The One You Feed - Understanding How Trust Works and Why it Matters with Peter Kim

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

In this episode, Peter Kim explains how trust works and why it matters. Peter has conducted extensive research on the factors that influence trust and has contributed significantly to the understanding of trust in relationships and society. His work sheds light on the impact of intention on trust dynamics, offering valuable insights into the fundamental role of trust in our interactions, provides a deeper understanding of these dynamics at play in our everyday lives. Key Takeaways: Uncover the crucial role trust plays in shaping our communities Learn how to navigate and manage the delicate nature of high initial trust in relationships Discover how to assess trust levels based on both competence and integrity, leading to more meaningful connections Acquire effective strategies for repairing trust through genuine apologies and actions Explore how intention shapes trust dynamics and influences the quality of relationships For full show notes, click here! Connect with the show: Follow us on YouTube: @TheOneYouFeedPod Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Follow us on Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are lots of occasions where unethical people won't behave badly, for example, if they think they'll get caught or if the incentives aren't high enough. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden and together our mission on the really no really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you?

We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr. Peter Kim,

Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. His research concerns the dynamics of social misperception, with a particular focus on the violation and repair of trust. Today, Peter and Eric discuss his new book, How Trust Works, the science of how relationships are built, broken, and repaired. I also wanted to mention that The One You Feed podcast is now on YouTube, so please go on there and subscribe. You can actually watch video of some of your favorite podcast episodes at The One You Feed Pod on YouTube. Hi, Peter. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Eric. It's great to be here with you. We're going to be discussing your book, which is called How Trust Works, The Science of How Relationships Are Built, Broken, and Repaired. But before we get into that, we'll start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, they think about it for a second, they look up at their

grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I think the parable speaks to a fundamental truth about human nature. And it's interesting how well that parable sums it up, because this duality that we have in us is something that has been shown in neuroscience, that we have a primitive brain that's very instinctual, and then, you know, a higher order area of the brain that can override those instincts. Different areas of psychology talk about the same thing. If you get to Freud, you know, he talks about the id, superego, and ego, and the ego regulates those two battling wolves.

Evolutionary psychology talks about what is morality, and there's a view that morality is about overriding our genetic predisposition. And for me, and the book, there too is a duality, which is that we have a choice in how we view the world and how we view others and ourselves. And there's one choice that is very automatic and very easy to make. And then there's a different kind of choice we can make that leads to a more deliberative process that can hopefully lead to a better assessment of others than ourselves. Yeah, I agree with everything you just said there. Your book really does get into some of the defaults we have when it comes to trust and some of the common mistakes that we might make when it comes to trust. But before we get into all that,

let's start off with why is trust important to ourselves, to our society? Why care? Trust is the fundamental ingredient in society that makes it work. Our ability to interact and work with others depends on the expectation that others are worth it, that we can make ourselves vulnerable to them and do things with the expectation that they will follow through on their end of the bargain, and that that expectation will be fulfilled. And if we don't have that, then everything falls apart. How can we even walk out the door if we don't trust others to follow the law, to not take advantage of us? The level of trust is so important for society that it's even been shown to have an implication

for the national gross domestic product, right? The success of nations has been correlated to the level of trust in that nation. It really is the grease that makes all the wheels turn in society. It really allows us to work with one another, to cooperate, and to work for things that are beyond our immediate self-interest. One of the things that you start the book with, and it's a little bit counterintuitive, is that we tend to actually have a high level of initial trust in people. There's that phrase like, you know, you have to earn trust. Some of your research shows not necessarily. That's right. The default assumption for ages has been trust starts at

zero and only builds gradually over time as we get to know one another, there is an element of truth in the sense that the more we know others, the more we have a sense of how much to trust and so on. But it turns out that when we first meet other people in the world, we also rely on a host of cues that tell us whether or not someone should be trusted. Things like, did we live in the same town, go to the same school, share the same interests, and have the same affiliations more generally? So all of that can tell us whether or not someone is like us, and we tend to trust people that are more similar to ourselves. And then things like, you know, reputations, credentials. There are all sorts of cues that are out there that give us an indication of whether someone else is trustworthy. And all that helps us to work

with others and interact with others right off the bat, and essentially make ourselves more vulnerable than we would have if trust really did start at zero. Because if it did start at zero, all the wheels would stop turning. Right, right. You say, though, there's a problem because that high initial trust that we're talking about is also very fragile. What do you mean by that? It's precisely because that trust is based on the superficial cues that we get into trouble. We presume someone might be trustworthy simply because of how they look, what they're wearing, where they're from. And that may not necessarily be a good indication of how trustworthy they will be.

And so that's where we are often in a situation where our evaluations of others are very fragile. Yeah, they can be changed dramatically based on the additional cues we get within the first few minutes of that interaction, a day later, and so on. And so it really is about how we hold that trust, that initial provisional trust over time as more information comes our way about the other side and about the situation. So that's the journey that we're all on. How do we navigate the start where trust is high to a sustained level of trust in someone as we get to know them further? Are some of us more naturally trusting than others? There is a predisposition to trust. So some of us are more psychologically inclined to trust others. That has been reported in the scientific literature. And, you know, the nice thing about that is that we'd like to think, you know, based on the assumption that that might be foolish, you know, we'd like to think that they'd be taken advantage of by others quite readily.

be taken advantage of by others quite readily. But it turns out that that's not the case. Those who are inclined to trust wind up better off. According to the evidence, they wind up happier. They are sought after by others as desirable partners. And so it turns out that when we trust others, that tends to be an expectation that's fulfilled and that we wind up in a much better place. Yeah, I've often thought about that basic idea around orientation to whether we trust others generally or not. I think we all know people, some of whom are far more trusting and other people who are just far more suspicious of everybody, kind of right out of the gate. And I agree, I think some of it's probably inborn. And then like anything else, it's conditioned by countless experiences. And I also think there's a element of agency in it too, which is what orientation do we want to take? And I've often thought I would

much rather think the best of everybody and occasionally be disappointed than think bad about everyone and very occasionally protect myself from some downside. And I think it gets to kind of what you were just saying there that people with a higher trust orientation tend to have a better level of happiness. Yeah. Also, it gives us those who are more trusting have more opportunities. They have more opportunities to build relationships. They have more opportunities to have fruitful collaborations and a host of other possibilities open up. And that's where, yes, there will be a subset of those opportunities that will turn out

well. But on the whole, the evidence indicates that you are going to be better off. That's compared to someone who is not trusting, who is always suspicious, and forecloses those opportunities. And they're saying they've mitigated the upside, but what they're not aware of is that they've mitigated a lot of upside too. And part of that upside is created merely by the decision to trust because it turns out that when we trust others, they don't see this as an opportunity for exploitation in general. In general, what they see it as is they see it as a precious resource to preserve for the future. They want to prove you right. So if you trust me, I don't want

to say, well, you are a fool. I'm really actually an untrustworthy person. I think I'm trustworthy, and I want to fulfill that expectation that you have in me. And that's the general tendency that people have. And so that's part of the reason why trusting others can be a good strategy. You talk about two really powerful determinants of trust that are different. The first being competence, and then the second being integrity. Can you explain what you mean by each of those, and maybe give us an example of what we're talking about here? Competence concerns the sense that others will have the skills and knowledge to fulfill a task. So it's a very straightforward consideration that we have when we work with others or rely on someone to do something for us.

Integrity is the sense that others will adhere to principles you consider acceptable. that others will adhere to principles you consider acceptable. So that gets to, you know, do they share the same values? Will they, you know, prioritize the same things as you in life, for example? And so those are the two basic dimensions that have been found to be consistently the most important in determining trust in others across all sorts of situations, whether you're evaluating peers, leaders, or subordinates, and so on. So it's been a pretty robust finding across all sorts of contexts. So can you give me an example of a violation of trust and whether we would see it as a matter of competence or integrity? Sure. So some of the studies that I've conducted with a bunch of collaborators

has essentially given a different explanation for the exact same event. So in these studies, we would have someone interviewing for a job at an accounting firm. And it turns out that this person had misfiled a tax return at that job. And then as that's being discussed, the candidate either explains it as a matter of not knowing the tax code that was relevant to that situation. So that would be a competence related issue. She just lacked that knowledge, or she had misfiled that tax return intentionally in order to please an important client. So that was a deliberate choice to fudge the numbers or do something a little bit shady for the sake of making someone happy. And so that would be one way of making that distinction.

unhappy. And so that would be one way of making that distinction. Another way of thinking about the distinction is to think about it as a difference of intent. So if you had done something unknowingly, or you just screwed up somehow, that would be a competence related violation. If you did something knowingly, intentionally, then that would be more a matter of integrity. It would be a reflection of them not sharing the same values as you and committing the violation as a result. And so that's the high level distinction between those two ideas. But one of the things I delve into further in the book is what does integrity even mean? Because on the one hand, we can say integrity is about whether others will do things like we would do them, right? They adhere to principles we consider important. But in the real world, things get really messy on that front.

And that's where what integrity means is far more complicated than most of us presume. integrity means is far more complicated than most of us presume. Right. I mean, I think it gets to intention to some degree. In conversation about harm these days, we talk about intention and impact. And I think your book argues that both those things matter, that both those things are actually important. Right. So I think the impact element gets to whether or not harm was created, whether a violation occurred. And then there's this element of intention, which gets to why. Why did this happen? And that's the part that, well, it gets to the two wolves parable that you brought up at the start of the podcast. We are inclined to believe that when something goes wrong, the other side had done this intentionally. They meant to do it, or they were intentionally negligent, and so on. But there is this alternative explanation, which was they didn't know. They didn't have enough information about what would be appropriate in the situation, or they lacked the perspective

necessary to make the right choice. And that too can be just as legitimate an explanation for what happened. And the choice we make about that attribution can lead to very different reactions in the eyes of the perceiver. Makes me think of a phrase I've heard somewhere, don't attribute to malice what could be explained by incompetence. Basically sort of saying exactly what you're saying here, which is first assume like that somebody was trying to do the right thing and just didn't know how or made a mistake. And then, you know, from there you can kind of move on to

where they are. You keep using the word attribution. And one of my favorite, I think it's considered a cognitive bias, it's called the fundamental attribution error, which states that when I make a mistake, I look at all the circumstances around it. You know, if I kick the vending machine, it's because I didn't get enough sleep last night and I'm under a lot of pressure. But if you kick the vending machine, it's because you're an angry person. And so you're talking about attribution a lot in this book. Say more about it. Yeah. So that is part of what affects our inclination to make this decision that the act was intentional due to a lack of moral principles, we often lack insight into all the forces that

might be at play that might explain why something happened. So an example that comes to mind is the Wells Fargo scandal that occurred a few years ago, where, you know, the bank was accused of opening these fraudulent accounts for their clients. a number of workers at Wells Fargo had been involved in doing this. And our initial explanation for why this has happened is that these bank employees were, you know, just trying to get ahead by, you know, doing a fast one, taking liberties with the power that they had to create these accounts on behalf of these clients. So that was very much an integrity-based attribution. It turned out, related to the fundamental attribution error, that what they were doing was largely due to a system of incentives and pressures that were created by Wells Fargo

as a whole. They created a pressure cooker where if you did not open enough accounts, you were essentially fired or passed over for promotion. There were all these consequences. And so here was a situation where they didn't have full control over their actions. They were being induced to behave in a certain way. And so that provided a very different lens onto the same situation. Maybe we wouldn't necessarily put it into competence 100% as an attribution, but it gets closer to that. It's not necessarily something they would have done on their own if given the choice. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor

we got the answer will space junk block your cell signal the astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer we talk with the scientist who figured out

if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Heart Radio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So listener, consider this your halfway through the episode integration reminder. Remember, knowledge is power, but only if combined with action and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously, just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop and be present, can't it? If you want to keep this momentum going that you built with this little exercise, I'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with insightful little prompts and wisdom

from podcast guests. They're a nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life, and they're a helpful way to not get lost in the busyness and forget what is important. You can join at oneufeed.net slash SMS, And if you don't like them, you can get off the list really easily. So far, there are over 1,172 others from the One You Feed community on the list, and we'd love to welcome you as well. So head on over to oneyoufeed.net slash SMS, and let's feed our good wolves together. And you say that we are more willing to forgive competence-based breaches of trust versus integrity-based breaches of trust? Yes, and it gets to some odd asymmetries we have in our mental basement. So we are predisposed to view negative information about competence as less informative than positive information

about competence. So if you were a baseball player and you hit a home run, you're considered a home run hitter, even though you might strike out afterwards. That one instance of positive information is considered very diagnostic in our minds. And it's because we believe that only people who are super competent can perform at that level. And that's the bias that we have in all sorts of domains. When it comes to matters of competence, you can only really be successful at something if you're truly competent. And even successful people might fail sometimes or not do well, because, for example, you might have an injury or you might be really distracted or you may lack the motivation to perform

well. So the negative information about competence is just not considered very informative because there are lots of explanations for why that might happen. But when it comes to matters of integrity, that bias is reversed. We consider negative information about integrity much more diagnostic than positive information about integrity. So if you get caught cheating on your spouse once and you say, well, I didn't cheat on you yesterday, that's not going to work so well, right? Because that negative information is considered so diagnostic.

And why is this? It's because we believe that only people who lack integrity would do something like that. Whereas there are lots of occasions where unethical people won't behave badly, for example, if they think they'll get caught, or if the incentives aren't high enough for them to break the rules or so on. So that's where that asymmetry arises. We just don't see that positive information about integrity to be very helpful because bad people can avoid doing bad things on a given moment for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with their values or ethicality. So let's talk about apology a little bit. And I think it's important to make a distinction about what we're talking about in this book, because we're talking about trust and the repair of trust, not necessarily forgiveness,

for example. Say in what ways those are different. They're different in the sense that forgiveness can occur even if you don't intend to ever interact with that person again. So there are many instances when real harm was done and people who have been harmed choose eventually to forgive the harm doer as a way of getting past what happened. So they no longer ruminate over what happened, they are able to move on as a result of that forgiveness. So forgiveness, it's a one sided action that can be very beneficial. You can forgive as a way of letting go and moving forward.

Trust, on the other hand, is always a two-sided decision because it involves the decision to make yourself vulnerable to that person again. And so that becomes a thornier issue. It requires the expectation that the other side will redeem themselves if they've done something bad. And that is not necessarily something that people will believe depending on the attribution that they make. And this gets to your point about apologies. Apologies are, well, they've been considered sort of the gold standard for addressing these kinds of incidents. And in many situations, they can be quite helpful. But the problem with apologies is that they're double edged in nature. They are helpful in the sense that they signal a desire to do better.

It signals regret and remorse. And so by extension, it indicates that they won't do this again. But apologies also do something else, which is not so great. And that's it confirms guilt, right? You apologize when you've done something wrong. So you're saying, yes, I did something wrong. And then I'm going to fix this in the future. And so it really conveys these two signals.

And the question becomes, well, which signal becomes more important? Do we focus on these positive signals of redemption? Or do we focus on these positive signals of redemption? Or do we focus on these negative signals of guilt? And it turns out that that's where the biases that we've been just talking about with regard to competence and integrity play a huge role. So for matters of competence, we'll focus on the signals of redemption rather than the confirmation of guilt. Because we don't consider that negative information

about competence very diagnostic. We consider positive information about competence much more informative. But if we see the same violation as a matter of integrity, we're going to focus on the confirmation of guilt, that negative information of integrity that's been confirmed by the apology, and we're going to dismiss the positive signals that the person's going to fix this in the future. So that's where the choice of attribution can make a huge difference in whether or not you're willing to trust the other person again. After the exact same response, they have the same apology. And so what can we take from this when it comes to making apologies in our own life,

right? Because you said apologies are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they express a desire to do better in the future or a desire to repair the situation, and yet they also admit guilt. How is that different in maybe a corporate setting where a company by apologizing is sort of admitting to guilt versus in an individual setting? Mm-hmm. One of the important lessons of this distinction is that we as apologizers need to be aware of what attribution the others, the perceivers are making. So most of the conversation that occurs after a violation has occurred is about whether or not

someone is going to apologize or not, right? So it's the type of response that's the focus. And what we ignore, something that's as if not more important, is the attribution we're making for why the incident happened. So one of the problems that occurs when someone might commit a violation and they are being pressured to apologize is that they might do so based on a self-serving view that this was a competence-related issue, right? In their view, in their own world, they, you know, would not have done this again. This was a mistake in their minds. But they're not taking the other side's perspective. If the other side is framing this exact same incident differently, then that same apology that they think will be very successful will turn out to be very ineffective.

And so that's where the, in a way, a different discussion has to occur simultaneously. In addition to whether you apologize or not, it is about what is the interpretation of this incident. And that is something that needs to be addressed as much, if not more so, than this issue of how you respond. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by.

Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about

judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's take an example here and see if we can sort of bring all these things together in an example. So let's just say that there is a couple and person A in the relationship is unfaithful. So we're talking now about attribution, which is why did person A act that way? And I think what you're saying is person A is going to want to interpret it as the person who did the thing as a one-time mistake. I did it because, and I would have my reasons for it. And they would be more sort of competence-based, but that their partner, person B, is thinking it's because they're a bad person or they're fundamentally untrustworthy person. And so they're attributing it to integrity, not sort of a competence-based situation. And I think what you're saying

is that while person A, who was unfaithithful can and should apologize in this case, that if they don't find some way to have a conversation about the perceived lack of integrity on their side, that apology may be ineffective. Yes, I think that's true with a caveat. Okay, please. Yeah. Correct me where I get it wrong. I'm just trying to sort of put it into an actual example here. Sure. So I would just temper it a bit in the sense that there are probably some violations that are clearly matters of integrity.

And there's certain violations that are clearly matters of competence. And then there are violations that are in a gray area. Yeah. And so to the extent that, you know, you've done something that's clearly a matter of integrity, I don't know how much you can do to resolve that situation. You know, the person who committed the violation may still see it as a matter of competence, just because we're so good at, you know, construing the world in a way that will make us feel okay about ourselves. Yeah, yeah.

So this matter of an affair, people will have different views about this. You know, I'm sure the person who commits the affair, well, maybe I shouldn't say I'm sure. I'm sure there are times when someone who commits an affair will see it as a mistake, right? And you're right there. Like the person who might be affected will see it as a mistake, right? And you're right there, like the person who might be affected by that affair, the spouse will more likely see it as a matter of integrity. And that will be a major disconnect. It will be a reason why the apology

won't be so successful. In that instance, I will also reaffirm your point that in that kind of instance, it is still important to apologize because if you're caught red handed, if you're really guilty, I mean, the counterpart knows that it doesn't really help to deny this, right? Right. Yeah. So if your hand is caught in the cookie jar, you know, like this matter of guilt is not in question that the only real question becomes, will you redeem yourself in the future? And I think there, what I'm reminded of is a response that I find really interesting that people use sometimes, which is, it was an error in judgment. What does that response entail?

It entails that you had intentionally done it at the time, but now you know better, right? So you are in a way recasting that same incident as a matter of competence. You have more knowledge about the repercussions of your actions now. And as a result, you would not do that again. And so that kind of framing can be helpful as a way of giving the other side the view that no, it's not a matter of you lacking moral principles of you being a bad person. It's because you just didn't know any better at the time. And so to the extent that you can make that change in attribution, you'll be better off. But with that said, there is another problem, and it's that perceivers are not like slates. They won't just buy whatever story you tell them,

especially since they know that you as a violator have an incentive to tell them something that will get them off the hook, right? Right. So there is going to be pushback by the perceiver because they will have a vested interest in their own worldview and maintaining it. And so that becomes a battleground. How do you shape these worldviews to a degree that it helps the violator address, you know, the incident and repair trust,

that is easier in some contexts than others. And this is where motivation comes into play. So this choice between competence and integrity, there is this element of these integrity attributions being easier and more automatic, but there's also a motivation that we have to make one kind of attribution for another. So if someone commits a violation and that person is a dear friend and we want to maintain a relationship with that person, we are going to try much harder to see this as a matter of competence. But if that same violation occurs, it's done by a stranger or

someone in an outgroup, someone we see as sort of like the enemy, we will clearly see that as an integrity-based violation. So we have a vested interest in making one attribution or another. And so that's another thing that affects the choice. So for example, what you're saying is if a politician is accused of sexual impropriety, if that politician is the side that we root for, we're going to want to believe it was an error in judgment or a temporary mistake or whatever it is, right? But if that person is in the other political party, we're going to want to attribute it to just they're a bad person. And they're another example

of what people like that are. Absolutely. And you have just explained a large part of our political divide. Right. Well, it gets back to this fundamental attribution error a little bit that I was talking about, which is what do we attribute the reasons that somebody did something? I always think it's one of the places that as humans we get into the most trouble is when we think we know other people's motivations or reasons. Right, right. motivations or reasons. Right, right. I see this in relationships over and over and over. It's like you didn't take out the trash. And so thus, what that means is you don't care about me. And that's the attribution I'm making, right? Whereas it could just be something completely different. It could just be that somebody is very forgetful. As soon as we start attributing reasons to things, we can be on slippery ground, I think, is where we get into trouble. And yet,

we can't not do it. We are always trying to make meaning out of what occurs. Right. So the fundamental attribution error provides additional nuance to the story. So because that's really about whether you consider the person responsible for what happened versus the situation. And then the choice between competence and integrity, you know, the person is still responsible, but was it because they just forgot? Or was it because they just didn't see this as important enough to do, right? And so in your example about the trash, the fundamental attribution error could be,

well, they didn't do it and it's because they either decided not to do it or forgot. A third explanation could be there was an emergency that pulled them out of the house and they just couldn't because they had to attend to some work emergency or the child at school had some sort of incident and they just couldn't because they had to attend to some work emergency or, you know, the child at school, you know, had some sort of incident and so you had to rush there. So all of that can be involved in the attribution process. And the more we attend to those things, the better off we are and really coming up with a comprehensive understanding of that situation. And I think one of the points of the book is that we never really put much time into understanding all those forces, all those possibilities. We make the automatic knee-jerk interpretation, which is quite often

wrong. Yeah. You talk about four guiding lessons that we can take from your work here. And I thought maybe we could walk through those and you could explain them. The first is most of us want to be good. Say more about that. This is based on the fact that the evidence indicates that when people are trusted, they don't see this as an opportunity for exploitation. And so it is a challenge to the prevailing assumption that's been out there that, yeah, you make yourself vulnerable, then they'll try to exploit that vulnerability. And there's certainly people who will try to do that. But for the most part, people in the world, they don't want to say you're a sucker for trusting me. They want to say you are right in trusting me. I am a

good person. And what it speaks to is that a lot of the violations that occur in the world isn't because someone is deciding to be bad. It's often because of almost a miscommunication about what constitutes goodness in a particular situation. And so it really speaks to the need to clarify what would be good in the situation and help people get there. So an example that relates to my online work is as a faculty member at a university, you know, I have to give assignments all the time. And there's always the temptation to cheat. Well, part of what I have to do, my responsibility, based on this guiding principle, is to clarify expectations about what's acceptable and what's not. The use of AI, for example, in assignments.

So that's a big question mark. So what is my stance? How should they navigate the situation? So to provide clarification based on the expectation that people want to be good, and I just need to help them get there, help them maintain that desire and that reputation in this very messy world that we have. Excellent. And then the next is the complexity of truth, which I think we've kind of been talking about. This idea that the reasons people do things is usually far more multifaceted than we think. I think that's a really important point that I try to stress throughout the book.

You're right. And I think what it gets to is that we're not predisposed to look at that complexity. We want simple stories and we want to have these very quick determinations of what happened. And we need to be aware that we as perceivers have a responsibility to put in the time to really understand why things happened. Because honestly, we will all be in positions where we're accused of something at some point. And we will want others to engage in that same kind of thoughtful deliberation about us rather than have those knee-jerk reactions. The third guiding lesson is you call the upside of intent. What do you mean by that?

guiding lesson is you call the upside of intent. What do you mean by that? So much of the book sort of underscores the problems when people make these attributions of low integrity, the idea that you will try to pull a fast one on them, that you will be opportunistic. That guiding lesson is really about, well, we shouldn't necessarily be so defeatist about that bias that we have in our heads, because what it tells us is that one of the things we should be striving for is to make that attribution less likely. And how do we do that? We can work harder to convey the sense that we are doing our very best to do the right thing for the people around us, for the people who might be judging us. And the more we do that, the less likely people will be to make that automatic attribution that we have low integrity. And in fact, the more it seems like we're looking out

for them, the more invested they'll be in the relationship and the more motivated they will be to see any failing as a matter of competence rather than integrity because they won't want to make that negative attribution of integrity that can be so destructive to that relationship. And then the last lesson is the need to walk through doors. What does that mean? This was something that came out of an interview of someone that I write about in the book. His name's Father Greg, and he started this organization called Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. And it is an organization meant to help former gang members rehabilitate and reenter society. And one of the lessons he learned was that he can't impose this program on people. They have to make the decision that they want to

rehabilitate. Otherwise, it doesn't work. The program that is very successful, it won't work in that kind of instance where it's not a choice by the person who might be enrolled. That speaks to this distinction between forgiveness and trust that we talked about earlier. We can forgive people. That can be a one-sided action. Another thing that the book talks about is we can try to do things that reduce our vulnerability. So we can implement all these protective mechanisms and enforcement mechanisms to keep people from doing bad things. But that actually doesn't improve trust because, you know,

if they're behaving well afterwards, we are inclined to see this as the result of the laws and enforcement mechanisms we put in place rather than because they were trustworthy. So the need to walk through the doors really gets to the idea that it's not a one-sided action. We have to depend on the other side to do their part, regardless of whether we're the perceiver or the violator, right? We each need to do our part to help navigate this quagmire, the complexity of truth, to really get at a view that would give a person the opportunity to redeem themselves. Excellent. Well, Peter, this is a good place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed talking with you and really enjoyed the book.

Likewise, Eric. It's been a real pleasure. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No

Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.