What’s the most plausible way to save face once you blow off your New Year’s resolution?
Tuesday, January 2, 2024.
A researcher walks into a bar and asks the bartender a cynical question…
How can a human still look good even though they’re just one of the 66% of humanity who blow off their New Year’s resolutions in less than a month?
It is certainly cynical to start the New Year with the presumption that your resolutions will soon be ditched…
But you can’t hide from the math. That’s the thing about math…it has no fu*king pity.
66% of humans deep-six their New Year’s resolutions within one month… and around half of all humans make the same ineffectual resolution this year…as they did last year.
So, this researcher slyly asks… What’s the best way of saving face?
Blame it on the lack of moola…
It emerges from this research that the most excellent excuse for a broken New Year’s resolution is to blame it on a cash crunch.
People who blame a lack of funds are seen by other humans more admirably as humans still having good self-control despite failing due to lack of moola.
This is where Dr. Steinmetz earns her fee. Humans who blame a lack of time are not cut the same slack…
Dr Janina Steinmetz, the study’s author, explained:
“Many resolutions or commitments involve either time or money, so the lack of one or the other seems to provide a good excuse for breaking it without adversely affecting how others see us.
However, these two excuses are not equally effective.
My six experiments involving around 1,200 people found that pleading a lack of money leads to better outcomes—in terms of perceptions about the individual—than citing lack of time.”
Why the money excuse works…
The reason for the difference between time and money as excuses comes down to the perception of the locus of control.
Humans are perceived to have greater over their time, but it’s common folk wisdom that money doesn’t grow on trees.
Dr. Steinmetz also said:
“These results are surprising because people like to use lack of time as an excuse when they can’t do something.
They equate lack of time with high status.
However, the studies suggest we tend to think others could find the time to exercise or cook healthy meals if they were sufficiently motivated.
That is why citing factors many of us have less control over, such as lack of money, can produce perceptions of having better self-control even when we abandon our New Year’s resolution or break a commitment.”
Speak not to me of time…
While lack of time is the most popular falsehood used by humans,(for some reason, we use it for all manner of ball-dropping), it’s not the most persuasive lie.
However, grasping at some elusive mandate, this research suggests that this method of lying be best avoided in all sorts of social contexts….and them continues to offer the contexts.
Dr. Steinmetz unabashedly instructs us in lying:
“In job interviews and on dating website questionnaires, people are often invited to talk about a failure they’ve had in life.
Obviously, we’ve all had them, but when explaining why, whether you’re looking for a job or for romance, blaming uncontrollable factors might help you convey a positive image.
Although my research didn’t look at those contexts, it might be wise to avoid the temptation to blame lack of time.”
Dr. Steinmetz is deservedly proud of her work, helping her readers get a heads up in narcissistic rivalry.
She also advises us that “this research furthermore has implications for the literature on impression management.”
Is that what we’re calling lying these days?
Final Thoughts…
There are 2 ways of looking of looking at this.
If you’re a social science conservative, you might tend to see social science research as a sort of public good, like the work of Daniel Chester French. My best instincts pull me into this column.
There are those among my readers who will see this post as little more than my whining about the aesthetics of social science research…they would be spot on.
But I also appreciate the sly creativity at work here. Janina is essentially lending her research know-how to help us become better liars.
Dr. Brad Blanton once advised me about the impossibility of doing effective psychotherapy in Washington D.C. because of the recalcitrant culture of lying.
But this research is from Europe…
Brad might ask me… “Why are you surprised?”
Now we have a well-researched question, cleverly nourishing a public blight. In other words, the findings are so targeted, they are, essentially, an instructive, manipulative road map to effective deceit.
This is the sort of reading material one might find in a sociopath’s gem-encrusted master bathroom.
But this is the thing I keep going back to about Organizational Psychology. It has a more transactional mindset which tends to devalue authenticity and vulnerability.
The slyness of it is what we already know… two-thirds of us blow off a New Year’s resolution in less than one month.
But why should we be treated like everyone else?
…And the fruit is rotten, the serpent's eyes shine
As he wraps around the vine,
In the garden of Allah…
Well, Don, 29 years the later, the hills are still burning, and the wind is still raging… and it looks like the clock is finally striking midnight…
Be well… stay kind… and Godspeed…
RESEARCH:
Steinmetz, J. (in press). Too Little Money or Time? Using Justifications to Maintain a Positive Image After Self-Control Failure. European Journal of Social Psychology. pdf
