The Psychology Of Self Righteousness

Krista Tippett in conversation with Jonathan Haidt:  from  'On Being'.

The surprising 'psychology behind morality' is at the heart of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s research.

While the talk was really interesting, I'm putting here a few points which stand alone also seemed interesting enough.

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s School of Business. He’s the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

“When it comes to moral judgments,” he says, “we think we are scientists discovering the truth, but actually we are lawyers arguing for positions we arrived at by other means.”

"Psychologically,  people who identify as conservative tend to like order and predictability, whereas people who identify as liberal, they like variety and diversity. 

I have one study where we have dots moving around on a screen. Conservatives like the images where the dots are moving around more in lockstep with each other. Liberals like it when it’s all chaotic and random."

Tippett:  So a premise is that morality “binds and blinds.”

Haidt: This is the one I’m most excited about. This is the one that I feel unlocks so many of our hardest problems.

Jonathan Haidt describes five primary moral foundations that are held across individuals and cultures. People who are liberal and conservative, he says, value two of these in common, compassion and fairness. But conservatives simultaneously juggle three other moral values — of loyalty, authority, and sanctity.

Tippett: And you also point out that when you talk about intuition, that our behavior is not primarily consciously driven. And that’s the same thing that Buddha said, and it’s the same thing that St. Paul said, and Moses and all of these people.

Haidt: One thing that you find in most of the great wisdom traditions is the idea that reality as we see it is an illusion. It’s a veil, it blinds us, and enlightenment is taking down the veil, seeing things as they are, transcending dualities. 

When you get people to actually understand each other, and they let down their guard, and they learn something new, and they see humanity in someone that they disliked or hated or demonized before, that’s really thrilling. And that, I think, is one of the most important emotional tools we have to foster civility. 

Haidt: from what I’ve learned, here are a few pointers. One is, what I was saying earlier about how our reasoning is driven by our intuitions, our gut feelings, our emotions, that’s just why you cannot reason somebody to — once there’s a conflict, you can’t use reason to change their mind. So don’t even try the direct route, which is, “Let’s just discuss it.”

Once you accept that, then you say, well, OK, what does change reasoning? And now relationships become absolutely crucial. This is why it’s so hard to influence people just by putting a message up into message space.

Haidt: Diversity is generally divisive, and it has to be managed. There is some interesting research showing that when you celebrate diversity and point it out, you split people, but if you drown it in a sea of commonality, then it’s not a problem. So anything you can do to emphasize how similar we all are is good. Anything you can do that celebrates — “Look at how different we are.” — that tends to make it harder to have any group cohesion and trust.

Tippett: Drowning things in commonality can also make everything superficial. Right?

Haidt: Well, what do you want? Do you want authenticity, or do you want peace and harmony?

Tippett: I don’t want to have to choose between the two.

Haidt: I think you might.

Tippett: you’re really talking as a social psychologist about “conservative” and “liberal” as two ways of being human.

Haidt: That’s right, these are psychological traits. That’s right. There are dimensions. So openness to experience is the main psychological trait that has been found to correlate with the left-right dimension. 

We’ve got a lot of sociology working against us here. Part of becoming more modern and individualistic is that we make our life choices based on what we like, what appeals to us. 

Well, it’s freedom. The more you are free and have the resources and have a society based on markets and businesses that will cater to what you want, and those are generally good things — well, if people choose where to live and who to associate with, they get ever more segregated.

Tippett: So progress leads to incivility.

Haidt: Of a sort, but again, progress leads to peacefulness, non-violence — but also to being shut off from each other, yes.

Jonathan Haidt has written this: “To live virtuously as individuals and societies, we must understand how our minds are built. We must find ways to overcome our natural self-righteousness. We must respect and even learn from those whose morality differs from our own.”