Science of reputation, Significance of ethics

A team, led by professor of psychology Robert Johnston, a research psychologists at Cornell University has shown that different areas of the brain react differently when recognizing other people, depending on the emotions attached to the memory.

Professor Johnson says: "Humans clearly have an incredible ability to recognise, remember and store huge amounts of information about individuals - even individuals we have never actually met. This ability is the core of circuits that one might call the social brain." As one of the most social of animals, this is important and for Relationship Management is pivotal.

What is important for public relations is this ability to recognise and remember information about people we have not even met. One might speculate that capability to ascribe values to people from a distance is what we call reputation. That there is now a Neuroscientific proof behind the social science of reputation. This is important and offers underpinning of the work of ethical public relations (is there un-ethical PR?). It also shows how important the discussion on ethics was at the new Communications Forum with Philip Young and Max Kalehoff (VP Marketing at BuzzMetrics).

Picture: Lifted from The Stanford Medical Ethics conference and not a very ethical use of someone elses IP.