SYSK TRENDING - What Makes Someone Credible

0:00What does it feel like to have a better laptop like the Dell XPS powered by Intel Core with a premium design that's thin and light. It feels smooth, very smooth, for a better feel in your hands and less weight on your shoulders. With a responsive touch screen, it feels fast and precise for better scrolling, zooming and swiping, so everything just flows. And with long lasting battery life, it feels like non-stop energy for a better way to work without being near a charger. Built for those who want better, the Dell XPS built for you. Why do you believe some people almost instantly, while others make you skeptical even when they seem to know what they're talking about? We like to think credibility comes from expertise, experience and having the facts on your side.

1:03And those things certainly matter. But it turns out there are other, less obvious signals that determine whether people trust you and believe what you say. And some of the things we do to make ourselves sound more credible can actually have the opposite effect. Understanding how credibility works is especially important today, when we're constantly trying to figure out who and what to believe. And that's why today's S.Y.S.K. trending topic is what makes someone credible? And how can you be more credible yourself? Steven Martin has studied the science of influence and persuasion, and he's going to explain what the research reveals about earning people's trust. And we'll get to that right after this. Sometimes, the thing that makes your house look better isn't a new sofa or a remodeled kitchen. Sometimes, it's a grill cover. Seriously. We have a nice patio pool area and a nice grill, but the cover on the grill has been outside for years.

2:05It was so faded and worn and cracked, and frankly made the whole area look shabby. So I replaced it with a new one from Wayfair. Very simple purchase. But when I put it on, I thought, well, why didn't I do this two years ago? The patio instantly looked better. And that's what I think is interesting about shopping for your home. Sometimes you don't need to redo anything. You just need to fix that one thing that's dragging everything else down. Wayfair makes that pretty easy, because they've got thousands of products across every style and budget. Plus, filters, customer photos, reviews that help you find what you're looking for. And Wayfair verified products are actually hand-vetted by product specialists, using a 10-point quality inspection. So if there's something around your house that you've stopped noticing because you've just looked at it for too long, maybe it's time to notice it again. That's what happened with my grill cover. Transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase.

3:13Visit Wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's w-a-y-f-a-i-r.com. Wayfair every style, every home. Have you ever wondered why you're more likely to believe some people and less likely to believe others? What is it that makes some people more credible or appealing or likeable? This is such a fascinating topic because we like to believe, or I like to believe, that I'm a good judge of character, that I can tell when someone is believable and trustworthy and worth listening to. But there's a lot going on under the surface. Steven Martin has been studying this for quite a while. He's a researcher, a visiting professor of behavioral science at Columbia University, and he is the author of a new book on the topic called Messengers, Who We Listen To, Who We Don't, and Why.

4:13Hey Steven, welcome to something you should know. Well thank you Mike, it's good to join you. I love this topic because I have long thought that there's something to this whole idea of why we listen to who we listen to, and how did you get interested in this? I've been working in the behavioral sciences and persuasion sciences for a number of years, and we often kind of get together our organization in these little lunchtime meetings, and we talk about situations that occur in everyday life that just don't seem to make sense. So one of them is this situation I think that many of us will have faced, where you have an idea, and you go tell someone about that idea, maybe a colleague at work or a friend or a neighbor, and they look at you in that strange way as if you're talking crazy, and then you find out a couple of days later that someone else has come along with the exact same idea that you've had, and those same people are now enthusiastically embracing it, and we kind of thought, well that's interesting isn't it, that someone can say something that it'd be dismissed.

5:17Someone else can come along and say the exact same thing, and it'd be accepted. It can't be the content of the message. We're often told that in order to get our message heard in order for someone to believe us, we need a good case to make, but what we're finding increasingly I think in society is, who delivers the message is sometimes as important, and actually in certain cases, Mike, even more important than the merits of what actually being said, and that intrigued me, and so we started looking at it a couple of years ago, and unearthed this trove of research. And if you had to boil down that trove of research into a couple of sentences or a generalization, what is it? I think the generalization would be increasingly looking and sounding right is often more important than actually being right. Well, and I think we all sort of know that on a fundamental level of, if someone were to tell you something in their dressed in rags and their speeches and particularly good,

6:23isn't going to hold much water with you, versus if a guy in a beautiful suit and was very articulate said the same thing, I mean we all have a sense that that guy's going to be much more persuasive than the other guy, but it's more than that, right? Well, it is, and that's a really neat example, you know, when you say those words, we have a sense. That's what a lot of the research that we've uncovered and studied of our own have actually found, that some of the inferences that we're making in deciding who we should listen to and who we shouldn't are occurring within milliseconds. You know, there's a feature or a characteristic of a messenger that just seems to connect with us in some way. And we almost instantaneously start to believe and want to listen to what they have to say, again, regardless of its truth or wisdom. So that have a sense that you've just used, that terminology is exactly right.

7:23And is it subjective or objective? In other words, do I have my own criteria for who I'm more likely to believe or are there objective criteria that makes someone believable to everyone? Well, essentially what our research finds is that there are certain innate characteristics that a messenger is able to signal to an audience, that immediately puts them in a position where they're more likely to be listened to. And those innate characteristics are largely divided into two groups. There are societies hard messengers, and they're the messengers that typically an audience would see as having some sort of status over them. And as a result of that, elevated status, they're more inclined to be listened to. And there are messengers in contrast that are softer. They have a connectedness with their audience. And it seems to me that increasingly what we are using to determine who to listen to is, are these cues?

8:27Does this person have some form of status? Do they have some sort of connection? And as a result, that might incline me to infer all sorts of things about them that will increase the chances that I'll listen to them. So you've identified exactly what these traits are, so let's go over them. So the research finds there are four hard messenger traits. Those messenger traits are socioeconomic positions, so someone's standing in society, competence, which is a messenger's ability to be able to convey that they are an expert, or they have some perceived expertise. Dominants, dominant messengers are the kind of personalities that want to win at all costs. They're interested in collaboration. They're interested in just winning. You know, everything is a game where the victor wins the spoils. And the fourth hard messenger trait is physical attractiveness. The idea that a messenger who has features of beauty and attractiveness is more inclined to be listened to.

9:32The fourth soft messenger traits, the first is warmth. So this is a messenger's ability to show that they have some similarity and connection with their audience. They don't seek to exert their status. They communicate their benevolence. The second is vulnerability. Certain messengers who perhaps don't have these hard traits are able to be listened to by expressing or signaling some sort of vulnerability they have, some weakness. That allows us to connect or an audience to connect with them. Trustworthiness is the third. Trustworthiness is essentially an audience's perception or confidence in predicting that a messenger has their best interest at heart. Trustworthiness rather is our confidence in predicting others' future behavior. And the final one is charisma. And charismatic messengers are those communicators who are able to essentially mobilize whole groups of people behind a unifying vision or goal.

10:35They use overt hand gestures. They have what psychologists call surgency a very clear positivity to their communication. So those are the eight traits, four hard, four soft. So give me some examples of how in real life this works. One of the examples, a pop star, someone that's rich and famous has that socioeconomic position, starts to communicate via WhatsApp and Facebook, information about health, whether or not you should vaccinate your child, whether or not you should get a flu jab. And people start to believe the evidence that they are hawking despite the fact is contrary to all the established medical evidence. So there's an example of how someone's position in society inclines audiences to listen to them, regardless of the fact that their information is in this instance just fake. And there is, I think, somewhat of a backlash. I mean, you often hear people make fun of celebrities who speak out on social issues, not because they know much about those social issues, but because they're celebrities.

11:47But there are probably celebrities that we don't necessarily like or see some sort of connection with. That's the key there. There's a tribalism to this as well, Mike. There's a study that actually my co-author Joseph Marx ran in his laboratory where they had people come in and they presented people with information. And sometimes the information came from people that they saw as similar to them. And sometimes they were presented with information, the same information, but from someone that was dissimilar to them, but was an expert. And the experiment was really looking at when we're presented with information, are we more inclined to listen to someone who is similar to us but wrong than someone who is correct, but dissimilar to us in that instance. And what we found in the research was that actually people are much more inclined often to believe fake news and falsehoods, provided it comes from someone that is actually similar to them.

12:49So that's really concerning and unnerving if you think about it, that we're using these tribal cues to determine who we should listen to regardless of its truth or wisdom. Has that always been, or is this more of a new phenomenon, or is it changing or what? I think there's probably been the case that it's always been there. But one of the things that I think is certainly now clear to us is that it's increasing in its intensity. And I think the primary reason for that is that we're just inundated with information, like there's so much for us to pay attention to. There's so much information that's directed to us. You know, we simply don't have the time and the mental resources and capacity to work out who is telling the truth and who isn't, who we should listen to and who we should not. And so I think increasingly Mike, what we're doing is we're using these characteristics, these messenger traits, you know, how rich and famous someone is, how dominant they are, how trustworthy they may be.

13:54In certain cases, just how attractive they are to quickly determine whether we can and should pay attention someone or with which you just ignore them and get on with our busy lives. Yeah, well, I'd like to talk about attractiveness because it does seem that we're more likely to pay attention to somebody who's beautiful. Stephen Martin is my guest and the name of his book is Messengers, who we listen to, who we don't, and why. Here's an interesting test. Look in your closet and ask yourself, how much of this stuff do I actually wear? Because I have plenty of clothes, but there are maybe a dozen things I wear over and over again and more and more of them are from quince. They're cashmere sweaters and polos, they're pants, they're jeans, I wear their stuff all the time. That's what I really want from clothes. I don't need something that's going to impress me hanging on a rack, I want something I'm still going to want to wear six months from now. That's what quince does really well. They make timeless everyday staples using premium materials, like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, marino wool, and their cashmere sweaters start at just $60.

15:08The other part I like is the price and everything it quince is 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. You're paying for the quality, not the name sewn into it. I wear quince, my family wears quince, we buy a lot of it and it has absolutely earned its place in our closets. I use it and I recommend it. Find your next fall favorites at quince, download the quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash sysk. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. That's qiuince.com slash sysk. There is one word I think gets people in trouble with money. It's probably. I'm probably spending about this much every month. I'm probably saving enough. I'm probably on track for retirement.

16:09Probably is not a financial plan. I've been using monarch. It's a personal finance app that puts your whole financial picture in one place and it replaces probably with actual numbers. For example, monarch showed me that our spending last month jumped about 30% from the month before. 30%. We had some home repairs but none of the bills seemed like a big hit at the time but put them all together and wow. But I didn't realize how much our spending had jumped until monarch showed me. I think that's how money can get away from you. It's not necessarily one giant expense that sets off alarm bells. It's all the things that add up that you don't really notice. That's what I like about monarch. You can see your spending accounts, investments and savings goals all in one place and see what's really going on with your money. If you're operating on probably, maybe it's time to find out, write your own money story with monarch. Use code sysk at monarch.com to get your first year of monarch core half off at just $50.

17:21That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code sysk. Stephen, let's talk about attractiveness. I assume by that you mean objective physical beauty as well as how people dress and how people groom themselves. It does seem that we're more likely to believe those people were drawn to these people. Why are we so taken by that? What we're taken by it because attractive and we're talking about physically attractive messengers here now have what we call in psychology mate value. They essentially are attractive to us because we see that there's some evolutionary quality to being with them to being in some form of relationship. That seems to have spilled over into modern day life. There are individuals in society that have been genetically blessed at birth and as a result they are afforded an advantage in life.

18:23The attractiveness bias we see it in recruitment for example. As much as they try not to recruit as a human and they'll often be more inclined to look towards a more attractive applicant, then a less attractive or an average looking applicant, even when their skill sets are the same. So it's an inherent bias within us. And that's how it plays out in everyday life. We look to attractive messengers. So no surprise that they're often used in advertisements. And what's really interesting is that we can even put a price on attractiveness. So economists have estimated that being born attractive is worth about 10 to 12% in additional earnings over a lifetime. How important is confidence that seems to me that if a person sounds like they know what they're talking about and acts like they know what they're talking about, I'm more likely to believe they know what they're talking about.

19:23You're exactly right about that. When we see a messenger or communicator that has confidence, it's it's pretty easy to then start to infer that they have levels of competence as well. If you're competent at a task or knowledgeable or expert about a subject, it kind of makes sense that you would speak confidently about it. And so that so we see that we see that connection. We hear someone speak confidently and we start to make all these inferences that they they're probably more competent. But that's not necessarily the case, you know, sometimes. So I think you're exactly right about that. That competence and confidence connection is a very real one. So explain how trustworthiness works in this. It's pretty hard sometimes to work out accurately who we should pay attention to and who we shouldn't.

20:25And so if we see cues of trustworthiness in an individual, that might incline us to listen more to them as well. And trustworthiness is an interesting one because sometimes communicators and messengers are able to increase our perception of their trustworthiness by admitting drawbacks and weaknesses about the things they're talking about. They signal that kind of weakness and as a result, we make some sort of inference that the very next thing they're going to say is more truthful, more trustworthy. So that's an interesting one to me. But what's particularly interesting is this idea that I do think that we often fall into the trap of confusing trustworthiness with truthfulness. They're clearly not the same thing. And we found in the research Mike situations where messengers can actually lie outwardly to an audience.

21:25And they're trustworthiness levels to certain groups actually goes up in those instances. So we do confuse those two. If you know some of this stuff, if you know any of this stuff, does it help you overcome it or it just is what it is? It's a really good question. I the answer I'd like to give is that knowing more about these traits will defend you all of the time. But I can't really give that as an answer because the fact is, you know, we are so overwhelmed with information that a lot of these traits are, you know, we rely on them so much that we often don't notice them. So I'd like to think that, you know, if you read a little bit more about these traits, perhaps read the book or even do the test and find out what type of messenger you are, you can defend yourself. But I'm skeptical that you're going to be able to defend yourself all of the time. But knowing a little bit about these traits a little more about these traits and how they operate and how we often fall foul of certain messengers in society, I think that's going to be a good thing overall.

22:38So we draw conclusions. We make assumptions, judgments about people based on just one of these single traits. Based on a single trait, as a result of seeing that trait, we start to think, well, there's probably lots of other things I don't like about this person or wouldn't believe about this person. So, you know, classic example, when we meet someone, maybe in a cocktail party or at, you know, a conference, you know, and we come to learn that the person we've just met knows someone that we also know. And we like that person. It's very easy then to think, well, because this person knows someone that I like, this person is probably likeable too. So you've got that kind of halo effect that's actually going on. And of course, that also works in reverse. We might meet someone at a cocktail party, find that we have someone in common that we dislike, that I dislike, it's very easy for me to make some inference that I dislike this person. So not only are we using these traits in a singular way to determine who we should listen to or not.

23:40Once we see one of them, it's very easy for us to then start to make all sorts of inferences about other things about them as well that have nothing to do with that official trait. That's the really kind of interesting and surprising thing here. Well, as soon as you said that, it just makes all the sense in the world because, yeah, if I meet somebody and we both know Bob, well, now I like you better because you know somebody I know and I like Bob and you like Bob. So I must like you. Yeah, but if you dislike Bob, I don't like you much either. I don't think you don't like me much either, exactly. So how can you, if you can, how can you take this knowledge that you have and then become more appealing, more attractive, more trustworthy? How do you do that? Some of these traits are innate. So it's, you know, it's kind of quite difficult to make yourself considerably more physically attractive.

24:43But dominance, which is another one of the hard traits, seems to be a dispositional personality trait. But there are certain things that we can do that increase and importantly increase in a, you know, a legitimate way. So it's not about pulling the wool over people's eyes and unethically manipulating people, but there are certain things that we can do. It's possible, for example, to become more charismatic. There are certain things that you can do. There's training you can undertake to become more charismatic. And we know from the research that charismatic messages are more inclined to be listened to. There are things we can do to ensure that our competence is properly signals. You know, I did a study in London a few years ago where we got real estate agents to arrange for their expertise to be introduced before they spoke to a client. Rather than them talking about their expertise to the client directly, so it's pretty hard to be, you know, in a position where you say, well, I'm an expert, this is why you should listen to me.

25:49But if someone else does it, then that seems to be fine. That elevates people's perception of your competence and your trustworthiness. So there are certain things that we can do, but I think it's also important in balance to also point out that there are certain things that are just in built here. You know, dominance, for example, as I said, is largely an innate characteristic attractiveness too. And when you meet somebody or you watch somebody and you see somebody and one of those things grabs you, one of those eight things grabs you. Is that your anchor now? Is that that is now who I think this person is and is it hard to move from that? That's exactly what's happening there, Mike. Yeah. Because in that short period of time when you meet someone, you want to be in a situation where you can say, is this person on my side? Am I going to benefit from knowing this person?

26:50Should I be listening to them? Are they a threat to me? Does it make sense for me to listen to them, to follow their advice, to engage with them? These are really, really difficult questions to answer. And so we will use one or other of these traits to very, very quickly, often within milliseconds decide whether or not I listen or what I ignore. So it sounds like from what you're saying that when we are trying to make an impression, make a presentation, make ourselves likable, whatever, it isn't really who you are. It isn't what you say, it's how you're perceived. It is, it's all about perception. You're exactly right. There's lots of examples we found both in the book and in the research where it's the perception of a characteristic that's actually carried sway. Here's one bizarre example. There was a report in an American hospital where an individual, a patient who was complaining of a painful ear, a middle ear infection this patient had.

28:03And so the nurse called the duty doctor. The doctor came and examined the patient saw that the patient had an inflamed middle ear and prescribed some anti-inflammatory eardrops. And you think, okay, there's nothing strange about that whatsoever. Seems like a perfectly rational course of treatment. Except the doctor then on the prescription pad, instead of writing fully, place three drops in the patient's ear, abbreviated the word rights. And the abbreviation in medical terms for the word right is simply the letter R, capital letter R. So the prescription pad now reads place three drops in patients are ear or rear. Now that makes no sense whatsoever. But this is a doctor and the doctor is a competent messenger. That's what we're trying to believe. They even have the stethoscope and the white coat to prove it. And so that's exactly what the nurse does.

29:06The nurse perceives that to be the right thing and ask the patients to basically adopt the position and administer these drops. It makes no sense whatsoever except when you consider it in the context of these messenger effects. When a competent messenger or someone perceives to be competent speaks, what would otherwise make no sense whatsoever? You know, suddenly becomes something that might need to be paid attention to. So you're exactly right. It's about perceived traits. They don't necessarily have to be real. We just spot them and we act accordingly. Well, it's so interesting because I think we like to think that it's our message that is most important. That if we have a strong message, people will believe us, listen to us. And clearly there's so much more to it than that. Stephen Martin has been my guest. He is a visiting professor of behavioral science at Columbia University. And his book is called Messengers. Who we listen to, who we don't, and why. And there's a link to his book in the show notes.

30:12Thanks for joining me, Stephen. Thanks, Mike. And that's all for today's S.Y.S.K. trending episode. I'm Mike or others. Thanks for listening to something you should know.