Staying neutral can hurt your reputation, study finds
By Jane Kelly
People shouldn’t be afraid to say what they think, and new research from the University of Virginia bears that out.
Across 11 studies in North America, researchers found people who claim neutrality on controversial issues are often met with skepticism.
“When someone expresses a neutral viewpoint, we are really skeptical of that neutral viewpoint, and we actually think that they are less moral – basically as immoral as someone who holds an opposing viewpoint,” said Gabrielle Adams, an associate professor of public policy, business administration and psychology who was among the leaders of the studies.
In one of the 11 studies, Adams and her team recruited 600 online participants, asking them to read about a colleague who either supported, opposed or claimed neutrality on increasing immigration. They then asked the participants to rate the colleague’s morality. The research team also measured participants’ own views on immigration.
Gabrielle Adams is a behavioral scientist with appointments in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Darden School of Business. (Photo by Tom Cogill)
“Unsurprisingly, targets whose views aligned with the participants were rated more favorably,” Adams said. “However, targets who expressed a neutral view were rated just as poorly as targets whose views on that topic were opposed to participants.”
Neutrality equals apathy and indecision
In another study, Adams’ team asked 605 people online to imagine sitting down at a holiday dinner and saying something like, “Hey, I heard the neighborhood is debating whether to open a safe drug injection site nearby. What do you all think about it?”
The researchers then had them imagine one of the dinner guests responded by saying they were neutral, in favor of or opposed to the site. They also asked participants how they personally felt about the issue.
“Overall, participants saw the guest who took a neutral stance as more conflict-avoidant and strategic than someone who agreed or disagreed with them,” Adams said. “At the same time, they also viewed the neutral guest as more apathetic and indecisive about the issue compared to guests who clearly took a side.”
In a third scenario, using a nationally representative sample, the scientists asked participants to imagine scrolling past a social media post where the person posting said they were either against, neutral on or in favor of a controversial issue. As you’d expect, people rated posters who shared their views the most positively. What stood out, though, was that posters who took a neutral position were rated just as negatively as those who openly disagreed with them.
Agree to disagree
Taken together, the 11 studies brought this conclusion: “People think that this neutrality is essentially a way to play both sides,” Adams explained. “It’s a way to come across as maintaining a strategically favorable reputation and being empathetic and avoiding conflict. The problem is that the way that it actually comes across to other people is that you don’t have a backbone.
“This is a kind of study that suggests that people shouldn’t be afraid to say what they think. It might suggest that taking a neutral stance actually isn’t the best route to having civil and respectful conversations. The more productive route to a civil conversation would be to say you think and to explain what you think, because misalignment isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
Adams said the study results surprised her. “What we wanted to know with this study is whether neutrality is rewarded or not,” she said. “What we think we’re trying to achieve by being neutral is not the attribution that others are actually making. I think that’s, for me, the big takeaway of this article.”
The paper, co-written by University of Toronto assistant professor Racheal Ruttan and University of Toronto professor of organizational behavior Katherine DeCelles, is published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
This article was originally published in UVA Today.
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (Full-Time MBA, Part-Time MBA, Executive MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 20,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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