Pretty
much everyone lies and cheats sometimes—but pretty much identifies
themselves as a liar or a cheater. We consider our indiscretions the
exception, not the rule, and desist from calling ourselves crooks even
if that’s exactly what we are.
Now, a new study in PNAS attempts to explain this nearly universal delusion with what researchers are calling “unethical amnesia”—the theory that we remember our good deeds better than our ethical lapses, allowing us to continue acting unethically without much remorse.
“Many people who consider themselves honest nevertheless
often cheat on taxes, steal from the workplace, illegally download music
from the internet, have extramarital affairs, use public transportation
for free, lie, and so on,” the authors write. “Because people value
morality and want to maintain a positive moral self-image…they are
motivated to forget the details of their actions so that they can keep
thinking of themselves as honest individuals.”
Scientists have long been fascinated by how we learn to live with our own dishonesty. Studies have shown that we tend to have a double-standard when it comes to ethics—when someone else cheats we see him or her as a bad person, but when we do the same thing ourselves, we’re far more forgiving. Plenty of ink has also been spilled in an attempt to figure out why we act unethically in the first place. But the jury is still out on why we keep on acting unethically, and why feelings of remorse don’t seem to prevent us from repeating past offenses.
In an attempt to figure this out, researchers
from Northwestern University and Harvard Business School conducted nine
studies with more than 2,100 participants and found that people had
stronger, more vivid memories of instances in which they had acted
ethically than in instances in which they had, for instance, cheated at a
game of cards.
Oddly, the authors speculate that our feelings of
remorse after acting unethically—the very emotions that are supposed to
prevent us from acting inappropriately again—may be among the root
causes of unethical amnesia.
“When people behave unethically they experience
greater dissonance and discomfort,” the authors write. And since these
negative feelings challenge our egos and make us feel bad, our minds
block them out. But the downside of forgetting how bad we felt when we
cheated or lied is that now we can more easily cheat and lie again—and
forget all over again—with impunity.
This fits nicely with the general advice that psychologists and religious moralists have been pushing for centuries—dwelling
on the past and making yourself feel terrible with regret or guilt can
often have undesired consequences, rendering one even more likely to
continue acting unethically.
Perhaps now we know why regret and guilt only
seems to make matters worse—blame unethical amnesia for your repeated
moral lapses.
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