You have to hand it to Kurt Gray, a doctoral student at Harvard. He knows how to spin a set of three small experiments he conducted to make headlines. Here’s what Gray had to say about his findings:
“By perceiving themselves as good or evil, people embody these perceptions, actually becoming more capable of physical endurance.”
and
“But in fact, this research suggests that physical strength may be an effect, not a cause, of moral acts.”
Did Gray actually measure a person’s inherent “goodness” or capacity for evil (or did he measure artificial situations created in a lab that may or may not actually mimic these qualities)? And if so, did he also measure physical strength (or simply one small aspect of strength, physical endurance)?
In the three experiments, he demonstrated that if you give money to charity, you can hold a weight 5 to 7 seconds longer than if you didn’t (out of an average of 71 seconds holding the weight). That’s between 7 and 10 percent more than the control group, so it becomes a significant difference. Yes, having the choice to give $1 to charity — the $1 the experimenter just handed you, so not really your $1 — makes you “good.”
“Evil,” in Gray’s single experiment to measure this component, consisted of writing a fictional story “using all of your physical strength” about your doing some kind of harm to another person. This, of course, is not “evil” in most people’s books. Being asked to write a fictional story by a psychology experimenter seems to fall squarely into “creative writing,” not, “Look, I created an artificial condition of ‘evil’ in the laboratory!”
I’m all for interesting experiments done to look into the effects our behaviors have on ourselves and others around us. What I object to is the over-the-top dramatization by researchers suggesting they tapped into some core insight about the nature of good and evil.
In fact, as Gray noted in his paper, those who were in the “harm” condition (as he refers to it in his research, not the “evil” condition) also felt significantly more guilty than those in the other two conditions (helping and control). While guilt did not equate to being able to hold up the weight any longer, it begs the question — isn’t it likely that there’s a complex emotional interaction going on here that gross measurements such as Gray’s fail to take into account? Humans aren’t like animals where emotions just turn off and on by flipping a switch (or asking them to write a story).
We don’t know whether what Gray did actually was a good test of “goodness,” since charity is just one small component of what might make a person “good.” (You could, for instance, still be good and not give much to charity.) Nor do we know if writing a fictional story where you were specifically directed to do harm to another person equates to “evil.” And last, the researcher’s suggestion that physical endurance is the same as physical strength is simply incorrect and a gross generalization — the two are not synonymous.
Sorry, but all this research demonstrates is that if you want to hold a weight 5 to 7 seconds longer than your friends, give $1 to charity just before you do it. Budding researchers such as Kurt Gray would do well to remember that “spinning” your research data does more harm than good. It’s fine to share what you actually found, but you may look a bit foolish and silly when you suggest the data shows more than it actually did.
Read the full article: Strength in naughty or nice
Link to the research paper: Moral Transformation: Good and Evil Turn the Weak into the Mighty
5 comments
I think you are missing the point. I don’t know the details of the experiment but he clearly uses the word perceive. Which is to say it is not an empirical good or evil(if one does exist) but rather a self perception of good or evil.
It is the same phenomena that explains how prayer and meditation helps sick patients to do better. Most people feel that by giving to charity they are doing something to help other people which gives them a reason and purpose, whereas a person who perceives themselves as evil will see themselves as nothing more than a parasite that could only benefit others by ceasing to exist.
In my former practice of esoteric ritual magick we used to use what was referred to as “god-forms”. Which is to say you take on the persona of the “god” you were trying to summon and through the ritual you convince yourself that you are that “god” and in doing so you take on the strengths and abilities of said “god”. Obviously, it does not mean you can shoot lightning bolts out of your fingers but what does changes is your approach and perception of yourself and the world around you.
The problem is, he didn’t actually measure participants’ perceptions of themselves as being “good” or “evil.” These are perceptions he simply assumed by the design of the experiment. He assumed that anyone who just received a dollar and then gives it to charity is “good.” That’s the most amazing leap of logic I’ve ever heard.
The fact that nobody turned down the charity offer also suggests there was a flaw in the experiment (we’d expect in normal human society that not everyone would donate to charity if given the opportunity).
So all of this is interesting theory and these studies would’ve been nice foundational (or pilot) studies to explore these concepts further. But he spoke about them to the press as though they were flawlessly designed and came to unquestionable conclusions without limitation.
I agree that he should not present it as the LAW but the hypothesis could grant many benefits.
This is a constant issue when it comes to trying to objectively measure subjective data. We can only talk in generalities and allowed people to measure and choose what applies and what doesn’t apply. But people don’t want general information the want answers and solutions. They want to feel somebody is in control and taking care of those things.
What “attention” was paid to the control group?
What “neutral” thing were they asked to do?
Not knowing that, maybe the difference was simply having the “researcher” interact more with the 2 groups.
There’s not enough information here to evaluate.
I agree that there is stenght in evil but if you have even a little bit of good in you. Your good will come out soon enough and lead you down the right path!
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