WEBVTT
00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.879
Hi, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Save the World Podcast.
00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:24.239
Today we're going to talk about a very interesting subject, which is civility.
00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:36.079
I'm going to start off by giving some definitions of terms and then examples of rudeness in modern society that are in fact quite easy to demonstrate.
00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:45.600
And following this, we will examine whether or not we are more uncivil now than in previous times in human history.
00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:53.439
Afterwards, we will provide an in-depth psychological examination for explanations of rude behavior.
00:00:53.840 --> 00:01:08.719
And then we will conclude with ways to try and stop incivility, covering historical, religious, and modern therapeutic methods that we'll address mostly in the follow-up to this particular episode.
00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:16.879
So rudeness is behavior or speech that violates norms of courtesy for others.
00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:22.879
Notice that norms can change over time or by situation.
00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:30.560
What was considered polite during the medieval period was not the same as during the Victorian era.
00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:37.200
What is polite in a bar is not the same as at a ballroom dance.
00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:44.079
So rudeness does not necessarily require an intention to offend.
00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:53.519
Somebody can behave rudely through thoughtlessness, self-absorption, or ignorance of a social convention.
00:01:54.879 --> 00:02:04.799
By contrast, deliberately insulting or humiliating somebody is more intentional and an aggressive form of incivility.
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:13.039
In this two-part episode, we will use the terms rude and uncivil synonymously.
00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:18.000
Now you might ask, why is this important?
00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:24.159
What does being impolite have to do with something as big and grand as saving the world?
00:02:24.479 --> 00:02:26.400
Will it stop nuclear war?
00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:29.120
Will it address climate change?
00:02:29.439 --> 00:02:33.439
And my response to this is yes, most definitely.
00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:44.800
The way we treat other people and our attitudes towards them are the basis for all forms of social organization, including politics and economics.
00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:50.400
That is because group behavior emerges from individual behavior.
00:02:50.960 --> 00:03:04.879
It has even been argued, sometimes in anarchist circles, sometimes in other places, that if people were sufficiently intelligent and moral, that we might not even need laws or government.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:15.840
So individual actions and attitudes percolate and spread throughout society and can have much larger effects.
00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:25.919
To help think about this, we scientists know that human society is what is called a nonlinear dynamic system.
00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:34.000
Okay, this is where smaller perturbations or changes can have widespread outcomes.
00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:44.240
The classic example of this is that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, then you can get a tornado in China.
00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:53.840
Each one of us is like a butterfly, and the way we flap our wings has a spreading effect on all of society.
00:03:54.639 --> 00:04:02.800
It changes the way other people think and act about the world and the kinds of decisions and actions that they make.
00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:06.800
Let me give you an example.
00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:16.240
You might remember that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip in 1914.
00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:23.920
Historians agree that this was an important outcome that triggered the outbreak of World War I.
00:04:24.959 --> 00:04:40.639
So here you have the action of one person, actually one person in combination with another small group, but that then combined with other geopolitical causes to result in the deaths of 20 million people.
00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:48.480
So we could ask the question: what might have happened if Gavrilo decided not to perform this assassination?
00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:51.439
Would war have been averted?
00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:55.199
Here's a thought experiment.
00:04:56.240 --> 00:05:04.240
Dictators often come to power because they are narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sociopathic.
00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:10.879
In other words, they are self-centered and ruthless and trying to achieve their ends.
00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:19.759
But we can speculate, what if Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong were treated differently as children?
00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:25.759
Would they have become dictators if they were taught to be kind or had different types of parents?
00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:28.959
Truthfully, we don't know.
00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:34.879
And it may be that some of these traits were entirely or mostly determined by genetics.
00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:40.480
However, we also know that environment plays an important role in psychological development.
00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:49.759
And so somebody who is treated with empathy and civility as a child could become a very different type of adult.
00:05:52.319 --> 00:05:54.160
A little bit of context here.
00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:59.920
We are not talking about psychological disorders in this episode.
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:17.759
Disorders include things like schizophrenia, major depression, or anxiety.
00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:38.240
Disorders by their nature are more persistent, impede everyday life functioning, and cause personal discomfort, while rudeness for the average individual seems more circumstantial, less personally disturbing, and interferes probably less with life functioning.
00:06:39.439 --> 00:06:46.560
However, more research is needed to discover these differences, and there is certain to be some overlap.
00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:53.920
Okay, next, let's address some examples of rudeness.
00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:59.279
So I want to provide you with several instances of impolite behavior.
00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:03.519
I live near New York City and often ride the subway.
00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:09.360
Within five minutes, you can count multiple rudeness violations.
00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:15.680
There are people standing in the doorway of the subway car blocking entry and exit.
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:19.040
There are the quote unquote man spreaders.
00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:22.800
These are guys spreading their legs to take up more than one seat.
00:07:23.199 --> 00:07:31.839
And a particular pet peeve of mine is the person who blasts their music or phone conversation at a loud volume from their phone.
00:07:32.079 --> 00:07:34.800
Now it's very easy to buy a cheap pair of headphones.
00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.879
So my advice to these people is just buy some headphones.
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:46.720
Another arena where we tend to see lots of rude behavior is in driving.
00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:53.759
So anybody who's gotten into a car knows that people often speed or cut lanes.
00:07:54.879 --> 00:08:02.639
Some people also modify their cars, making the engine very loud or installing enormous speakers to blast music.
00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:06.639
How can we explain such behavior?
00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:12.959
Is it overcompensation for perceived weakness, as some have suggested?
00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:21.439
Is it the insulation of being inside a metal cocoon where we are isolated from others and therefore less accountable to them?
00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:25.519
It's hard to say.
00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:31.600
Interestingly, one group of researchers found a social norm effect here.
00:08:32.320 --> 00:08:43.200
And one of the strongest predictors of aggressive driving was the perception that other drivers in one's area also drove the same way.
00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:51.120
This suggests that if you see other people driving aggressively, it might prompt you to do the same.
00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:58.960
And in general, people seem to conform to the norms of their community and the others around them.
00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:08.399
The question I want to address next is are we less civil now than in the past?
00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:13.759
And is there any empirical data to support this claim?
00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:24.320
Well, there is evidence that Americans have perceived a decline in civility, particularly in politics and public behavior.
00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:38.960
A nationally representative Pew Research Center survey conducted in November of 2024 asked a sample to compare public behavior with the period before COVID.
00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:44.320
47% said that people now behave more rudely in public.
00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:52.480
The evidence is considerably stronger for political civility.
00:09:53.600 --> 00:10:02.399
In 2019, a Peace survey found that 85% of political debate had become more negative and less respectful.
00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:18.720
This wasn't simply one political party complaining about the other.
00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:25.039
Both the Democrats and the Republicans were saying it about politics in general.
00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:34.399
You're probably aware that polarization is at historic highs in the US and around the world.
00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:45.919
Although we think of polarization as being primarily political, there are actually many kinds, including economic, educational, and geographic.
00:10:47.279 --> 00:11:07.919
Inflamed by politicians and social media, this has caused increased resentment of one party against another, poor against the rich, populists against elites, citizens versus immigrants, and even northerners against southerners in America.
00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:17.919
This resentment can cause incivility as one group blames the other for various national problems.
00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:29.759
In summary, there is considerable evidence that Americans believe everyday public behavior has become ruder, especially in the political arena.
00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:42.159
These perceptions have persisted across repeated national surveys, but the evidence does not establish that Americans are generally less civil now than they have been in the past.
00:11:46.159 --> 00:11:52.000
Okay, so in this next section, I want to address the psychology of civility.
00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:59.600
And so this next major question that would come to mind is why are people impolite?
00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:04.399
And to begin, I want to distinguish between two possibilities.
00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:12.480
The first is when somebody is clueless or not aware of what is going on around them, what I call situational awareness.
00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:16.720
That can be considered a minor infraction of civility.
00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:29.840
The second is a situation where they are aware of social conventions, but just don't care about them, which could be considered a more severe infraction.
00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:36.480
There are numerous psychological explanations for rudeness.
00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:43.519
They are really interesting, so I want to examine several theories along with the evidence that supports them.
00:12:44.480 --> 00:12:51.600
Before we get into these, it's important to note that rudeness isn't necessarily a stable personality characteristic.
00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:54.879
In other words, they haven't found a gene for rudeness.
00:12:55.360 --> 00:13:07.840
It can arise from personality, emotion, the social situation, group norms, and the presence of social restraints.
00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:16.879
In other words, like many traits in psychology, behavior can reflect a confluence of different factors.
00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:32.080
Now, the first major theory for uncivil behavior is frustration, sometimes what's called the frustration aggression hypothesis.
00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:36.879
This is an old one, it goes back at least to the late 1980s.
00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:57.679
When people are prevented from achieving a goal, being stuck in traffic, waiting in a long line, dealing with an incompetent bureaucracy, they experience negative affects that can increase aggressive tendencies.
00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:01.759
Think back to a bad day you might have had at work.
00:14:02.639 --> 00:14:09.600
You expected to finish the slide presentation for a conference, and you thought it was only going to take you like maybe another half an hour.
00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:13.679
In fact, you completed most of it the night before.
00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:18.720
You thought you were just gonna come to work and apply the finishing touches.
00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:21.039
Wrong.
00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:29.519
It turned out that you had to delete what you created earlier, given what your manager had said, and then add entirely new sections.
00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:36.159
When your coworker later asked you how it was going, you snapped at her.
00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:46.159
So this violation of expectation plays a big role in making us feel bad, and it can set the stage for rude behavior.
00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:55.279
A second theory for impoliteness is threatened ego.
00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:04.159
It might seem intuitive that rude and aggressive people suffer from low self-esteem.
00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:09.600
Surprisingly, an influential line of research suggests something different.
00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:21.840
Bushman and Baumeister in 1998 experimentally studied what happened after people received either insulting or praising evaluations.
00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:30.320
Narcissistic individuals responded more aggressively after being insulted compared to the control group.
00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:36.000
The proposed mechanism for this is threatened egotism.
00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:47.360
People with highly favorable but vulnerable views of themselves react strongly when their self-image is challenged.
00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:55.120
We see this frequently in online behavior.
00:15:55.919 --> 00:16:00.879
It's very easy for us to cultivate an ideal online persona.
00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:10.000
People do this all the time by posting attractive photos of themselves on social media or by bragging about their accomplishments.
00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:16.879
And then the likes and compliments that receive afterwards boost our ego and make us feel good about ourselves.
00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:28.399
But if a narcissist receives a critical comment about a post, the research shows that they are more likely to become upset and lash out.
00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:44.799
A third psychological explanation for uncivil behavior is the failure to take another person's perspective into account.
00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:51.759
Civility requires thinking about how my behavior is affecting you.
00:16:52.960 --> 00:17:05.039
Somebody talking loudly on a phone in a restaurant, maybe concentrating entirely on their own conversation rather than mentally representing other people's experiences.
00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:26.880
An interesting demonstration comes from Golinsky and colleagues in a study in 2006, across several experiments, inducing feelings of power, reduced perspective taking, and their subjects' accuracy in recognizing other people's emotions.
00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:34.319
Billionaires, Hollywood celebrities, or politicians might fall into this trap.
00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:41.599
If they think they are important, they might lose their ability to empathize with others.
00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:02.160
Research and workplace incivility suggests that rudeness spreads.
00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:10.079
After exposure to incivility, people are more likely to act that way themselves.
00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:18.480
In this case, rudeness is transmitted to others through exposure, much like a virus.
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:28.640
As an example, imagine a real estate company where a group of three friends, maybe recent college grads, work together.
00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:35.519
Unfortunately, they act misogynistic, whistling at girls and groping them.
00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:43.119
If other men see this and join in, then the entire workplace might conform to this behavior.
00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:45.599
Why?
00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:49.519
Maybe because they believe they can get away with it?
00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:53.680
Perhaps because they don't want to stand out as being different.
00:18:56.079 --> 00:19:03.839
So we are digging into research on psychological material, both in this episode and the next one, which can be dense at times.
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:12.880
To avoid overloading you, I'm going to break this topic into these two different sections, which will make them a little bit easier to digest.
00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:20.000
Next time we'll look at the causes of incivility and how to stop them.
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:32.079
And you can go onto my Substack account and respond to my chats there.
00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:34.799
I'll do my best to get back to each of you.
00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:45.839
Maybe you can share your examples of impolite behavior that you've encountered in daily life, some of the explanations that you have for them, and what you think the causes are.
00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:58.480
I have included links to my YouTube videos on related material, both for polarization, on moral psychology, and on the psychology of evil.
00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:03.279
You can find those links in the episode description.
00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.879
Hi, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Save the World Podcast.
00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:24.239
Today we're going to talk about a very interesting subject, which is civility.
00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:36.079
I'm going to start off by giving some definitions of terms and then examples of rudeness in modern society that are in fact quite easy to demonstrate.
00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:45.600
And following this, we will examine whether or not we are more uncivil now than in previous times in human history.
00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:53.439
Afterwards, we will provide an in-depth psychological examination for explanations of rude behavior.
00:00:53.840 --> 00:01:08.719
And then we will conclude with ways to try and stop incivility, covering historical, religious, and modern therapeutic methods that we'll address mostly in the follow-up to this particular episode.
00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:16.879
So rudeness is behavior or speech that violates norms of courtesy for others.
00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:22.879
Notice that norms can change over time or by situation.
00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:30.560
What was considered polite during the medieval period was not the same as during the Victorian era.
00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:37.200
What is polite in a bar is not the same as at a ballroom dance.
00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:44.079
So rudeness does not necessarily require an intention to offend.
00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:53.519
Somebody can behave rudely through thoughtlessness, self-absorption, or ignorance of a social convention.
00:01:54.879 --> 00:02:04.799
By contrast, deliberately insulting or humiliating somebody is more intentional and an aggressive form of incivility.
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:13.039
In this two-part episode, we will use the terms rude and uncivil synonymously.
00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:18.000
Now you might ask, why is this important?
00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:24.159
What does being impolite have to do with something as big and grand as saving the world?
00:02:24.479 --> 00:02:26.400
Will it stop nuclear war?
00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:29.120
Will it address climate change?
00:02:29.439 --> 00:02:33.439
And my response to this is yes, most definitely.
00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:44.800
The way we treat other people and our attitudes towards them are the basis for all forms of social organization, including politics and economics.
00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:50.400
That is because group behavior emerges from individual behavior.
00:02:50.960 --> 00:03:04.879
It has even been argued, sometimes in anarchist circles, sometimes in other places, that if people were sufficiently intelligent and moral, that we might not even need laws or government.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:15.840
So individual actions and attitudes percolate and spread throughout society and can have much larger effects.
00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:25.919
To help think about this, we scientists know that human society is what is called a nonlinear dynamic system.
00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:34.000
Okay, this is where smaller perturbations or changes can have widespread outcomes.
00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:44.240
The classic example of this is that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, then you can get a tornado in China.
00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:53.840
Each one of us is like a butterfly, and the way we flap our wings has a spreading effect on all of society.
00:03:54.639 --> 00:04:02.800
It changes the way other people think and act about the world and the kinds of decisions and actions that they make.
00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:06.800
Let me give you an example.
00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:16.240
You might remember that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip in 1914.
00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:23.920
Historians agree that this was an important outcome that triggered the outbreak of World War I.
00:04:24.959 --> 00:04:40.639
So here you have the action of one person, actually one person in combination with another small group, but that then combined with other geopolitical causes to result in the deaths of 20 million people.
00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:48.480
So we could ask the question: what might have happened if Gavrilo decided not to perform this assassination?
00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:51.439
Would war have been averted?
00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:55.199
Here's a thought experiment.
00:04:56.240 --> 00:05:04.240
Dictators often come to power because they are narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sociopathic.
00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:10.879
In other words, they are self-centered and ruthless and trying to achieve their ends.
00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:19.759
But we can speculate, what if Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong were treated differently as children?
00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:25.759
Would they have become dictators if they were taught to be kind or had different types of parents?
00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:28.959
Truthfully, we don't know.
00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:34.879
And it may be that some of these traits were entirely or mostly determined by genetics.
00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:40.480
However, we also know that environment plays an important role in psychological development.
00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:49.759
And so somebody who is treated with empathy and civility as a child could become a very different type of adult.
00:05:52.319 --> 00:05:54.160
A little bit of context here.
00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:59.920
We are not talking about psychological disorders in this episode.
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:17.759
Disorders include things like schizophrenia, major depression, or anxiety.
00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:38.240
Disorders by their nature are more persistent, impede everyday life functioning, and cause personal discomfort, while rudeness for the average individual seems more circumstantial, less personally disturbing, and interferes probably less with life functioning.
00:06:39.439 --> 00:06:46.560
However, more research is needed to discover these differences, and there is certain to be some overlap.
00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:53.920
Okay, next, let's address some examples of rudeness.
00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:59.279
So I want to provide you with several instances of impolite behavior.
00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:03.519
I live near New York City and often ride the subway.
00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:09.360
Within five minutes, you can count multiple rudeness violations.
00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:15.680
There are people standing in the doorway of the subway car blocking entry and exit.
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:19.040
There are the quote unquote man spreaders.
00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:22.800
These are guys spreading their legs to take up more than one seat.
00:07:23.199 --> 00:07:31.839
And a particular pet peeve of mine is the person who blasts their music or phone conversation at a loud volume from their phone.
00:07:32.079 --> 00:07:34.800
Now it's very easy to buy a cheap pair of headphones.
00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.879
So my advice to these people is just buy some headphones.
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:46.720
Another arena where we tend to see lots of rude behavior is in driving.
00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:53.759
So anybody who's gotten into a car knows that people often speed or cut lanes.
00:07:54.879 --> 00:08:02.639
Some people also modify their cars, making the engine very loud or installing enormous speakers to blast music.
00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:06.639
How can we explain such behavior?
00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:12.959
Is it overcompensation for perceived weakness, as some have suggested?
00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:21.439
Is it the insulation of being inside a metal cocoon where we are isolated from others and therefore less accountable to them?
00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:25.519
It's hard to say.
00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:31.600
Interestingly, one group of researchers found a social norm effect here.
00:08:32.320 --> 00:08:43.200
And one of the strongest predictors of aggressive driving was the perception that other drivers in one's area also drove the same way.
00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:51.120
This suggests that if you see other people driving aggressively, it might prompt you to do the same.
00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:58.960
And in general, people seem to conform to the norms of their community and the others around them.
00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:08.399
The question I want to address next is are we less civil now than in the past?
00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:13.759
And is there any empirical data to support this claim?
00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:24.320
Well, there is evidence that Americans have perceived a decline in civility, particularly in politics and public behavior.
00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:38.960
A nationally representative Pew Research Center survey conducted in November of 2024 asked a sample to compare public behavior with the period before COVID.
00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:44.320
47% said that people now behave more rudely in public.
00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:52.480
The evidence is considerably stronger for political civility.
00:09:53.600 --> 00:10:02.399
In 2019, a Peace survey found that 85% of political debate had become more negative and less respectful.
00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:18.720
This wasn't simply one political party complaining about the other.
00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:25.039
Both the Democrats and the Republicans were saying it about politics in general.
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You're probably aware that polarization is at historic highs in the US and around the world.
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Although we think of polarization as being primarily political, there are actually many kinds, including economic, educational, and geographic.
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Inflamed by politicians and social media, this has caused increased resentment of one party against another, poor against the rich, populists against elites, citizens versus immigrants, and even northerners against southerners in America.
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This resentment can cause incivility as one group blames the other for various national problems.
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In summary, there is considerable evidence that Americans believe everyday public behavior has become ruder, especially in the political arena.
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These perceptions have persisted across repeated national surveys, but the evidence does not establish that Americans are generally less civil now than they have been in the past.
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Okay, so in this next section, I want to address the psychology of civility.
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And so this next major question that would come to mind is why are people impolite?
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And to begin, I want to distinguish between two possibilities.
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The first is when somebody is clueless or not aware of what is going on around them, what I call situational awareness.
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That can be considered a minor infraction of civility.
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The second is a situation where they are aware of social conventions, but just don't care about them, which could be considered a more severe infraction.
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There are numerous psychological explanations for rudeness.
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They are really interesting, so I want to examine several theories along with the evidence that supports them.
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Before we get into these, it's important to note that rudeness isn't necessarily a stable personality characteristic.
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In other words, they haven't found a gene for rudeness.
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It can arise from personality, emotion, the social situation, group norms, and the presence of social restraints.
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In other words, like many traits in psychology, behavior can reflect a confluence of different factors.
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Now, the first major theory for uncivil behavior is frustration, sometimes what's called the frustration aggression hypothesis.
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This is an old one, it goes back at least to the late 1980s.
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When people are prevented from achieving a goal, being stuck in traffic, waiting in a long line, dealing with an incompetent bureaucracy, they experience negative affects that can increase aggressive tendencies.
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Think back to a bad day you might have had at work.
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You expected to finish the slide presentation for a conference, and you thought it was only going to take you like maybe another half an hour.
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In fact, you completed most of it the night before.
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You thought you were just gonna come to work and apply the finishing touches.
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Wrong.
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It turned out that you had to delete what you created earlier, given what your manager had said, and then add entirely new sections.
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When your coworker later asked you how it was going, you snapped at her.
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So this violation of expectation plays a big role in making us feel bad, and it can set the stage for rude behavior.
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A second theory for impoliteness is threatened ego.
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It might seem intuitive that rude and aggressive people suffer from low self-esteem.
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Surprisingly, an influential line of research suggests something different.
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Bushman and Baumeister in 1998 experimentally studied what happened after people received either insulting or praising evaluations.
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Narcissistic individuals responded more aggressively after being insulted compared to the control group.
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The proposed mechanism for this is threatened egotism.
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People with highly favorable but vulnerable views of themselves react strongly when their self-image is challenged.
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We see this frequently in online behavior.
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It's very easy for us to cultivate an ideal online persona.
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People do this all the time by posting attractive photos of themselves on social media or by bragging about their accomplishments.
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And then the likes and compliments that receive afterwards boost our ego and make us feel good about ourselves.
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But if a narcissist receives a critical comment about a post, the research shows that they are more likely to become upset and lash out.
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A third psychological explanation for uncivil behavior is the failure to take another person's perspective into account.
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Civility requires thinking about how my behavior is affecting you.
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Somebody talking loudly on a phone in a restaurant, maybe concentrating entirely on their own conversation rather than mentally representing other people's experiences.
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An interesting demonstration comes from Golinsky and colleagues in a study in 2006, across several experiments, inducing feelings of power, reduced perspective taking, and their subjects' accuracy in recognizing other people's emotions.
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Billionaires, Hollywood celebrities, or politicians might fall into this trap.
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If they think they are important, they might lose their ability to empathize with others.
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Research and workplace incivility suggests that rudeness spreads.
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After exposure to incivility, people are more likely to act that way themselves.
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In this case, rudeness is transmitted to others through exposure, much like a virus.
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As an example, imagine a real estate company where a group of three friends, maybe recent college grads, work together.
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Unfortunately, they act misogynistic, whistling at girls and groping them.
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If other men see this and join in, then the entire workplace might conform to this behavior.
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Why?
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Maybe because they believe they can get away with it?
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Perhaps because they don't want to stand out as being different.
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So we are digging into research on psychological material, both in this episode and the next one, which can be dense at times.
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To avoid overloading you, I'm going to break this topic into these two different sections, which will make them a little bit easier to digest.
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Next time we'll look at the causes of incivility and how to stop them.
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And you can go onto my Substack account and respond to my chats there.
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I'll do my best to get back to each of you.
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Maybe you can share your examples of impolite behavior that you've encountered in daily life, some of the explanations that you have for them, and what you think the causes are.
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I have included links to my YouTube videos on related material, both for polarization, on moral psychology, and on the psychology of evil.
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You can find those links in the episode description.
