Thinking that people are getting worse is an old illusion – 12/30/2023 – Reinaldo José Lopes

“This youth has changed a lot”, complains the patriarch. “Nobody cares about working hard and studying anymore, nobody helps their neighbors anymore, nobody treats their elders politely.” I’m willing to bet that you’ve heard complaints like this several times, or even issued them. Maybe you even agree with them. But do statements like this reflect a real phenomenon?

Well, a detail that should leave us scratching our heads is that phrases similar to these can be found in texts from the most diverse cultures and eras, since Antiquity. Egyptian scribes from Pharaonic times wrote things like this; the same goes for the Roman historian Livy (59 BC – 17 AD; note, from the dates, that he died when Jesus was still just a young carpenter who had never left Nazareth). There’s something wrong there, right?

Well, yes, it does. One of the most unusual and interesting studies I’ve read recently dissects the fallacies behind what it calls the “illusion of moral decline.” On New Year’s Eve, it seems like an excellent way to highlight that pessimism about the people around us is sometimes nothing more than a worm in our heads.

The research on the topic, which appeared in the specialized journal Nature, was authored by Adam Mastroianni, from Columbia University, and Daniel Gilbert, from Harvard University (both in the USA). The two made use of a large mass of data from opinion polls — only those carried out with Americans interviewed 220 thousand people, in a period that goes from 1949 to 2019. There is also data from other countries, including Brazil, although covering a period much shorter, from 1996 to 2007.

The question asked in these surveys is always a variation of the following: “Do you think that in recent decades our society has become less ethical?” or “Do you think our country’s moral values ​​are getting better or worse?” Well, in about 85% of surveys, both in the US and other countries, the majority of people answered “yes.” And, look, the affirmative answer – yes, people are becoming less ethical – does not depend on the decade in which it was made. Both in the 1940s and in the 2010s the probability of someone agreeing with the statement was the same.

The trick, however, was when the study authors analyzed other opinion polls conducted over decades (from the 1960s onwards) with specific questions about ethical behavior, such as “Yesterday, would you say that you were treated with respect by the all day?” or “Do you think that, in general, people try to help you when you need it?”

In this case, it is not possible to observe any change over the decades. The moral decline evaporates — and it also evaporated in a survey carried out by the study’s authors, in which they asked whether honest and kind behavior was getting worse 1) among all people and 2) among people with whom the interviewee had direct contact (family members , friends, co-workers). In this case, participants answered “yes” to question 1 and “no” to question 2 – which doesn’t make any sense.

What the hell is going on, anyway? One hypothesis, the researchers write, is that some kind of all-too-human cognitive bias, which makes our minds focus only on the bad things of the present and paint the past in rosy paints, is behind this illusion.

Here, therefore, is an encouraging thought to start 2024: we are all human beings and, as such, we remain as bad — and as good — as we always were, no more, no less. Be patient with others — and with yourself. Happy New Year!

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