How much persuasion does it take to make a person commit a minor misdemeanour not amounting to something to make the cops take notice?
Say for instance like telling a lie to avoid coming to work, or backing out of a dinner, or even stealing a traffic cone to keep in the living room — stuff which at most would earn some gentle tut-tuts and possibly a light rap on the knuckles if discovered.
Social scientist Vanessa K Bohns, an assistant professor of management sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, has discovered — possibly to her dismay — that it doesn’t actually take much.
The majority of subjects who were asked by authority figures such as psychological researchers to commit a misdeed may have protested to begin with but more than 50 percent of them went right ahead in the end and committed them anyway.
People who’ve always believed that the glass is half empty and have argued for the resident evil in us might cite the study as a vindication of that belief. That all it takes is a nudge of encouragement or official looking influence to bring it out full blown.
Criminals — petty or otherwise — are not created; but exist in the midst of ourselves even if we deny it.
On the other hand people who’d rather believe the glass is half full and who’ve mostly argued for the inhabitant good in us could cite the same study to aver that just like half the people who can be made to do not terribly nice things, they can, if given the same nudge in the opposite direction, be made to do actual good.
Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out who we should choose to believe.
(This piece first appeared in The Economic Times)