Hypocritical people: 6 typical characteristics that define them

These people play at having a public and a private side, which they combine with opportunism.

Any human being, by the simple fact of being a human being, has to experience a vital drama: his own interests and the interests of others, which are expressed through social norms, do not coincide. However, in order to survive it is necessary to exist within a certain social fabric, be it a family, a village, a town or a large city. This is where the strategies created to manage this tension appear: we have to be ourselves, but trying not to be despised or rejected by others.

Fortunately, most people are capable of combining these two realities (public and private interests). On other occasions, however, there are those who opt for attitudes that are markedly too cynical or opportunistic to be genuinely pro-social. Normally, we know these individuals as hypocrites, these individuals are known as hypocrites..

But... what really characterizes hypocritical people? Let's see it, from a proposal of 6 typical traits of those who adopt this strategy to socialize.

6 characteristics of hypocritical people

Although there are several ways to identify hypocritical people, in general we will be able to recognize in them the following characteristics.

1. Explicit but inconsistent moralism

One of the easiest ways to tell hypocritical people apart is to by looking at the use they make of morality..

From an individualistic point of view, moral standards can have an unpleasant side, especially when we feel we have to do something we don't feel like doing, but they also have a positive side, since we can appeal to them when we want other people to behave in a way that benefits us. Hypocritical people know this, and that is why they use morality to try to make others behave in a way that benefits them. to try to get others to abide by those values.

Of course, this is in contrast to their own compliance with the rules. Those who live in an environment in which others live according to moral constraints that they do not follow themselves have a certain competitive advantage, and hypocritical people abuse them with virtually no remorse.

2. False affability

Hypocritical people tend to look for quick and dishonest ways to gain social capital (i.e., the sympathies of many people, or at least the possibility of drawing on them). To this end, a common practice is to feign a false interest in the other person's life at key moments, such as greetings or farewells. You can tell that this is not an honest and spontaneous initiative because, beyond these key moments, sympathy is transformed into difference.

3. Minimal social contact until the favor arrives

Another common attitude of hypocritical people is to have "friends" or acquaintances in their agenda, without any dealings with them, and take advantage of this only to ask for specific favors.

Unlike others, who in the age of social networks may have many contacts stored passively in the phone book or in the friends section of one of their social network profiles, those who have this opportunistic spirit are not consistent with the fact that they hardly deal with these people, and if they can, take advantage of the fact that they know them without providing absolutely nothing in return.

This is important, because that which is appealed to when asking for a favor, friendship, has not existed or no longer exists in practice, only theoretically. However, it seems that it begins to be a real emotional bond seconds before making a request. Shortly thereafter, that supposed friendship will again fall into oblivion.

4. They make useless gestures of kindness

Trying to invite someone over for tapas when someone else has already paid, announcing an event that it is clear you cannot attend... These gestures are a way of to try to seduce people without exposing themselves to the little annoyances or inconveniences or inconveniences that this may generate.

5. Praise on the one hand, complicity with the mockery on the other hand

Another typical attitude of hypocritical people consists in showing themselves as friends while, when the other person is not present and is criticized, they show complicity with those criticisms, complicity with those criticisms, regardless of whether or not they are fair.. It is also common that the hypocritical person is the one who brings up these criticisms, sometimes with the aim of gaining social acceptance for the fact of detecting imperfections in others.

6. Disappearances when hitting rock bottom

When someone is going through bad times, it is relatively frequent that the hypocritical people around them who showed a close relationship with the first ones, disappear in anticipation that they can be asked for help, even if it is minimal.