Key Messages
Why It’s So Difficult To Judge Strangers: Our Innate Trust And Inability To Spot Lies
In the book, “Talking to Strangers”, you’ll find out just how little we understand about strangers and why it’s so difficult to judge their characters.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is a great example of this, as he believed Hitler was a man who could be trusted during his meeting with him in 1938.
However, as history was to prove, Chamberlain was catastrophically wrong.
The truth is that we are all confronted with people of different backgrounds and perspectives throughout our daily lives, and yet we often feel confident when interpreting their words and intentions.
We may think that we have sufficiently judged their character but unfortunately our natural tendencies lead us to trust too easily and struggle to spot lies.
These issues are discussed in detail within the book, with particular warning for sections 5-7 which explore quite sensitive content including murder and sexual violence.
If you want to gain an insight into why we know so little about strangers and how to better interpret them in future then this book is certainly worth a read!
Don’T Underestimate The Error Of Human Judgment: We’Re Not As Wise As We Think We Are
When it comes to making judgments about people, especially strangers, we are often wildly overconfident in our own abilities.
Take the example of Solomon, a bail judge from New York State.
Despite looking defendants in the eye and even reading their files, a 2017 study by Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan showed that bail decisions made by judges fared worse than those made by an artificial intelligence program when looking at factors like previous criminal record and age.
The truth is that instinctive judgments can be deceiving; even with such limited information as age and criminal record, machines often do better than humans.
One 2001 experiment by psychologist Emily Pronin demonstrated just how easily we succumb to the tendency to read into someone’s words – whether it is their own or those of someone else – and make conclusions about character based on a small amount of information.
This illuminates an important lesson: We all too often overestimate our ability to make accurate judgments about total strangers; therefore, it’s important for us to take any such conclusions with a grain of salt.
We Default To Truthfulness, But Spotting A Liar Is Harder Than We Think
It’s human nature to instinctively believe that people are telling the truth.
In fact, many studies have been conducted to discover just how hard it truly is for us to recognize deception.
Psychologist Tim Levine has run experiments in which subjects watch videos of students interviewed about a trivia test they participated in, and then must decide who is lying.
Scientists have found that people are only able to identify lies 54% of the time!
This hunch that most people tell the truth was largely assumed among fellow intelligence analysts working with Ana Montes at the U.S Defense Intelligence Agency—who suspected her of being a spy but had no substantial proof except for some vage red flags like parroting Cuban views or taking suspicious phone calls.
Even agents from the CIA, which specialize in uncovering deceit, aren’t very good at distinguishing lies since they too default to believe in honesty until there’s overwhelming evidence pointing toward dishonesty.
Therefore we can conclude that while suspicion may arise sometimes, it’s very difficult for us humans to decipher when someone is not being honest with us; it’s simply in our nature to trust others and ultimately assume truthfulness over deception.
Defaulting To Truth: How Being Skeptical Can Foster A Trustful Society
Sometimes, there are people who are better at spotting fraud and deception than others.
One of the most famous examples of this is the independent fraud investigator, Harry Markopolos.
He was one of the few who was not fooled by Bernie Madoff’s deception and could spot it right away.
Growing up, he had seen how small-scale fraud and theft could affect business, which gave him a unique insight into recognizing deceitful behavior.
However, while recognizing deceitful behavior is great in some instances, assuming it every single time can be detrimental to society as a whole.
Not everyone tells lies or is deceptive in their interactions with strangers – in fact, most interactions are fundamentally honest.
To assume falsehoods all the time can not only be disruptive but also waste everyone’s time.
It’s for this reason that assuming truth can ultimately make more sense for everyone involved.
So even though there may be outliers on either side such as Bernie Madoff or Ana Montes, defaulting to trust still serves us well in majority of cases.
We Can’T Always Trust Our Interpretations Of Other People’S Facial Expressions
We often expect people to be transparent when we meet them, meaning that we can read their emotions in their facial expressions.
We tend to think that if someone is surprised, they must have wide eyes, a dropped jaw and raised eyebrows – something similar to what we might see on our favorite TV show.
But in reality, this isn’t always the case.
An experiment conducted by two German psychologists showed that only 5% of participants showed surprise with the classic wide eyes, dropped jaws and raised eyebrows after walking through a dark hallway and into a brightly lit room with a person sitting in it.
In addition, 17% of participants showed only two out of three expressions – hardly any more convincing evidence that they were showing surprise!
This goes to show us that life isn’t always like an episode of Friends.
When it comes to reading a stranger’s face, what you see doesn’t tell the whole story – so don’t rush to any conclusions about someone’s character or feelings without getting to know them first!
The Fallacy Of Transparency: We Can’T Always Read People Like They’Re From A Tv Show
Sometimes we make quick and wrong decisions about people when they are not transparent.
Case in point, Amanda Knox, couldn’t get a fair trial even though there was not any physical evidence connecting her to the murder of Meredith Kercher.
Public opinion quickly shifted against her because of some minor details that were misread by investigators.
Our perception can easily deceive us; if someone does not look or act how we expect them to during a tragedy, for example, it is easy for us to make assumptions about their guilt or innocence.
Tim Levine’s study on dishonesty on the internet can also give us an insight into this problem.
When he observed potential cheaters who seemed tense and nervous– as if they had something to hide– one woman kept playing with her hair, repeating herself mid-sentence, and looking away, causing Levine to think she was likely lying.
Surprisingly though, she turned out to be telling the truth – she actually just wasn’t very transparent about what she was thinking or feeling in the moment.
We must always remember that strangers may not be able to express themselves clearly.
If we jump too quickly to conclusions based on their actions or words without actually understanding where they are coming from, we can easily misjudge them and miss out important information necessary for forming an accurate judgment of them.
The Need For Clear Consent Laws And Drastic Changes In Alcohol Culture To Address Sexual Assault
Interactions between strangers can be particularly difficult, given the lack of common history or understanding; in some cases, alcohol usage adds another level of complication.
In addition to impairing judgment, it can also strip away the impulse control that typically helps us maintain a balance between short-term gratification and long-term consequences.
The consequences of these changes in behaviour can be dire – as demonstrated by the case of Brock Turner, a freshman who had sexually assaulted an unconscious woman outside a Stanford University fraternity house in January 2015.
In regards to consent, close to half (47 percent) of the students surveyed by The Washington Post believed that taking off their own clothes constitutes consent for further sexual activity; 18 percent believed just not saying no constituted consent.
Between alcohol’s influence on judgement and confusion around these boundaries, terrible consequences can result.
Alcohol-induced myopia is poorly understood and underappreciated but needs to be taken into consideration when discussing ways to prevent sexual assault on campus effectively.
In other words, we should do both: teach people how to respect one another as well as limit alcohol availability on campus and drinking overall.
The Tragic Story Of Sandra Bland: How Defaulting To The Truth At The Wrong Time Can Have Deadly Consequences
The case of Sandra Bland is a solemn reminder of our inability to judge strangers, and how that contributed to her tragic death.
In July 2015, Bland was pulled over by a Texas state officer for a minor traffic violation.
Unfortunately, what could have been a mundane encounter quickly escalated when the officer started making assumptions about her character.
The officer reacted with fear and aggression when Bland lit a cigarette- something he wrongly interpreted as hostile- rather than recognizing it as an act of stress relief.
This strengthens the argument that misunderstandings between strangers can lead to very dangerous situations when we don’t pause and think twice before speaking or acting.
Encinia might have been rational in asking her out of her vehicle- but his lack of empathy towards Bland eventually led to him pulling her out forcefully and slamming her down on the ground.
We must take from this instance a lesson in trying to understand strangers before making any snap judgments about them; even seemingly everyday encounters could escalate into danger if we’re not careful.
Though Sandra Bland’s story remains shrouded in tragedy, it serves as an important reminder that we should exercise more thought before engaging with strangers.
Wrap Up
The key takeaway from Talking to Strangers is that it’s essential to invest more time and patience in truly listening to and understanding each other before making assumptions about strangers.
We must be aware of our own limitations when dealing with unknown people and understand that it is easy for us to fall prey to lies and deceptive information.
By being honest about our own predispositions towards strangers, we can open ourselves up to better understanding each other.
We must be ready to ask tough questions, actively listen, and spend time really getting to know the people around us if we are to build strong relationships with strangers.
