Every religion includes in its precepts the belief of some form of afterlife punishment for our behavior in this life. At the same time, most of us believe to be inherently good. So the question is, are we? The shocking truth, revealed by social psychology, is that we are good until we are not good; we just need the correct permission. It is in our nature to allow ourselves to become monsters when provided with a good justification, excuse, or pretext. Nonetheless, we also have the capacity to overcome our nature and do good; sometimes at the cost of our own lives. However, we must consciously work at it and reject that evil nature.
Several social-psychological experiments show how ordinary people with no previous propensity for violence can be induced to harm others under specific situations. For instance, The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was an experiment, where volunteers were randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners. Over the course of five days, the guards increasingly abused the prisoners. After the behavior of the participants started to become unmanageable, the experiment had to end on the sixth day.
Although we find comforting to think that the people who carried out the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe had a fundamentally different morality than the rest of humanity, the reality is much more disturbing. What research has repeatedly shown is how normal were those willing to torture and get involved in mass atrocities and genocide.
A study by historian Christopher Browning in 1992 observed how ordinary were the German perpetrators of the Jewish Holocaust, they certainly were not born sadists. In this study, Browning argued that it was not even fanaticism, but conformity, a general deference to authority, and the effects of propaganda most crucial in turning regular people into cruel murderers.
But it is not only in extreme circumstances that we are capable of doing wrong. In our basic nature and character, we can be predisposed to aberration. For instance, a common defect in people is to lie, deceive, and mislead. Human beings achieve developmental milestones as they grow up, like talking and walking. But, shockingly, another milestone in our development is to learn how to lie and to do it. By age four, children understand the difference between truth and lies and realize that people can hold in their minds different beliefs and maintain different perceptions from others. At that time, they realize that human beings could potentially believe any lie you tell them. That is when they start lying, taking advantage of our limitations to grasp reality.
The motivation for deception and lying usually is self-serving. I have never seen a happy person because their spouse lied to them. But I have seen many angry ones. With their anger, they acknowledge that deception is wrong. Although lying still is a “normal” intrinsic part of us. Nonetheless, deception carries many negative consequences for our lives. Self-deceit and lies always justify our incorrect behaviors and prevent us from seeing the reality of such behavior. Justifications and excuses allow us to easily act shamefully or abusively; and without any remorse. In extreme cases, it even affects the well-being of our minds. A common symptom of mental illness and psychological problems includes the falsification of reality and delusions.
But in addition to the mental and psychological problems that falsification of reality brings and are acknowledged by psychology as abnormal, the field of social psychology recognizes certain behaviors as common and normal in human beings. However, although common, I wonder if psychologists realize that these behaviors are not normal.
Psychology can be defined as the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context. So, it is a very useful tool to understand who we are and how we behave. Some theories of social psychology that objectively describe our common “normal” patterns of behavior are listed:
Attribution Theory: This theory states that we must assign a reason or a cause to every situation. We need to make attributions (explain or excuse) for experiences of success and failure and we look for explanations of behavior in the social world. But we tend to see events and explain them more by our personal needs and intentions than by objectively analyzing the facts. We are biased toward those needs and intentions and against objective truth. This bias is known as a “fundamental attribution error”.
Depending on whether the situation is favorable or unfavorable, we can make an external attribution (unfavorable) or we can make an internal attribution (favorable). An example might be when a student gets a good grade on a school test and attributes it to the internal attribution of his dedication, skills, and brainpower. But if that student gets a bad grade on the same test, he might attribute it to an external factor, like the teacher can’t teach or some other similar excuse. In both cases, a fundamental attribution error is possible due to a lack of objectivity. We tend to see what is convenient for us or not more than what the facts are.
Conformity Theory: This theory states that people tend to accept something just because everyone else does it. Experiments show that people tend to conform to other people. People will conform even against their own beliefs or opinions. Notice that no external pressure needs to be applied for this behavior to manifest itself. The fear of the consequences that nonconforming will bring and loyalty to the group are some reasons for conformity. Imagine then how much conformity rates can be obtained when pressures, threats, or emotions are applied to a person.
An example of conformity is those Germans who committed atrocities and genocide in Europe during WW II. Whenever any group that you belong to is doing something that you know is wrong, and you support it or accept their actions just to keep on being accepted, then you are conforming to the group. Conformity can be used to influence or manipulate people. I have discovered that some of the worst societies are made up of nice people. But nice and good are two different things. Those who want to be nice conform to everything in their goal to belong to the group. So they will also conform to any wrongdoing. And as a consequence, they live in abusive societies. That was one of the reasons for the behavior displayed by the ordinary Germans who perpetrated the Holocaust.
Consistency Theory or Cognitive Dissonance Theory: This theory states that there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency and harmony among the different facts, knowledge, opinions, beliefs, or values that they hold. Dissonance is the sense of discomfort that occurs when there is inconsistency or disharmony between them. We are motivated to reduce the discomfort by either changing one of our thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes to conform with other information or selectively attending to information that supports one of our beliefs and ignores the other. Compartmentalization of the mind, excuses, manipulation, distortion of the facts, emotional outbursts, blaming, and denial are common ways to decrease dissonance.
Personal responsibility is an essential factor for dissonance creation. People avoid information that is likely to increase dissonance and practice selective exposure. Therefore, they select sources of information consistent with their existing beliefs and usually choose to be with people like themselves. They can avoid dissonance by maintaining the status quo. In other words, they will only select sources of information (truths) that confirm their established beliefs.
Interpersonal/ Similarity Attraction Theory: This theory states that people are attracted to others whom they perceive as similar to themselves and others who share the same attitudes in matters that are important to them, and to those who reinforce and validate their faith that what they are, believe, and like is the best and/or is correct. The look-alike, think-alike, and act-alike effect brings people together.
The old saying that opposites attract has been proven wrong unless they complement each other. Equally, people tend to make negative assumptions, expect rejection, and, are repulsed by dissimilar others, which may detract from their attitudes, beliefs, and values. Some researchers suggest that dissimilarity repulsion in people might actually be stronger than similarity attraction. People, in general, possess a marked affinity bias.
Studies have shown that even babies are attracted to others who share similar preferences to their own. But when a third party was abusing the ones dissimilar to those babies, the babies would identify themselves and empathize with the abusers, not the different others being abused. The babies wanted the dissimilar others to be punished. The shocking part was the babies’ reaction toward those who did not share their preferences.
The word intolerance means unwillingness to accept views, opinions, beliefs, or behavior different than our own. And we, as individuals and members of a social group, are intolerant or biased by nature. This is really what the Interpersonal/ Similarity Attraction Theory is all about.
Nazi ideology could be an extreme example of our tendency to like similar and dislike dissimilar people. Aryans loved each other but had no problems murdering non-Aryans. The same thing is truth with Islamic extremists killing others who do not share their beliefs. What about the ethnic cleansing of Armenians by the Turks? Another example is the Christian Crusades. Today, non-Christians are the ones killing Christians. In fact, Christians are the most persecuted religious group, and this persecution is global and historical, although largely ignored by the world. Due to persecution, Christianity is at risk of disappearing in certain parts of the world.
In conclusion, most theories of social psychology describe very well our tendencies and propensity to behave in a certain manner. Since this is not a psychology class, I just described a few theories to make a point. Although we possess an innate moral core, most of these theories demonstrate that we are unfair, subjective, selfish, predisposed, and biased. Our morality is also neutralized by false narratives, pretexts, justifications, denial, and excuses. The source of our bad attitude and wrong behavior is in our nature, a behavior that is then validated and justified by lies, denial, and deceit.
This article is well written and reasoned, but if my previous personal experiences in this area are any guide, a few people will start pointing out how I am entirely wrong, while most people will turn into a silent passive majority unwilling to defend an annoying truth. They will act according to their nature and will conform to others. But that will make them accomplices.
You could argue that having a lying nature is not a big issue. And it might not be unless the real God is Truth! And in fact, your creator is Truth indeed. But if God is Truth and we are children of lies, then according to psychology’s Similarity Attraction Theory, we really do not like God or what he has to say. We will just create a god according to our fantasies, which explains so many religions and contrasting religious doctrines.
Human beings are the only species that can consciously change their nature and innate impulses into something better. We can change our character by reprogramming our minds with more accurate information and rejecting our inclination for deception and lies that are convenient to us. Christianity calls this “repentance”. The objective truth allows us to see what is incorrect and then correct it. We are all at odds with God due to our nature, and either we repent and reevaluate what is good and normal, or we will face an angry god in the afterlife.