The World Isn’t Actually Going to Hell in a Handbasket

Human beings have been complaining about a moral decline since, well, forever

By Elizabeth Bernstein of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"a robust study shows that most people think that society is declining morally—steadily becoming ruder, greedier and less kind. Yet the study also concludes that people are just as good as they’ve ever been.

The researchers examined decades of studies, some dating as far back as the 1940s, measuring things like empathy, kindness, respect and generosity. They found that although people have been decrying a moral decline for generations, their behavior toward one another really hasn’t changed."

"Human beings have been complaining about a moral decline since, well, forever. Jeremiah in the Old Testament, Cicero in ancient Rome, Machiavelli in Renaissance Italy and Cotton Mather in Puritan New England all griped about it, according to Richard Eibach, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, who studies how people perceive themselves and the world around them."

"Adam Mastroianni, an experimental psychologist . . . a colleague, Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert . . . examined research going back decades from 60 countries, asking people whether they thought others were less friendly, honest, kind or good than they used to be. The studies included approximately 575,000 participants.

Then they looked at research probing how people behave toward one another. The studies asked people whether, for instance, they had recently been treated with respect, done something nice for someone else or donated to charity. 

A remarkably consistent portion of people over the years—around 60%—have believed that people are less good now than they were in the past. They also have believed that the moral decline began in their lifetime.

Yet when the researchers looked at actual behaviors over time, they found something different. Year after year, people reported that others do nice things for them. And they do nice things for others.

They also consistently said that their own friends and family members behave better than ever. (Don’t be so surprised. “We ignore their flaws to sustain the relationships,” says Waterloo’s Eibach.)"

"Why do we believe that society is worse than it is? It’s partly the way our brains pay attention. We have a negativity bias. We pay much more attention to bad events or emotions than good ones. This is a survival instinct; we need to detect threats."

"We often remember the past more fondly than is perhaps warranted. That is because the emotional power of a positive experience stays with us longer than the emotional power of a negative one.

Psychologists call this the Fading Affect Bias and say it makes life more tolerable by helping us defang our bad experiences over time and cherish the good ones."

"People often see the world as more dangerous and risky during life transitions such as becoming an adult or a parent"

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