THE ILLUSION OF MORAL DECLINE by Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert (Nature, 2023).
"In a series of studies using both archival and original data (n = 12,492,983), we show that people in at least 60 nations around the world believe that morality is declining, that they have believed this for at least 70 years and that they attribute this decline both to the decreasing morality of individuals as they age and to the decreasing morality of successive generations. Next, we show that people’s reports of the morality of their contemporaries have not declined over time, suggesting that the perception of moral decline is an illusion. Finally, we show how a simple mechanism based on two well-established psychological phenomena (biased exposure to information and biased memory for information) can produce an illusion of moral decline."
@Barros_heritage@pvonhellermannn@academicchatter I would add ‘no baseline.’ How many people have ever looked up the graph of, oh illegitimate births or divorce rates or adultery rates or addiction over the last 75 years?
There’s always someone’s butt, or Monroe’s skirt or the Beatles’ haircuts to shock the readily shocked.
I understand that. But I think that framing the problem in these terms indicates rather that we hardly realise that human beings are capable of believing in all sorts of extreme fantasies. Very extreme.
@MHowell@academicchatter@histodons@psychology
I can agree to a certain extent, but I believe that assessing this political situation from a moral perspective is not the most appropriate way to understand or deal with it.
(Not to mention how the whole Trump conspiracy is basically a replay of how--successfully--Jim Crow ruled a huge part of the country up until my parents lifetime. Or how Reagan won by landslides with similar politics.)
@ConnorMoran@Barros_heritage@academicchatter@histodons@psychology
I won't defend Ronald Reagan's policies, but he (ouch, this hurts) had more morals than Trump, on a sliding scale. Just because history is full of miscreants/psychos doesn't mean we can't ask for/DEMAND better.
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