448. The psychology of reputation

We're talking about reputation. On a fundamental level, our reputations are a signal of our qualities that make us worth associating with, and we tend to spend a large amount of time ruminating and even obsessing over what others think of us. In this episode, we explore why we need reputations as social creatures, understand why we can misinterpret others’ reputations, and think about what we can do to repair a bad reputation. We unpack: • Where our reputations come from • Why two people can view the same person so differently • The halo effect and how appearance biases our perception of others • How our reputations can change over time • Why we shouldn’t always believe what others say • How we can repair a bad reputation Watch on Netflix: HERE https://netflix.com/thepsychologyofyour20s Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s https://substack.com/@thepsychologyofyour20s For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] Our favourite sources: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8487743/ https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/ecology-of-minds/202509/what-makes-a-good-reputation https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349443219_The_halo_effect The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Jemma Sbeg?

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• 0:47Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:32Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:09Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:54Jemma Sbeg?

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• 3:31Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. I'm Jemma Sbeg, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our 20s, and what they mean for our psychology.

• 3:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, break down the psychology of our 20s. Today, we are talking about the psychology of reputation and why it just matters so much to us as humans, particularly the role of reputation in our 20s and what it feels like when we know that people maybe don't like us, maybe have the wrong idea of us, maybe don't know us or don't think of us the way that we think of ourselves. What do we do with that information?

• 4:33Jemma Sbeg?

  So I got this message from a listener the other day who requested this episode. And I'm gonna read it for you because, of course, I had her permission, and I think it's a great description of basically the conundrum or the issue that we are talking about today. "Hi Gemma, I have an episode topic for you that's been really heavy on my mind. When I was 19, I did some things I'm not proud of. I hurt friends, I wasn't a good person, and I still feel bad about it. My dad had just died, and I could give you so many more excuses for why I behaved the way I did, but I just did. I'm 24 now, and I can't stop obsessing over not just the people I've hurt, but my bad reputation because of it.

• 5:17Jemma Sbeg?

  I recently met a new friend, who I realized after a few months was friends with some of my old friends. She said to me once, 'You know, you are much nicer than I thought you would be, not like what people say.' And I just desperately wanted to ask her, 'What do people say? What are they saying about me?' But I guess I knew it would all be bad. How do you deal with having a bad reputation? And how do you prove to people that you have changed? It's been five years now, I want to tell them that I'm not that person anymore, or is it pointless? Any advice would be helpful. And if you have read any research on this, I would love to hear it." Thank you to this listener for sharing that. That is a difficult position to be in. You're kind of balancing a lot of desires and fears

• 6:02Jemma Sbeg?

  and also a deeper kind of moral sense of like, what is right for me to do in this situation? But you would be surprised how many messages I have gotten on a very similar note, how so many other people have a similar dilemma, which is essentially, I've made these mistakes when I didn't know better, when I was an unhealed version of myself when I was younger. Now that I'm not that person, what do I do about it? I think in my own life, even recently, I've been coming to terms with this idea of like, somebody's last impression of me, last memory of me, is somebody that I, that I no longer am. And their last impression of me was when I was at my worst.

• 6:46Jemma Sbeg?

  How do you square that with the growth that you have done, with the change that has happened in all of our lives? Let's talk about it today, because we know on a fundamental level that our reputations are important. They served and continue to serve an evolutionary purpose. They provide valuable social information to others, whether it's correct or not. But what about all the ways that reputations get complicated? Like when they are inaccurate, or when they do represent somebody that we no longer are, or when people lie about us? It's a big juicy episode, I will say. Without further ado, let's get into the psychology of reputation.

• 7:27Jemma Sbeg?

  So a reputation is basically the opinion, belief, or estimation that people hold about a person, but also about a group of people, an organization. And it's based on past behavior, it's based on character, performance, stereotypes. Some of our behaviors that have happened, some of which are assumed, some of which is subjective. Our reputation, as I briefly mentioned before, operates as kind of a mental shortcut for those around us. It's actually not that valuable to us unless it's a good reputation, but it's a simplified version of who we are that has social capital and allows others to determine, do I want to be around this person? Do I want to let them into the group? Do I want to give them a job?

• 8:12Jemma Sbeg?

  Do I want to be their friend? Do I want to date them or not? And it is tangible in the way that it directly influences our lives. It is intangible in the way that our reputation is not controlled by some central database. And it can exist differently for different people. Even if there are some stable themes or stable ideas of who we are that are generally wide-held, people can still differ in how they see us. Now, our reputation has levels to it. Some parts of our reputation is influenced by things we've actually done. That is level one, it is action-driven. Some of it is influenced by secondary assessments, i.e. things we haven't done, but also how someone has interpreted our actions based on their own values,

• 8:57Jemma Sbeg?

  based on their own perspectives, how stories about us have changed as they've been repeated. And I guess also situations where people haven't had the full information, but they've either made up additional information or made assumptions or deducted something about us based on stereotypes that are not true. That is level two. That is the subjective, social evaluation level of reputation. Research that has been done into reputations, because it's a massive field of social psychology, shows that there are a few universal features across all societies that define reputation,

• 9:39Jemma Sbeg?

  particularly with regards to how cooperative people are perceived. Whilst there are widespread similarities across societies, reputations are also culturally constructed. They are shaped by local norms and values. Even though they would emerge from what we'd refer to as universal psychology, some factors of it aren't. Some factors of reputation seem to be universal, others definitely differ. In 2021, researchers looked through a huge ethnographic record of more than 100 diverse societies to find what they called the 20 distinct reputational domains. And they found them. What they found was that these included things like aggressiveness, cooperation,

• 10:23Jemma Sbeg?

  cultural conformity, honesty, sexual fidelity, social status, and supernatural ability. These things seem to influence reputation, no matter where you were. The researchers discovered that in over 80% of the societies they examined, a good reputation typically had a few critical things. It involved being cooperative, pro-social, honest, norm-abiding, and industrious. A bad reputation also followed a similar theme. It usually contained traits like dishonesty, aggressiveness, harm towards others, and actions that disrupted social harmony. So there seems to be this universal sense of what makes a good community member. And this is carried by our reputation.

• 11:10Jemma Sbeg?

  There is a critical behaviour though, that really seems to stand out more than any of the others when it comes to a bad reputation. This is dishonesty. And not just dishonesty, but dishonesty and hypocrisy. People strangely are more okay with somebody's behaviour if they're at least honest about it. If they're at least kind of upfront that like, hey, I'm gonna be an asshole, I'm gonna behave in ways that you might not like, but at least I'm gonna be honest with you. We seem to be less okay if you're an asshole and you pretended that you weren't. If you didn't give it any kind of hint that that was gonna be the case. It's why celebrities who are like, have these identities and these reputations as being kind

• 11:53Jemma Sbeg?

  of dicks, like, we're kind of less mad at them compared to celebrities who claim to be really nice but then are secretly assholes, hence the kind of pushback against Ellen DeGeneres, for example. It's because what they are doing in psychology is called false signalling. This one two thousand and seventeen paper published in the journal Psychological Sciences found that people generally assess hypocrites, which is who these people are, more negatively than someone who has done, or who has genuine negative moral opinions but doesn't lie about it. So dishonesty and hypocrisy seems to be the universal reputational sin, the way that cooperativeness seems to be the universal positive reputational asset.

• 12:37Jemma Sbeg?

  The other thing that seems to hurt, to really deeply impact how your reputation is formed is not just your actions and whether you're dishonest or a hypocrite or cooperative. And it's not your intentions, it's how you make others feel. It's a very famous quote from Maya Angelou, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And that holds up very accurately under science. Essentially, it's impossible for us to remember every single thing we have ever said to another person, or indeed what they've said about us. We cannot keep an ongoing catalogue of every person's actions because our memory and our

• 13:22Jemma Sbeg?

  working memory is limited. But what we can remember is the distinct emotional response that somebody invoked in us at a specific time. Our mind encodes memories and moments of emotional pain, of deceit, of betrayal, of sadness, almost in a different way to the average experiences we have. Making it so those moments are consolidated faster, deeper and with more detail. It doesn't matter your intention, it doesn't matter what you say after the fact or if you apologize, the emotional aftertaste of a bad experience with somebody lingers because of how memory is constructed, especially if you made them feel really bad about themselves.

• 14:07Jemma Sbeg?

  I think somewhere this comes across very strongly is our experiences as children. And the fact that people who were cruel to us, mean to us, belittled us, those memories last a very long time, they're very hard to shake. Of course, we still do it in adulthood, even when we know that our subjective interpretation may not be accurate, even when we know people are capable of change or we're just having a bad day, but as children, memories and bad memories seem to really, really stick. You know, every day we have lots of fleeting interactions with people that leave a bit of a stamp on us, with the person on the train, or the person who made your coffee, or your new coworker.

• 14:51Jemma Sbeg?

  And first impressions, particularly in regards to our emotional state, do matter. We know from research, people can form an opinion within literally five seconds, not because you've given them a wealth of information to rely on, but because we instinctively trust gut feelings, especially our own. And once we have a gut feeling, it's very hard to replace. It is a bit of a human flaw though, it might be protective, it is evolutionary, it is sometimes not always conscious, in fact, it's rarely conscious, but the flaw of first impressions is that it doesn't let people surprise us. And people can surprise us. First impressions are rarely accurate, they are extremely layered, and they are often

• 15:35Jemma Sbeg?

  extremely personal, and people are very much capable of change. But we can't always reason with this deeper emotional feeling. And, you know, sometimes we don't want to and sometimes we shouldn't have to. You know, I might also add that. I say first impressions aren't always accurate. Sometimes though people do the wrong thing, they're really mean, they're cruel, they don't wanna fix their mistakes and that feeling, no matter what they do, does linger and it might be for a good reason. But we also have to be aware of some of the other biases that show up in reputational psychology that mean our first impressions aren't always correct. Stereotypes and prejudice play a massive role. You can be completely delightful and kind and respectful and industrious and harmonious,

• 16:21Jemma Sbeg?

  but if someone just doesn't like people who look like you or sound like you, you are never gonna win. And that is a good warning to us all, that our reliance on reputation is flawed. Our reliance on reputation, whether we like to admit it or not, is often about fifty percent about us and fifty percent about somebody else. And sometimes it's more than that, sometimes it's more about our past beliefs, our past experiences and past hurts. And it's not entirely accurate about how this person actually is. Also, on the flip side, and this deserves mentioning, we tend to think people are nicer or have better reputations based on things that have absolutely nothing to do with their

• 17:06Jemma Sbeg?

  character, such as their appearance. This is another aspect of this that we don't always see spoken about. I wanna talk about this bias specifically in a bit more detail, we're gonna take a short break first and then we'll get into it.

• 17:26Jemma Sbeg?

  These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. And we've all gone down an internet rabbit hole exploring the latest health trends. Your social media feed is packed with wellness advice, telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel and YouTube, talks to health influencers, real

• 18:07Jemma Sbeg?

  people, and most importantly, doctors, to separate fact from fiction. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 18:25Jemma Sbeg?

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• 19:09Jemma Sbeg?

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• 19:54Jemma Sbeg?

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• 20:17Jemma Sbeg?

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• 21:01Jemma Sbeg?

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• 21:45Jemma Sbeg?

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• 22:28Jemma Sbeg?

  How we first appear to people, particularly in terms of our attractiveness, actually has a profound impact upon traits that others associate with us. So our reputation. There is a name for this. It's called the halo effect. And it is absolutely everywhere. In one of psychology's earliest studies on reputation done in the nineteen twenties, the psychologist Edward Thorndike asked military officers to rate their soldiers on traits like intelligence, leadership and character. But there was a twist to this. Many of the officers barely knew the men they were judging.

• 23:11Jemma Sbeg?

  They had no clue who half these people were. They sometimes didn't even know their names. What Thorndike discovered was that if a soldier looked physically impressive, officers automatically assumed he was smarter, he was more competent, he was more trustworthy. One good, attractive quality cast a kind of psychological glow over everything else. And that's why he called it the halo effect. And more than a century later, it still shapes who gets hired, who gets promoted, who gets trusted. Even like who we choose to follow, who is seen as a villain versus a victim in certain situations. Now, this effect has been seen and repeated in many studies in the decades since.

• 23:56Jemma Sbeg?

  In twenty twenty three, a large study of almost three thousand participants found that the same individuals received significantly higher ratings of intelligence, trustworthiness, sociability and happiness after having applied a beauty filter on a picture of themselves. Interestingly, this was also quite gendered. The study also found that beautified men received significantly higher scores to their perceived intelligence compared to women. Yet another example of reputation being shaped by things that have very little to do with our character and yet people unconsciously assume they do.

• 24:39Jemma Sbeg?

  We have to be super aware of this, you know, especially with social media, especially with the way that we can change our appearance. So instantaneously at times, we still adopt so many shortcuts that aren't accurate. One of them being if somebody looks a certain way, parts of who they are must suddenly be a lot better. And we can see how this links to things like fat phobia, links to, god, so many other kind of social issues that we have in society because of, again, prejudices, stereotypes, shortcuts that our mind makes. This is the critical thing about reputation.

• 25:23Jemma Sbeg?

  We think of it as being this generalizable thing, where we can label somebody with three or four words and everybody who knows them would agree on those words. Maybe even one word everybody would agree on. They're, they are a liar, they're greedy, they're kind, they're quiet. But the reputation you have with each person or each group will likely be a little bit different. Will have its own flavour, you know, will have. People could think about you entirely different. It seems that it's not stable, even if we kind of believe that it is. And this explains why someone can be adored by one group, hated by another. And why two people can form very different opinions of somebody

• 26:06Jemma Sbeg?

  and spread a very different reputation of someone based on the exact same interactions. For example, someone who is very loud might be loved by one person as a person who was up for a good time, who was social, who has a good sense of humour, who was charismatic and warm. This might be in part because, you know, they associate loud people with positive feelings because of their history of being in a big family and uh being around very loud people when they were growing up. So they don't see them as a threat. And then an entirely different person can walk in, see the exact same things,

• 26:47Jemma Sbeg?

  not like loud people and be like, their reputation, who they are, is overbearing, overwhelming, a disturber of the peace. Maybe they associate that loud person with somebody they knew who bullied them. Or somebody they knew who had really negative traits alongside being loud. So it makes them naturally distrustful of loud people. When it comes to the way others view us, like, it's not always accurate. And I know I mentioned social media before, but I do think it's also added a whole new dynamic where we can sit and assess somebody's behaviour without them having any say in it. We can form an opinion based on seconds of content or footage

• 27:32Jemma Sbeg?

  sliced down from an hour long conversation or sliced down from an entire life. The social media climate today has arguably made reputation management much more complex and something that non-celebrities have to think about. Like, we didn't have to think about it that broadly, the way that we do now. You know, at any stage, somebody can film you doing something, somebody can come and visit your page, somebody can edit what you've said or a video or a photo of you. And whether it's fair or unfair, it's gonna change how people think about you. You know, content that people capture of us amid our day to day lives can suddenly go viral. And judgements can be made, often without many facts.

• 28:15Jemma Sbeg?

  Particularly when highly emotive situations are recorded or highly viral or like triggering situations are recorded. Additionally, if we think of our reputation as what other people say about us when we're not in the room, because of social media, there are now nearly infinite number of rooms in existence that our name could be spoken about in, if the algorithm just happens to push out a photo of us or somebody screenshots something. If you have a public Instagram or a public LinkedIn or a public TikTok, there is often this thought in the back of your mind, like, what did people think about me based on what they see here? And is it an accurate assessment of who I think I am? And I think that makes reputation feel like a much bigger, more important idea

• 29:00Jemma Sbeg?

  these days because at any stage, at any time, there could be somebody stalking your profile and coming up with an assessment. You know, do I like this person? Is this the kind of person I would date? Is this the kind of person I'd be friends with? What does this very limited information tell me about whether I should invite this person to my party? Whether I should give this person a job? The list goes on. You know, that's why I look at people with social media with so much jealousy because there was so much freedom in only being known and observed by those you would like to be around, of being kind of unreachable and untouchable in a sense.

• 29:41Jemma Sbeg?

  I wanna return to something I mentioned earlier, uh before I rushed past it way too quickly, which is the idea that one bad moment, one bad decision is capable of ruining your entire reputation. We could give the example of, of a viral video. It's the perfect example of that where, you know, you see videos of somebody arguing or kicking a puppy or licking a donut if you get that reference or somebody just doing something and it's like, their reputation is done for. It's like the Coldplay cheating scandal was a great example of like how fast that can happen. A lot of people will claim it's unfair that one moment

• 30:23Jemma Sbeg?

  means more than a thousand other moments where somebody was good, somebody wasn't doing something bad. Like, why doesn't that count, they may say? Why is this one big moment so important? Well, the reason those big one-off actions loom so large in the reputational ecosystem in comparison to the millions of good things or neutral things you've done is because of one special ingredient, and that is trust. It's also because of the significance of what we call character revealing moments. And it links back to that point about hypocrisy and dishonesty. People want you to be upfront about who you are first and foremost, even if who you are is an asshole.

• 31:06Jemma Sbeg?

  These sliding door moments throw all of that into question, and that's why they feel so significant. That trust is hard to get back. You cheat on somebody, you do something terrible to a friend. It's hard to get that back because your capacity for doing such things has been revealed. And it's assumed it was always in you and you were lying about it. As human beings, we're also hardwired to pay attention to those big moments more because of something known as the negativity bias. This was coined in two thousand and one by the psychologist Paul Rosen and Edward Royzmann. Rosen and Royzmann, I know, like, perfect names to be collaborators. But, you know, like, so much of our behaviour, negativity bias,

• 31:49Jemma Sbeg?

  like, is about survival. And what it basically says is that if we pay attention to the worst stuff and we think of that as more important, we will be safer. You know, hundreds of years ago, having heightened attention to bad, dangerous, negative threats or bad, dangerous, negative people in day to day life was very important, could be a matter of life and death. So those who noticed danger or bad reputations and paid more attention to that, they were more likely to survive. Neuroscience research has shown that there is greater neural processing in the brain in response to negative stimuli. In studies conducted by even more psychologists, there's always more,

• 32:30Jemma Sbeg?

  participants were shown pictures of either positive, negative or neutral images. The researchers then, I think they like, observed electrical activity in the brain. And what they found was that negative images produced a much stronger response, particularly in the frontal lobe, but in the executive functioning and thinking parts of the brain. Because negative information causes such a surge in activity in such a critical information processing area, our behaviours and attitudes tends to be shaped more powerfully by, as I said, the bad stuff, the bad news, the bad experiences, the bad one-off, than all the other good times that may outnumber it thousand folds.

• 33:16Jemma Sbeg?

  So someone who makes a big mistake, whether they were having a bad day or not, whether they regret it now or not, whether that's who they are fundamentally or not. That big mistake is going to be remembered because of our brains hardwiring. So is this forever? Does our reputation ever change back? Or is it permanent? This is really where we are getting into our listener question, isn't it? What do I do about past mistakes? How do I convince people I'm not that anymore? There's a famous quote from Warren Buffett, like the billionaire, in which he says it takes twenty years to build a reputation, it takes five minutes to ruin it.

• 34:00Jemma Sbeg?

  If you think about that, you'll do things differently. I think that's the full quote. This is the critical part about reputation. It can change instantly, often in a negative direction. The positive direction is a long game and requires very few mistakes. The reason reputation, once injured, is hard to reclaim, not impossible though. It's not impossible. I promise we'll get to that in a second. But why it's hard to reclaim is because of two additional biases. Bias is everywhere in this episode. It is the confirmation bias and the recency bias. And this is why we sometimes feel stuck with the reputation we had at nineteen or eighteen. Firstly, confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret,

• 34:43Jemma Sbeg?

  and recall information that confirms what we already think. If we form an opinion that someone is judgmental, even neutral things they say, we will interpret as matching our preconceived notion of them. They could say, hey, where'd you get that shirt? Neutral question. But we could hear it based on our own bias as where should I avoid shopping so I don't get that shirt? That shirt looks cheap. That shirt, it doesn't go with you and your coloring. Confirmation bias cements reputations by making people favor evidence supporting their views whilst ignoring contradictory data.

• 35:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Meaning, again, first impressions or established beliefs about a person are so difficult to change, whether it is fair or not. A twenty twenty-two study on how humans sample evidence to support prior beliefs concluded that this is likely because we don't like to be wrong. It takes too much cognitive effort to rewrite our whole opinion of someone, especially somebody we don't see or know that well. It takes a lot less effort to just confirm what we already think and say that's who they are. The second bias is recency bias. This is when we overemphasize recent events, recent information, recent historical data

• 36:07Jemma Sbeg?

  more than perhaps data that is more accurate. This is what I was talking about before. I cringe, I literally lay awake at night thinking that somebody's last impression of me was formed when I was eighteen and stupid and the worst version of myself and not reflective of the person I am now. I'm older, I'm wiser, I've been to therapy for many, many hours. And you wanna go back and you wanna say to them, like, trust me, like, I'm not that person anymore. I'm better than this, I promise you. But you can't. You can't, and actually doing that would be harmful. You just have to be okay with someone's last impression of you being the worst version of you you ever were

• 36:50Jemma Sbeg?

  and trying not to think about it too much. Like, and just knowing that's just how they see things. You can't always fight it. It's human psychology. The most recent information we have access to, to us, is the best information. According to our brain, is the best information, regardless of whether there is newer, better information out there that we just haven't sought out or we just don't have access to. There are, of course, many consequences of this and consequences of having a bad reputation. And I also think we need to talk about how some of those are deserved. If someone does harm people and hurts people, if that is a consistent pattern, we want others to know to steer clear.

• 37:35Jemma Sbeg?

  That is a social good in many ways. Having a bad reputation and the consequences of that also makes people realize their errors. A bad reputation is a form of social correction that requires people to do better and have accountability. That's another way that people see it.

• 37:52Jemma Sbeg?

  I think the hardest part is the instances where a bad reputation is undeserved. Right? We can spend a lot of time talking about why a bad reputation is deserved, but anybody who's experienced character assassination from a friend, a colleague, a family member, an ex, knows that when someone wants to ruin your life and ruin your reputation, there are many effective ways they can do that. And the pain that causes alongside the unspoken paranoia that isn't mentioned very often is intense. You're always worried, like, oh my god, who have they spoken to? Like, what false narratives have they spread? Like, you meet people and you're like, have you heard? Have they gotten to you first? Like, have they gotten to you before my actions have had the chance to?

• 38:37Jemma Sbeg?

  And this can lead to a lot of isolation and also a lot of self-doubt, like, maybe I am who they say I am, like, how can I trust myself? And that quickly spirals into a lot of self-gaslighting. Character assassination is often discussed in psychology, mainly in regards to political psychology and media psychology and how false messages spread through these avenues and spread through media and the news and whatnot. But it happens on an everyday basis all the time. So when we return, let's discuss this critical point, why we can't trust everything we hear about people, the psychology of second chances,

• 39:18Jemma Sbeg?

  and when, if ever, we should address our negative reputation. Stay with us.

• 39:31Jemma Sbeg?

  These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. And we've all gone down an internet rabbit hole exploring the latest health trends. Your social media feed is packed with wellness advice telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what health versus hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to health influencers, real people, and most importantly, doctors,

• 40:15Jemma Sbeg?

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• 40:30Jemma Sbeg?

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• 41:14Jemma Sbeg?

  And this product is perfect for that. I also find that Moisture Surge is a great lightweight base. If you like something under your makeup, it makes your skin look so plump and soft, especially first thing in the morning when it's maybe not looking that way. Basically, I think it feels exactly like how you want a moisturizer to feel. Fresh, lightweight, and deeply hydrating. Try Clinique Moisture Surge One Hundred Hour today at clinique.com. Feels like moisture surge. This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over fourteen years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good.

• 41:59Jemma Sbeg?

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• 42:22Jemma Sbeg?

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• 43:06Jemma Sbeg?

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• 43:51Jemma Sbeg?

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• 44:14Jemma Sbeg?

  So following on from what we spoke about before the break. Should we always believe somebody else's reputation? Especially if we don't know them, is that a wise social decision? I think it's worth thinking about who your source is and how they position the narrative around this individual who you know or maybe don't know that well. Firstly, people's opinions of others, again, are filtered through their own lens of characteristics and experiences and the kind of things they prefer or they don't like in other people. Reputation is a powerful tool, but it can be distorted by gossip, by jealousy, by malice.

• 44:53Jemma Sbeg?

  So is your source someone who would benefit from you thinking a certain way about this other person? That can be worth considering. Additionally, how does this person speak about people generally? Positively, negatively? I think we all have that one person in our lives. At least I think we all have this one person in our lives who is just pessimistic about everyone. You could be the most angelic, kind individual, they will have something bad to say about you. Now, does that mean that everybody they possibly meet could be so evil? Probably not. So you need to really closely consider their words and know what kind of person they are

• 45:36Jemma Sbeg?

  before you judge what kind of person they're describing. I think whilst a reputation can offer a general guide, it's also often wise to rely on your own personal experiences of a person. And if necessary, verify through evidence rather than the other way around, or rather through the rumor mill. Now, this is difficult because we don't want to fall into the position of like, we don't want to be the person who's like, well, they were always nice to me. Like, don't be that person. Especially if it's a close friend saying like, this person hurt me and they are not apologetic and I can't be around them. Listen to them, use your judgment wisely, like, don't disregard that. But if what you are hearing is from a distant source, an untrustworthy source,

• 46:20Jemma Sbeg?

  and they can't give examples, and they seem to be almost gleeful in their retelling and they really seem to benefit from this, just take a step back and trust your gut and use your better judgment. The other thing to consider, the evidence somebody is giving for this person's awful character, how recent is it? And when did these actions occur? Think about when you hear this, whether you'd like to be judged by information from that long ago in your own life. For example, I had somebody tell me the other day that I shouldn't work with this specific person who they'd known at 15 because she had a bad reputation for being unstable.

• 47:04Jemma Sbeg?

  Firstly, I hate the word unstable and I was like, kind of cringed when they said it. But secondly, I was kind of like, would you want to be judged by who you were at 15? Like, would you even recognize who you were at 15? Like, would you even know what they were thinking about? Probably not. Now, this obviously stems from a larger debate that humanity has been having for centuries, which is, can people truly change? And we're not going to answer that completely in this 45 minute episode. But I think you guys know me by now and, and I think you guys know my relentless optimism about the human condition. And honestly, I believe they can. And I believe that if the mistake somebody made was 10 years ago and it wasn't that big of a deal,

• 47:48Jemma Sbeg?

  they probably have learnt from it. The best accurate indicator for someone's real character is consistent behavior over time and their personal commitment to growth. Rather than just one specific way of behaving a very long time ago or at a very specific moment, especially if that is not a significant moral indicator or value indicator. With that in mind, what do we do when you feel like you are the person I am describing? You're the person with a bad reputation. Perhaps you recognize that past behavior, your past behavior has really hurt people and you want to do better. Perhaps with wisdom, you know, you've realized, hey, I was in the wrong that whole time. Like, I made bad calls.

• 48:32Jemma Sbeg?

  Do we go about begging people forgiveness or do we take a different approach? The biggest thing you should know is that asking someone to think about you differently is nothing compared to showing people that you are different. And doing so independently and genuinely, that is the best thing you can do. Mike Mooney, he is the author of a book called The Reputation Shift. He says that if you want to change your reputation, it, quote, "all starts with values." Because the authentic link between what someone stands for

• 49:12Jemma Sbeg?

  and what actions they will take is the most reliable. We need to commit to what we believe in and we need to live it minute by minute as best as we can. Decide, you know, who am I going to be? Who do I not want to be? And stick with it. And when you do drop the ball from time to time, because we're human, we're fallible, just remember that most things are fixable if we own up to it. Own your actions, own your words, acknowledge what you did wrong. And make a promise to yourself before you make a promise to others to commit to being better. And to commit to being better because you don't want to be the guy or the gal or the person

• 49:56Jemma Sbeg?

  who influences other people's experiences in a negative way. In addition, when we try and mend our reputations, it can be very easy to think that it just involves an apology. Um, apologies are very easy. Improving yourself even when nobody asked is much, much more valuable. It can be hard to confront like that, hey, maybe I was in the wrong. But your reputation will never improve by trying to fix your reputation if there is genuinely something that you are responsible for that you cannot own up to. It doesn't mean that those things need to be your destiny. I think that's why we don't like to acknowledge them. But our brains are amazingly neuroplastic.

• 50:40Jemma Sbeg?

  Like, acknowledging something is what means that you can change that thing. We learn to change through being open with ourselves about what it is that we actually don't like or want to improve and committing to that. I think that's also one of the benefits of a bad reputation. When you get to the point of being like, oh my God, I messed up, maybe I am that person. No one expects better of you. So you kind of have the peace you need to actually do the work. But also you get a wake up call that some people never get or will never listen to. That maybe I'm not the person I think I am. Maybe I'm not that great, but at least I have the opportunity to be better. Some people never get that choice and they just assholes for their whole lives. Additionally, I think there also comes a point where ruminating, obsessing

• 51:25Jemma Sbeg?

  and over correcting for your reputation, imagined or real, will just do more damage than good. Specifically to you, nobody improves from a place of shame. They only improve from a place of acceptance. Your shame and your guilt and you hiding away isn't helping you. And it isn't helping the people that you have hurt. Like, to just continually think badly of yourself and think that's going to make you a better person, you would be wrong. Fundamentally as well, like, you know who you are and you know that this was a mistake. You know your intentions. We know our own guilt. We know that we feel bad, we know what we want to improve on.

• 52:04Jemma Sbeg?

  Whether others think we're capable of it or not, whether others have made up false stories about us or not. Our reputations are inevitably not always up to us. And I think that's why you sometimes need to just take a step back from it and be like, what do I think about me? And what do the people closest to me think about me? Well, we tend to worry about our reputations because we think that everybody is thinking about us all the time. And we think that our reputations are reflective of our true identities. And that's why we chronically ruminate. And it just isn't a good use of our time. Worrying about what other people think when you have made a commitment to being better

• 52:46Jemma Sbeg?

  or when you know who you are, actually stops you from being able to be that person. Do you know what I mean? Like, the obsession with reputation is what probably leads to a worse reputation because you get lost from like, what is critical and deep and intrinsic. About you, if you are feeling suffocated by others' opinions, I think it's important to write down who you would be if they all disappeared and who you would wanna be if they were nowhere to be found and their influence on your life is non-existent. Focus on the people who love you, who know that your character is pure, focus on pouring energy into them, focus on the people who know that you can change or who love you the way that you are.

• 53:27Jemma Sbeg?

  When we have clarity over who we are, including perhaps the things we wanna improve on, we can ignore our temporary mistakes and setbacks in the knowledge that we are a work in progress, we are somebody who is trying their best, and that actually counts a lot, for a lot more than a good reputation that is based in falsities. So that, my friends, is the psychology of reputation. I do hope that it had enough nuance in it. I did wanna consider all perspectives, and I hope to the listener who wrote in that we adequately answered your question. I think to summarize, reputation matters.

• 54:09Jemma Sbeg?

  People who only rely on reputation, though, are falling for a lot of cognitive biases and fallacies. If somebody has a bad reputation, you know, yes, if it's consistent behaviour and it's accurate, very much worth listening to. There are people who you'd be, you'd better believe deserve a bad reputation, if not a worse reputation. But it's also important to be critical of where we're hearing that information from, who benefits from that information, whether it is accurate, and holistically believe that people can change. And that if we were to believe that everybody is the mistakes they made at seventeen and

• 54:49Jemma Sbeg?

  eighteen, especially minor mistakes, like, none of us are worth saving, none of us deserve a good reputation. So if you are kind of ruminating on like, oh my god, people still think that I am this person and I've done these bad things, and am I, am I allowed to even be happy, am I allowed to even try to be better? Absolutely you do. And whether that is a gateway to a better reputation or not, it doesn't matter, because you will feel more aligned with who you are and you will feel more like your real self. So that is the end of the episode. Thank you for listening. Thank you to our researcher Lucy Davidson for her assistance with this episode. I really hope that you guys enjoyed it.

• 55:30Jemma Sbeg?

  I really hope that you appreciate, I did not make a Taylor Swift reputation reference or joke throughout this whole episode. I was trying to find a way to bring it in, and you know what, it just never happened. We were being, we were being too serious. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it's, it's helped you, somebody who also struggles with this sometimes, like, I think we should talk about it more and why reputation is like this really weird thing that we think about actually very, very often and never talk about. So yeah, if you relate to this episode, leave a comment down below. Make sure that you check out an episode on Netflix if you feel called to do so. We've just like redone the set and it looks really, really cool and I'm very excited about it. But yeah, there'll be links in the description. I hope you go check it out.

• 56:14Jemma Sbeg?

  Until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself, don't worry all too much about your reputation, especially if you are trying to be better. That is the takeaway and we will talk very, very soon.

• 56:28Jemma Sbeg?

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• 57:13Jemma Sbeg?

  intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a thirty day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of Whoop. This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over fourteen years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know, they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy, all of their stuff just looks good on, and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that

• 57:57Jemma Sbeg?

  is, lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favourite gym clothing at gymshark dot com.

• 58:10Jemma Sbeg?

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