Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apologizing for not having gotten around to the step in their world domination plans where they build a global climate-regulation system yet. Because they would if they could, they will as soon as they can, and it's only their own laziness and ignorance of proper power/wealth/intelligence-bootstrapping methods preventing them from being there already. That, in my opinion, is precisely the type of person you should trust to Get Things Done, even when those things would seem, to most people, to be currently "out of their hands."

In other words, feeling responsibility for everything around you is a necessary prerequisite for agency. You see this a lot in company owners. Why is the founder mopping the floor while everyone else is working? Because nobody else is doing it, it has to get done, and the buck stops with him. He's responsible for everything, even the weather.

I don't know if the sub has been edited, but it mentions lack of controls:

> How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker.

It doesn't seem to mention randomization either.

EDIT:

> This is significant because past research shows how mindlessly we often act in social situations. For example, back in the late 70s, Ellen Langer and her colleagues found that people were just as likely to give way at a photo-copier if a queue-jumper uttered the nonsensical excuse "because I need to make copies" as when he uttered "because I'm in a rush."

Compare this to situations in the UK where if a shopkeeper returns nearly all your change, but keeps a penny, the customer will often wail until they get it, and make a fuss about it.

There's a rule I have followed for many years when doing customer service - if the person is upset, apologize. It doesn't matter if you can't give them what they're asking for, or if they made a silly mistake. Just - make them feel better, then do what you sensibly can. It really works well... I don't get many angry complaints anyway, but this tends to defuse them immediately.

Suggesting that the mechanism for that result is caused by ice-breaking effects, or by delaying the time between the introduction and the request, or by conforming to some unknown social norm are follow up experiments you'd want to perform... but there's always a follow up question, it doesn't make the initial discovery flawed.

"Sorry your dog died." is an expression of _sympathy_ for your dog's death, not an admission of guilt.

In fact, the first definition on Google for "define sorry" is "feeling sad or distressed through sympathy with someone else's misfortune"

And yes, I'd be more likely to lend my phone to someone who had shown signs of sympathy to me first.

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

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exact...

This is a devastating objection to the findings of the study.

Here's a link to the study: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%...

I don't do this to build trust, but I guess it makes some sort of sense that if someone displays a consistent level of empathy towards the problems of others it would make them more trustworthy in general compared to someone who doesn't.

UK: I have never seen anyone ask to borrow someone else's mobile phone over here. Is that a common behaviour in the US?

I have to say that if someone asked to borrow mine, I'd refuse, especially if they said something inane first. That could just be my crabbed and ungenerous nature but I think not somehow...

Really? I took part in studies like this when I was a student, and I knew full well I was playing a computer, despite being told otherwise. You don't need to be a psychology geek to have heard of their standard operating procedures.

To me the lesson is accepting blame for a problem doesn't just take "Whose fault is this?" off of the table, but it increases the trust in finding a solution.

If someone told me he's sorry about the rain, I would think what he really means is that he's sorry for me having to stand in the rain.

A: "Sorry about your leg." B: "It's okay, it's not your fault."

It's sympathy, not an admission of guilt.

Couldn't it just be the chit-chat? I mean "Hey, how are you? Can I borrow your phone" versus "Can I borrow your phone", would probably give better results too :-/?

The study's confederate could have said "Good morning," "Hello there" -- anything other than simply making a request -- and achieved a better response rate.

For example, recently I showed up to a yoga class, and there was construction going on the street outside, so that it was mildly inconvenient to get to the parking lot. The yoga instructor apologized profusely for the inconvenience.

I didn't understand why I'd want to be apologized to for this: not only was it outside her control, but the inconvenience was trivial. I felt slightly less at ease after such an apology.

But looking around at others, it was quite obvious that this gesture had had the intended effect. I guess, in this regard, I am the odd one out.

There's quite a difference between directly asking to use someone's phone and introducing yourself first.

The copier queue gets mentioned at the end but the article reads more like "apologize for something that you cannot control=trust" while I'd suspect it's really "talk about something else=trust"

Although perhaps I'm naive to think it could be widely understood.

I can't find the research for this, but from what I remember one experiment involved someone going to the front of the line of people waiting at a copy machine at university, and asking if they could go first. Simply appending 'because I need to copy some things' would increase the chance that people would let you go first, despite the fact that it's a pointless justification.

Ok, so the face value of "sorry" implies apology but putting the situation in context it seems less a question of culpability and more of a shared sense of frustration against/for a common goal.

How does it make you feel when you are peeved off at the rain and someone comes up to you to share in the misery?

It's about a shared sense of understanding more than anything else. If some people choose to take advantage of this for ulterior purposes - well, that's the very definition of emotional manipulation.

Even if there is a minute chance that this study exhibits anything concrete, it can't hurt to apologize to expect a positive outcome.

consider for a moment your reaction to a person in a suite and tie who asked to borrow your phone. I posit that you would be more likely to agree and hand over your phone if the person is in a suit and tie compared to someone who you thought didn't look as well off.

I suspect very few people would then loan out their phone, unless they were under the impression they were being mugged.

I remember old studies which said you have far more chance getting 20 cents asking for the time first.