Oct 14 2009
Scientists Surprised by Human Social Nature
Here is a shocker: Economists discovered we are human! And they seemed shocked by it. In research into what might be described as consumer loyalty -
Academics set out to show whether customers who have been let down continue to do business after being offered an apology. They found people are more than twice as likely to forgive a company that says sorry than one that instead offers them cash.
The title to the news release suggest that, gee, our kind isn’t Homo capitalist.
Saying Sorry Really Does Cost Nothing
Here are the hard numbers:
Some 45% of participants withdrew their [negative] evaluation in light of the apology, while only 23% agreed in return for compensation.
In a speculation as to the psychological reason for the observed results, study co-author Dr Johannes Abeler displays a lack of understanding about the fundamental nature of our kind -
“It might be that saying sorry triggers in the customer an instinct to forgive – an instinct that’s hard to overcome rationally.”
An instinct to forgive . . . what is this but an attempt at relationship repair? An appropriate name for our kind might be Homo hypersocial.
As for needing to overcome a social instinct rationally — in this phrasing we see a kernel of a mistaken worldview. Homo rational is a myth. What we have at hand are cognitive and social skills/inclinations that evolved in a particular environment that human beings now apply to different circumstances.
Venturing into politics here, it is because Homo hypersocial suits us so much better than Homo capitalist or Homo rationalist that I find the objectivist and extreme libertarian worldviews to be narrow-minded. They run counter to a massive, essential side to human nature. The social.
