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Can we tell the difference?
“Always be sincere, whether you really are or not” is a cynical piece of advice that I heard long ago. It seems to work well for politicians, pundits, and other sales people.
The reactions to the recent testimony of police officers before the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol are an interesting example of our assessments of sincerity.
Many of us, having watched the videos of police defending the Capitol Building on January 6, understood and were moved by the officers’ testimony. We assessed their sincerity as real. Others, notably commentators on some broadcast media, dismissed their testimony as “acting” and assessed their sincerity as fake. Who is right?
Some mental attitudes and communicative actions seem to cluster together. Cynicism, sarcasm, and fake sincerity form one group, along with suspicion of other people. Curiosity, openness, and real sincerity form another group, along with willingness to trust most other people. People in each group tend to assume that other people are like them, and are behaving as they themselves would in a similar situation, unless those beliefs are contradicted by other evidence.
So people who tend to be suspicious and who often act with fake sincerity themselves assess and…
