Apologizing Makes Women & Lefties Hate You: Why?

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm explore the social and political consequences of public apologies. Discussing a study by Richard Hanania on how different demographics react to apologies, the Collinses elaborate on why apologizing can often make things worse, especially in public contexts where it is demanded. They share various examples including public figures like John Carmack and discuss concepts like in-group and out-group dynamics. Furthermore, Malcolm and Simone delve into psychological studies on apologizing, their effects on self-respect, trustworthiness, and the phenomenon of the 'doormat effect.'

The episode also touches on character traits of public figures like Trump and Jordan Peterson, and how maintaining a consistent public persona can influence one's likability and support. Finally, the Collinses share personal anecdotes and behind-the-scenes discussions, all contributing to a broader understanding of the intricate relationship between public image, apologies, and societal reactions.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So who really, really, really punishes.

Approval people who make apologies about things. It is liberals where the result was 13.8 and even more than liberals, females, where the result was 16.30

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today came to me from a REU post that I was reading on X. Nice. And honestly, I didn't get this from XI, I got it from Facebook.

Malcolm Collins (2): Okay. But

Malcolm Collins: somebody screenshotted an ex post by from you, friend of the show who said, you know, who wrote a paper on this? So specifically he's talking to a guy who there was some conference called Based Con, and this guy John Carmack, backed out of Basscon because it had become too.

Controversial or rightwing, you know, from his perspective. So what he says is, it is unfortunate that Rob has made Basscon so intentionally provocative. Well, it's

Simone Collins: not called normy [00:01:00] Con. Come on.

Malcolm Collins: I feel a little uncomfortable after the events of last year. , You know, just whining basically that people too controversial, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then apologizing for having any involvement with. And Mia's like, what are you doing? Do not apologize. And then he goes, do you know who actually wrote a paper on this at Richard Hania? Been on the show before, by the way. Fans don't like it very much after he turned on Trump, but he's done interesting research anyway.

He found that when people presented with apologizing instead of standing firm, women in liberals were more likely to want to punish them. So I'm gonna get into the abstract of the study, and then we're going to look at how different groups reacted to this. And then after that, we're gonna go into all of the other research on apologizing that will generally show that we, when you should apologize, and that generally, at least in a public context, it is a bad idea to apologize.

Mm-hmm. If people are using, attempting to get you to apologize as a weapon against you, [00:02:00] IE you know, apologize or else. Bad thing will happen to you. It always gets worse when you apologize. A apologize when you're actually made a mistake. Not when people are pushing you. Unless you are 100% okay with flipping a hundred percent, like basically which team you're paying.

Simone Collins: Ray, what do you mean by apologize? When you're mid mistake like.

Malcolm Collins: So a great example of this is often used in business case studies. I think it was Tylenol or one of the medical companies Oh. Who released a product that was actually harmful to people. And then they did this big apology and removed at a huge cost very quickly, all of their products from the shelves.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And it, and it increased trust in the company a ton. And increased sales.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think that's more like if you've made a legitimate mistake that. You wouldn't want to stand by, own it. Fix it right away.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Own it and fix it right away. So I'm not of the camp of never apologize. Mm-hmm. But apologize when you did something that was a [00:03:00] mistake.

Not when somebody has been like, oh, did you know X person was at that conference? Mm-hmm. And, and this is something that we personally went through. So if you look at the program, went

Simone Collins: through, go through all the freaking time.

Malcolm Collins: Or people we've had on our shows is people will call us and try to get us to attack people we have had on the shows for things they've done in other places.

Or the conference, the prenatals conference or the people who talk there. Right. Or, and, and I will note, like off the record, I took, kevin Dolan who organizes it aside, and Simone knows this. Like I had like an hour and a half argument with him. He's not

Simone Collins: off the record if you're saying this on

Malcolm Collins: the phone.

No, no, no, no. But I mean, like, I, I wasn't in public about this, right? No. Being like we should have more restriction on who can attend so we don't get people who could hurt other attendees at the event. That was very much my opinion, like my opinion was. We need to be more restrictive about this, right?

Not in reaction to people attacking us or with an [00:04:00] apology, just like, let's not give them the opportunity to drive this wedge or say, you know, Malcolm who appeared alongside figures like X and Y, right? And he was just like, absolutely not. We're not gonna do that. At the end of the day, I see the prenatal movement and everything we do is very much a team effort.

And if he is putting in the risk. A personal capital to make something like this happen. He gets to have the final call on stuff like that, even if I'm gonna help financially back him.

Simone Collins: No, and we have a lot of respect, like for the, the, the principle of it. Like we, we have a lot of practical qualms about it because we know that.

You know, there, there will be certain groups that will never go to a conference as long as it has a rep reputation like that. And we, we, we hate that, for example, many governments wouldn't sell, like send, send representatives to a conference like this because of those characteristics. Mm-hmm. So from a, a pragmatic standpoint, that's why you brought it up.

But from a philosophical standpoint, yeah. We, we don't like the idea of any form of [00:05:00] censorship or restrictions. Right. But

Malcolm Collins: he, he, he took the stance very firmly.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And I respect that. I respect that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The moment he took this stance and said, this is the direction we're going as a conference, we never.

Publicly attacked him for that. We never publicly attacked any of the other people who were at the conference. We never said anything other than the media is being crazy about this. You know, they're overstating things. You know, you, what am I supposed to do? Like, run out of a conference because some controversial person shows up or some homophobic person shows up, right?

Like, I'm going to be like, and, and even so, like, I remember somebody told me that the guy who was running it, and, and this is why we can't. Back down on this stuff. And why we do need to present a united face once a decision has been made behind closed doors, which is to say somebody told me that K