Tag Archives: Hypocrisy

Hypocritical Flattery

By Robin Hanson · May 2, 2012 8:30 pm · Comments (12)

Humans usually have a social norm against flattery. Yes we flatter each other, and often, but we usually flatter indirectly. So just how big of a fig leaf does it take to hide flattery? Consider item #1 from a post on “the seven techniques for ingratiation and influence that are most effective in moving up the corporate ladder without looking like a kiss-ass”:

Frame flattery as likely to make the boss uncomfortable. …one manager whom we interviewed noted that he commonly prefaces flattering remarks with such phrases as “I don’t want to embarrass you but. . . ,” or “I know you won’t want me to say this but. . . ,” or “You’re going to hate me for saying this but.” (more)

Note that this approach makes the praise seem no less glowing, and it offers little reason for observers to less suspect the praise was designed to gain favor. So how could flattery without this addition be unacceptable, yet flattery without this addition be acceptable?

This example suggests that the key social norm is that you should not encourage others to flatter you. While there is a weak norm against praising others to gain their favor, the stronger norm is against your explicitly rewarding others for praising you. So by directly claiming that someone is not encouraging you to praise them, you declare them innocent of violating the key social norm against encouraging flattery from others.

Of course it is hard to see why anyone should take your mere claim that they do not encourage flattery as much evidence for this conclusion. After all, they are still a boss, you could still gain by flattering them, and your claim that they do not encourage flattery is itself additional flattery!

Yet I’ll bet it does work. Which just goes to show that human social norms have a limited scope. We can only manage to express, learn, and enforce a limited number of social norms, while the social behavior that our norms must police are vast and vary widely. As a result, while our norms appear on the surface to discourage flattery, in fact they just move it a level or two away from the norms.

While this does little to actually discourage flattery, or bosses from encouraging flattery, it does greatly reward those who are smart enough to see how to flatter just outside the scope of the usual rules. Hypocritical social norms reward intelligence. Which is why, according to my story, humans have huge brains.

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On Moral Hypocrisy

By Robin Hanson · April 3, 2012 11:00 am · Comments (14)

A short review of types of moral hypocrisy:

Although individuals might easily recall worthy behavior, unethical incidents might “disappear” from their memory. … Even when people recognize their ethical inconsistencies, there are various ways to redefine unethical behavior as morally acceptable or at least as not entirely unethical. For example, participants can interpret not cheating to the maximum extent as maintaining ethicality or as resisting obvious temptations. … They can reframe taking a newspaper without paying the full price as paying something despite the absence of external enforcement measures. … People may justify their actions by reference to norms (“everyone is doing it”), to external pressures (“if I do not do it, I’ll be fired”), or to altruism and a greater cause (“this is what it takes to ensure people do not lose their jobs”). Other factors attenuating perceived unethical behavior include lack of intent, lack of clear harm, or absence of a concrete victim. … redefinitions, reinterpretations, and justifications allow one’s own small deviations from ethical standards to go unnoticed and give way to gradual relaxation of one’s ethical code and moral criteria.

That is from a paper focused on one particular type: Continue reading "On Moral Hypocrisy" »

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Police Dominate

By Robin Hanson · March 10, 2012 3:20 pm · Comments (20)

Human language let foragers express and enforce social norms. Their most important norm was to resist domination – leaders should only advise, and not give orders. Farmers tolerated violations, at least by socially distant upper classes. But as industry’s wealth weakened the fear that kept farmers in line, we turned to democracy to reaffirm our anti-domination norm.

Except we are hypocrites – we have always accepted domination, and pretended otherwise. This can be seen in how we relate to city police. Citizens pretend they control police, by electing mayors etc., and using laws to constrain their behavior. But citizens don’t notice or care that police are put mostly in charge of measuring their own performance, and of policing their own cheating. The predictable result is that police cheat and mis-measure their performance, and stand free to punish those who challenge them.

Pretty much no one runs for mayor or city council on a platform of having independent organizations measure or police the police. Which tells you that few expect voters to support such changes. Which tells you that most folks know they are being dominated by police who can cheat with impunity, and (as voters) prefer that situation to imagined alternatives.

If you doubt me, just review the latest NYPD news: Continue reading "Police Dominate" »

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Elites Excel At Hypocrisy

By Robin Hanson · March 1, 2012 11:05 am · Comments (33)

A few days ago Tyler blogged a study dissing elites:

Upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies, take valued goods from others, lie in a negotiation, [and] cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize. (more)

While Tyler had doubts, I’d guess this is mostly true. I’m reminded of Freakonomics on “What the Bagel Man Saw”:

The same people who routinely steal more than percent of his [honor system paid] bagels almost never stoop to stealing his money box. … Telecom companies have robbed him blind, and … law firms aren’t worth the trouble. … Employees further up the corporate ladder cheat more than those down below. He reached this conclusion in part after delivering for years to one company spread out over three floors — an executive floor on top and two lower floors with sales, service and administrative employees. … ”I had idly assumed that in places where security clearance was required for an individual to have a job, the employees would be more honest than elsewhere. That hasn’t turned out to be true.” (more)

I’m also reminded of Charles Murray’s wish that on marriage, hard work, religion, and (caught) crime, elites would more “preach what they practice.” At least by the usual reading, elites are more moral on these key choices.

My interpretation: elites excel at hypocrisy. Elites can better distinguish ideals which are mainly given lip service, from ideals that really matter personally. Elites can better see which laws and social norms are actually enforced with strong penalties, and those that can be violated with impunity. This ability comes in part from implicit cultural learning, and also from just raw IQ. Homo hypocritus is alive and well – having good enough brains and social connections to manage hypocrisy well is still a core human capacity, as crucial for success in our world as it was for foragers.

This theory suggests that weak culture, the parts without strong local teeth, matter more for lower classes. Upper classes give lip service to whatever they are supposed to endorse, and then mostly ignore it to do what helps them personally. It is the lower classes that are more likely to naively do what culture suggests. They are more likely to “only marry for love” or “follow your bliss” or to think “its all relative anyway.”

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Housing Envy

By Robin Hanson · February 10, 2012 10:35 am · Comments (19)

Envy is real, but people claim to care more than they do about the size of their neighbor’s houses:

Unlike much of the stated preference literature, the results of this paper indicate that a increase in absolute house size is valued more than an increase in relative house size, suggesting that individuals value their absolute well-being more than their relative status if all parties are handed an equal increase. More specically, for the case of Columbus, the willingness to pay for an increase in own house size by 100 square feet from the mean is found to be $1,103 while the willingness to pay for a decrease in neighbor house size by 100 square feet from the mean is $400. (more)

Since envy looks ugly, why do people do out of their way to appear more envious than they are? Most likely because opposing wealth inequality is an ancient forager norm.

Note that this level of envy could justify taxing house size relative to some other category of consumption where envy is weaker, if such categories could be identified.

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Personality Is Overt

By Robin Hanson · February 9, 2012 5:20 pm · Comments (9)

If the human mind is split to parts that manage overt appearances, and parts that manage covert strategies, which parts do you think more control our personalities? Yup, personalities are closer to overt appearances:

By using composite images rendered from three dimensional (3D) scans of women scoring high and low on health and personality dimensions, we aimed to examine the separate contributions of facial shape, skin texture and viewing angle to the detection of these traits, while controlling for crucial posture variables. After controlling for such cues, participants were able to identify Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Physical Health. … Information allowing accurate personality identification is largely lateralized to the right side of the face. (more)

Chimpanzees, other primates, and humans produce asymmetrical facial expressions with greater [emotional] expression on the left side of the face (right hemisphere of the brain). (more)

In most animals, left brains tend to manage and initiate actions within the current mode, while right brains watch in the background for patterns and reasons to veto current actions and switch modes. In humans, it seems the current-action-sequencer brain half was recruited to focus more on managing overt rule-following language, decisions, and actions, ready to explain away any apparent rule-violations. The less-introspectively-accessible pattern-recognizing background-watcher brain half, in contrast, was apparently recruited to focus on harder-to-testify-on-and-so-more-easily-covert meaning, opinion, and communication, including art and music. (more)

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Far Idealism Hypocrisy

By Robin Hanson · January 27, 2012 8:15 am · Comments (10)

Not everything fits this story, but an awful lot does: we are more idealistic in far mode, which helps us hypocritically hold others to higher standards than we hold ourselves:

In 6 studies, we found that advice is more idealistic than choice in decisions that trade off idealistic and pragmatic considerations. We propose that because advisers are more psychologically distant from the choosers’ decision problem, they construe the dilemma at a higher construal level than do choosers. … Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that compared with choosers, advisers weigh idealistic considerations more heavily and pragmatic considerations less heavily, place greater emphasis on ends (why) than on means to achieve the end (how), and generate more reasons (pros) in favor of acting idealistically. Studies 3 and 4 … [show] that making advisers focus on a lower construal level results in more pragmatic recommendations. … Finally, in Studies 5 and 6, we demonstrate the choice–advice difference in consequential real-life decisions. (more)

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Gossip Hypocrisy

By Robin Hanson · December 5, 2011 10:00 am · Comments (5)

Classic gossip, … telling it entails several … basic motives. … It enables the gossiper “to do dirt to the person he is gossiping about.” It entails “sheer jolly prurience.” It presents the gossiper as “up to the moment, in the know.” By no means least, it reminds us that “part of the delight of gossip, after all, is, to use an old-fashioned word, its naughtiness.”…

“Talk is possible about the great issues and events and questions,” but let’s be honest about it, such talk quickly palls: “So much easier, so much more entertaining, to talk about the decaying marriage of an acquaintance, the extravagant pretensions of in-laws, the sexual braggadocio of a bachelor friend. Most gossip, or most of the best gossip, is about dubious if not downright reprehensible behavior. The best of it is about people with whom one has a direct acquaintance. Served with a dash of humor it can be awfully fine stuff. (more)

Step back and notice the basic puzzle: We are a very social species, and yet we think it illicit to talk about each other. Even when such talk helps to enforce our social norms. Yes we enjoy gossip, but we also accept that it is “naughty.” Well, not naughty enough to make illegal – that would be going “too far.”

Homo hypocritus pretends to support norms of good behavior, but happily coordinates with allies to evade such norms, just out of view of group enforcement. One standard norm is that our group sticks together, and doesn’t break into fighting subgroups. If you see someone violate a norm, you are supposed to accuse them in front of everyone. How are people supposed to defend themselves from accusations they can’t hear? Some of us shouldn’t conspire to take down others of us. But of course we do. Happily. And we don’t want law to stop us.

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Data On Sarcasm

By Robin Hanson · November 27, 2011 10:00 am · Comments (10)

Our capacities to communicate covertly, out of view of social reporting, are central to our abilities to coordinate to hypocritically pretend to support norms while actually evading them. Like laughter and eye-contact, sarcasm seems a central supporting skill. Here is some of what we know about sarcasm:

According to one study of a database of telephone conversations, 23 percent of the time that the phrase “yeah, right” was used, it was uttered sarcastically. Entire phrases have almost lost their literal meanings because they are so frequently said with a sneer. … Brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm. …

Lsten[ing] to complaints to a cellphone company’s customer service line, … students were better able to solve problems creatively when the complaints were sarcastic as opposed to just plain angry. … The mocking, smug, superior nature of sarcasm is [sometimes] perceived as more hurtful than a plain-spoken criticism. … “You’re distancing yourself, you’re making yourself superior,” Haiman says. “If you’re sincere all the time, you seem naive.” …

We’re more likely to use sarcasm with our friends than our enemies, … [New York students] were more likely [than Memphis students to suggest sarcastic jibes when asked to fill in the dialogue in a hypothetical conversation. Northerners also were more likely to think sarcasm was funny. …

Haiman lists more than two dozen ways that a speaker or a writer can indicate sarcasm with pitch, tone, volume, pauses, duration and punctuation. … Expressions around the mouth, as opposed to the eyes or eyebrows, were most often cited as a clue to a sarcastic statement. (more; HT David Brin)

Note that higher status and IQ cultures tend to use sarcasm more, just as smart folks tend to lie more, even though they are no better at discerning lies (source: Triver’s new book).

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Invisible Winks

By Robin Hanson · November 13, 2011 7:00 pm · Comments (11)

Ben Casnocha:

“Inside baseball” refers to using jargon, specialized knowledge, acronyms, first names instead of full names. … They subtly increase the bond between the people in the know. … [It] reinforces a defined ingroup based on our common experiences, knowledge, vernacular. …

Where it gets tricky is when … you make inside references and outsiders read/hear them … and … feel excluded. … One idea: use “Invisible Winks” … insiders get the wink while outsiders do not notice the wink; additive to insiders, neutral to outsiders. … David Foster Wallace did this a lot … with hidden references and allusions, but not in a way where outsiders (i.e., people who don’t pick up on the allusion) feel like they’re “missing” something. …

Does this all sound insanely oveanalzyed? Maybe, but I think it’s important. When I think about socially brilliant people, they possess a remarkable sensitivity to insider/outsider dynamics when speaking and writing to groups. It’s part of what makes them socially brilliant. (more; HT Tyler)

Reading Ben you might get the impression that invisible winks are a special advanced technique, used only by the most sophisticated. But while only the most “socially brilliant” may use it consciously, my claim is that all humans are born with sophisticated abilities for related behaviors. Selective communication is a core capacity that enables humans to coordinate to hypocritically evade social norms, and I’ve argued that such hypocrisy is, after language, humanity’s most distinctive mental capacity.

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