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People actually are about as bad as social psychologists say, or worse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2004

Michael P. Maratsos*
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN55414
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Abstract:

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Experimental studies are not representative of how badly people function. We study people under relatively innocuous conditions, where their self-interests are very low. In the real world, where people's self-interests are much higher, people are much worse a good deal of the time (some illustrations are cited). This is often “adaptive” for the perpetrators, but that doesn't make it “good” behavior. That people function so badly in our experiments, where self-interest is relatively minimal, is what is really terrifying.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004