Harvard Social Psychologist Be Aware: Pompous Takes Highfalutin

People sized up Trump in seconds, and decided the he was their best bet against the Clinton’s empire, behaving against all expectations, especially those of the Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy.

Cuddy has been studying first impressions alongside fellow psychologists Susan Fiske and Peter Glick for more than 15 years, and they got it wrong. Like the Democratic party they don’t want to budge. They persist in their miscalculations.

In her new book, “Presence,” Cuddy says that people judge a person according to two questions:

• Can I trust this person?
• Can I respect this person?

Psychologists who don’t know much refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence, respectively, and ideally, those Harvard people say, everybody wants to be perceived as having both because if they can fool their audience accordingly, the audience will reward them and give them what they want, such as the key to the bathroom near the Oval Office.

Now,  the American people, and TPV is with them, sent a different message this past November: Trust may beat respect, but pompous beats highfalutin. And maybe there is a catalyst at work as well when TPV is right and every other Democrat is wrong:

Sometimes Death is not the only Irrevocable End.

So, in light of the recent flurry of New York City travelling the once-upon-a-time First Family has recently engaged in going to Broadway shows, and pop concerts, but still skipping public toilets, TPV has some suggestion for HillBilly:

1. Change your name. Use Michelle Obama.
2. Change your appearance. Old and blond is so yesterday. Red may be a better option.
3. Get a divorce or have a public separation where Hill acknowledges her partner, and Bill his. Of course, make sure it is not the same.
4. Finally, leave Chelsea home. She’s such a downer.

Thus, don’t believe that competence is the more important factor. Equally, warmth and trustworthiness are not the factors people evaluate you by.

The two most important factors are:

1. Are you Hillary?
2. Can you keep her away?

And if the context is not American politics (presidential or mayoral elections), then the two factors are:

1. “Do I know you?” If the answer is the correct one: “yes, we both graduated from Harvard” then you’re hired. If the answer is no, then the second question is:

2. Why don’t I know you?”

So, Harvard, stop deluding electors and make tuition based on merit.

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By DANA NEACSU: Harvard Social Psychologist Be Aware: Pompous Takes Highfalutin