TY - JOUR
T1 - People-actually are about as bad as social psychologists say, or worse
AU - Maratsos, Michael P
PY - 2004/6/1
Y1 - 2004/6/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0140525X04460087
DO - 10.1017/S0140525X04460087
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:12444277298
SN - 0140-525X
VL - 27
SP - 351
EP - 352
JO - Behavioral and Brain Sciences
JF - Behavioral and Brain Sciences
IS - 3
ER -