Why Are People Offended by Honesty?

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Truth is fine. But there's objective truth, and then there's loaded truth. It's possible to persuade someone of toward opposite opinions based on what facts you choose to present to them. Even though truth itself isn't inappropiate, the conclusion you lead someone to very well can be.

For example: Telling kids you smoked weed as a youth is ok. However, telling fun stories about it in a glamourizing manner that encourages them to use it is wrong.

Like talking about Baltimore's crime rate. You told the truth, but you also said to cease any interest in visiting potentially dangerous cities. Therefore closing the kid's mind.

Look at any political ad and you can see how "truth" can make even the best people look like the devil.

I described my boss as fat to someone then went and apologised to her. spent the next year and a half being bullied by her and in the end had to take out a grievance!

still find it hard not to tell the truth though.

Well your problem was you didn't tell the whole truth - she was fat AND a b***h.

Wait, so people do want short answers to "How was your weekend?" They want to hear "Fine" or "good" or "fair" "Okay?"

In high school kids used to ask me what I think of this person or that person and then they go to that person and tell them what I said leaving out that they had asked me what I thought of them. So they made it look like I was going around talking behind their backs to everyone than answering a question. Then after I awhile I quit answering those questions when someone would ask me what I thought of someone. I never understood why they did it. Now I am always to hesitate to answer those questions unless they are my friend. I did think those girls were my friends then too than acquaintances.

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Last edited by Teebst on 09 Feb 2011, 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That reminds me a few things. I was doing a program that tutors elementary school kids once a week. We once went on a field trip and we saw a bunch of teens doing exercises in orange jumpsuits and she asked about it, and I told her more or less straightfowardly that they were juviniles who got sent to centers for doing something really bad. I never got scolded for it considering that I didnt meet her parents but I look back and it was probably inappropriete.

There was another instance where my friend was asking me about HI because thats were Im from. I told him their was white discrimination there, and if he wanted to visit, he shouldnt go to certain areas. Its true, but it mighta also been a bit inappropriete.

See, I don't think there is anything wrong with that at all. Either of those instances. What you said was the truth! The person listening can make up his/her own mind, right?

Sure, it's possible to persuade people and maybe I subconsciously was. Why would anyone wanna visit Baltimore when NY is 3 hrs. away? I don't care what they choose to believe from what I've told them. If they wanna believe something either way, they will, right?

I think you're taking the role of advertisement/persuasion in society a little too seriously. It certainly has the ability to change minds, but many people will just wind up doing what they want in th end.

I got into the habit of only saying the truth. However I have gotten quite good at figuring out what truths can hurt people's feelings and I do not communicate those truths unless I am required to.

yeah i found that out later, i feel for her she is still angery with me and that is a year and a bit later. what a waste of her energy!

Ten Brinke and colleagues examined the facial, verbal and body language behaviors associated with emotional deception in videotaped accounts of true personal wrongdoing, with either genuine or fabricated remorse, among 31 Canadian undergraduate students. Their analysis of nearly 300,000 frames showed that those participants who displayed false remorse displayed more of the seven universal emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and contempt) than those who were genuinely sorry.

The authors grouped the emotions displayed in facial expressions into three categories: positive (happiness), negative (sadness, fear, anger, contempt, disgust) and neutral (neutral, surprise). They found that participants who were genuinely remorseful did not often swing directly from positive to negative emotions, but went through neutral emotions first. In contrast, those who were deceiving the researchers made more frequent direct transitions between positive and negative emotions, with fewer displays of neutral emotions in between. In addition, during fabricated remorse, students had a significantly higher rate of speech hesitations than during true remorse.

The authors conclude: "Our study is the first to investigate genuine and falsified remorse for behavioral cues that might be indicative of such deception. Identifying reliable cues could have considerable practical implications -- for example for forensic psychologists, parole officers and legal decision-makers who need to assess the truthfulness of remorseful displays."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 105652.htm

I'm not quite good at it yet, myself, but I'm trying to do the same as you

Because our society has got them used to being bulls**tted.

I disagree. Especially, if let's say you were a teacher. Parents won't tell their children that and that's why we have the problems we have. Because parents are to afraid. Where parents fall, eductaion should pick up. All children should be given a fair oppurtunity for this information.



People ask because they really want you to talk about them. If you say your peace about your situation, then they don't feel guilty about talking about themselves for hours on end.

People ask questions because of ulterior motives. People aren't holy innocent. There really isn't a such thing and when we have conversations with each other we should be aware of each other's ulterior motivations.

In a word, emotion.

If all people were like Mr.Spock, they'd always prefer to have as much accurate, relevent information as they could get. Anything less would put them at a disadvantage, just like having pages missing from the text book when there's an exam coming up. But most people have an emotional circuit as well as a logical one, and the wrong truth at the wrong time can do more harm than good, because it can wound their pride, undermine their self-confidence, and open up issues that are painful to them. So they don't always want to know the plain truth, and that's both their salvation and their downfall, because they're protecting their happiness and threatening it at the same time.

I'd be a lot more comfortable with pulling my truth-punches if I could more easily assess my listeners for their specific emotional vulnerabilities. Tell one person that you doubt their expertise in a subject, and they'll redouble their efforts, prove you wrong, and thank you for galvanising them out of their complacency. Tell another the same thing, and they'll just sulk and stop trying.

Like this:

http://www.lovine.com/hobbes/comics/chimage.php?image=babies1.gif

Problem solved!