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Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

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

#71

Post by smsm42 »

I wouldn't even classify "sorry for the rain" as an apology. I'd understand it as "I understand you have just suffered an inconvenience, and I express my sad feeling about that fact, thus showing that your feelings have an importance for me and you possess a status of an important person in my eyes". That is not the same as taking responsibility for the fact that it rains, which apology presumes. English is not my native language, but as far as I understand from many years using it as a communication medium, "I am sorry" is used in the former sense (expressing sympathy) at least as frequent, if not more frequent, than in the latter (apology: a written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another).

Of course, if you express the sympathy and show that the other person is important to you, people tend to reciprocate. I would be surprised if it didn't happen. However, if somebody really meant it in the sense that he feels genuine remorse or regret for the rain, I'd not trust such person - obviously I'm dealing with a dangerously delusional person that thinks he's either controlling the weather or should be. I'd suggest him to find a good mental health provider.

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

#72

Post by pbhjpbhj »

impendia wrote: post #41

I have observed this behavior very often in others. For example, recently I showed up to a yoga class, and there was construction going on the street outside, so that it was mildly inconvenient to get to the parking lot. The yoga instructor apologized profusely for the inconvenience. I didn't understand why I'd want to be apologized to for this: not only was it outside her control, but the inconvenience was trivial.…

It's just a way of demonstrating that as your host for the event they are concerned about your wellbeing and comfort.

That said I usually respond to such statements with "don't worry it's not your fault". Reflecting that seems a bit strange too.

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

#73

Post by smsm42 »

tedks wrote: post #12
nimble wrote: post #4

Shouldn't the control group have had a non-apology comment about the weather or something? Instead of comparing, "Sorry for the weather. May I use your phone?" to "May I use your phone?", it would seem much preferable to compare it to "Lousy weather we've been having. May I use your phone?"

From the paper: """ When they meet the seller, the seller greets them in one of the following three ways: ‘‘Hi there. Oh, I’m so sorry it’s raining.’’ (superfluous apology), ‘‘Hi there. Oh, it’s raining.’’ (acknowledgment), or ‘‘Hi there.’’ (neutral) """

They should have tried "I apologize for the rain" and counted how many times the answer would be "Oh, so you are God Almighty? Nice to finally meet you in person".

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

#74

Post by Falling3 »

ultimatedelman wrote: post #62
surement wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's flawed about the study?

if you read the article all the way through, at the end they mention the study was flawed because of the lack of a control

I said the same thing, but it appears that the article is actually flawed... The paper for the study defines the control groups.

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

#75

Post by derefr »

smsm42 wrote: post #70
derefr wrote: post #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 apolo…

For me that's the most irritating feature of hpmor's protagonist. I understand that's probably intentional - so it's working. I wouldn't really trust more a person that claims exclusive agency - I'd probably trust him much less as if he doesn't respect me enough to assign me agency - how can I be sure he respects me enough to not violate my trust? You don't feel to bad if you make a promise to an NPC character in a v…

I think it's not so much that HPMoR!Harry claims exclusive agency, as that the plot has railroaded him away from any of the setting's other agent-y characters (or, at least, agent-y characters with compatible-enough-to-engage-in-trade utility functions; HPMoR!Quirrelmort is more of an agent-y Other-Optimizer.)

HPMoR!Lucius Malfoy is pretty agent-y, for example, but Harry doesn't get to talk to him much. When he did in the last chapter, the results were exactly what you'd expect from rationalists collaborating -- a sudden acceleration in both parties' world-taking-over plans.

(Though, obviously, "taking the world on your shoulders because you think you can't rely on your friends" is also a standard bildungsroman protagonist trope.)

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

DanBC wrote: post #20

I find it weird when they use percentages for groups that are smaller than 100. 9% of a group of 32 people makes it feel like 2 people and a torso handed over their phone without the rain apology. (I'm aware this is my poor math skill, and it's something I'm working on.) I don't know if the sub has been edited, but it mentions lack of controls: > How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from severa…

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

tempestn wrote: post #67
bcoates wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but "any kind of icebreaker" is a superset of "superfluous apology". It's a hypothetical extension of the result, not a flaw in the study. Saying there was no proper control condition is flat wrong. There is a control in the study that would falsify the hypothesis that they were testing.

No, there isn't. The hypothesis they were testing was whether a superfluous apology would increase the likelihood of strangers behaving in the desired manner. All they proved is that making a lead-in comment had this effect. We have no way of knowing whether it was because the lead-in comment was an apology, or if a broader range of comments would have had the same effect.

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by ledge »

Falling3 wrote: post #55
yannk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last paragraph states: "How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper cont…

That's just not sufficient. I didn't even make it to the last paragraph and many readers won't make it past the headline. Up until that paragraph, the author seems to be building us up towards accepting the results. Why bother writing an article on such a flawed study?

For the sake of linkbait, surely.

Blog author even calls this study "the most compelling evidence", only to correctly recognize that it's total shit in the final paragraph.

I'm all for writing an article on a bad study (sort of like a bad album review), but the opinion of the author should be clear from the outset.

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

#80

Post by ledge »

consonants wrote: post #22
tedks wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So in Study 2, they do seem to include a non-superfluous apology.

Study 4 (the one about the rain, and the topic of the blog post) doesn't have the same controls. Why? I find this pretty odd.

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