WHY ARE WE SO BAD
AT MEETING STRANGERS?
Presented by Max Kirk
April, 19, 2022
By
this, I don’t mean just meeting strangers.
By this stage in our life, experiences, good and bad, have helped us
create a system that allows us to meet and successfully interact with
strangers. We have each been taught from
childhood how to react in new and challenging social situations. We may look the person in the eyes in means
of showing our confidence and a means of determining the new persons
reaction. We maybe we extend a firm
handshake? Maybe we observe how the
person’s mannerism? Do they seem fidgety? Do they avoid eye contact? Do they seem interested in us or
disengaged? Do they seem pleasant and do
we like them?
We
all have our favorite means of gauging or sizing up a new person. After all, we have inherited this experience
and these traits over thousands of years from our ancestors, so we should be
pretty good at sizing up strangers.
Right? The answer is really
no. As a group, humans are really pretty
inept when it comes to judging the motive, character, and intent of
others. In his book “Talking to
Strangers”, Malcom Gladwell explores why our assessment of a person’s motive,
intent, or honesty is really a little more successful than random chance. Some of his examples are certainly familiar
to all of us.
PEACE IN OUR TIME
In
the fall of 1938, it seemed that the world was being drug into war by Adolf
Hitler, who had been making increasingly bellicose statements about invading
the German speaking portion of Czechoslovakia.
Europe did not seem to know how to react or how to handle the situation
created by Hitler. It was Nevel
Chamberlain, a Prime Minister of England, who devised a plan to get to the
bottom of Hitler’s true intent. He would
fly to Germany and meet with Hitler face-to-face.
It
seems that no one really knew Hitler.
Few European leaders had met him.
Neither Roosevelt, nor Stalin, had ever met Hitler. Various British aristocrats who were friendly
to the Nazi cause and would sometimes cross the English Channel to pay their
respects and join the Fuhrer at parties.
These people said that he could be very funny and did wonderful
imitations. These were social calls
however and certainly not the type of contact necessary to avoid a world war.
On
September 14, 1938, the British learned that Hitler would be very welcoming of
Chamberlain and was eager to meet with him.
Chamberlain was going to Germany to revert a world war. His support in the British polls was at 70%. Chamberlain was greeted by thousands of
Germans when he arrived. He was whisked
away by motorcade to the train station where he rode in Hitler’s private car to
his retreat in the mountains.
Their
conversations were often heated. Hitler
making it very plain that he was going seize the Sudetenland regardless of what
the world thought. Chamberlain’s purpose,
of course, was to determine if that was all that Hitler wanted. Chamberlain looked at Hitler long and hard
and decided that he believed him. Later,
Chamberlain wrote, “In short, I had established a certain confidence which was
my aim, and on my side in spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I
saw in his face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied
upon when he had given his word.”
On
his return to England, Chamberlain stated, “Yesterday afternoon I had a long
talk with Herr Hitler. I feel satisfied
now that each of us fully understands what is in the mind of the other.”
We
now know that Chamberlain’s negotiations with Hitler are widely regarded as one
of the great follies of the 2nd World War. Chamberlain was outmaneuvered at the
bargaining table. He misread Hitler’s
intentions and failed to warn Hitler that if he reneged on his promises, there
would be serious consequences. But yet,
Chamberlain was no fool. He made careful
note of Hitler’s behavior. Chamberlain
wrote, “He gave me the double handshake that he reserves for specially friendly
demonstrations.” Chamberlain saw no
signs of irrationality or insanity. In
fact, most of the British diplomatic core that met Hitler felt that he hated
war as much as anyone and could be trusted.
While
some were deceived by Hitler, others were not.
Foremost amongst these was Winston Churchill. Churchill never believed for a moment that
Hitler was anything more than a duplicitous thug. Hitler called Chamberlain’s visit “the
stupidest thing that has ever been done.”
Churchill had never met Hitler and had only read about him. Very few people in the British foreign
service disbelieved Hitler’s intent and those were the ones who had never met
him and knew the least about him personally.
The people who were wrong about Hitler were the ones that had talked to
him for hours and believed they knew him.
Chamberlain was not a stupid man by any means, but he was obviously
deceived by Hitler. Others who had never
met Hitler saw him more closely for what he really was. How could those who judged Hitler with their
own eyes and ears be so wrong while others, having no personal contact with
Hitler, be so right? As Mr. Gladwell
says, this puzzling pattern pops up everywhere.
WHO GETS BAIL?
Another
example is in the court system. In a
busy metropolitan courtroom, the defendants appeared everyday for
arraignments. The defendants are all
types of people who have been arrested in the past 24 hours on suspicion of
some type of crime. They have all been
in the holding cell and they now appear before a judge in handcuffs,
one-by-one. As each case is called
before the judge, the judge must look at the file with the lawyers and the
defendant directly in front of the judge.
The lawyers, of course, will make their pitch about whether or not the
defendant should be required to post bond and if so, how much the bond should
be. The judge’s question comes down to
“Does this perfect stranger deserve his freedom?”
The
criminal justice system assumes, as most of us would agree, that difficult
decisions regarding posting a bond and the amount of the bond are best made if
the judge can look the defendant straight in the eye and meet them. In most
instances, judges want to make these difficult decisions the same way
Chamberlain did, looking the defendant straight in the eye to try to get a
sense of who he really is. Did this
work? Are the judges armed with the
defendant’s information, file materials, and personal observation any better
than random chance at making these decisions?
A
study tested this, gathering up the records of over half a million defendants
brought before arraignment hearing in New York from 2008 – 2013. Of those individuals, human judges of New
York had released just over 400,000. The
artificial intelligence system was provided the same information that the
prosecutors had given the judges in these arraignment cases: age, criminal record, etc. The computer came up with its own list of
people who should be released and who committed the fewest crimes while on bail
and showed up for their trial date.
The
people on the computer list were 25% less likely to commit a crime while
awaiting trial than the 400,000 people released by the judges of New York
City. The computer system flagged 1% of
all defendants as “high risk”. These
were people the computer thought should never be released prior to trial. According to the computer calculation, well
over half of those individuals would commit another crime if let out on
bail. The human judges looked at the
same group of individuals; however, they released 48.5% of them.
Many
defendants flagged by the algorithm as “high risk” were treated by the judge as
low risk. The only difference between
the information provided to the human judges and the computer was that the
human judges had the evidence of their own eyes and a feeling about the
defendant before them. In summary, when
it comes to making bail bond decisions, the computer algorithm, without any
personal contact with the defendants, beats the judge’s perception by a factor
of 25%.
The
same puzzle, as faced by Chamberlain in meeting Hitler appears in this
example. What then is the value of
personal contact and observation? Part
of the answer lies in our human reaction to “default to truth”. We want to believe people. We must believe people. If we believe that everyone was lying to us,
we would have no ability to function in society. As with Chamberlain, however, defaulting to
truth can have ongoing serious consequences.
THE MADOFF TOUCH
In
the early 2000’s, a very complicated and widely successful head fund was
created by Bernard Madoff. He had all
the trappings of success. He moved in
the money circles. He had fancy office
buildings. He was reclusive and secretive. He raised many questions to financiers about
how he was able to achieve the outstanding results for his clients. Many questioned what he did and thought it
smelled a little funny. SEC investigated
Madoff on his success but found his tax returns to be rock solid. When the investigator asked Madoff for an
answer, Madoff said that he had an “infallible gut feel” for when to get in and
out of the market just before a downswing and back into the market just before
an upswing. An explanation apparently
was that he could see around corners and was very adept at market timing. The SEC investigator had questions and had gone
to his boss. His boss had questions but
did not find Madoff’s claim to be trading on “gut feel” to be necessarily
ridiculous. The SEC, in other words,
defaulted to the truth and chose to believe Madoff even though it had serious
misgivings. Many investment funds in New
York were not completely trusting Madoff trusted the system. Madoff was part of one of the most heavily
regulated sectors in the entire financial market. If he was really just making things up,
wouldn’t somebody catch him? Everyone
assumed that someone else was watching out for their interests and they
defaulted to truth, choosing to believe Madoff as it was more convenient than
not believing Madoff. He was suave,
sophisticated, and had a certain aura about him. For years, people would default to the truth
of what he was saying rather than risk discovery of deception.
In
reality, lies are rare and truth is more frequent. The greatest advantage to humans lies in
assuming strangers are truthful rather than deceptive. While believing in truth, we get efficient
communication and social coordination.
The benefits of relying upon somebody’s word are significant and the
costs of being deceived once in a while are trivial by comparison. We may get deceived once in a while but
that’s kind of the cost of doing business.
Often the cost is great!
JERRY IS JUST
PLAYING
In
February, 2001, a graduate assistant at Penn State University named Michael
McQueary observed Jerry Sandusky naked in the shower with a boy. There were slapping sounds he heard and
McQueary was absolutely shaken by the event.
McQueary went to his coach, Joe Paterno and eventually an investigation
took place with Sandusky being convicted of 45 counts of child molestation and
Penn State paying over one hundred million ($100,000,000) in settlements to his
victims.
The
observations made by McQueary occurred in 2001 and Sandusky wasn’t arrested
until November of 2011.
The
investigation revealed that over the years, there were numerous reports of
Sandusky having inappropriate contact with boys. The reports never went very far because they
either fell into a “grey” area or the complainants were placed in a special
loving relationship between Sandusky, who was really trying to do the best for
youth and would never think of doing anything sexually inappropriate. He had showered with boys in the past but
there was nothing sexual about it.
Again, officials determined to default to the truth of what Sandusky was
saying.
LARRY WAS SO
POLITE
There
are parallels to the Sandusky investigation with that surrounding the Michigan
State Dr. Larry Nassar. Nassar was
described as bespeckled garrulous and a little awkward. He certainly seemed harmless. He doted on his patients and would come out
at any time of day to give them assistance.
He treated all manner of injuries that his gymnastic patients
sustained. His specialty, however, was
“pelvic-floor dysfunction”, which involved his inserting his fingers into his
patient’s vagina without consent and without gloves. This medical procedure was used to cover his
own sexual gratification and he was convicted on federal charges in the summer
of 2017.
This
would be a pretty straight forward investigation, right? Well, it wasn’t. For years, his young patients would bring
reports to their parents and others of his sexual misconduct. Yet, no one would believe them. How could this be true? One of his victims was assaulted when she was
16 and she told the Michigan State gymnastic coach who confronted Nassar who
denied everything. The coach believe
Nassar, not the student. The allegations
raised doubts but not enough doubts. The
abuse went on. The sexual predator was
allowed to continue predations for a number of years just because no one believed
that he would do such a thing.
Even
when the scandal broke, many of Nassar’s chief defenders were parents of his
patients. Why would they deny the reports
of their own children and support Nassar instead of believing the truth? Again, it is the default to truth. Default to truth becomes an issue when we are
forced to choose between two alternatives.
One of which is likely and the other one of which is impossible to
imagine. Could Jerry Sandusky, a beloved
and respected football coach and public figure really be guilty of
pedophile? Could Bernie Madoff, a rich,
slav, and wildly successful financier really be running a ponzi scheme? Could Larry Nassar really be repeatedly
sexually abusing his young patients when he seemed to devoted to their best
interests? So often, when an issue is so
monstrous, so out of proportion that we can’t accept it, we reject it and choose
another alternative. This is the default
to truth.
If
any of the parents of Nassar’s victims had found him rude to their children,
they probably would have complained. If
any of the parents had seen him intoxicated while treating their patients, they
probably would have complained. Those
are obvious and noticeable matters which we can comprehend. To be a sexual pedophile or to be a sexual
predator however? So often we can’t
accept the reality and we default to the truth of what the person says rather
than the reality of their actions.
MEK/kw
3/18/2021
