Misplaced Remorse May Be a Key to Trustworthy Appearance
November 7, 2013
Could research on perceptions of trustworthiness make for a new approach to search marketing? The British Psychological Society‘s Research Digest advises, “Want People to Trust You? Try Apologising for the Rain.” A recent study by researchers at Harvard Business School and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that people see strangers who apologize for factors beyond their control as more trustworthy than others.
In the researchers’ series of behavioral studies, first came three lab experiments. See the article for details, but in all three participants did rate strangers as more trustworthy when they had apologized for something that could not have been their fault. A field study conducted at a train station on a rainy day seems to confirm this bias.
Writer Christian Jarrett tells us:
“The most compelling evidence came from [Harvard’s] Alison Brooks and her colleagues’ fourth and final study in which a male actor approached 65 strangers (30 women) at a train station on a rainy day to ask to borrow their mobile phone. Crucially, for half of them he preceded his request with the superfluous apology: ‘I’m sorry about the rain!’ The other half of the time he just came straight out with his request: ‘Can I borrow your cell phone?’ The superfluous apology made a big difference. Forty-seven per cent of strangers offered their phone when the actor apologised for the rain first, compared with just nine per cent when there was no apology.”
Jarrett points out a serious flaw with this particular test: its scenarios are not parallel. Instead of changing the approach from an apology about the rain to a standard one like “sorry to bother you” or even an opener like “excuse me,” the control script went right into “can I borrow your phone?” It could well have been the abrupt request that put off participants. Still, this is an interesting premise, and the lab experiments provide compelling evidence. Perhaps a better designed field study will be done. In the meantime, though, anyone looking to manipulate human nature in the pursuit of good first impressions may want to consider these findings.
Cynthia Murrell, November 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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