In all honesty, I entered Psychology 1001 reluctantly, because I had to and not expecting to encounter any particularly influential ideas. However, I was surprised when learning about psychology changed my worldview in a number of ways. The most significant of these was my concept of morality. A short time ago I believed humans' moral instincts were perhaps divinely inspired, or at least of more significance than simple science. However, psychology reveals that morality is in fact perfectly explainable with evolutionary theory. They are created in people when they associate actions perceived as immoral with punishment; later immorality is associated with fear and, later still, immorality is a negative stimulus all by itself. This revelation has a vast number of implications. For example, if one were a perfectly logical person, one could arguably use this information to commit any immoral act without reservation. I don't think I could ever be such a cold person, since my morals are too deeply ingrained in me and to break them would cause me too much psychological pain for it to be worth it. However, after this new knowledge I will be sure not to judge too harshly people I consider to be immoral, because it's not necessarily their fault, but the fault of the environment in which they grew up. In any case, there is no way I will forget this information in five years, or ever.
The Psychology of Morality
No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/188218
Interesting point, but we should always remember that genetics may have an influence as well. The fact that a strange dichotomy exists for almost all psychological traits between genetic and environmental influence means we should carefully distance ourself from any quick judgment.
I really enjoyed this blog simply because of its relevance to my knowledge of the Fundamental Attribution Error and it's role in discrimination at different degrees. Some people seem not to have any morals at all and they are questioned according to dispositional influences but in all reality, as you state, it is really situational factors that we "forget" to acknowledge. The environment someone is brought up in takes a major toll in the conclusive results of wether or not someone is a "good" or "bad" person.
I really liked this blog because of the connection it has to my major in biology and some of the concepts that are really stressed there. It's also something that I really took away from the class because I am generally the same way when it comes to morals.
This was very interesting, its weird to think of how many things seem to be unexplained by psychology.
Good blog. This also brings up the question of religion. Religion is a cross cultural phenomenon which suggests that it is somehow ingrained in individuals, and most religions promote moral behavior.