HONEST rejecters - Species Prospectors

“I believe that honesty is the basis for trust.
I would not lie; even to get myself out of trouble.”

HONEST REJECTERS are those who score in the lowest (approximate) tertile
of agreement with these statements.

Figure 1. HONEST rejecters -Prospectors

These are the Honest rejecter Prospectors' top 7 Attributes:

SIMMER (index 183) – The thought of social disorder excites me. I would enjoy being involved in a street riot.

MATERIAL WEALTH (index 172) – It is important for him to be rich. He wants to have lots of money and expensive things.

SPECULATE (index 168) – I am a gambler at heart. I am prepared to take a risk in order to make a lot of money.

FORCE (index 167) – I believe it is acceptable to use physical force to get something you really want. I think the important thing is to get what you want.

PATRIARCHY (index 167) – For me, a man’s place is at work and a woman’s place is in the home. I believe men are naturally superior to women.

IMAGE AWARENESS (index 167) – It is important for me to stand out in a group by the way I look or talk. I always dress for effect.

SHOW HOME (index 167) – I spend my time improving the appearance of my home. I enjoy keeping up with current trends in home decorating.

This group of Prospectors represent over 42% of all HONEST rejecters. Demographically, this group is not significantly discriminated by gender but, compared with all rejecters, is slightly skewed towards males (54%, index 108) rather than females (27%, index 92). In terms of socioeconomic group, no group indexes higher than 104 (C2) or below 96 (C1) – essentially a flat profile. However, in terms of age it is very clear that the Prospector HONEST rejectors have a straight-line decline by age, and it is more extreme than the Pioneers.

Comparing their over-indexed Attributes with HONEST rejecters as a whole, there is an overlap on 5 of the Top 7 Attributes – SPECULATE, MATERIAL WEALTH, PATIARCHY, SIMMER, and FORCE; and differ on 2 of the Top 7 – IMAGE and SHOWHOME.

Driven to succeed financially, valuing wealth and willing to take risks to get it, they have a dream of what their life should 'look like', but there is not yet 'enough'. There is an undercurrent of thought in the backs of their minds that the modern world of diversity is challenging their right to exploit their roles to the maximum – leading to potentially socially explosive reactions.

These are the people that Settler mothers warn their children about – people who are willing to lie, cheat and steal to get to the top; to treat those who seem to be successful with a degree of suspicion – the 'them' that are not like 'us'.

One of the truisms that help us understand Prospectors approach to MATERIAL WEALTH is that 'rich people get to be rich people because they want to be rich'. Being rich is not a by-product of working diligently within a known set of rules and being rewarded for it. Being rich is a function of taking gambles, having the luck, or perseverance to be in the right place at the right time, not a well worked out 'game plan'. Essentially the Prospectors view life as a series of opportunities to get rich and gain social status. This is no different for the HONEST rejecting Prospectors – except these younger (45.9% below 35, and 65.1 below 45) Prospectors will take gambles and continue to make gambles to accumulate and spend more money in order to build their personal and social image. As with the Pioneers, the SPECULATE Attribute captures this orientation.

These characteristics may all seem laudable on the surface – take gambles to make your wealth and then spend it to show others your success. This is the root of the creation of vast wealth for some and above average living standards for others – the comfortable middle classes. For many other Prospectors, still stiving to attain their versions of material success, it is the dreamed of happy ending to their internal life story.>/p>

But underneath it all, for the HONEST rejecting Prospectors there is a willingness to lie when confronted with situations and circumstances that offer them opportunities to make their dreams come true.

Many life opportunities involve transactions that are based on trust – from a handshake to a 1,000-page contract – that people on both sides of agreements will do as they say they will do. If one side isn’t telling the truth and breaks the agreement – the truthful party will lose trust, while the liar will, at the very least, not be personally particularly bothered as they knew they were lying from the start. It is because of this "amoral pragmatism" that rules and regulations, and the entire legal edifice of 'the law', has created systems of legal sanctions against this type of behaviour.

The rejection of HONEST undermines all systems of good governance in organizations and social systems – just as it facilitates wealth and power accruing to the rejecters of the truth. This observation is noted by the younger Pioneer rejecters of this Attribute and leads them to move away from the behaviour as they age – and it does so with Prospector rejecters as well - but by then great damage may have inflicted on relationships and social systems that are built on the basis of trust.

The accumulation of wealth through corruption and abuse of positions of power are as old and common as the history of mankind and today’s political environment is in many ways no different within the arc of history.

The Attribute FORCE shows that these Prospectors are more likely than the rest of the population to use force to gain the esteem and success that drives them. Dreams of glory drive acts of corruption and, in some cases violence, justified by a dream.

Rather than being startled by the news, it is better to understand the human psyche and the guard against the HONEST rejecters setting a dishonest narrative of success. Whether it is 'democratically elected' politicians telling lies to gain the success they aspire to, or more authoritarian leaders (some of them also 'democratically elected') waging wars against those who try to stymie their dreams, the HONEST rejecting Prospectors will not hesitate to use force to get their way.

Though not in their Top 7 over-indexed Attributes, the CATHARSIS Attribute is ranked 8. The data shows something more sinister - the normalization of violence in their values system.

The paired statement for CATHARSIS is:

I believe that violence is just a part of life. I think that, when you can’t take it anymore and feel like you’re about to explode, a little violent behaviour can relieve the tension.

This has impacts large and small.

For example, in international politics and diplomacy it is the accepted form of good governance that legal agreements are crafted, and legal sanctions clearly laid out by all sides involved in international trade or security agreements. The traditional handshakes and signing of legally binding contracts signify, and hopefully, establishes the basis of trust. However if one or more sides to the agreement are HONEST rejecters, and especially if they are Prospector rejecters, the breaking of the agreement is likely to be accompanied with violence, justified by a dream or vision that was not articulated in the agreement process. The war and genocide in Ukraine are a function of the rejection of HONEST and the espousal of CATHARSIS – among many other Attributes that CDSM measures.

These Attributes of the human values system can help explain the continuous corruption of power, wars and atrocities that make up much of what we term the history of mankind.

On a smaller scale the rejecters of HONEST also espouse an Attribute that has been become less and less accepted within many societies since the end of WW2, a time of great, and continuing, social change in the role of women.

While many will view the progress as slow as cold molasses others will feel the creeping anxiety as 'the old ways' continue to be eroded. Rejecters of HONEST are among those feeling 'progress' is subverting their traditional values. Values that are being subsumed into something unrecognizable in terms of moral thought and behaviour.

The first stage of their reaction to this is measured by PATRIARCHY:

For me, a man’s place is at work and a woman’s place is in the home. I believe men are naturally superior to women.

The Prospector HONEST rejecters agree with this at a rate 24% more than the whole population and 46.6% more than all rejecters. This could manifest itself as resentment about diversity within the work place and women in positions of authority. As an extra layer of acceptability in the FORCE and CATHARSIS Attributes, this can lead to 'public' acceptance of the trends in society that have roots in the drive for equality of opportunity – but lead to 'private' domestic violence as contradictions between public and private persona’s just gets 'too much' and the 'normalized' approach to violence spills into personal behaviour.

The unwillingness to tell the truth has many ramifications, from violent personal behaviour in private settings to open warfare across the world.

But sometimes it is no more than someone trying to be someone they are not.

One of the metaphors we use in CDSM is that of 'Classical Greek masks' when describing Prospector values systems; i.e. hiding the real face of the actor behind a stylized indicator of the role within a play.

This impression of a mask covering the true face of the protagonist is analogous to the Prospectors search for their identity, developing a healthy ego and sense of who they are. This happens in two ways.

The mainstream Prospector initially tries to define themselves in terms of others' opinions. This is more likely than not to be facilitated by the accumulation of wealth, power and its display to others - to the extent of their capabilities within their cultural framework. Satisfying this need can be made easier in some instances by rejecting HONEST.

The second stage occurs when they feel they finally have 'enough' and they begin to satisfy the need to 'like themselves' and not 'needing to be liked' by others. Part of 'liking yourself' includes (awkwardly) not misleading others.

The first stage of indirectly developing a healthy identity is by getting others to think you are the mask. This is more of a white lie than something dark. It is measured in the IMAGE Attribute:

It is important for me to stand out in a group by the way I look or talk. I always dress for effect.

In the HONEST rejecter Prospector mind, getting others to see them as different from the crowd isn’t so much the presentation of themselves, as it is a mirror image of what they think their audience thinks is 'stand out'. A mask to wear, the best way to please the audience.

These rejecters can become very alienated from their former Settler-driven selves, when they were striving for and achieving a sense of belonging. This can mean that they crack at some point – often when their mask slips. This is the stuff of tabloid newspapers, show business websites and cultural gossip.

Will Smith clocking Chris Rock is just a recent manifestation of an age-old process that happens when a torrent of confusing Attributes come together.

Holding reservations about the real identity of people who overtly want others to be impressed by the way they present themselves personally, and through the way they present themselves through their display of physical objects is hard to separate – because, in the mind of most Prospectors - and even more so in HONEST rejecters, they’re one and the same; a drive for an identity that others will admire. This is a big driver of housing markets – displaying to others (to the limit of their ability) the type of home they live in, the neighbourhood/postal code, the decoration and maintenance of the public areas of the home, etc.

SHOWHOME paired statements measuring this are:

I spend my time improving the appearance of my home.I enjoy keeping up with current trends in home decorating.

To them everywhere they live, and how they live, is another opportunity to gain the esteem of others. Being untruthful is not a moral failing, it is a shortcut to success; and success trumps failure every day of the week. Wallpaper is a mask, a new sofa is a mask, a new kitchen is a mask. Rejecting HONEST makes it easier to feel comfortable when others praise them personally – for their objects on display. A saying that many HONEST rejecters would probably feel a twinge of sympathy with is the comedic phrase, "Deep down I’m very shallow".

Creating their own contradictions, wanting to be admired but telling lies to gain the approval of others, for most of these people this is more of a problem of transition – from being a stable Settler to an ambiguous Prospector – than it a settled state of being.

We have noted examples from Vladimir Putin to Will Smith so far, but what about 'normal people' who, for example, go on peaceful demonstrations; but stay around when the 'boys in the black masks' turn up looking for trouble? What drives young men and women to be excited by civil disobedience or think a street riot might be exiting? This is measured by the Attribute SIMMER, the most over indexed of all rejecter Attributes (index 183, and espoused by 51.9% of all HONEST rejecters), and defined by these statements:

The thought of social disorder excites me. I would enjoy being involved in a street riot.

This is an orientation that can have social and political repercussion, when in fact it is very likely to be no more than an expression of frustration of living a life of contradiction, not yet sufficiently accommodating of the paradoxes of living in transition, from one values state to another. The seething mass of contradictions was once described to me in conversation as that person’s 'green slimies', the violent behaviour that bursts out when the violence is impersonal and non-directed.

Much of the anti-social behaviour of large groups of young people coming together during Covid lockdowns could be attributed to this Attribute. Creating civil disturbances falls in a range of behaviours; some violent, some just adrenaline-powered public misbehaviour. But what is likely to be true is that the miscreants were, and into the future if other lock downs occur, is that they are likely to reject the rules imposed on them by those they perceive as lying to them, i.e. breaking their trust. As this trust has been broken they are more likely to reject it themselves – with the result being a rejection of HONEST.

This is why morality is important from public and political figures to behave in the most moral and ethical way they can. It isn’t just about a mask – it is about authentic leadership, being a servant of public needs, being an exemplar of truth and honesty – even it "gets them into trouble". This is the difference between the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine. And, at the moment it also appears to be a wedge issue in support for the leaders of other countries as well – including the UK.

It should be clear by now that various forms of behaviour - from international wars to street riots to domestic abuse - are the result of the failure of trust. The failure of trust has been caused by the rejection of truth at an individual level. This leads to the observation that very large violent events start with a single action that can be traced to a cluster of Attributes inherent in the values system of Prospectors who reject the notion of being truthful.

Summary: Deliberately telling lies and covering up lies with more lies is an integral part of some people’s values system. It is identifiable and measurable among all people and within different Maslow Groups. Those rejecting the HONEST Attribute can be measured and isolated for analysis. The Prospector Maslow Group has a particularly violence-prone subgroup within it. It is likely that the rejection of truth at a personally accountable level is the motivating factor in the loss of trust in society and many organizations; and because this is a function of individual and cultural values systems, is likely to continue to affect British social and political life into the future.