When in Doubt, Regulate

More and more scientific research shows that we humans are stunningly bad at self-assessment. We think we're better drivers than we are; we think we're better multi-taskers than we are; we think we're harder workers than we are. And now research (as reported in Benedict Carey's column in yesterday's New York Times) indicates that we think we're more moral than we really are too.

For example, students were asked how many daffodils they would buy at an on-campus fundraiser for the American Cancer Society that was to be held later in the semester. More than eight in ten predicted that they themselves would buy a flower, but just over half thought that their peers would make such purchases. In fact, only about four in ten of the students involved in the research actually purchased daffodils -- meaning that their behavior was more like what they thought everyone else's would be like, than what they had predicted for themselves.

Carey quotes one of the researchers, a University of Chicago psychologist, who says, "The problem is ... not only that we overestimate how we would have behaved. It's also that we blame every crisis or scandal on failure of character -- you know, if we just fire all the immoral Wall Street bankers and replace them with moral ones, we'll solve the problem."

That's not to say that we shouldn't be indignant about the shenanigans on Wall Street (and elsewhere). We should be. But we can't stop there. The point is that situations have a way of overwhelming an individual moral compass. It's easy to say hypothetically "I would never do X." But it's also easy to find yourself doing precisely X when the situation sets you up to do that. Sometimes even with the best of intentions (remember that old proverb about how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions?).

One of the most interesting findings of the research is that this "holier-than-thou effect" is less pronounced in societies that value interdependence than in those like ours that value independence and individual achievement. It takes a village, eh?

The best way to ensure that people behave in a moral way is to make it easy for them to be moral. And the best way to ensure that is to regulate. Self-regulation is about as likely to succeed as New Year's resolutions (no, I haven't lost those ten pounds yet; have you?).