I Have a Question for the Famous People Who Have Tried to Apologize

Elizabeth Spiers

The New York Times - Guest Opinion

Originally posted 22 September 23

Here is an excerpt:

As a talk show host, Ms. Barrymore has been lauded in part for her empathy. She is vulnerable, and that makes her guests feel like they can be, too. But even nice people can be self-centered when they’re on the defensive. That’s what happened when people objected to the news that her show would return to production despite the writers’ strike. In a teary, rambling video on Instagram, which was later deleted, she spoke about how hard the situation had been — for her. “I didn’t want to hide behind people. So I won’t. I won’t polish this with bells and whistles and publicists and corporate rhetoric. I’ll just stand out there and accept and be responsible.” (Ms. Barrymore’s awkward, jumbled sentences unwittingly demonstrated how dearly she needs those writers.) Finally, she included a staple of the public figure apology genre: “My intentions have never been in a place to upset or hurt anyone,” she said. “It’s not who I am.”

“This is not who I am” is a frequent refrain from people who are worried that they’re going to be defined by their worst moments. It’s an understandable concern, given the human tendency to pay more attention to negative events. People are always more than the worst thing they’ve done. But it’s also true that the worst things they’ve done are part of who they are.

Somehow, Mila Kunis’s scripted apology was even worse. She and Mr. Kutcher had weathered criticism for writing letters in support of their former “That ’70s Show” co-star Danny Masterson after he was convicted of rape. Facing her public, she spoke in the awkward cadence people have when they haven’t memorized their lines and don’t know where the emphasis should fall. “The letters were not written to question the legitimacy” — pause — “of the judicial system,” she said, “or the validity” — pause — “of the jury’s ruling.” For an actress, it was not a very convincing performance. Mr. Kutcher, who is her husband, was less awkward in his delivery, but his defense was no more convincing. The letters, he explained, were only “intended for the judge to read,” as if the fact that the couple operated behind the scenes made it OK.

The article is paywalled here.

Here are my observations about the main theme of this article:

Miller argues that many celebrity apologies fall short because they are not sincere. She says that they often lack the essential elements of a good apology: acknowledging the offense, providing an explanation, expressing remorse, and making amends. Instead, many celebrity apologies are self-serving and aimed at salvaging their public image.

Miller concludes by saying that if celebrities want their apologies to be meaningful, they need to be honest, take responsibility for their actions, and show that they are truly sorry for the harm they have caused.

I would also add that celebrity apologies can be difficult to believe because they often follow a predictable pattern. The celebrity typically issues a statement expressing their regret and apologizing to the people they have hurt. They may also offer a brief explanation for their behavior, but they often avoid taking full responsibility for their actions. And while some celebrities may make amends in some way, such as donating to charity or volunteering their time, many do not.

As a result, many people are skeptical of celebrity apologies. They see them as nothing more than a way for celebrities to save face and get back to their normal lives. This is why it is so important for celebrities to be sincere and genuine when they apologize.

We Decoded The Symbols From The Storming Of The Capitol

We looked through hours of footage from the Capitol riot to decode the symbols that Trump supporters brought with them, revealing some ongoing threats to US democracy.

Our illusory sense of agency has a deeply important social purpose

Chris Frith
aeon.com
Originally published September 22, 2019

Here are two excerpts:

We humans like to think of ourselves as mindful creatures. We have a vivid awareness of our subjective experience and a sense that we can choose how to act – in other words, that our conscious states are what cause our behaviour. Afterwards, if we want to, we might explain what we’ve done and why. But the way we justify our actions is fundamentally different from deciding what to do in the first place.

Or is it? Most of the time our perception of conscious control is an illusion. Many neuroscientific and psychological studies confirm that the brain’s ‘automatic pilot’ is usually in the driving seat, with little or no need for ‘us’ to be aware of what’s going on. Strangely, though, in these situations we retain an intense feeling that we’re in control of what we’re doing, what can be called a sense of agency. So where does this feeling come from?

It certainly doesn’t come from having access to the brain processes that underlie our actions. After all, I have no insight into the electrochemical particulars of how my nerves are firing or how neurotransmitters are coursing through my brain and bloodstream. Instead, our experience of agency seems to come from inferences we make about the causes of our actions, based on crude sensory data. And, as with any kind of perception based on inference, our experience can be tricked.

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These observations point to a fundamental paradox about consciousness. We have the strong impression that we choose when we do and don’t act and, as a consequence, we hold people responsible for their actions. Yet many of the ways we encounter the world don’t require any real conscious processing, and our feeling of agency can be deeply misleading.

If our experience of action doesn’t really affect what we do in the moment, then what is it for? Why have it? Contrary to what many people believe, I think agency is only relevant to what happens after we act – when we try to justify and explain ourselves to each other.

The info is here.

Mark Zuckerberg And The Tech World Still Do Not Understand Ethics

Derek Lidow
Forbes.com
Originally posted March 11, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Expectations for technology startups encourage expedient, not ethical, decision making. 

As people in the industry are fond of saying, the tech world moves at “lightspeed.” That includes the pace of innovation, the rise and fall of markets, the speed of customer adoption, the evolution of business models and the lifecycles of companies. Decisions must be made quickly and leaders too often choose the most expedient path regardless of whether it is safe, legal or ethical.

 This “move fast and break things” ethos is embodied in practices like working toward a minimum viable product (MVP), helping to establish a bias toward cutting corners. In addition, many founders look for CFOs who are “tech trained—that is, people accustomed to a world where time and money wait for no one—as opposed to a seasoned financial officer with good accounting chops and a moral compass.

The host of scandals at Zenefits, a cloud-based provider of employee-benefits software to small businesses and once one of the most promising of Silicon Valley startups, had their origins in the shortcuts the company took in order to meet unreasonably high expectations for growth. The founder apparently created software that helped employees cheat on California’s online broker license course. As the company expanded rapidly, it began hiring people with little experience in the highly regulated health insurance industry. As the company moved from small businesses to larger businesses, the strain on it software increased. Instead of developing appropriate software, the company hired more people to manually take up the slack where the existing software failed. When the founder was asked by an interviewer before the scandals why he was so intent on expanding so rapidly he replied, “Slowing down doesn’t feel like something I want to do.”

The info is here.

People use less information than they think to make up their minds

Nadav Klein and Ed O’Brien

PNAS December 26, 2018 115 (52) 13222-13227

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805327115

Abstract

A world where information is abundant promises unprecedented opportunities for information exchange. Seven studies suggest these opportunities work better in theory than in practice: People fail to anticipate how quickly minds change, believing that they and others will evaluate more evidence before making up their minds than they and others actually do. From evaluating peers, marriage prospects, and political candidates to evaluating novel foods, goods, and services, people consume far less information than expected before deeming things good or bad. Accordingly, people acquire and share too much information in impression-formation contexts: People overvalue long-term trials, overpay for decision aids, and overwork to impress others, neglecting the speed at which conclusions will form. In today’s information age, people may intuitively believe that exchanging ever-more information will foster better-informed opinions and perspectives—but much of this information may be lost on minds long made up.

Significance

People readily categorize things as good or bad, a welcome adaptation that enables action and reduces information overload. The present research reveals an unforeseen consequence: People do not fully appreciate this immediacy of judgment, instead assuming that they and others will consider more information before forming conclusions than they and others actually do. This discrepancy in perceived versus actual information use reveals a general psychological bias that bears particular relevance in today’s information age. Presumably, one hopes that easy access to abundant information fosters uniformly more-informed opinions and perspectives. The present research suggests mere access is not enough: Even after paying costs to acquire and share ever-more information, people then stop short and do not incorporate it into their judgments.

The info is here.

Most People Consider Themselves to Be Morally Superior

By Cindi May
Scientific American
Originally published on January 31, 2017

Here are two excerpts:

This self-enhancement effect is most profound for moral characteristics. While we generally cast ourselves in a positive light relative to our peers, above all else we believe that we are more just, more trustworthy, more moral than others. This self-righteousness can be destructive because it reduces our willingness to cooperate or compromise, creates distance between ourselves and others, and can lead to intolerance or even violence. Feelings of moral superiority may play a role in political discord, social conflict, and even terrorism.

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So we believe ourselves to be more moral than others, and we make these judgments irrationally. What are the consequences? On the plus side, feelings of moral superiority could, in theory, protect our well-being. For example, there is danger in mistakenly believing that people are more trustworthy or loyal than they really are, and approaching others with moral skepticism may reduce the likelihood that we fall prey to a liar or a cheat. On the other hand, self-enhanced moral superiority could erode our own ethical behavior. Evidence from related studies suggests that self-perceptions of morality may “license” future immoral actions.

The article is here.

The Psychology of White-Collar Criminals

Eugene Soltes
The Atlantic
Originally posted December 14, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Usually, a gut feeling that something will be harmful is enough of a deterrence. But when the harm is distant or abstract, this internal alarm doesn’t always go off. This absence of intuition about the harm creates a particular challenge for executives. Today, managerial decisions impact ever-greater numbers of people and the distance between executives and the people their decisions affect continues to grow. In fact, many of the people most harmed or helped by executives’ decisions are those they will never identify or meet. In this less intimate world, age-old intuitions are not always well suited to sense the kinds of potential harms that people can cause in the business world.

Reflecting on these limits to human intuition, I came to a conclusion that I found humbling. Most people like to think that they have the right values to make it through difficult times without falling prey to the same failures as the convicted executives I got to know. But those who believe they would face the same situations with their current values and viewpoints tend to underestimate the influence of the pressures, cultures, and norms that surround executive decision making. Perhaps a little humility is in order, given that people seem to have some difficulty predicting how they’d act in that environment. “What we all think is, ‘When the big moral challenge comes, I will rise to the occasion,’ [but] there’s not actually that many of us that will actually rise to the occasion,” as one former CFO put it. “I didn’t realize I would be a felon.”

The article is here.

Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence

Dunning, D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., and Kruger, J. (2003). Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Jun., 2003), pp. 83-87

Abstract

Successful negotiation of everyday life would seem to require people to possess insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills. However, people tend to be blissfully unaware of their incompetence. This lack of awareness arises because poor performers are doubly cursed: Their lack of skill deprives them not only of the ability to produce correct responses, but also of the expertise necessary to surmise that they are not producing them. People base their perceptions of performance, in part, on their preconceived notions about their skills. Because these notions often do not correlate with objective performance, they can lead people to make judgments about their performance that have little to do with actual accomplishment.

The entire article is here.