Loading summary
Transcript89 lines
- [00:00]
Phil Agnew
In spring 2022, the British Prime Minister was fined by the police.
- [00:05]
Boris Johnson
Today I've received a fixed penalty notice from the Metropolitan Police relating to an event in Downing street on 19 June.
- [00:13]
Phil Agnew
This scandal broke the British government.
- [00:16]
Michael Hallsworth
This was a scandal where then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and various members of the government were shown to be having parties or gatherings during COVID I can.
- [00:28]
Boris Johnson
Understand how infuriating it must be to think the people who have been setting the rules have not been following the rules.
- [00:36]
Independent Report Narrator
But one of the people who was setting the rules and not following them.
- [00:39]
Michael Hallsworth
Was the Prime Minister during lockdown when they had introduced a load of rules saying that people couldn't do these exact things that they were doing.
- [00:48]
Independent Report Narrator
And Downing street shared a police statement issued to Mr. Johnson in which he's told on 19 June 2020, at the Cabinet Room, 10 Downing street, between 1400 and 1500, he participated in a gathering of two or more people indoors.
- [01:01]
Michael Hallsworth
And the reason I talk about it is it shows the power of hypocrisy. It actually brought down the Prime Minister.
- [01:08]
Boris Johnson
I understand the anger that many will feel that I myself fell short when it came to observing the very rules which the government I lead had introduced to protect the public.
- [01:20]
Michael Hallsworth
Various people think it's this concept of him not practicing what he preached that led to his downfall a few months later.
- [01:30]
Independent Report Narrator
Nor was it true. When Mr. Johnson said this on 7.
- [01:32]
Boris Johnson
December, the guidelines were followed at all times.
- [01:36]
Michael Hallsworth
It really got to people because it felt like the government or the people announcing the rules had got credit for seeming like they were following them when they weren't. People thought the sacrifices that they had made, the things that were very painful that they couldn't do, and they felt kind of cheated because it was not like a fair exchange. The rules were not being applied equally. We lost my dad in the first lockdown, two years today, actually, to find.
- [02:02]
Phil Agnew
Out that they implemented these rules and.
- [02:05]
Michael Hallsworth
Then they broke them.
- [02:06]
Phil Agnew
My dad died in hospital on his own.
- [02:09]
Michael Hallsworth
Maybe there's an element of contempt as well. Yeah, it's not only breaking the law, it's lies, hypocrisy. And it's just the latest in the series of things that we've been seeing over the last few years of Boris Johnson. And the reason I mention it as well is I think it's had a kind of an afterlife. It's kind of broken some trust that in an enduring way. So to give you an example, I read a newspaper article in the UK literally a week ago where it was asking, you know, do the public care about climate change as much as they used to. And one person says without being prompted, oh, yeah, to me it's feels just a bit like Covid.
- [02:48]
Phil Agnew
Why is anyone going to trust the British Prime Minister and his team if that's what they did last time?
- [02:52]
Michael Hallsworth
It set a dangerous precedent, hasn't it? You know, maybe the government's going around on private jets and telling us we all have to make changes to our lives. And so I really wanted to sort of dive into what is going on here in this concept, which is so prevalent in our lives, makes us so angry and yet we know sometimes we're all kind of hypocrites, sometimes we can't be completely consistent. It turns out that in the last 10 years, our understanding of hypocrisy really has moved on a lot as a whole new set of research, which I talk about in the book.
- [03:23]
Phil Agnew
Today on Nudge, we'll talk through the psychology of hypocrisy and why it makes people so angry. Apparently most businesses only use 20% of their data. That's like reading a book with 80% of the pages torn out. The point is you will miss a lot unless you you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights that are trapped in emails, in call logs, in transcripts, all that unstructured data can really make a difference to your business because when you know more, you grow more. You won't learn much reading 20% of a book. So why settle for just 20% of your company's data? Visit HubSpot.com today to learn more. Today I'm talking with the chief Behavioural scientist at the Behavioural Insights Team.
- [04:14]
Michael Hallsworth
My name is Michael Hallsworth. I'm the chief Behavioural Scientist at the Behavioural Insights Team and I have a few academic positions, most recently at the University of Pennsylvania.
- [04:23]
Phil Agnew
Michael has just published the Hypocrisy Trap, a book which details why hypocrisy makes us so mad.
- [04:30]
Michael Hallsworth
The book actually opens with a scene with my daughter and it's around Christmas time. We've just said she can't have my More Christmas cake Christmas pudding. She goes away and then comes back finding the grownups eating Christmas pudding almost straight away after she's left the room and she said, you're like the Prime Minister having parties when he said other people couldn't have parties. And that became the opening because it made me realize how intuitive the concept of hypocrisy is and how we can easily identify in our Everyday lives, people.
- [05:04]
Phil Agnew
Are very quick to spot hypocrites. One 2019 study by Clark and Laurent shared the following story with a group of participants. Imagine a woman who thinks meat eating might be wrong, but she's not really sure how she feels. Later that week, she eats a beef burger. Is this person a hypocrite? Well, when participants were told this story, they rated that person as moderately hypocritical, even though the woman only said she might think eating meat is wrong. So we spot hypocrites everywhere. But Michael says this urge to label someone a hypocrite might be a trap.
- [05:42]
Michael Hallsworth
The real trap is when our criticisms of hypocrisy run out of control. You know, some calling out is kind of healthy and it protects shared standards, but also some letting go of inconsistency is healthy as well. Because, you know, real life involves trade offs, involves being imperfect. Being human involves being inconsistent. Sometimes if we try to push too much for complete consistency, complete purity, we end up demanding a rigid, inhuman consistency that few people or organizations can really meet, least of all us. Actually.
- [06:16]
Phil Agnew
In his book, Michael points out that we see these hypocrites everywhere. In fact, you don't even need to give an opinion to be seen as hypocritical. Others can see it in just your actions. For example, nearly half the respondents in one 2013 study thought it was hypocritical for a man to rent an adult film and then later that same day help at a church bake sale.
- [06:37]
Michael Hallsworth
The trap is when we don't, we kind of push our criticisms too far and we either end up in a world where there's no ability to be inconsistent or we end up in a world where no one cares.
- [06:51]
Phil Agnew
Hypocrisy can also harm your business. In his book, Michael shares a study on pollution. When people read about a company that polluted a lake with toxic waste, they recommended more damages and more jail time for the executives of that company if they heard that the company had previously made commitments about the environment, positive commitments about trying to be sustainable. The perceived corporate hypocrisy made them more angry and more willing to issue punishments. And Michael says this is partly because people just really enjoy taking down hypocrites.
- [07:23]
Michael Hallsworth
Why is hypocrisy apparently everywhere? The reason is because we. We see it everywhere. Why do we see it everywhere? Because we enjoy taking down hypocrites. When a hypocrite is exposed, it really creates some schadenfreude in us, you know, our enjoyment in other people's misfortune. And more than that, experiments show that it's the degree of match between what you criticize and what you're exposed as doing. We feel more pleasure if it's exactly the same thing that you're exposed to be doing that you criticised.
- [07:59]
Phil Agnew
So we'll feel more pleasure taking down a politician who, as an example, maybe campaigned against animal testing. If we later learn that that politician perhaps once kicked a dog, we feel.
- [08:10]
Michael Hallsworth
Like poetic justice is being served. There's a kind of symmetry here. There's a symmetry in being condemned for the exact thing you condemned in others. We find that pleasant. So one study showed people scenarios about a student who was on this kind of student court that was there to punish plagiarism.
- [08:27]
Phil Agnew
This 2012 study showed participants information about two students, one who simply belonged to a social club and another who served on a student court that punished plagiarism and often moralised about it.
- [08:41]
Michael Hallsworth
When that student was later caught plagiarising, people felt a lot more pleasure than if the student had been caught for a different offence like stealing. The two things are kind of both bad, but it's the match between having criticized and then being exposed for the exact same thing makes us feel good.
- [09:01]
Boris Johnson
All guidance was followed completely during number 10.
- [09:05]
Michael Hallsworth
So why does this happen? One big driver of our criticism of hypocrisy is about social status. So we're constantly comparing ourselves to others to figure out our place in the social pecking order. And so when someone makes the kind of claim that they are skilled, although virtuous, or they're superior in some ways.
- [09:23]
Boris Johnson
The guidelines were followed at all times.
- [09:25]
Michael Hallsworth
Did you investigate that yourself? Have you satisfied yourself?
- [09:28]
Boris Johnson
That I satisfied myself that the guidelines were followed at all times, it makes.
- [09:33]
Michael Hallsworth
Us feel inferior in turn, and we don't like that. But when we expose that person as a hypocrite that actually they weren't that.
- [09:39]
Boris Johnson
Good, really, I once again offer a full apology.
- [09:44]
Michael Hallsworth
That turns the tables. You know, their social status falls down and we kind of rise to become the justified accusers. And that makes us feel good.
- [09:54]
Phil Agnew
Calling someone out as a hypocrite is satisfying because it reduces their social standing and raises our own. As a Brit who spent lockdown inside with just my partner, there's a strange glee I feel in hearing the former Prime Minister say I understand the anger.
- [10:10]
Boris Johnson
That many will feel that I myself fell short when it came to observing the very rules which the government I lead had introduced.
- [10:20]
Phil Agnew
That's why Partygate was such a massive scandal. It was a clear example of hypocrisy A high status individual telling people to do one thing, but then acting very differently himself. And yet hypocrisy is actually quite a bit more complex than just this. It is not just black and white, because Michael says that in some scenarios, we actually prefer hypocrites.
- [10:41]
Michael Hallsworth
So there is a study around the founder of the Ashley Madison website, which was created to enable people to have extramarital affairs. The founder of that was like very open in terms of saying it's great to have an affair. And then study was asking people, well, what if it turns out that in his private life he's completely faithful?
- [11:02]
Phil Agnew
The researchers showed one group of people an article about the founder that simply mentioned that he had promoted adultery. A separate group of people saw that same article, but with additional information that shared that it had been discovered that the founder was personally faithful in private.
- [11:18]
Michael Hallsworth
People who care about this rate the founder as much more hypocritical. But, and this is the interesting thing, they also saw him in a much more positive and praiseworthy light.
- [11:27]
Phil Agnew
The study proved that discovering hypocrisy won't always move judgments in a negative direction. Sometimes a hypocrite can benefit from an action if that creates hypocrisy that people think is admirable on its own terms.
- [11:42]
Michael Hallsworth
That inconsistency between a claim and the reality is what causes the problem. And sometimes it actually makes us see people in a more positive light. We can find hypocrites more relatable. Sometimes not practicing what you preach can in some instances make that preaching more effective. So there are examples where overweight people who are concerned about their weight, they're actually more likely to avoid kind of fitness focused doctors because they worry about being judged. So, you know, a sedentary doctor might be sort of hypocritical. They're giving advice, maybe they don't always follow it. But they can also be more relatable about the struggle to be healthy.
- [12:23]
Phil Agnew
An overweight doctor might look hypocritical if they give health advice, but that advice might be more persuasive for other overweight patients.
- [12:31]
Michael Hallsworth
Sometimes we actually give people credit for their principles, even though they break them. So there's a slightly depressing study that showed that it may actually pay off to be a politician who states strong moral principles but then violates them. The study showed that if you have a politician who says things like, you know, sometimes lying is okay, and then you find out they told a lie about their campaign finances, people see them as less hypocritical, but actually Overall, they seem worse than a politician who said it's never okay to lie and then was exposed as a liar, which is.
- [13:09]
Phil Agnew
Probably why politicians do this all the time. For example, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this.
- [13:14]
Boris Johnson
I am here to say to you, hand on heart, that I did not lie to the House.
- [13:20]
Phil Agnew
And yet years earlier, he said this to the House of Commons.
- [13:24]
Boris Johnson
I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party.
- [13:31]
Phil Agnew
Now, that comment was almost certainly a lie. An independent report investigating the scandal concluded.
- [13:37]
Independent Report Narrator
So there was a party. Sughre notes the event was crowded and noisy, such that some people working elsewhere in the number 10 building that evening heard significant levels of noise. A cleaner who attended the room the next morning noted that there had been red wine spilled on one wall.
- [13:52]
Phil Agnew
But Michael makes the point that politicians are almost incentivised to be dishonest like this, because studies show that claiming you have grapefruit principles, even if you don't, is better than being truthful.
- [14:04]
Michael Hallsworth
Because people kind of like the strong statement of principle up front. And yes, you take a hit if it's exposed that you then say told a lie after saying that lying is never okay, but you take less of a hit than someone who says sometimes lying is okay and then is found to be lying about something. That second position is less hypocritical. But people don't like the idea of being flexible in your principles. They would often rather you to have some principles and then violate them than sort of be the kind of person who you're not sure what they stand for, but then at least they're not hypocritical.
- [14:47]
Phil Agnew
It's an interesting study. It suggests that breaking your principles is better than sticking to your principles at all times.
- [14:54]
Michael Hallsworth
There are some reasonable hypocrites, we think, we know that life involves compromises. It may be unrealistic or even inhuman to avoid hypocrisy. If you have a situation where someone's a vegetarian but they go and see their grandmother who's prepared this treasured kind of meat stew, and they kind of sort of pick at it and politely praise it and say it's good to avoid upsetting her, well, only about 30% of people think that's hypocritical. We see it as a reasonable compromise because otherwise you're causing more pain and sort of harm by being this very rigid and upright person who does the right thing.
- [15:31]
Phil Agnew
In fact, Michael states that people with fewer principles might actually be more persuasive.
- [15:35]
Michael Hallsworth
This relates to real world issues as well. If you think about climate change. Again, there's some evidence that people are less convinced by ultra consistent climate advocates. So, you know, if you are the kind of person who does absolutely everything right and you try and convince someone to be more environmentally sustainable, we actually find that a bit less convincing than someone who, who kind of makes a few compromises in their lives, does broadly speaking, more climate friendly things. Because we find that a really consistent person unrelatable. And also they kind of make us feel bad.
- [16:11]
Phil Agnew
We dislike hypocrites. That is why Partygate made voters so angry. However, what I just said, it's a blanket statement that doesn't cover the full picture because sometimes we do prefer people who are a little bit less principled. And this is all because hypocrisy is linked to status. And after the break, Michael will share a study that reveals why people make hypocritical comments in the first place. All that coming up. Inclusion and Marketing, hosted by Sonja Thompson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals. Inclusion and Marketing digs into the important topics like belonging and customer experience and helping you practice inclusive marketing authentically. Sonja's most recent episode is on Buyer Personas, and I think it's a very good one to get started with. So go and listen to Inclusion and Marketing wherever you get your podcasts to. Check it out. Hello and welcome back. You are listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. Now, in his book, Michael shared a study which documents what happens when someone makes a hypocritical comment to increase their status.
- [17:16]
Michael Hallsworth
So the way the study talks about it is that a false signal is about sending information about yourself. That is not true. And the idea is that hypocrites do this to gain a social status that they don't deserve.
- [17:30]
Phil Agnew
People really hate this. If I started to lecture all of you about how important it is to stop flying to reduce your carbon emissions, I would gain a bit of social status. You'd think, oh, Phil really cares about the environment. Fair enough. But then if you learn that I'd say, taken 50 transatlantic flights in the last year, you'd probably be livid. That's because I'd gained social status that I didn't deserve.
- [17:55]
Michael Hallsworth
So in this study, they give the example of someone called Becky who downloads music illegally. They find that if Becky first condemns illegal downloading as morally wrong and then does it, people judge her really harshly. That's classic kind of hypocrisy, giving a false signal. You're signaling that you're the kind of person who, who wouldn't do this, but actually you do it. What's really interesting is in the other scenarios, they kind of removed this false signal. So they have the version where Becky condemns the practice of illegal downloading, but then says, but sometimes I do it anyway.
- [18:32]
Phil Agnew
This is what Michael calls honest hypocrisy. There's no false signal here, so people don't judge Becky as harshly.
- [18:39]
Michael Hallsworth
When people saw that version of Becky, they judged her no more harshly than if she said nothing at all. So taking away that deceptive false signal removes the penalty.
- [18:48]
Phil Agnew
These false signals are what makes hypocrisy different from simple outright lying.
- [18:53]
Michael Hallsworth
I say in the book, hypocrisy is different from lying because it's about the degree of consistency that you're signalling. So lying might be something like, did you steal that newspaper? No. Supposedly you actually did. You're just lying there. Whereas if you increase the signal about consistency, so what would you do in other situations, it becomes more hypocritical. So if you say something like, no, I didn't steal that newspaper, I would never do something like that. That kind of theft is really wrong.
- [19:26]
Phil Agnew
Michael summed this up pretty neatly.
- [19:28]
Michael Hallsworth
We judge people more harshly if they preach something and then don't do it, versus if they don't do it and then preach about it.
- [19:38]
Phil Agnew
And when companies do this, we get really mad.
- [19:42]
Michael Hallsworth
So a real world example is around Volkswagen. In the early 2000 and tens, Volkswagen was proactively promoting its environmental record. It was very much promoting its environmentally conscious business practices. On our way to zero. On our way to becoming the most desirable brand for sustainable mobility.
- [20:03]
Phil Agnew
On our way to the future.
- [20:06]
Michael Hallsworth
It actually won an Award in 2015 about the most sustainable car company by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. And just a few months later, people may remember this scandal.
- [20:17]
Boris Johnson
The world's biggest car manufacturer, and maybe the biggest ever corporate scandal.
- [20:22]
Michael Hallsworth
The company had been using what was called defeat devices to cheat on emissions tests.
- [20:28]
Independent Report Narrator
Nitrogen dioxide causes asthma, it causes strokes, it causes birth abnormalities. And Volkswagen took a decision to fit technology and software to their vehicle, knowing that their cars would produce much more, in the case of the US, 40 times more pollution than they were allowed to.
- [20:46]
Michael Hallsworth
So their cars were more polluting than they were claiming. The company took a big hit. It ended up paying billions of euros in fines. What was particularly bad was the way that they preached about it, made a big deal of the environmental status, and then when it was revealed that they'd been doing something very contradictory to it, it seemed like a profound and deliberate deception.
- [21:11]
Phil Agnew
And this order matters. It matters that Volkswagen had first said it was committed to sustainable practices and then lied about it. It's the order that's important and there are studies to prove it.
- [21:24]
Michael Hallsworth
So one study created this kind of fictional electronics store called powermart. People were either shown an email newsletter from powermart that was boasting about how it recycled its excess packaging, and then they saw a news report about how the company had been caught illegally dumping that packaging. The other people were shown it the other way around. They were shown the evidence about illegal dumping and then the email newsletter about recycling excess packaging. And when you see the good news before the bad news, you see it as much more hypocritical.
- [21:58]
Phil Agnew
This 2009 study by Wagner proved that the order mattered.
- [22:02]
Michael Hallsworth
Because we kind of interpret that preaching, the later preaching, as a sign of change, of someone turning over a new leaf. We think we might trust them. They'll be different in the future. But when the preaching comes first, it just looks like you might be doing it for other reasons. You're doing it, you're being insincere. It's a kind of a false front and you always intended to renege on it later.
- [22:25]
Phil Agnew
The Partygate scandal made voters so mad. Because voters had been told not to party. The government explicitly told people that all gatherings of more than two people in public were banned except for members of the same household. The government then fined 117,000 people who breached these rules, and yet the government broke those rules themselves. This hypocrisy made voters incredibly angry.
- [22:49]
Michael Hallsworth
Preaching and then not practising is seen as a lot worse than not practising and then preaching.
- [22:55]
Phil Agnew
If the government hadn't been so strict about the rules, then perhaps people wouldn't have minded so much. And maybe Boris Johnson would have stayed on as Prime Minister. Because if there's one label you really don't want as a politician, it's being labelled as a hypocrite. That's all we have time for today, folks. Thank you so much for listening. If you have enjoyed today's episode, I think you'll love Michael's book, the Hypocrisy Trap. In the book, Michael goes into a lot more detail about why labelling someone as a hypocrite can actually be a trap. He explains how unnatural tendency to lower the status of hypocrites is actually causing wider damage. It's a really great read. It gets into a lot more detail than we had time for today. So if you've enjoyed any of the comments or thoughts or stories from today, I do suggest you go and pick up a copy. I've left a link to it in the show notes. Or you can just search for the Hypocrisy Trap wherever you get your books. If you want more nudge between now and the next episode, then I recommend you go check out our YouTube channel. On there we make unique videos all about behavioural science. We've got videos about the three to four hour rule, the trick goalkeepers use to save more penalties, and some full length interviews with Rory Sutherland and others. If you want to watch those videos, just search for nudge podcast on YouTube. That is nudge podcast on YouTube. Or there's a link to our YouTube in the show notes. That is all from me folks. I've been your host, Phil Agnew, and I'll be back next Monday for another episode of Notch. Cheers.