus on the signals of redemption rather than the
Speaker 1: confirmation of guilt, because we don't consider that negative information
Speaker 1: about competence very diagnostic. We consider positive information about competence
Speaker 1: much more informative. But if we see the same violation
Speaker 1: as a matter of integrity, we're going to focus on
Speaker 1: the confirmation of guilt, that negative information of integrity that's
Speaker 1: been confirmed by the apology, and we're going to dismiss
Speaker 1: the positive signals that the person's going to fix us
Speaker 1: in the future. So that's where the choice of attribution
Speaker 1: can make a huge difference in whether or not you're
Speaker 1: willing to trust the other person to get after the
Speaker 1: exact same response they have the same apology.
Speaker 3: And so what can we take from this when it
Speaker 3: comes to making apologies in our own life, right, Because
Speaker 3: you said apologies are a double edged sword. On one hand,
Speaker 3: they express a desire to do better or in the future,
Speaker 3: or a desire to repair the situation, and yet they
Speaker 3: also admit guilt. How is that different in maybe a
Speaker 3: corporate setting where a company by apologizing is sort of
Speaker 3: admitting to guilt versus in an individual setting.
Speaker 1: What are the important lessons of this distinction is that
Speaker 1: we as apologizers need to be aware of what attribution
Speaker 1: the others, the perceivers, are making. So most of the
Speaker 1: conversation that occurs after a violation has occurred is about
Speaker 1: whether or not someone is going to apologize or not, right,
Speaker 1: So it's a type of response that's the focus, and
Speaker 1: what we ignore. Something that's as if not more important,
Speaker 1: is the attribution we're making for why the incident happened.
Speaker 1: So one of the problems that occurs when you know
Speaker 1: someone might commit a violation and they are being pressured
Speaker 1: to apologize is that they might do so based on
Speaker 1: a self serving view that this was a competence related
Speaker 1: issue right in their view, in their own world, they
Speaker 1: you know, would not have done this again, this was
Speaker 1: a mistake in their minds, But they're not taking the
Speaker 1: other side's perspective. If the other side is framing the
Speaker 1: exact same incident differently, then that same apology that they
Speaker 1: think will be very successful will turn out to be
Speaker 1: very ineffective. And so that's where the in a way,
Speaker 1: a different discussion has to occur simultaneously. In addition to
Speaker 1: whether you apologize or not, it is about what is
Speaker 1: the interpretation of this incident, and that is something that
Speaker 1: needs to be addressed as much of not more so
Speaker 1: than this issue of how you respond.
Speaker 3: Let's take an example here and see if we can
Speaker 3: sort of bring all these things together in an example.
Speaker 3: So let's just say that there is a couple and
Speaker 3: person A in the relationship is unfaithful. So we're talking
Speaker 3: now about attribution, which is why did person A act
Speaker 3: that way? And I think what you're saying is person
Speaker 3: A is going to want to interpret it as the
Speaker 3: person who did the thing as a one time mistake.
Speaker 3: I did it because and I would have my reasons
Speaker 3: for it, and they would be more sort of competence based,
Speaker 3: but that their partner, person B, is thinking it's because
Speaker 3: they're a bad person or they're fundamentally untrustworthy person, and
Speaker 3: so they're attributing it to integrity, not sort of a
Speaker 3: competence based situation. And I think what you're saying is
Speaker 3: that while person A who was unfaithful can and should
Speaker 3: apologize in this case, that if they don't find some
Speaker 3: way to have a conversation about the perceived lack of
Speaker 3: integrity on their side, that apology may be ineffective.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's true, with a caveat.
Speaker 3: Okay, please, yeah, correct me where I get it wrong.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to sort of put it into an
Speaker 3: actual example here.
Speaker 1: Sure, so I would just temper it a bit in
Speaker 1: the sense that there are probably some violations that are
Speaker 1: clearly matters of integrity, and there's certain violations that are
Speaker 1: clearly matters of competence, and then there are violations that
Speaker 1: are in a gray area. And so to the extent
Speaker 1: that you know you've done something that's clearly a matter
Speaker 1: of integrity, I don't know how much you can do
Speaker 1: to resolve that situation. You know, the person who committed
Speaker 1: the violation may still see it as a matter of competence,
Speaker 1: just because we're so good at, you know, construing the
Speaker 1: world in a way that will make us ill favors
Speaker 1: about ourselves. So this matter of an affair, people will
Speaker 1: have different views about this. You know, I'm sure the
Speaker 1: person who commits the affair, well, maybe I shouldn't say
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I'm sure there are times when someone who
Speaker 1: commits an affair will see it as a mistake, right,
Speaker 1: And you're right there, like the person who might be
Speaker 1: affected by that affair, the spouse will more likely see
Speaker 1: it as a matter of integrity, and that will be
Speaker 1: a major disconnect. It will be a reason why the
Speaker 1: apology won't be so successful in that instance. I will
Speaker 1: also reaffirm your point that in that kind of instance,
Speaker 1: it is still important to apologize because if you're caught
Speaker 1: red handed, you know, again, if you're really guilty, and
Speaker 1: the counterpart knows that, it doesn't really help to deny this, right, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if your hand is called the cookie jar, you know,
Speaker 1: like this matter of guilt is not in question, that
Speaker 1: the only real question becomes while you redeem yourself in
Speaker 1: the future. And I think there, what I'm reminded of
Speaker 1: is a response that I find really interesting that people
Speaker 1: use sometime, which is it was an error in judgment.
Speaker 1: What does that response entail? It entails that you had
Speaker 1: intentionally done it at the time, but now you know better, right,
Speaker 1: so you are in a way recasting that same incident
Speaker 1: as a matter of competence. You have more knowledge about
Speaker 1: the repercussions of your actions now, and as a result,
Speaker 1: you would not do that again, And so that kind
Speaker 1: of framing can be helpful as a way of giving
Speaker 1: the other side the view that no, it's not a
Speaker 1: matter of you lacking moral principles, of you being a
Speaker 1: bad person. It's because you just didn't know any better
Speaker 1: at the time. And so to the extent that you
Speaker 1: can make that change in attribution, you'll be better off.
Speaker 1: But with that said, there is another problem, and it's
Speaker 1: that perceivers are not blank slates. They won't just buy
Speaker 1: whatever story you tell them, especially since they know that you,
Speaker 1: as a violator, have an incentive to tell them something
Speaker 1: that will get them off the hook, right right, So
Speaker 1: there is going to be pushed back by the perceiver
Speaker 1: because they will have a vested interest in their own
Speaker 1: worldview and maintaining it, and so that becomes a battleground.
Speaker 1: How do you shape these world views to a degree
Speaker 1: that it helps the violator address, you know, the incident
Speaker 1: and repair trust. That is easier in some contexts than others,
Speaker 1: And this is where motivation comes into play. So this
Speaker 1: choice between competence and integrity, there is this element of
Speaker 1: these integrity attributions being easier and more automatic, but there's
Speaker 1: also a motivation that we have to make one kind
Speaker 1: of attribution or another. So if someone commits a violation
Speaker 1: and that person is a dear friend and we want
Speaker 1: to maintain a relationship with that person, we are going
Speaker 1: to try much harder to see this as a matter
Speaker 1: of competence. But if that same violation occurs it's done
Speaker 1: by a stranger or someone in an outgroup, someone we
Speaker 1: see as sort of like the enemy, we will clearly
Speaker 1: see that as an integrity based violation. So we have
Speaker 1: a vested interest in making one attribution or another, and
Speaker 1: so that's an the other thing that affects that choice.
Speaker 3: So, for example, what you're saying is if a politician
Speaker 3: is accused of sexual impropriety, if that politician is the
Speaker 3: side that we root for, we're going to want to
Speaker 3: believe it was an error in judgment or a temporary
Speaker 3: mistake or whatever it is, right, But if that person
Speaker 3: is in the other political party, we're going to want
Speaker 3: to attribute it to just a bad person, and they
Speaker 3: are another example of what people like that are.
Speaker 1: Absolutely and you have just explained a large part of
Speaker 1: our political divide that we.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, it gets back to this fundamental attribution error
Speaker 3: a little bit that I was talking about, which is
Speaker 3: what do we attribute the reasons that somebody did something?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I always think it's one of the places that is
Speaker 3: humans we get into the most trouble is when we
Speaker 3: think we know other people motivations or reasons.
Speaker 1: Right right.
Speaker 3: I see this in relationships over and over and over.
Speaker 3: It's like you didn't take out the trash, and so
Speaker 3: thus what that means is you don't care about me,
Speaker 3: And that's the attribution I'm making, right, Whereas it could
Speaker 3: just be something completely different. It could just be that
Speaker 3: somebody's very forgetful. As soon as we start attributing reasons
Speaker 3: to things, we can be on slippery ground, I think,
Speaker 3: is where we get into trouble, and yet we can't
Speaker 3: not do it. We are always trying to make meaning
Speaker 3: out of what occurs.
Speaker 1: Right, So the fundamental attribution error provides additional nuance to
Speaker 1: the story. So, because that's really about whether you consider
Speaker 1: the person responsible for what happened versus the situation, and
Speaker 1: then the choice between competence and integrity. You know, the
Speaker 1: person is still responsible, but was it because they just
Speaker 1: forgot or was it because they just didn't see this
Speaker 1: as important enough to do right, And so in your
Speaker 1: example about the trash, the fundamental attribution era could be, well,
Speaker 1: they didn't do it, and it's because they either decided
Speaker 1: not to do it or forgot. A third explanation could
Speaker 1: be there was an emergency that pulled them out of
Speaker 1: the house and they just couldn't because they had to
Speaker 1: attend to some work emergency, or you know, the child
Speaker 1: at school and you know, I had some sort of
Speaker 1: incident and so you had to rush there. So all
Speaker 1: of that can be involved in the attribution process, and
Speaker 1: the more we attend to those things, the better off
Speaker 1: we are and really coming up with a comprehensive understanding
Speaker 1: of that situation. And I think one of the points
Speaker 1: of the book is that we never really put much
Speaker 1: time into understanding all those forces, all those possibilities. We
Speaker 1: make the automatic knee jerk interpretation, which is quite all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you talk about four guiding lessons that we can
Speaker 3: take from your work here, and I thought maybe we
Speaker 3: could walk through those and you could explain them. The
Speaker 3: first is most of us want to be good say
Speaker 3: more about that.
Speaker 1: This is based on the fact that the evidence indicates
Speaker 1: that when people are trusted, they don't see this as
Speaker 1: an opportunity for exploitation, and so it is a challenge
Speaker 1: to the prevailing assumption that's been out there that yeah,
Speaker 1: you make yourself vulnerable, then they'll try to exploit that vulnerability.
Speaker 1: And there's certainly people who will try to do that,
Speaker 1: But for the most part people in the world, they
Speaker 1: don't want to say you're a sucker for trusting me.
Speaker 1: They want to say you are right in trusting me.
Speaker 1: I am a good person. And what it speaks to
Speaker 1: is that a lot of the violations that occur in
Speaker 1: the world is it because someone is deciding to be bad.
Speaker 1: It's often because of almost a miss communication about what
Speaker 1: constitutes goodness in a particular situation. And so it really
Speaker 1: speaks to the need to clarify what would be good
Speaker 1: in the situation and help people get there. So an
Speaker 1: example that relates to my own mind work is as
Speaker 1: a faculty member at a university, you know I have
Speaker 1: to give assignments all the time, and you know there's
Speaker 1: always a temptation to cheat. Well, part of what I
Speaker 1: have to do my responsibility, based on this guiding principle,
Speaker 1: is to clarify expectations about what's acceptable and what's not.
Speaker 1: The use of AI, for example, in assignments. You know,
Speaker 1: so that's a big question mark. So what is my stance,
Speaker 1: how should they navigate the situation? So to provide clarification
Speaker 1: based on the expectation that people want to be good
Speaker 1: and I just need to help them get there, help
Speaker 1: them maintain that desire and that reputation in this very
Speaker 1: messy world that we have excellent.
Speaker 3: And then the next is the complexity of truth, which
Speaker 3: I think we've kind of been talking about this idea
Speaker 3: that the reasons people do things is usually far more
Speaker 3: multifaceted than we think.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really important point that I try
Speaker 1: to stress throughout the book. You're right, and I think
Speaker 1: what it gets to is that we're not predisposed to
Speaker 1: look at that complexity. We want simple stories, and we
Speaker 1: want to have these very quick determinations of what happened,
Speaker 1: and we need to be aware that we as perceivers
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to put in the time to really
Speaker 1: understand why things happen, because honestly, we will all be
Speaker 1: in positions where we're accused of something at some point,
Speaker 1: and we will want others to engage in that same
Speaker 1: kind of thoughtful deliberation about us rather than have those
Speaker 1: knee jerk reactions.
Speaker 3: Guiding Lesson is you call the upside of intent? What
Speaker 3: do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: So much of the book that sort of underscores the
Speaker 1: problems when people make these attributions of low integrity, the
Speaker 1: idea that you will try to pull a fast one
Speaker 1: on them, that you will be opportunistic. That Guiding Lesson
Speaker 1: is really about, well, we shouldn't necessarily be so defeatist
Speaker 1: about that bias that we have in our heads, because
Speaker 1: what it tells us is that one of the things
Speaker 1: we should be striving for is to make that attribution
Speaker 1: less likely. And how do we do that. We can
Speaker 1: work harder to convey the sense that we are doing
Speaker 1: our very best to do the right thing for the
Speaker 1: people around us, for the people who might be judging us,
Speaker 1: And the more we do that, the less likely people
Speaker 1: will be to make that automatic attribution that we have
Speaker 1: low integrity. And in fact, the more it seems like
Speaker 1: we're looking out for them, the more invested they'll be
Speaker 1: in the relationship, and the more motivated they will be
Speaker 1: to see any failing as a matter of competence rather
Speaker 1: than integrity, because they won't want to make that negative
Speaker 1: attribution of integrity that can be so destructive to that relationship.
Speaker 3: And then the last lesson is the need to walk
Speaker 3: through doors. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: This was something that came out of an interview of
Speaker 1: someone that I I write about in the book. His
Speaker 1: name's father Greg and he started this organization called Homeboy
Speaker 1: Industries in Los Angeles, and it is an organization meant
Speaker 1: to help former gang members rehabilitate and re enter society.
Speaker 1: And one of the lessons he learned was that he
Speaker 1: can't impose this program on people. They have to make
Speaker 1: the decision that they want to rehability, otherwise it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: The program that is very successful, it won't work in
Speaker 1: that kind of instance where it's not a choice by
Speaker 1: the person who might be enrolled. That speaks to this
Speaker 1: distinction between forgiveness and trust that we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: We can forgive people that can be a one sided action.
Speaker 1: Another thing that the book talks about is we can
Speaker 1: try to do things that reduce their vulnerability, so we
Speaker 1: can implement all these protective mechanisms and enforcement mechanisms to
Speaker 1: keep people from doing bad things, but that actually doesn't
Speaker 1: improve trust because you know, if they're behaving well afterwards,
Speaker 1: we are inclined to see this as the result of
Speaker 1: the laws and enforcement mechanisms we put in place, rather
Speaker 1: than because they were trustworthy. So the need to walk
Speaker 1: through the doors really gets to the idea that it's
Speaker 1: not a one sided action. We have to depend on
Speaker 1: the other side to do their part. Regardless of whether
Speaker 1: we're the perceiver or the violator. We each need to
Speaker 1: do our part to help navigate this quagmire, the complexity
Speaker 1: of truth, to really get at a view that would
Speaker 1: give a person the opportunity to redeem themselves.
Speaker 3: Excellent, well, Peter, this is a good place for us
Speaker 3: to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 3: the show. I've really enjoyed talking with you and really
Speaker 3: enjoyed the book.
Speaker 1: Likewise, Eric, it's been a real pleasure.
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