Majicman Notes

Hypocrisy is often described as “saying one thing and doing another”. But actually it is about more than mere inconsistency; failing to “practise what you preach” gets closer to it. A drug addict who warns others not to take drugs is not seen as a hypocrite, though someone who publicly condemns drug-taking as morally abhorrent, say, and then is found to have been taking drugs themselves probably would be.

While people may not like a liar, according to Jillian Jordan, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who led a 2017 study on the subject, hypocrites are seen as worse. In the study, people perceived those who condemned others for illegally downloading music and then did so themselves as more objectionable — and more hypocritical — than those who lied about doing so. “Our theory is that the problem with hypocrisy is that it involves false signalling, and interestingly hypocrisy involves more false signalling than outright lying,” she says. “That might contribute to why people hate hypocrites even more than they hate liars.”

Jemima Kelly, FT

https://www.ft.com/content/fd3863c8-493c-4c9c-a42b-f3a628dc26fe