We make countless judgments about other people every day - in professional life, in political debates, in family everyday life, or on social media. We rely on our gut feeling and usually consider our assessments to be fair and objective. But they are surprisingly rare. Identical behavior is often judged completely differently depending on who shows it. Leadership strength suddenly becomes arrogance, ambition turns into selfishness, and emotionality becomes hysteria. Why do "family mother" and "drama king" immediately sound strange, while "family father" and "drama queen" seem completely natural? With humorous role reversals, interactive thought experiments, and surprising research findings, this lecture uncovers the unwritten rules by which we judge—and shows why they significantly influence, even in an enlightened society, who we attribute competence to, who advances in their career, what political decisions are made, and why even artificial intelligence can only be as objective as the people from whom it learns.
We make countless judgments about other people every day - in professional life, in political debates, in family everyday life, or on social media. We rely on our gut feeling and usually consider our assessments to be fair and objective. But they are surprisingly rare.
Identical behavior is often judged completely differently depending on who shows it. Leadership strength suddenly becomes arrogance, ambition turns into selfishness, and emotionality becomes hysteria. Why do "family mother" and "drama king" immediately sound strange, while "family father" and "drama queen" seem completely natural?
With humorous role reversals, interactive thought experiments, and surprising research results, this lecture uncovers the unwritten rules by which we judge - and shows why they significantly influence, even in an enlightened society, who we attribute competence to, who advances in their career, what political decisions are made, and why even artificial intelligence can only be as objective as the people from whom it learns.
The first re:publica Vienna brought the most important European festival for digital society, politics, technology, and culture to Austria for the first time. From October 2 to 3, 2026, the Kulturhaus Brotfabrik became a place for debates and keynotes with international speakers. The teams from OKTO and Moment Magazin recorded the events and have been presenting the videos since October 5 in the slots at 6:00 PM and 11:10 PM.
