You already knew you couldn’t stand hypocrites, but a new study reveals exactly why: because they deceive you.
People hate those who “condemn immoral behaviors that they in fact
engage in,” according to a study published recently in the journal Psychological Science,
because of their “false signaling” — or making you believe they’re better than they are.
“Our evidence demonstrates one, that people perceive moral condemnation
as a claim of moral goodness, and two, that this false claim is the
reason we dislike hypocrites,” lead author Jillian Jordan, a Yale
University researcher, told the Daily News.
“Our hypothesis was that people are willing to forgive you for failing
to practice what you preach, as long as you’re not dishonest about it,”
she added.
The study, which analyzed data from 619 online survey respondents,
appears to throw cold water on competing theories that hypocrites incur
our wrath because their actions contradict their implied values, because
they don’t practice what they preach, or because they lack the
willpower to implement their ideals, Jordan explained.
Instead, she and her team found that a person’s condemnation of a
behavior was enough to signal that they didn’t engage in that activity —
and that people would actually forgive a hypocrite’s transgressions “as
long as (they’re) honest and up front” rather than sending a
“misleading false signal.”
“I think we all probably know examples of activists who take very
strong moral stands on the behavior of people around them — call people
out for something like leaving the lights on,” Jordan said by way of
example. “When you discover that they themselves don’t always respect
the environment, that can be frustrating and obnoxious.”
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