Why We Are Obsessed With Butts & The Best and Worst Way to Apologize - SYSK Choice

Speaker 1 Today, on something you should know, why you might want to deliberately lower the pitch of your voice. Then, um, butts.
Why does there seem to be such fascination with them?

Speaker 2 People often think like having a big butt or a small butt means something. So, like, oh, women with big butts are more fertile.
That's a really commonly held myth about butts.

Speaker 2 Yeah, lots of people say that to me.

Speaker 1 Have you ever heard that? Also, should you calculate the tip on a restaurant bill before or after the tax? And how to apologize? Because a good apology is golden.

Speaker 3 The steps for making a good apology are so easy, and yet actually doing them is so hard because our brains are not wired for this. Apologizing is a really brave act.

Speaker 1 All this today on something you should know.

Speaker 1 it's time for Black Friday Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year that's right you'll find huge savings on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 Plus with Intel Core ultra processors and with built-in advanced AI features it's the PC that helps you do more faster from smarter multitasking to extended battery life these PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you.

Speaker 1 Plus, earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee, and flexible financing options.

Speaker 1 They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC, improving the way you work, play, and connect.

Speaker 1 Whether you just started holiday shopping or you're just finishing up, These PCs and accessories make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop Shop now at dell.com slash deals and don't miss out.

Speaker 1 That's dell.com slash deals.

Speaker 1 Something you should know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Speaker 1 Hey, welcome to Something You Should Know. So when you speak, depending on what your voice sounds like, when you speak, you may want to try to lower the pitch of your voice.
Why?

Speaker 1 Well, according to some pretty solid research, people who speak with lowered voices are perceived as both more prestigious and more admirable.

Speaker 1 Another study found that men have a tendency to lower their voices in order to try to dominate in certain settings. In short, we signal our dominance with lower-pitched voices.

Speaker 1 But interestingly, stress and adrenaline makes your voice go higher.

Speaker 1 In fact, it turns out that people speak in higher-pitched voices when they talk to people of higher status or when they're intimidated.

Speaker 1 Humans are incredibly good at hearing the stress in other people's voices. We pick up on it immediately.
And one way to conceal that stress is to deliberately lower your pitch.

Speaker 1 And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 There is a body part that we don't talk about too much, but we certainly think about it often enough, even obsess about it at times. It is the human butt.

Speaker 1 People think theirs is too big or too small, or how does it look in these jeans or other clothes. Women's butts in particular are forever being assessed and criticized and objectified.

Speaker 1 So why do we have butts? Why are they such a topic of interest and why have they been for so long? Well, here to answer these and other questions is Heather Radke.

Speaker 1 She's author of a book called Butts, a Backstory. Hi, Heather.
Welcome to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 2 Hi, thanks so much for having me. Sure.

Speaker 1 Without getting too personal here, why is this topic of such interest to you?

Speaker 2 I got interested in this topic because I have a big butt. And when I was in high school, I'm a white woman who grew up in the suburbs of Lansing, Michigan.

Speaker 2 And when I was in high school, that felt like, yeah, it's not just something we didn't talk about, but something to be a little bit ashamed of. It felt like kind of the wrong body to have.

Speaker 2 But then over the last 30 years, that felt like it really started to change. And more and more, the kind of body I had became,

Speaker 2 you know, an ideal of beauty. It became considered more attractive and more part of the way that we think of what a beautiful woman's body might look like.

Speaker 1 But to a lot of people,

Speaker 1 I think this isn't really a topic for conversation or it isn't a serious topic for conversation.

Speaker 2 What we talk about in polite conversation was part of what interested me about it because I actually think these things like buts that feel like, oh, we don't talk about that, or that's a little bit too silly to take seriously in those topics.

Speaker 2 We actually can find quite a lot that's interesting in part because we actually don't take it seriously and we don't think it's polite to talk about.

Speaker 1 So, what is a butt?

Speaker 2 Such a good question. It seems like it should be easy to answer, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 I guess, in a sense, it is. Butts

Speaker 2 are basically joints. They are the joint where your hip connects to your leg.
It's the,

Speaker 2 there's a muscle there, the gluteus maximus, and there's actually a couple others that make up the human butt.

Speaker 2 And only humans have those muscles, and really only humans have butts. Some people will kind of dispute this fact.

Speaker 2 When I say it, a lot of people are like, no, like monkeys have butts, but actually, monkeys just have joints.

Speaker 2 Only humans have the gluteus maximus.

Speaker 1 And why is it that it sort of has, but doesn't quite have

Speaker 1 the reputation of being, you know, sexual? It's somehow a little bit naughty, but it's not that naughty.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's such a good question.

Speaker 2 Okay, so the the butt as a anatomical thing is basically muscles and fat so uh women have

Speaker 2 human females have more fat on their butts than males and it's really not a lot more than that it's a relatively simple part of our body but it has come to take on all these different cultural meanings and those meanings are are kind of I think of it as like it's almost like it's heaped on top of the anatomical truth And that comes from, you know, centuries of equating butts with sexiness, butts with race.

Speaker 2 There's just a really long and complex history about all of the kind of cultural symbolism that we put onto the butt.

Speaker 1 So as one of the few people, perhaps the only person who has really looked at the history of butts, I mean, what do you find? What's the story?

Speaker 2 I do think one of the things that I encountered over and over again when I was researching just colloquially, like when I'd go to a party or whatever, is people often think like having a big butt or a small butt means something.

Speaker 2 So like, oh, women with big butts, they are more fertile. That's a really commonly held myth about butts.
Yeah, lots of people say that to me. Have you ever heard that? No.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that comes out of some evolutionary psychology research from the 90s, but it's really not true. And the science around it feels very flimsy to me, at least, as a science reporter.

Speaker 2 So that's one kind of stereotype people have. I mean, some people think

Speaker 2 big butts are really gross, and some people think small butts are really ugly. And all these kinds, like

Speaker 2 over and over again, the meanings we have about butts, you realize they don't come from the actual

Speaker 2 fact or the science of the butt. It actually comes from different cultural moments.
So thin bodies and thin butts kind of come into fashion in the 1920s.

Speaker 2 And in the 1920s, super thin women's bodies start to become equated with a certain sort of liberation and bohemianism and kind of chicness. And that's

Speaker 2 essentially a stereotype and a way of thinking about bodies that's really continued well into the 20th century and really has never gone away.

Speaker 2 So that's sort of a stereotype in a sense about small butts. And then, you know, I did a bunch of work also about what I would call like fit butts.
So

Speaker 2 in the 1980s, as the aerobics revolution starts to happen, there's an aerobics program called Buns of Steel that comes into

Speaker 2 being. This man named Greg Smithy invented it.
It's like wildly popular and people start to try to actually not just have like big butts and small butts, but also like strong, steely butts.

Speaker 2 And that's definitely...

Speaker 2 you know, it's part of a much bigger trend that's about having fit bodies, but it really speaks to a way we think about our bodies as reflections of our own ability to control ourselves, essentially.

Speaker 2 So to have a strong butt is to be kind of in control of your body. To be a, to like have a bun of steel is to have a butt that's like,

Speaker 2 you know, capable of doing hard work. And we even see that in the language we have about butts, like, I'm going to kick your butt.

Speaker 1 Well, it's interesting that you use the phrase that, you know, butts, certain types of butts come in and out of fashion, much like clothes come in and out of fashion.

Speaker 1 But my sense is that if it is one of the most difficult parts of the body to change, even if you wanted to, like how you would like get into fashion by change, it's very difficult to change your butt.

Speaker 2 Oh my goodness. You're absolutely right.
It's, I mean, I think it's like actually just pretty difficult to change your body.

Speaker 2 One of the things when I started working on this book really early on was this was a question I have is like, how can a body part come in and out of fashion? I mean, it happens all the time.

Speaker 2 But what it's really asking of people and of women in particular is to radically alter something that's all but unalterable.

Speaker 2 You know, lots of these days, the main, the most extreme way and a way that's very popular to alter your butt is to have plastic surgery.

Speaker 2 But really, it's one of the only ways you can meaningfully change what your butt looks like.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, you can do what, like what Jane Fonda calls like rover kicks, you know, like donkey kicks or whatever.

Speaker 2 all day long and you'll have like a slightly bigger butt, but you can't really make an enormous butt out of a small butt. It's just not really possible.

Speaker 2 So it's one of the reasons why it's actually just so bizarre that fashion asks us this of us is that it's asking something that's kind of not actually humanly possible is to change what your butt looks like.

Speaker 2 But that's probably also true about breast size or other parts of our body where the demands of fashion to be something actually fundamentally different than what you are. It's just actually

Speaker 2 it's part of why it's so emotionally difficult to contend with and also why so many women end up being really frustrated by the fashion industry, is that it's actually asking something that's like not easy to do, and really, in many cases, not possible to do.

Speaker 1 Well, it seems that butts, like other body parts, often people have the one that they wish they didn't have.

Speaker 1 That people with big butts wish theirs was smaller, people with small butts wish theirs were bigger.

Speaker 1 And, you know, there is that attraction thing. And some people like big butts.
Some people like small butts.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's also very subjective, but it's very easy to be dissatisfied with the one you have.

Speaker 2 I really like to think about it like the way

Speaker 2 one of the scientists I interviewed told,

Speaker 2 his name is Chris Hoff. And he said to me that any butt that's not killing you is.

Speaker 2 a good enough butt, basically. And I think that's a nice way to think about it.
Like probably your butt is attractive to somebody, and that's like a great thing.

Speaker 2 Human variation is a, it's a wonderful part of what it is to be human. It's part of how we're able to continue to live as a species.

Speaker 2 And probably there's somebody out there who thinks your butt is great.

Speaker 2 And to me, that feels like a really exciting part of the research that I found is like there isn't actually a butt that is fundamentally correct.

Speaker 1 We're talking about

Speaker 1 butts, which seems a very odd thing for me to say in this podcast, but that is what we are talking about. And my guest is Heather Radke.
She is author of a book called Butts, a Backstory.

Speaker 1 I've learned from experience that hiring isn't easy, even when you know exactly who you're looking for.

Speaker 1 Running a business doesn't automatically make you good at hiring people. It's a skill and it takes time, sometimes too much time.
That's why I like Indeed.

Speaker 1 It makes the whole process faster and easier and the results are better. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need.

Speaker 1 Instead of struggling to get your job post noticed, Indeed sponsored jobs helps you stand out. Your listing jumps right to the top of the page for the people you actually want to reach.

Speaker 1 And that saves you days, maybe weeks of waiting. And the numbers back it up.
According to Indeed Data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs.

Speaker 1 What I like most is there are no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, you only pay for results. And while I've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed worldwide.
It's that fast.

Speaker 1 There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.

Speaker 1 And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/slash something.

Speaker 1 Just go to indeed.com/slash something right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/slash something.

Speaker 1 Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need.

Speaker 1 I want to tell you about a great new podcast I think you'll like. I'm loving it.
So, what happens when our passions become obsessions?

Speaker 1 Well, on David David Green is Obsessed, one of America's most familiar voices and longtime co-host of NPR's Morning Edition seeks out obsessives of all kinds while unpacking his own fixations.

Speaker 1 You'll hear David talk to comedian Tig Nataro about her complex passion for plant-based food. Actor David Arquette on his love of Bozo the Clown.
Paula Poundstone on her house full of cats.

Speaker 1 Celebrity chef and author Michael Simon discusses why he just can't quit the Cleveland Browns, even though they often make him miserable, and so much more.

Speaker 1 It's pop psychology disguised as conversations with the world's most fascinating people.

Speaker 1 You can listen to David Green is obsessed wherever you get podcasts.

Speaker 1 So, Heather, my sense is that there are universally attractive faces. There are just some faces that pretty much everyone can look at and say, yeah,

Speaker 1 that's an attractive face. But you're saying that there really isn't a universally attractive but.

Speaker 2 There's no science that I know of that suggests that there's a universally attractive but.

Speaker 2 And even that science that suggests there's a universally attractive face, I think is something to kind of look a little bit closer at.

Speaker 2 I think that there's faces that a lot of us find attractive and there's buts that a lot of us find attractive, but part of that is because there's a kind of cultural mechanism that's helping us to find them that way, if that makes any sense.

Speaker 2 And it's really hard to separate out what is biologically attractive versus what is culturally attractive, because you can never really separate people out from the culture that they live in in order to ask that question.

Speaker 2 And I think with butts in particular, though, there's so much variation. And also, like, we see what is attractive as far as a butt culturally

Speaker 2 come in and out so much and change so dramatically over the course of 10, 20, 30, 40 years that you really start to see that

Speaker 2 anything that sort of smacks of universals, you have to really start to question.

Speaker 2 Like, how could it be that there's a butt that's fundamentally attractive if like what we think is attractive in 1995 is really different than in 2015?

Speaker 1 Well, I know most of your research is about women's butts. Is that because that's kind of where the interest is and that there isn't all that much about men's butts or

Speaker 1 what?

Speaker 2 When I very first started this project, I had to really put some limits on it because if I were going to write about all butts, this would have been like, you know, 10 volumes long.

Speaker 2 But so I didn't do a ton of research on men's butts. But part of the reason I didn't is there's actually quite a lot already written about it.

Speaker 2 And there's been some great research, especially about like butts in the classical time, like you can think of like classical statuary, where the ideal of men's beauty was, you know, there was a very clearly a kind of butt that was like a very good kind of men's butt.

Speaker 2 And a lot of men, as far as I know, wanted to have that kind of butt. And I think that there's still a lot of men who seek out,

Speaker 2 you know, workout and try to like have different kinds of clothes that make their butt look good.

Speaker 2 Now, I will totally agree with you that I think it's much more common for women to try to buy and wear clothes that make their butt look a certain kind of way.

Speaker 2 And some women want their butts to be bigger and some women want their butts to be smaller.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, I think it's totally different for men and women, or maybe not totally different, but I think it can be quite different. But I think people across the board do think about their butts.

Speaker 1 But it does seem that there is more attention paid because of clothing and whatever. There's more attention paid to women's butts than men's butts.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I do think so. Butts are

Speaker 2 like breasts. They are a place where

Speaker 2 human females, women, they store fat in that part of their body. And one of the questions I had was,

Speaker 2 you know, why, basically, why, why do women store fat in their butts? And I talked to a few different people about that. And one of the answers might just be because it's physiologically convenient.

Speaker 2 Like one scientist told me that, like, you know, it wouldn't be very convenient to store a bunch of fat in like your elbows or your knees. You'd topple over.

Speaker 2 And, but it's definitely true that women have more fat fat on their bodies than men. And generally they store that fat in their butts, which is not generally the case for men.

Speaker 1 When you say that different types of butts come in and out of fashion, I always kind of figured it was more some people like big ones, some people like small ones. They always have, they always will.

Speaker 1 Not that one is like real in right now and one is out.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I think Your understanding is probably more true about how we actually live our lives. But the fashion industry dictates

Speaker 2 what butts are fashionable, just like they dictate what

Speaker 2 breast size is fashionable or whether we should wear shoulder pads or any number of other kind of

Speaker 2 ways that we ought to look. So

Speaker 2 one of the times we see this most potently actually is in the last 30 years.

Speaker 2 In the early 90s, if you look at,

Speaker 2 you know, if you look at every issue of every vogue in the early 90s, the kind of models you see on the front are going to be people like Kate Moss. You know, that's a very thin body.

Speaker 2 It's a woman who's, you know, she was, she spoke to a trend at the time called heroin chic. You know, it's like super, super thin, super bony, not a lot of fat.

Speaker 2 But by 2015, 2014, you know, a lot of magazines were calling 2014 the year of the butt.

Speaker 2 All of a sudden, well, it's not really all of a sudden, but by that time, the ideal butt, the ideal body was much more curvy. The ideal butt was much bigger.

Speaker 2 And so, although surely it was true that there were lots of people in 2014, just as there were in 1992, who liked big butts and lots of people who liked small butts, what had become part of the mainstream idea of fashion had actually changed.

Speaker 1 How much of this do you think is, at least now, is celebrity-driven? That if the Kardashians or J-Lo had little butts, would little butts be more in fashion?

Speaker 1 Or it seems like whoever is

Speaker 1 the celebrity du jour

Speaker 1 sets the trend almost.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's an interesting way to put it. I think maybe, but I also think we choose, like it's it's sort of a

Speaker 2 snaking its own tail kind of situation because we also choose the celebrities that fit the moment.

Speaker 2 You know, people become celebrities at specific times because of other things that are happening in the culture. You know, in 1997,

Speaker 2 when Jennifer Lopez was in this movie Out of Sight, all of the press

Speaker 2 after that movie came out, I mean, every piece of press I found, the interviewers asked her about her butt. And five years earlier, they would not have done that.

Speaker 2 They didn't, you know, they weren't talking to, like, first of all, there weren't big-butted celebrities that were in movies, but also

Speaker 2 mainstream fashion magazines didn't even really use the word butt. They used words like backside and derier.

Speaker 2 So something had happened that made butts more culturally interesting between the early 90s and the late 90s. And what a lot of scholars point to is

Speaker 2 the changing demographics of America. So America was becoming less white.
And also hip-hop was becoming the dominant form of music.

Speaker 2 And more and more people were white, non-white, were consuming hip-hop and were becoming interested in its ideals of beauty, which were very butt-based in the 90s.

Speaker 2 And you see that in songs like Sir Mixalot's Baby Got Back, but also in a number of other hip-hop hits in the 90s. You see the way that butts were a part of the hip-hop beauty ideal.

Speaker 1 There are butts scholars?

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's a lot of people. I mean, there's definitely, there's people who study

Speaker 2 all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 2 I mean, there's the scientists, but then there's also people who are really interested in these questions of changing body and beauty ideals and in questions like why did, you know, what was happening in 1997 and how and why did people talk about Jennifer Lopez's body in the way that they did.

Speaker 2 There's people who study, you know, the history of dance that's, that, that is very butt-centric. All kinds, all kinds of people study the butt.

Speaker 1 What's next for the butt? What's what's on the horizon or anything or who knows or what?

Speaker 2 I mean, to some extent, who knows?

Speaker 2 Right now, there's a, we're in a funny moment where there's been like just really in the last month or two months, there's been a number of articles that are predicting the end of the big butt trend to the extent that it is a trend.

Speaker 2 You know, there's basically like thin is in is a very common type of headline that you'll find right now.

Speaker 2 And I'm not surprised because that's just basically in some sense how fashion works is that if a thing is big, it's if a body part

Speaker 2 becomes trendy for being big, it's almost inevitable that you'll need the opposite of that in order to continue sort of the machine of fashion churning.

Speaker 2 So that's one thing. But then there's also a thing which is like, to some extent, thin has never been out.

Speaker 2 Although big butts have been fashionable over the last 15 years, they've always really been on the bodies of very thin women.

Speaker 2 And they've been very kind of controlled butts, you know, butts that are look a certain way on a certain kind of person.

Speaker 2 It's not like all big butts are something that people and fashion have been excited about over the last 15 years.

Speaker 2 So, you know, we will see, time will tell if the big butt is, you know, going out of fashion, so to speak. But I wouldn't be surprised if that was the next, the next thing for the butt.

Speaker 1 Well, who who knew there was so much research about the human butt? And it's interesting to hear about it because, I mean, frankly, we see butts everywhere, every day.

Speaker 1 And it's interesting to hear what science says about butts, what they are, and why we find them so fascinating. I've been speaking with Heather Radke.

Speaker 1 She's the author of a book called Butts, a Backstory. And you can find a link to that book in the show notes.
Thanks, Heather. Thanks for explaining all this about butts.

Speaker 2 Oh, sure. Thanks, Mike.
It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 1 With the weather getting colder and the holidays upon us, I just want my wardrobe to be easy. Things that look sharp, feel great, and last season after season, which is exactly what I get from Quince.

Speaker 1 I reach for my Quince cashmere sweaters constantly. They're 100% Mongolian cashmere, and somehow they're just 50 bucks.
Soft, warm, and the kind of everyday luxury that doesn't feel overdone.

Speaker 1 And their denim is another favorite, great fit, easy to wear, and it holds up beautifully. And if you're looking for a holiday gift to give without the big price tag guilt, Quince is perfect for that.

Speaker 1 Those cashmere sweaters I just mentioned, they make great gifts. And their wool coats, you got to check them out.
They're stylish and durable and their quality is top of the line.

Speaker 1 It's amazing how many people have found Quince and love it. What I love is how Quince works directly with ethical factories and top artisans cutting out the middlemen.

Speaker 1 So you get premium quality at half the cost of other high-end brands. It's luxury without the markup, which means you can give something nice this season or keep it for yourself.

Speaker 1 Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with Quince. Go to quince.com/slash S-Y-S-K for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
Now available in Canada too.

Speaker 1 That's q-u-in-ce-e.com/slash sysk. Free shipping and 365-day returns.
Quince.com/slash SYSK.

Speaker 1 You know, my mornings used to be a scramble, coffee, breakfast, trying to remember what supplements to take. It was a lot to juggle.

Speaker 1 And now I start every day with a single scoop of AG1, and it's made my morning so much easier and better. In one mix, here's what I get.

Speaker 1 I get nutrients from real whole foods plus prebiotics, probiotics, and enzymes that support my digestion and gut health. After just a few weeks, I mean I can tell it's working.

Speaker 1 My energy feels steady all day. I don't have to think about juggling five different pills or powders.
And what I love is that AG1 isn't just another supplement.

Speaker 1 It's a daily microhabit that supports whole body health in one scoop. It's simple, it's consistent, and it fits easily into my routine.
One scoop, shake, drink, done.

Speaker 1 And I know I've done something good for myself before the day even starts. It's become a small ritual that sets the tone for the entire day.
AG-1 helps me stay one scoop ahead.

Speaker 1 Head to drinkag1.com slash something to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 when you first subscribe. That's drinkag1.com/slash something.

Speaker 1 Apologies.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you've made some and received some in your life, so you have likely experienced that a good apology can go a long way to fix a relationship or heal a misunderstanding, and a bad apology can go a long way to making things a whole lot worse.

Speaker 1 Apologies are important. They can represent a pivotal point in a relationship from which things improve or worsen.
So what makes a good apology and what makes a bad one?

Speaker 1 Here to discuss this is Marjorie Ingall. She's author of a book called Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, The Case for Good Apologies.
Hey, Marjorie, welcome.

Speaker 3 Thanks so much for having me, Mike.

Speaker 1 So on the surface, you would think what could be simpler? You do something wrong, you say you're sorry, life goes on. But as we have all experienced, it somehow isn't quite so easy.

Speaker 3 The steps for making a good apology are so easy, and yet actually doing them is so hard because our brains are not wired for this.

Speaker 3 Apologizing is a really brave act that really builds bridges between people when they're done right.

Speaker 3 But when they're done wrong, which is everything our brain is telling us to do, we are absolutely shimmering and shivering with this desire to apologize badly or not at all and to blame the other person and to throw up defensive walls.

Speaker 3 It's so hard because we want to see ourselves as the hero. in our own story.

Speaker 3 And apologizing well means understanding understanding that you were the bad guy in somebody else's story so what is the anatomy of a good apology

Speaker 3 a good apology really is six easy steps maybe six and a half uh the first one is say i'm sorry or i apologize which sounds so fundamental and yet somebody is always going to say i regret or not using that word at all.

Speaker 3 And regret is about how you feel. Apologies are making the other person feel heard.

Speaker 3 You have to

Speaker 3 say the thing that you did. Don't say the situation or that incident or what happened.
Name the thing, which is, again, our brains are so wired to just steer us away from looking at what we did.

Speaker 3 Show that you understand the impact. Show that you understand why the other person was hurt.
If you need to explain, do so, but be really wary of excuses. I honestly think this is the hardest step.

Speaker 3 Number five is

Speaker 3 if you can

Speaker 3 explain the steps that you are taking to make sure that this never happens again, that you don't do it, that somebody else doesn't do it, whatever power you have to prevent it happening again, do it.

Speaker 3 Number six is if you can make reparations, make reparations. And the half step is sort of...

Speaker 3 listening. People really want to be heard.

Speaker 1 So you said a couple of times that our brains are not wired to do this. Explain what that, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 What is it wired to do and why is it wired that way?

Speaker 3 The way we function

Speaker 3 is by seeing ourselves as the protagonist in the novel that is our life. We see ourselves as a good person doing good, putting out good into the world.

Speaker 3 We tend to remember the slights that other people have made against us, but not the ones that we make against other people.

Speaker 3 And that's so we don't wind up curled in a corner, sobbing with guilt and self-recrimination and self-consciousness. You have to see yourself as good.
We all see ourselves as good.

Speaker 3 And apologizing well means putting yourself in a one-down position.

Speaker 1 I guess people like to think that

Speaker 1 they're right. And as you say in their own story, they're the hero.
But we all know people make mistakes, people do things wrong, people say stupid things.

Speaker 1 Just not us. I don't.
Right.

Speaker 3 Exactly. One of the

Speaker 3 phrases you never want to hear in an apology and hear far too often is, I'm not perfect.

Speaker 3 Well, nobody's perfect, but it seems particularly difficult to admit to an actual incidence of imperfection while you're apologizing.

Speaker 1 What do we know about what a good apology does on the other side of the table?

Speaker 3 I think there's a reason why we crave good apology stories in the media, in the news.

Speaker 3 You know, good apologies are so often a feature of, you know, good things that happened today, happy stories in magazines and newspapers. They make us feel that the world

Speaker 3 is a warm place. where humans look out for each other, that the world is a small town.
And we'd all like to think that we could be a character in this story.

Speaker 3 The most recent thing that I saw that went viral was a drunk guy stole a Santa from

Speaker 3 a small town in North Carolina, and he returned it the next day with flowers for the owner.

Speaker 3 And he said, I just saw it and thought it looked cool and I took it. And I feel really bad about it.
And I'm sorry. And is there anything I can do to help you out around your restaurant?

Speaker 3 And it was just so sweet that, you know, it's such a small story, but it went viral.

Speaker 1 Well, but it's interesting that we all appreciate a good apology.

Speaker 1 When we see someone apologize like your guy that stole the Santa there, we think, well, isn't that touching that he stole the Santa and brought it back and said all those nice things?

Speaker 1 If we see that working, it makes you wonder why we're so reluctant to do it ourselves when clearly it's a pretty effective strategy to get people on your side.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 The rules are always different when it comes to us, right? We didn't do anything wrong. We are more sinned against than sinning.

Speaker 3 And,

Speaker 3 you know, it's always funny to me when somebody in the media in particular gives this horrible apology like that sun columnist, Jeremy Clarkson, who compared Megan Markle to

Speaker 3 a serial killer in British history and then to like some villain on Game of Thrones and said she should be made to parade naked through the streets of every town in England while people threw lumps of excrement at her.

Speaker 3 And then his apology was like, oh dear, I've put my foot in it.

Speaker 3 I made a clumsy little joke about Game of Thrones and it went down badly and I'm horrified to have caused so much hurt. I'll be more careful in future.

Speaker 3 And I read it, you know, people people send us these terrible apologies on our website, Sorry Watch.

Speaker 3 And it didn't occur to me until after I'd even tweeted about it that it wasn't an apology at all, that it didn't say sorry or apologize. And it's what we call an apology-shaped object.

Speaker 3 It takes the form of an apology, but it is not one. And that just makes people angrier.
But when it's us on the chopping block, No, it was people didn't get my joke.

Speaker 1 It seems to me that, well, that there are times when, you know, people demand apologies or expect apologies when

Speaker 1 maybe

Speaker 1 just get over it. I mean, people are very sensitive.

Speaker 1 In my view, people get very offended and want to be apologized to

Speaker 1 when there was no intent to hurt anybody. It's just a different view of the world.

Speaker 1 And maybe we don't need to be so sensitive and demand apologies for being offended.

Speaker 3 I'm going to gently push back here that it depends on the offense, right?

Speaker 3 Okay, so the most recent thing that I did was misgender someone, use the wrong pronouns. And,

Speaker 3 you know, I was hitting someone where they live. And so I think it's appropriate for me to apologize for that.

Speaker 3 It's also appropriate for me to keep it short and sweet. and not turn this into a whole all about me, oh, rending my garments, ripping out my hair.
I feel terrible.

Speaker 3 Please, please forgive me that I, you know, called you he when you are she.

Speaker 3 But don't people deserve to be called what they want to be called?

Speaker 1 To me, that's not something to apologize for.

Speaker 1 If somebody's offended, but it was an honest mistake.

Speaker 1 If somebody looks like your impression of what a man looks like and you call someone a man and it turns out they're not, well, that's not your fault. I mean, it's just,

Speaker 1 no intent was there to cause harm.

Speaker 3 Right. But if, if you've been told and you still get it wrong, which is what I did,

Speaker 3 I think if you still, if you keep screwing up, you owe someone an apology, but you also don't owe either you or them this theatrical, you know, oh my God, I suck so bad.

Speaker 1 Well, what about that idea of don't apologize if you're not sorry? You know, sometimes people apologize just to prevent the conflict. Okay, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I did that. Now let's move on.

Speaker 1 And they're not really sorry. They just don't want to get bogged down in that.
And that seems to be okay.

Speaker 3 Move on, apology. Don't do it.
Resist the call, but talk to someone you trust to say,

Speaker 3 am I reading this wrong? Because again, we are wired to be self-protective. And your friend may have a better take on the situation than you.

Speaker 3 And your friend may be able to show you, oh, you know, you really did offend. And here's what you can say.

Speaker 3 One thing I always taught my kids was: if there's a thing that you're sorry for, apologize for that. Don't apologize for what you're not sorry for.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about bad apologies. To me, a bad apology often starts with, I'm sorry, but, or I'm sorry if.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm sorry if you were hurt. I forgot that you really don't have a sense of humor.
I wasn't aware that you were so fragile.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like we joke that like if the word obviously appears in the apology, you're already going to be mad when you hear about obviously I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or, you know, I've already apologized, but okay,

Speaker 3 it's unfortunate that like these are all words that make you go.

Speaker 3 But when somebody actually makes eye contact with you and says,

Speaker 3 I'm trying to understand how I screwed up here. I know you're mad.
Can we talk about it?

Speaker 3 What can I do to make amends here?

Speaker 3 I think

Speaker 3 when it's unfiltered that way and you're actually looking into another human being's eyes, an apology can be such a bridge-building, societally connecting, beautiful thing.

Speaker 3 And I think given how hard it is to do well, we should be applauding these when we see them.

Speaker 1 So what do you suggest people say when they get one of these crappy apologies someone comes to them and says you know i'm sorry bud or i'm sorry if or

Speaker 1 what's the response

Speaker 3 and okay so say they they do a sorry if

Speaker 3 you can call them on it just say wait you just said sorry if do you mean sorry if you know you get don't say sorry if you hurt me you're apologizing you know you hurt me and almost all of the time if they are coming to you in good faith they're like you're right we have to come to each other in good faith.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about accepting an apology

Speaker 1 because not everybody's particularly gracious at that.

Speaker 1 So let's talk about that.

Speaker 3 We like to say apologies are mandatory, forgiveness is not.

Speaker 3 If you're getting the crappy apology that is clearly not sincere and just intended to smooth the way, or, you know, fine, you know, come home for Christmas.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, I did blah, blah, blah, or, you know, clearly the office manager is making you apologize. You don't have to accept those.
You know,

Speaker 3 you can just say, thanks, and I appreciate you saying that, and move on.

Speaker 2 But if

Speaker 3 someone says to you, I want us to

Speaker 3 really

Speaker 3 connect, that's what an apology is, right? It's connection.

Speaker 3 it behooves us to listen. And we can help guide the person.
Sometimes people don't know what they did. Instead of being mad that the person doesn't know what they did, help them see what they did.

Speaker 3 What use does it serve for both of you if they don't understand why you're mad and you can't articulate or won't articulate why you're mad?

Speaker 1 I bet everyone listening has one of those people in their lives. that does that thing where they just say things because they want to be honest.
Like, you know,

Speaker 1 those shoes look terrible. Or, you know, I really liked your hair the old way.
Or, you know,

Speaker 1 and they say it because they think it needs to be said. They say it because they think they're telling you the truth.
And you wonder, is it worth demanding an apology because they hurt your feelings?

Speaker 1 Or do we all have to put up with those people? I mean, they say things that are hurtful.

Speaker 3 If it's, you know, you need to lose weight. The person is aware of their weight.
If it's your sister gets A's, why can't you get get A's? All of these things are true, maybe, but not helpful.

Speaker 3 You know, there used to be a sign in my kids' kindergarten that said, is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? And those are all, I mean, it's stupid, but it's true. If someone is really hurt,

Speaker 3 what's more important? Being right or

Speaker 3 being happy? Being right or salvaging this relationship?

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, that's a question some people have trouble answering because sometimes they really want to be right.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I married one and I love him. And unfortunately, he usually is right, which is very difficult for me personally.
But

Speaker 3 yeah, sorry is hard when you are, when you are often the person who is right.

Speaker 1 It is such an interesting topic because we're all at times on one side of the table or the other in this.

Speaker 1 We've either done something that we wish we hadn't and now need to apologize, or we're the ones who are waiting for the apology.

Speaker 1 And we've all been on both sides of the table, so we know what it's like for the other person. And yet, yes.

Speaker 3 And there's some really well-designed and amusing studies that look at

Speaker 3 Let me think about times I've wronged other people versus times I've been wronged. And A, we're way better at coming up with more times that we have been wronged than when we have wronged others.

Speaker 3 And there are always extenuating circumstances for some reason when we are the people who did the bad thing. And we were somehow somehow always,

Speaker 3 you know, there was a reason we did what we did. And the other person, A, they do it all the time.
And B, it's completely unmotivated. Why did they do that?

Speaker 3 Which is, again, we are marvelously complex, intricate mechanisms as human beings

Speaker 3 designed to

Speaker 3 not see our own culpability. And there's so many studies that back that up.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about time because I imagine everybody has done something in in their past that in retrospect they regret.

Speaker 1 They didn't necessarily apologize for it at the time, but with age and wisdom, you start to think, well, maybe that wasn't so cool. Is it worth going back and apologizing? Because

Speaker 1 in retrospect, it seems like it would be.

Speaker 3 Nothing wrong with in retrospect.

Speaker 3 You know, like retrospect can be really those, you know, rose-colored backwards glasses can be super duper helpful uh you know in the moment things get heated uh in the moment you know all we're thinking about is being self-protective and retrospect can be a great way to look at things and re-evaluate and change your story in the research that you did was there any like one

Speaker 1 thing one sparkling diamondy thing that if you have a big apology to make would make it really special, would make it really succeed.

Speaker 3 There

Speaker 3 was a study that people liked talking about

Speaker 3 that showed the impact of a thank you note that we don't, we completely underestimate how happy people are to get a thank you note. That we think, oh, you know, I'm not a good writer.

Speaker 3 Oh, they already know I'm grateful. Oh, they're going to think I'm sucking up.
But when somebody opens that thank you note, they are thrilled. And I think that,

Speaker 3 although I haven't seen a study showing this, I think apologies are similar. I can recall some of the great apologies I have received.
You know, I had an ex,

Speaker 3 maybe 10 years after we broke up, send me a note out of the blue saying that he was getting married.

Speaker 3 And he just wanted me to know that even though sometimes he didn't seem like he was listening when we were together, he was.

Speaker 3 And he thinks that, you know, he thought that he was going to be a better husband because of the time that we had spent together and there was no return address.

Speaker 3 And I actually loved that because it showed that there was no ulterior motive. It was just the nicest thing.
And I'm going to carry that for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 So you're saying an apology in writing may have even more force than...

Speaker 3 An apology in writing when you know that it's not calculating, you know that there's no ulterior motive to it. It was just a kind act.

Speaker 3 And it also, it made me reflect back on a bad breakup in a way that made me think more warmly about the whole relationship.

Speaker 3 Yeah, if you can apologize to someone and you, you suspect that it's something that they want to hear, that they would be happy to hear, you may underestimate how happy it will make them.

Speaker 3 And if you think that they might not want to hear from you, if you do it, you know, you never want somebody to feel cornered by an apology.

Speaker 3 If somebody, if you're apologizing apologizing to someone face to face and they're backing away from you,

Speaker 3 sometimes people move forward because they really want you to understand. No.
But if you write someone a letter, oh, especially on nice creamy stationery with a pen, people are so happy.

Speaker 1 Well, for anyone who has struggled making an apology or or accepting an apology for that matter, I think this has been really interesting and important to hear.

Speaker 1 I've been speaking with Marjorie Ingall. She's co-author of the book Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, The Case for Good Apologies.
And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes.

Speaker 1 Thanks for being here, Marjorie. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much, Mike. This was wonderful.

Speaker 1 I think most of us would agree that 20%

Speaker 1 is the standard amount you would leave as a tip at a restaurant. The question is, should you calculate that 20%

Speaker 1 before or after the tax?

Speaker 1 Well, Steve Dublonica, who's a former waiter and author of a book called Keep the Change, says after the tax is best because most servers total their sales at the end of the night and include the tax in that amount.

Speaker 1 The cash out amount is what determines how much they tip to busboys, runners, and other staff members. If you're a stickler and prefer to tip pre-tax, that's okay.

Speaker 1 Servers understand that tax could be pretty significant on a big restaurant check, but you might want to at least round up a little. Steve also has some advice if you're tempted to leave a bad tip.

Speaker 1 Even if your server really, really screwed things up, keep in mind that the tip money is being distributed to multiple people, so it's not really fair to penalize the other employees who did their part.

Speaker 1 You should try telling the manager that you had poor service because most restaurant managers want to know if you're unhappy. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 It would be great, it's not required, but it would certainly be appreciated if you would leave a review of this podcast.

Speaker 1 Most podcast platforms allow you to leave ratings and reviews, and one from you would be most appreciated. I'm Mike Carruthers.
Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way. You wanna sell those wheels? You wanna get a CarMax instant offer? So fast.
Wanna take a sec to think about it. Or like a monster.

Speaker 1 Wanna keep tabs on that instant offer. With OfferWatch.
Wanna have CarMax pick it up from your driveway.

Speaker 1 So, want to drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere.
Restrictions and fee may apply.

Speaker 4 It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help.
Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app?

Speaker 4 Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today.

Speaker 4 Applying for No Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry, which may impact your credit scores.