Seeing good people do bad things makes the world feel like a more confusing place

By Emma Young Have you ever believed someone to be decent — but then they did something morally bad, which turned that belief on its head? It happens more often than we might think. And, according to new work in Social Psychology and Personality Science, the consequences are far-reaching. In two initial studies, Kate W. Guan and Steven J. Heine at the University of British Columbia recruited online participants who reported having had this type of experience. After reporting details about the event and the perpetrator, participants answered a series of questions about how they felt before, during and after it happened. These questions probed their perceptions of the perpetrator’s character, their general beliefs about the world and other people, and confidence in their ability to judge character. The results suggest that the experience of a “good” person doing something immoral is so unsettling, it makes us doubt our ability to judge character and also makes the world feel like a more confusing place. The starker the contrast between the participants’ impressions of the perpetrator’s moral character before versus after their bad behaviour, the bigger the dent in their sense of being able to comprehend the world and their place in it. In the second study (though not the first), Guan and Heine also found that this experience leads people to a dimmer view of the moral character of people in general. The researchers also report that some people we...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Morality Social Source Type: blogs