Would You Trust a Gangster Nanny? - Cautionary Questions with Rachel Botsman

Summary

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford: Episode Summary
Episode Title: Would You Trust a Gangster Nanny? - Cautionary Questions with Rachel Botsman
Release Date: March 7, 2025

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Introduction

In this special episode of Cautionary Tales, Tim Harford teams up with Rachel Botsman, a renowned expert on trust and author of How to Trust and Be Trusted. Together, they delve deep into the intricate world of trust, exploring its nuances, vulnerabilities, and the psychological underpinnings that govern our trust relationships. Through engaging discussions and real-life anecdotes, Harford and Botsman provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of why we trust whom we do, often without conscious awareness.

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Defining Trust: Beyond the Basics

Rachel Botsman opens the conversation by challenging the conventional definition of trust. She critiques the Cambridge English Dictionary's simplistic view, arguing that trust is more complex than just believing someone is "good and honest" or something is "safe and reliable."

Rachel Botsman [02:14]: "I've told you about people who trusted in technology when they shouldn't and those who didn't trust it when they should. Again, why?"

Tim Harford concurs, offering his own nuanced definition:

Tim Harford [04:27]: "Trust is a confident relationship with the unknown. It's much more in the space of risk and uncertainty."

Harford emphasizes that trust often operates subconsciously, shaped by early experiences and environmental conditioning.

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Trust: Given, Earned, or Innate?

Listener Question: Lee from Iowa asks, "Is trust given, earned, or buried so deep in our psyche that we don't even know?" [06:09]

Harford responds by highlighting that trust can both be given and earned, often without deliberate thought:

Tim Harford [07:35]: "Most trust decisions, we do without even thinking about them. But particularly in new relationships, you want that loop to be really, really healthy."

Rachel explores the idea that approximately 70% of people are naturally trusting, a trait influenced more by nurture than nature.

Tim Harford [08:20]: "About 70% of people are naturally trusting. That is their instinct to trust."

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The Marshmallow Test: A Case of Trust vs. Self-Discipline

The hosts revisit the famous marshmallow experiment, reframing it as a study of trust rather than mere self-control.

Rachel Botsman [09:00]: "It's really an experiment in trust. Some children are told if a grown-up promises to bring you a marshmallow, they are going to show up with a marshmallow."

Harford adds depth by discussing how variations in the experiment—such as who gives the instructions—significantly impact outcomes.

Tim Harford [10:25]: "It was really interesting that the outcome of the experiment changed depending on how much they trusted the instructor."

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When Trust is Betrayed: The Gangster Nanny Story

A poignant story is shared about a nanny who deceived Harford’s parents, highlighting the complexities of trust in personal relationships.

Tim Harford [11:00]: "She came into her house... before they realized she was stealing money and doing various other things. It culminated with her stealing our car and using it as a getaway in an armed robbery."

Harford discusses the factors that led to sustained trust despite clear signs of deception:

Tim Harford [12:04]: "They were in denial, so they didn't look harder or didn't look further into the situation... she was actually a really good nanny."

This story underscores how convenience and the fear of the unknown can cause individuals to overlook red flags.

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Cognitive Dissonance and Blind Trust in Cults

Listener Question: Nega from Montana inquires about blind trust within cults, specifically referencing Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the Universal Triumphant church. [22:25]

Harford draws parallels with the Seekers cult from the 1950s, explaining how cognitive dissonance allows individuals to maintain trust even when faced with contradictory evidence.

Tim Harford [26:25]: "Cognitive dissonance... people who were most committed to the cult... actually, they doubled down."

Botsman further elaborates on the psychological mechanisms that compel individuals to continue trusting leaders despite clear disconfirmation of their beliefs.

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Trust in the Digital Age: Ratings and Reputation Systems

Listener Question: Betsy from California questions the reliability of online rating systems used by platforms like Uber and Airbnb. [31:22]

Harford acknowledges the challenges posed by evolving trust mechanisms in the digital landscape:

Tim Harford [32:00]: "Trust systems or reputation systems haven't improved that much. We have better insurance and identity checks, but the reputation system is still... not that great."

He discusses the limitations of current systems in accurately reflecting trustworthiness and the emotional burden users feel when deciding to leave honest reviews.

Tim Harford [34:29]: "That feeling of guilt is wrong because you actually have a responsibility to the community to protect others."

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Trust and Technology: The Case of Fitness Trackers

Listener Question: A listener shares concerns about trusting fitness trackers, questioning the accuracy and the implications of relying on such devices. [36:27]

Harford explores the paradox of technology-assisted trust:

Tim Harford [37:14]: "Trust is a confident relationship with the unknown. My watch can tell me exactly today what my marathon time is, but many things can happen."

He warns against over-reliance on technological proxies for self-trust and autonomy, emphasizing the importance of maintaining personal confidence over gadget-based metrics.

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Trust in Media: Why Do We Trust Podcasters?

Listener Question: Cayenne from New York asks, "Why do people trust podcasters so much, even on topics they aren't knowledgeable about?" [40:09]

Harford explains that trust in podcasters often stems from emotional connections and the comforting familiarity of a voice, rather than a rational assessment of expertise.

Tim Harford [41:58]: "People make most trust decisions based on how that person makes you feel and then who they are and then what they say."

Botsman adds that qualities like fluency and a pleasant accent serve as trust proxies, enabling podcasters to gain and maintain listener trust even without deep technical knowledge.

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Key Insights and Conclusions

• Trust is Multifaceted: Trust operates on both conscious and subconscious levels, influenced by early life experiences, intuition, and environmental factors.

• Vulnerability and Trust: Individuals often place their trust in places or people that address specific vulnerabilities or fill emotional voids, sometimes leading to misplaced trust.

• Cognitive Dissonance: When faced with contradictory evidence, people may adjust their beliefs to maintain trust in their existing relationships or ideologies, rather than admitting fault.

• Digital Trust Challenges: Online reputation systems are still evolving and often fall short in accurately representing trustworthiness, leading to issues like fake reviews and scams.

• Emotional Basis of Trust: Trust decisions are frequently driven by emotional connections and comfort levels, especially in media consumption and personal interactions.

• Guarding Against Fraud: The replication of trust signals by fraudsters makes it increasingly difficult to discern genuine trustworthiness, necessitating better societal and technological safeguards.

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Notable Quotes

• Tim Harford [04:27]: "Trust is a confident relationship with the unknown. It's much more in the space of risk and uncertainty."

• Rachel Botsman [08:20]: "About 70% of people are naturally trusting. That is their instinct to trust."

• Tim Harford [10:25]: "It was really interesting that the outcome of the experiment changed depending on how much they trusted the instructor."

• Rachel Botsman [26:38]: "Understanding the motivations behind your belief... explains misplaced trust so well."

• Tim Harford [37:14]: "My watch can tell me exactly today what my marathon time is, but many things can happen."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Cautionary Tales masterfully unpacks the complexities of trust, illustrating through stories and psychological theories how trust shapes our interactions and decisions. Harford and Botsman offer valuable insights into fostering healthy trust relationships while cautioning against its potential pitfalls in both personal and digital realms. Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own trust mechanisms and remain vigilant in an increasingly interconnected and often deceptive world.

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For More Information:
Rachel Botsman's audiobook, How to Trust and Be Trusted, is available via Pushkin FM and other audiobook retailers. Additionally, Rachel's newsletter, Rethink, can be subscribed to on Substack for ongoing insights into trust and related topics.

Transcript

[Tim Harford]

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

Right now, Oracle can cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI. Minimum financial commitment and other terms apply. Offer ends March 31st. See if your company qualifies for this Special [e-mail] strategic that's oracle.com strategic I'm.

[Rachel Botsman]

Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned spy novelist.

[Rachel Botsman]

And together we're the hosts of the Rest Is Classified, where each week we.

[David McCloskey]

Are bringing you brilliant stories from the world of espionage.

[Rachel Botsman]

We're going to have crazy characters, real spycraft and the often absurd events that fill this world.

[David McCloskey]

And this week we've got a cracking couple episodes for you with Donald Trump trying to reduce the size of the CIA and bring it under his control. We're going to take a closer look at his relationship with the agency and see how this all might shake out.

[Rachel Botsman]

And it isn't the first time that a new president has tried to exert their control over the CIA. We're going to be looking back at the so called Halloween massacre in the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter put in a new CIA director to exert control and we'll look at the legacy that that had.

[David McCloskey]

So join us on the Rest Is Classified if you want to hear how the CIA actually works and the ways in which politicians try to control it.

[Rachel Botsman]

So find the Rest Is Classified Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Unknown]

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, to trust is to believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable. As loyal listeners to cautionary tales, you will have heard countless stories of people who were not good and not honest and did do harm. People such as Ponzi scheme Fraudster Samuel Israel III, artforger Han Van Meegeren and the murderous Dr. Harold Shipman. And yet these men were trusted. Why? I've told you about people who trusted in technology when they shouldn't and those who didn't trust it when they should. Again, why? To help us get to grips with issues of trust, I am joined by my friend and fellow Pushkin voice, Rachel Botsman. Rachel lectures in trust at Oxford University and her new audiobook how to Trust and Be Trusted, is available via Pushkin FM or wherever else audiobooks are sold. Hello, Rachel.

[Tim Harford]

Hello, Tim. It's nice to see you.

[Unknown]

It's great to see you as well. So we have asked listeners to Cautionary Tales and subscribers to your newsletter rethink to get in touch for this special trust based edition of Cautionary Questions. Before we dip into the mailbag though, please tell me, why is this topic so interesting to you?

[Tim Harford]

For so many reasons, but I generally am interested in things that aren't always visible, that are quite difficult to see or complex to understand. And trust is one of those forces you can't see or touch trust, and yet you feel it and you know when it's gone. So I like topics that are very complex and ever changing and that impact so many different areas of our lives. And I guess that's very true for trust. It's hard to think of an area of our life that isn't touched by trust.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And I should say just before we started recording, you caught a glimpse of my script with that definition of trust from the Cambridge dictionary and you said, well, that's boring.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, I think it's wrong as well, to be honest.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I'm listening. Go for it.

[Tim Harford]

Well, first of all, good is a terrible word, right? Like good is so subjective. Trust is subjective. But what does good and honest mean? And something that is safe and reliable? Well, I don't like that. Cause it's making a distinction that the way you trust someone and the way you trust something, there's a distinction there which doesn't seem right in the age of intelligent technology. But also so many definitions of trust are about knowing what to expect or knowing what the outcome is. And that is not really the complexity of trust. The way I define trust is it's a confident relationship with the unknown. So trust, it's much more in the space of risk and uncertainty. And I think it's when people think, oh, I know I can trust someone because they're good and they're honest, or they're safe and reliable, that's when we make really bad decisions.

[Unknown]

Fascinating. We will get into all of this. But before the questions, you can trust Cautionary Tales. To give you this music, I'm sitting with Rachel Botsman, the author of how to Trust and Be Trusted. Rachel, you ready for some questions?

[Tim Harford]

I am. I think they're good questions.

[Unknown]

Don't reveal to everybody that you've already seen the questions. It's fine. It's fine. We're being trustworthy and transparent. Okay. This question, which is a total surprise and you have not seen before.

[Tim Harford]

I have not.

[Unknown]

She's seen the questions. Little.

[Tim Harford]

Well, they were on my newsletter, Tim, so I had to collect them.

[Unknown]

Okay. Our first question, as you very well know, is from Lee in Iowa. And Lee asks, is trust given, earned, or buried so deep in our psyche that we don't even know?

[Tim Harford]

Now, my sense is Lee kind of knows the answer to this question, but it's a very interesting question because trust is given and it's earned. And sometimes we do those things without even thinking. We just lead with our intuition. Now, the way that works can differ. You could give me your trust by saying, come on this show, and then I have to earn that trust back. So I have to show up. And if that works, we form this really nice loop. This is what we call by a trust loop. But if you give me my trust and it turns out I don't know anything about this, that is broken, what also can happen is you can give your trust to someone and they can choose not to trust you back. Just slightly different, right? So you can choose to trust a leader in your organization, and they're not ready to trust you, and that can really hurt as well. But most trust decisions, we do without even thinking about them. And that's because we couldn't function if we were always thinking about giving and earning trust. But particularly in new relationships, you want that loop to be really, really healthy.

[Unknown]

This idea that it's buried so deep in our psyche that we don't even know, Is it a very mysterious process who we trust and who we don't? Or do you think it's perfectly explicable?

[Tim Harford]

It is often led by intuition and not information. You don't always think about, why am I trusting this person? Especially when you make decisions, when you're under pressure or you really want to trust that person, then it is buried deep within us. And also, our trust relations form very early, around three or four, we develop our trust profile, which is tied to risk and safety and protection. So so much of that is environmental conditioning that is set from a really young age.

[Unknown]

So that suggests there is A type of person who is trusting or who is not trusting.

[Tim Harford]

It is so around 70% of people are naturally trusting. That is their instinct to trust. And that is a lot to do with nurture and environment versus nature.

[Unknown]

They've learned from experience that most people do deserve to be trusted.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, I can depend on you. I've got that feeling. By the time children hit primary school, if they've never felt that relationship, teachers will talk about this, right? They have children that they don't know how to trust an adult because they've never had that experience and can lead to all kinds of unraveling. And 30% of people won't give their trust until they have proof. So they hold their trust back, which is actually quite tricky to live life like that.

[Unknown]

It reminds me of the famous marshmallow test. It's a psychological experiment. These children were given a marshmallow and said, you can eat this marshmallow now, or if you don't eat the marshmallow while I go away, I'll be back in a few minutes and I'll bring you another marshmallow. And if you can wait, you get to eat two marshmallows. And some kids eat the marshmallow and some kids don't. The psychologist who led this experiment was Walter Mischel. Turns out this was predictive of success later in life. So the kids who had the willpower to hold on and wait for the second marshmallow, that was a wonderful predictor of going on to be an incredibly successful human being. There are lots of different arguments about what this really shows, but one possible interpretation I would guess is some children are told if a grown up promises to bring you a marshmallow, they are actually going to show up with a marshmallow. And others have learned from painful experience do not in fact follow through on their promises. And you might as well eat the marshmallow while you. While you can.

[Tim Harford]

And some people, they see that as an experiment in self discipline, but I see it as an experiment in trust. And you probably know this, Tim, but many people have tried to recreate that experiment and I can't remember when they did it, but someone changed who the person was that gave the instructions. This is really interesting. So a teacher, parent or a grandparent, someone that was familiar to them and a total stranger.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

And it turned out the key variable was the person giving the instructions.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

So that's because, oh, I trust you. I trust that you're going to bring in the other marshmallow versus my own self discipline. So it was really interesting that the outcome of the experiment changed depending on how much they trusted the instructor.

[Unknown]

That's fantastic. We have a question from mj, who asks, why do people continue to trust someone after finding out that they've been lied to?

[Tim Harford]

It's a very common one, both in personal relationships and professional relationships. I tell a story in the book about my parents who trusted a nanny. They hired her because she said she belonged to the Salvation army and she liked helping people. And she had a Scottish accent. And accents are very influential in how we trust. They're a signal. Long story short, she came into her house. She was wearing the uniform. She was carrying a tambourine. She lived with us for about a year before they realized she was stealing money and doing various other things. I mean, the story culminated with her stealing our car and using it as a getaway and an armed robbery. So this did not end well. Right. But the point is to the question. She lied to them so many times. And what I wanted to find out from my dad is exactly this question, like, why did you continue to trust her? And they said, well, she was actually a really good nanny. So in the context of taking care of us, it didn't matter that she was dealing drugs on the side. In the context they needed her, she was trustworthy.

[Unknown]

Was that also your experience that she was a good.

[Tim Harford]

She was like. She was actually very friendly. But the thing is, like, when I was taping my dad, he did confess, and this is a big one. It would have been inconvenient to get rid of her.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Tim Harford]

You know, she'd been in our life. She understood how everything worked. And so to find someone else felt like effort. They were really busy in their lives and they were traveling lots, and their business was in that real period of pressure. Inconvenience is a big one. But also, we don't like the uncertainty of getting rid of that person. So there is a certain certainty of placing your trust in an untrustworthy person. And I think that speaks volumes to how much as human beings, we hate the unknown.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Did your father know and decide, it's fine, okay, she might be an armed robber, but she's a good nanny and we haven't got time to find another nanny now. Or was it more a case of he was. He was in denial, just choosing to overlook or not wanting to believe the evidence that was starting to accumulate?

[Tim Harford]

I think it was a bit of both. I think they were in denial, so they didn't look harder or they didn't look further into the situation. So she once lied that her uncle had died. And then. So when her mom rang, my dad said, I'm so sorry about your brother's loss. And she was like, well, Uncle Charlie's having a cup of tea and a digestive right next to me. And he just made all these excuses for her that now when he looks back, he's like, how did we miss so much? And it wasn't until the police came to arrest him because it was our car. And then they went into her room and they realized the extent of the fraud because she'd been using his credit cards. So, yeah, I think they definitely turned a blind eye to things they just didn't want to see. And they're not stupid people and they're very good parents as well.

[Unknown]

So I wanted to ask about the relationship between wishful thinking and misplaced trust. So a couple of cautionary tales that come to my mind, both involving people who are not stupid. So one, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who famously was fooled by a teenage girl into believing that there were fairies at the bottom of her garden. Here are some photos of the fairies. And he really wanted to believe in fairies. He wanted to believe more broadly in a spiritual realm. He'd lost his son in the great influenza of 1918. He'd lost his wife, she had died quite young. He'd lost his mother. And he really missed his mother. The idea that they might still be out there somewhere was really important to him. And so he was absurdly receptive to this idea of fairies at the bottom of the garden, despite being not only a doctor, but also a semi professional photographer. That was wishful thinking. And then another example, one of our early cautionary tales involved the art forger Han Van Megeren. And he painted a Vermeer that was designed to appeal to a particular art critic who had a particular theory about Vermeer's career. There were some paintings that had never been found. So he'd speculated publicly that he thought Vermeer had painted this particular Caravaggio influenced canvas, but we'll never know because it'll never be found. And then along comes this Caravaggio influenced canvas. It was a spear phishing attack, really. Van Meegeren knew that this critic, Abraham Bredius, believed that this painting had been painted. And so he was so vulnerable to the con, even though really, objectively not convincing, but subjectively perfect. Because of the power of wishful thinking.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, for wishful thinking. I mean, as a concept, it's so interesting. Like, when I think of wishful thinking, I think of hope And I think of possibility and I think of creativity and pegging your ideas and your mind on something where you're not quite sure whether it exists. And that's where most discovery exists. You kind of have to be a wishful thinker to be creative, to be an entrepreneur, to be a scientist.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

But where it gets sad is where people play into the vulnerabilities. Think of all the hacks people fall for around their health. Like the wishful thinking around this vitamin or this drink or this thing is going make you feel better.

[Unknown]

So Maria Konnikova, who presents a Pushkin podcast, risky Business, but who's also made a study of cons, she told me she doesn't want to be the kind of person who could not be fooled by a con artist because to become that person, you also have to be a person who doesn't trust anybody at all.

[Tim Harford]

Maria's actually in the book because this point she makes that if you can't be wishful and you're not open to being conned, you're just cynical. And there's this difference between that and just being totally gullible. And I think the difference is that some people don't slow down enough to get enough of the right information to make a good decision. And that's a real problem. Like where do you go to find reliable, factual information to make a decision in a high risk situation? So most bad trust decisions are made very quickly.

[Unknown]

Interesting. Thank you, Rachel. Rachel Botsman and I will be back after the break for more question of Trust.

[Rachel Botsman]

I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned spy novelist.

[Rachel Botsman]

And together we're the hosts of the Rest Is Classified, where each week we.

[David McCloskey]

Are bringing you brilliant stories from the world of espionage.

[Rachel Botsman]

We're going to have crazy characters, real spycraft and the often absurd events that fill this world.

[David McCloskey]

And this week we've got a cracking couple episodes for you with Donald Trump trying to reduce the size of the CIA and bring it under his control. We're going to take a closer look at his relationship with the agency and see how this all might shake out.

[Rachel Botsman]

And it isn't the first time that a new president has tried to exert their control over the CIA. We're going to be looking back at the so called Halloween massacre in the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter put in a new CIA director to exert control. And and we'll look at the legacy that that had.

[David McCloskey]

So join us on the Rest IS Classified. If you want to hear how The CIA actually works and the ways in which politicians try to control it.

[Rachel Botsman]

So find the rest is classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Unknown]

We are back. You are listening to a special Q and A episode of Cautionary Tales. I am Tim Harford. I'm here in the studio with Rachel Botsman, the author of how to Trust and Be Trusted. And we're answering your questions on trust. Another question?

[Tim Harford]

Yes.

[Unknown]

Okay. Right. Andy in Connecticut writes that my whole life, people often complete strangers have been entrusting me with their secrets. They always say the same thing. I've never told anyone this. I don't know why I'm telling you. I don't probe, I don't pressure. Most of the time, we're just chatting. The thing is, they are right. They can trust me. I'm not a judgmental person, and I'm dedicated to the principle of keeping secrets. As they say in Seinfeld, it's in the vault. But his question is, how do they know that after just 15 minutes of chatting? Is there such a thing as a trust aura? I love this question. It's quite a weird question. I like it.

[Tim Harford]

I love this question, too, because, Andy, I have the same. I don't know if it's a gift or a problem because I can't tell you the stuff that people tell me, whether it's friends. But then, yeah, like total strangers on a plane. This happens to me a lot. So I'm with Andy. I don't think it's his energy and his aura, but he's probably not giving himself enough credit that it's his presence, it's the way he's listening, it's the questions that he's asked that he's genuinely curious about the other person, and that other person feels a very quick sense of confidence in them. And you have to be really careful. Because the worst thing is, you know when people say, I shouldn't tell you this because someone told me it in secret. And what goes off in my head is, well, I'm never telling you anything.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Tim Harford]

Because you've just. You've opened the vault.

[Unknown]

The relationship between trust and gossip and trust and secrets is an interesting one. If you spread a bit of gossip, on the one hand, you are clearly violating trust. You're telling a secret that you shouldn't be telling, but at the same time, you're building a sort of conspiracy with the person you're trusting with the gossip. You're trusting them not to tell other people that you were the source of the gossip.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, but I think once that Trust has been broken. Once it's broken, they told you and you're telling me, so you've kind of given me permission to tell someone else. Like you've broken the chain. But you know what's really interesting? I think secrets aren't the enemy of trust. Actually, people that you really trust should be able to keep secrets. It's deception. And I think once you actually tell someone else's secret, you've come out that space of secrecy into the place of deception. And this, this applies to leaders as well, that they should be able to have secrets. If we trust them, it's when they deceive us, that's what's really damaging to trust.

[Unknown]

Yeah. At the same time, if you tell somebody a secret and you, you, you confide in them and then you say, now you're not allowed to tell anybody else. I've heard this described by Dan Savage, the advice columnist. It's like if you're queer, you're in the closet, you tell somebody else, but they're not allowed to betray your secret either. Well, now they're in the closet with you. So in a sense, that secret is the way Dan Savage expresses it. It's a kind of a burden that you haven't halved, you've forced on them.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah. I think it's actually a really good point because a good friend or someone who's very self aware, they will ask for permission. I'd really love to share something with you. It might impact how you see so and so. Is it okay? I think sometimes we are in a culture of oversharing and we don't sometimes ask for that permission to offload that thing on the other person and therefore they can't carry it. They have to break the trust.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

I have one for you, Tim, that I think will be of interest. It's from a listener called Nega and she writes. Dear cautionary crew, I'm curious about trust within cults. I was in Montana during the heyday of the church Universal Triumphant. Their leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, famously predicted the end of the world and ordered all of her followers to take extreme measures to be prepared for it. I remember this story when it also famously felt to take place. Her followers didn't seem to lose any of their trust in her. Instead they stuck with her under the rationale that her prediction and their evasive action had in fact prevented the predicted apocalypse from taking place. How can this kind of blind trust prevail in the face of such obvious and abundant evidence to the contrary? I've wondered about this story. So I'd love for you to answer this question.

[Unknown]

Well, I'll have a go. I mean, it's really an exact replay of an earlier incident involving an end of the world cult called the Seekers, which operated in Chicago in the 1950s. And like a lot of other cults, the world's gonna end. The aliens are gonna come. They'll destroy the world. But if you believe in the message of the aliens and you act in the right way and you remove metal items, take the clips out of your bra, take the zip out of your trousers, and the aliens will preserve you, and it's all gonna happen at midnight on, I think it was December 23rd, 1953, something like this. It was a very specific date. What's interesting about that cult is a group of social psychologists had found out about them and sent some grad students to infiltrate the cult and basically be there on the day when the aliens were supposed to arrive. And it's a very famous book about this episode called When Prophecy Fails. Because, spoiler, the aliens didn't come. The world didn't end. And so we covered this story in a very early episode of Cautionary tales called Buried by the Wall Street Crash, which was mostly about great economist Irving Fisher, who predicted that stocks have reached a new and permanently high plateau. He predicted that two weeks before the Wall Street Crash began in 1929 and wiped 89% off the value of stocks and destroyed Fisher's reputation. It's all about, do you change your mind when your forecast went wrong and Fisher didn't? A lot of these cultists didn't. And the psychological theory that was promulgated was called cognitive dissonance. So the basic idea is you've got two different ideas in your head. So one is, I believed this cult leader who told me that the aliens were going to come. And the other belief is I'm a perfectly sensible human being who does not make bad choices. And then when those two beliefs are in conflict, you've got to change one of them to ease the cognitive dissonance. So which one are you going to change? Are you going to say, okay, turns out I'm an idiot, or are you going to say, actually, there's some reason, there's some excuse I'm going to make on behalf of this cult leader, and in this particular case, the people who were most committed to the cult beforehand, who you might have expected to feel most betrayed and be most angry when the prophecy failed, actually, they doubled down. So they started issuing press releases. They started phoning the Journalists previously, they hadn't been very interested in talking to the press, but at the. The very moment where the whole thing just seemed absurd, that's when they started calling the Chicago Tribune and going, hey, great news. Aliens haven't destroyed the world. And it's the same story as Nagger is relating. Because of our prayers, because of what we did, we successfully averted the apocalypse. Aren't we brilliant? That's the theory of cognitive dissonance. It's incredible. But, yeah. All I can say is Nagger's experience is this is not the first time this has happened.

[Tim Harford]

I think it's one of the most fascinating theories because it's like the wrestling of the mind. But it's really helpful to understand when it comes to trust, because so much of our lives focuses on what we believe.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

Not why we believe things.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

And understanding the motivations behind your belief. Why you need to believe something is true, why you really want to trust that person. It explains misplaced trust so well. This is also really helpful in terms of understanding other people that if you focus on what someone believes, it leads to judgment. Right. Those silly people who believe in that cult or in that politician, whatever it may be. But if you really dig deep and say, why does that person need to believe that? It's usually because of some air of vulnerability. There's usually some hole in their life that this thing or this person is trying to fill. And then you come from a place of compassion, not from judgment. They have to place their trust somewhere. They may not be placing it in the most trustworthy thing.

[Unknown]

I think another point that it's worth emphasizing is that we are all influenced by the people around us. And fundamentally, a lot of what we believe is based not on first principles, but on our trust in some authority or another. So a friend of mine believes that vaccines cause autism. She's wrong, but she believes it. I believe that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change. And I'm right. However, the reason that she believes that vaccines cause autism and that I believe that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change, the same basic reason, which is that there are people who we trust, who've told us that and they've presented us with evidence that makes sense to us, but that we're not really qualified to understand. And I believe what they believe. Not because I've read every scientific paper, not because I understand climate physics, but because that's where I've placed my trust.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Ready for another question? Yeah, let's go for it. We've got one from another, Andy. And this Andy writes that he is a massive fan of yours, Rachel. He's a man of taste. He is a fraud manager and he writes that I often find that victims of fraud are too trusting of their scammers, with some evidence suggesting that some victims get scammed multiple times. So the question what advice would you offer to encourage more trust in good fraud advice and to have less trust of the nasty little blighters who commit fraud?

[Tim Harford]

It's a really hard one to answer because I feel like the fraudsters now replicate the trust signals. So like a bank sending you a text to authorize a payment, they're using the same mechanisms for you to give your trust to the wrong person or thing. I fell for one the other day. It's like you have a parcel but someone didn't pay the whatever duty, click on this link, put in your credit card. So I did, and that was so stupid, but it's because I was doing something else and I didn't really think, well, who wouldn't pay tax and who wouldn't pay the duty? And I think it's a huge societal problem as to how we have better signals and marks to know when it's coming from a trustworthy source.

[Unknown]

So in my book how to make the World Add up the Data detective in the U.S. i argued that a lot of the mistakes we make when we're thinking about statistics that are presented to us on social media, they're basically the same mistakes we make when we're presented with any factual claim. We are rushed, we are angry or otherwise emotional. And that is very often why we believe things that we shouldn't believe because we've actually not got the headspace and the calm to really take a step back and ponder and think seriously. So the first piece of advice I give people when they're thinking about a statistical claim is search your feelings.

[Tim Harford]

Yes.

[Unknown]

Quote my all time statistical hero, Darth Vader, search your feelings. Any emotional reaction is all perfectly valid, but it's not necessarily putting you in the space to logically evaluate what's been put in front of you. And actually I think the same thing is true for that email that comes in that says, oh by the way, you've sent $399 to somebody via PayPal. If you didn't send this transaction, just click here and we'll fix it. Just slow down a moment. Is that email real? So it's giving yourself that time, it's noticing your emotional reaction.

[Tim Harford]

I think that's really good advice.

[Unknown]

Ready for another question? This is absolutely your area of expertise. I think.

[Tim Harford]

I think this is something I actually shared.

[Unknown]

Well, the meme may or may not have come from you, Rachel, but in any case, Betsy from California has sent it to us. And the meme she has sent to us says this. 1998, don't get into a car with strangers. 2005, don't meet strangers from the Internet. 2018, use Uber to summon a stranger from the Internet and get into their car. She says many transactions online and off rely on rating systems as a proxy for trust. How can we make these systems more reliable and less vulnerable to scams and fraud?

[Tim Harford]

It's a good question and Betsy is my cup of tea. This question, I mean, this is how I got into studying trust was 2006. I first started looking at how trust works in these platforms. The investors were really interested in the efficiency to match supply and demand. So you have something and I want it and we can now be matched. But the piece that no one was studying was the trust signals, the trust mechanisms. This is amazing. How are we going to trust strangers? And to Betsy's point, things that we described as hitchhiking and dangerous have now become these massive multi billion dollar platforms. That's a remarkable thing. Now the thing that is as amazing is that the trust systems or the reputation systems haven't improved that much. Yes, we have far better insurance, we have far better identity checks. So checking this person, who they are, who they say they are, we have better payment mechanisms, but the reputation system is still. Yeah, Think about ebay and the five stars that were given by Haunted Pirate. We haven't come that far. Now there are some that have got a lot better. EBME introduced the double blind system. Right. So you wouldn't just give a, a good review to get a good review. Yeah, they introduce context. So if I'm traveling with my two kids and I'm looking a place that's a completely different context than say a business traveler.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

And they just introduced very good filters and markers and categories. That meant it became less subjective.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Although from my subjective experience, no really bad experiences, but several where you get there and you're like, oh yeah, okay, I see how this looked so good on the photos, but it's kind of not that great. And then in the end you're like, do I really want to give a 3 star review? Or maybe it's just easier to click 5 stars and contribute to the problem.

[Tim Harford]

I stayed in one in Australia recently and it described itself as a remote farm getaway, but it was literally 10 minutes from the equivalent of the M25, the traffic. Right. Not really the remote farm cicadas I had in my head. And they also failed to mention that it came with a cat. Now, my friend who was staying with me is very allergic to cats and I was like, I can't leave a bad review because this person is really dependent on the income.

[Unknown]

Sounds like they should mention the cat.

[Tim Harford]

The cat and the motorway. But that feeling of guilt is wrong because you actually have a responsibility to the community to protect others.

[Unknown]

But the feeling of guilt is wrong. But it's also real.

[Tim Harford]

It's real.

[Unknown]

And that's a problem for these kind of decentralized trust platforms.

[Tim Harford]

It is. And also who's responsible for when it goes wrong? We still haven't solved that problem.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Thank you, Rachel. We are going to take a quick break and we will be back soon with more questions of trust.

[Rachel Botsman]

I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McLoskey, former CIA analyst turned spy novelist.

[Rachel Botsman]

And together we're the hosts of the Rest Is Classified, where each week we.

[David McCloskey]

Are bringing you brilliant stories from the world of espionage.

[Rachel Botsman]

We're going to have crazy characters, real spycraft and the often absurd events that fill this world.

[David McCloskey]

And this week we've got a cracking couple episodes for you with Donald Trump. Trump trying to reduce the size of the CIA and bring it under his control. We're going to take a closer look at his relationship with the agency and see how this all might shake out.

[Rachel Botsman]

And it isn't the first time that a new president has tried to exert their control over the CIA. We're going to be looking back at the so called Halloween massacre in the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter put in a new CIA director to exert control. And we'll look at the legacy that that had.

[David McCloskey]

So join us on the Rest Is Classified if you want to hear how the CIA actually works and the ways in which politicians try to control it.

[Rachel Botsman]

So find the Rest is classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Unknown]

We are back. I am sitting with Rachel Botsman and we are answering your questions. I should reveal we have been for a run together. We have.

[Tim Harford]

You are very well dressed.

[Unknown]

No one has ever accused me of being well dressed.

[Tim Harford]

I meant that you had lots of clothes on.

[Unknown]

It was a cold day and we weren't running that fast. But I wanted to ask about fitness trackers because I've become fascinated by these things, these connected watches that will measure your heartbeat. They're really just the last few years, but they're now ubiquitous. My Watch really helped me to run more and to vary my runs and so on. But I'm aware that there are certain risks that, first of all, I might not be able to trust all the data I'm getting from the watch. Second, I might not trust the data the watch is revealing about me, or third, that this training program might not be very well suited. In principle, the watch knows I'm an old man, but in practice, it doesn't seem to take that into consideration. So this idea of trusting your body to this thing on your wrist, that's what I wanted to get your reflections about.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah. So can I ask, do you feel like the watch is in control of you?

[Unknown]

Um, hmm. No, but I do care about what the watch thinks.

[Tim Harford]

I do too.

[Unknown]

I do like to sort of get enough activity. I don't really care about calories as such, but the watch's estimated calorie consumption is sort of an indicator to me of how active I've been. I kind of like to get that to a particular number and I get a bit fidgety if I haven't. And there is this absurdity, of course, if sometimes you forget to wear the watch or you forget to switch it on, and actually it doesn't matter because you're still getting the exercise, whether or not the watch is paying attention. But of course it does matter.

[Tim Harford]

I've run with people, they say, oh, this one doesn't count. But I'm like, what do you mean? And they're like, because I haven't got my watch on, I'm like, ah, it's gone a bit fast.

[Unknown]

I just talked to a sleep scientist at Oxford who did an experiment where he got people who were having trouble sleeping and gave them a sleep tracker in the morning. They were asked, well, how are you feeling? Are you feeling sharp? Are you feeling full of energy? And the same question was asked at 12 and at 3, but after they'd first given their feedback, how are you feeling? The watch would tell them, yeah, you had a terrible night's sleep or you had a brilliant night's sleep. At the end of the day, they went back to the sleep clinic and he said, okay, I'm sorry, but all of that was a lie. But what people were told by this sleep tracker in the morning governed how they felt all day. Have a good night's sleep. Your watch told you you had a bad night's sleep. You will act as though you had a bad night's sleep. It's incredible.

[Tim Harford]

It does really tie to trust, because sometimes we really trust things when we want to be in control. And so, you know, you can see like amazing indicators. And it is very rewarding. Like, if you're putting the work in seeing all these things, especially as you get older, you have to work quite hard at it. But I do think when it takes the enjoyment out of it, where you can't run without the watch. I know someone who runs with three. A whoop, a Garmin and an apple. Okay, then that is obsession. And that is like clinging onto something so tightly. And anyone that's done sport knows that. The magic thing about sport is it's a journey into the unknown. It's the ultimate trust in yourself. That's why I love long distance running, is that you don't know what's going to happen when you get over 16, 17, 18 kilometers. Like, it's so interesting where your mind goes and the watch.

[Unknown]

Oh, I do know what's going to happen at 17km. I'm going to stop.

[Tim Harford]

You're going to stop? Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I usually need the toilet round then, but that's probably too much information. But the point is, like, a lot of trust is it's a confident relationship with the unknown. Right. So my watch can tell me exactly today what my marathon time is, is. And it could be boiling hot, it could be freezing cold, my knee could blow, I could trip on a cup.

[Unknown]

What?

[Tim Harford]

So many things can happen. Like, I'm gonna be disappointed if I hold onto that time. Too much trust in fitness trackers. Bad, bad thing. And wearing three bad thing. You know, some of the insurance plans, like if you measure all these steps, that they'll give you discounts and things. But I've seen people in airports tapping their feet. Have you not seen that? They take the watch off, they put it around their ankle to keep step count. Yeah, I've seen on the train people do that. Like that. That's too much. Right? I have one last question for you, Tim. Go for this question. It caught my eye. It's from Cayenne in New York State. So, Tim, why do people trust podcasters so much, even on topics they aren't knowledgeable about?

[Unknown]

Yeah, I feel seen. I mean, it is a good question, but I think that people trust cautionary tales and they trust other podcasters because trust is often placed not on the basis of a rational assessment of expertise, but on other intuitions. So do I like this person? Do I know this person? People have me in their ears every week. They get used to my voice. I feel like someone they really know and somebody you really know is somebody you can trust. Right. So that's part of it. Or maybe I sound fluent. I have a nice accent. I don't stumble over my words. Of course I don't stumble over my words because I've got a producer cutting all the ums and the ers out or retaking if I stumble, but because I sound fluent, well, that also sounds trustworthy. And these are just proxies for actually being deserving of trust. But I think they're proxies that that work. You're the expert on trust. Does that make sense to you?

[Tim Harford]

So if you think about the way trust used to work was who that person was, what they were saying, and then lastly how they made that person feel, and that has completely been inverted. So, number one is we make most trust decisions, particularly through social media or audio content, based on feeling how that person makes you feel and then who they are and then what they say. And that's why people that make us feel comfortable. You know, there's some podcasters and it does literally feel like, oh, Kirsty Young does this. Like, if I'm stressed, I just turn. But then there's others that are funny and there's others that are salacious. But it's such an important point because people with feeling that understand that mechanism, how I make you feel is whether you're going to engage with me. They are the ones rising to the top, more so than ever before.

[Unknown]

So there we go. Thank you so much for sending in your questions and thank you so much to Rachel Botsman for answering them. Rachel, this has been a lot of fun.

[Tim Harford]

It has, yes. We've gone all over the place.

[Unknown]

So Rachel's audiobook is how to Trust and Be Trusted. It's available via Pushkin. Rachel, you also have a newsletter, remind us of the name and where people can sign up for it.

[Tim Harford]

It's called Rethink and it's on substack. And I love writing. I genuinely do.

[Unknown]

We will be back again next week with another classic episode of Cautionary Tales. In the meantime, if you have a question for us for our next episode of Cautionary Questions, please send it in. The email address is talesushkin fm. That is T A L E S pushushkin fm. Send in those questions because we do love hearing from you. Thank you for listening. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes@tim harford.com Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Ben Nadaff Haffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, Masaya Munro, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Keira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin fm.

[Gordon Carrera]

Check Engine Light On Take the guesswork out of your Check engine light with O'Reilly Veriscan. It's free. Ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today.

[Tim Harford]

Auto Parts.

[Rachel Botsman]

I'm Gordon Carrera, National Security Journalist.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turn spine novelist.

[Rachel Botsman]

And together we're the hosts of the Rest Is Classified where each week we.

[David McCloskey]

Are bringing you brilliant stories from the world of espionage.

[Rachel Botsman]

We're going to have crazy characters, real spycraft and the often absurd events that fill this world.

[David McCloskey]

And this week we've got a cracking couple episodes for you with Donald Trump trying to reduce the size of the CIA and bring it under his control. We're going to take a closer look at his relationship with the agency and see how this all might shake out.

[Rachel Botsman]

And it isn't the first time that a new president has tried to exert their control over the CIA. We're going to be looking back at the so called Halloween massacre in the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter put in a new CIA director to exert control and we'll look at the legacy that that had.

[David McCloskey]

So join us on the Rest Is Classified. If you want to hear how the CIA actually works and the ways in which politicians try to control it.

[Rachel Botsman]

So find the Rest Is Classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.