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Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

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21–30 of 114 posts

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#21
Reminds me of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality quote: "Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything."

Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apologizing for not having gotten around to the step in their world domination plans where they build a global climate-regulation system yet. Because they would if they could, they will as soon as they can, and it's only their own laziness and ignorance of proper power/wealth/intelligence-bootstrapping methods preventing them from being there already. That, in my opinion, is precisely the type of person you should trust to Get Things Done, even when those things would seem, to most people, to be currently "out of their hands."

In other words, feeling responsibility for everything around you is a necessary prerequisite for agency. You see this a lot in company owners. Why is the founder mopping the floor while everyone else is working? Because nobody else is doing it, it has to get done, and the buck stops with him. He's responsible for everything, even the weather.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#22
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to jump to conclusions as that is a glaringly obvious control and I find it hard to believe a researcher worth their salt would leave out such a control group. Does anyone have a link to the full paper? edit: grammar

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%...

Thanks. To add to your quote above, from the paper:

> In Study 2, we extend our investigation by considering alternative explanations. In Study 1, it is possible that our con- trol condition decreased benevolence-based trust. In the control condition in Study 1, the confederate sent no message. This might have seemed impolite. To investigate this alternative explanation, we include two different comparison conditions in Study 2. We include a traditional apology (‘‘I’m sorry to interrupt.’’) and neutral greeting (‘‘How are you?’’).

> In addition, we extend our investigation by exploring superfluous apologies in a new domain. In Study 1, both the unfortunate circumstance (the random action of the computer) and the outcome (behavioral measure of trust) were related to the trust game. In Study 2, the apology (for a flight delay) is unrelated to our measure of trust (lending a cell phone). We expect that an apology for a flight delay will increase trust even when the subsequent interaction is unrelated to the flight.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what I thought when I read the article. I'm not quite sure how that was missed during the design of the experiment.

Unfortunately in many disciplines, bold conclusions are favored over careful interpretation.

Bold conclusions are more interesting, hence they hit hacker news more often.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#24
post #11

Although the study is flawed as pointed out by the author itself, it's good to see such studies and results coming out of a good test base rather than mere spewing of opinions as seen in many articles lately. Even if there is a minute chance that this study exhibits anything concrete, it can't hurt to apologize to expect a positive outcome.

It can hurt to apologize just in case. Maybe not in the case of strangers, but if you do it repeatedly with acquaintances, they could hypothetically start hearing all of your apologies as fake, even the sincere ones.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#25
post #3

This makes a lot of sense to me - it's not even because the apology is logical, but because it's a gesture that shows the speaker is thinking of the other's welfare. There's a rule I have followed for many years when doing customer service - if the person is upset, apologize. It doesn't matter if you can't give them what they're asking for, or if they made a silly mistake. Just - make them feel better, then do what y…

I agree with you completely regarding computer support and customer service - put your hands up and apologise to the customer/client for whatever the hold-up/mistake/bug is, then to get on with the matter in hand and fix things. However, management types can discourage you from doing this as it is an acceptance that there is some liability for whatever it is that has gone wrong. There is a fear of unintended conseque…

There are words that show empathy for the other person, but without putting yourself at risk of accepting liability. They can sound a bit mechanical sometimes, and reading from a script isn't much good.

Just letting someone know that you understand that they're stressed and annoyed or frustrated, and that you'll try to help them makes a big difference. At least, it does when people do it with me.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#26
What instead of apologising for the rain, the apologized for the annoyance, "I'm sorry for bothering you, Can I please borrow your phone?" They should have tried that instead. If a stranger comes up to me and just says, "Can I borrow your phone?" without a preceding Excuse Me or Please, they will not get it, except if they are completely in distress.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#27

I had heard people say this about Reagan. He took accountability for things that were arguably out of his control, and people later didn't blame him for things that were. To me the lesson is accepting blame for a problem doesn't just take "Whose fault is this?" off of the table, but it increases the trust in finding a solution.

Yes, the act of making an apology will be perceived as implying that the speaker is more than willing to help improve the situation, regardless of how we got there, thus what you said.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#28
I can't help but wonder about their attire.

consider for a moment your reaction to a person in a suite and tie who asked to borrow your phone. I posit that you would be more likely to agree and hand over your phone if the person is in a suit and tie compared to someone who you thought didn't look as well off.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#29
post #11

Although the study is flawed as pointed out by the author itself, it's good to see such studies and results coming out of a good test base rather than mere spewing of opinions as seen in many articles lately. Even if there is a minute chance that this study exhibits anything concrete, it can't hurt to apologize to expect a positive outcome.

It can hurt to apologize just in case. Maybe not in the case of strangers, but if you do it repeatedly with acquaintances, they could hypothetically start hearing all of your apologies as fake, even the sincere ones.

True, if it's a knee-jerk action.

If you get in the habit of empathizing with the people around you, though, and you do it well, that will continue to be valuable.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#30
Coupled with the many recent articles highlighting the unreliability of studies like this, I'd say this research is worth exactly squat. Example questions for practicing skeptics: The actor either (a) asked for a phone or (b) apologized for the rain, then asked for a phone. Could it be that the study simply demonstrates that saying some other pleasant thing before asking for something makes the request more effective? Must it be an apology? Must it be about something the person has no control over?
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