November 7, 2024 • 48 mins
This week Scott is joined by author and professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Kurt Gray. Scott and Dr. Gray discuss why Americans seem so divided at this point in time, the psychology of self-righteous indignation, how we all share harm-based moral minds, and what we can do to find common ground.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One person is labeled the perpetrator. In one person or
side is the victim. Everyone wants to be the victim
instead of the perpetrator.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Today. It's great to have doctor Kurt Gray on the podcast.
Doctor Gray is a psychology professor of the University of
North Carolina an author of the new book called Outraged,
Why we Fight about morality and politics and How to
Find Common Ground. Wow. What a timely book and timely episode.
In this discussion, we discuss why people seem so divided
(00:34):
today and why everyone seems to be filled with outrage
for the other side. We also discuss the psychology of
righteous indignation and doctor Gray's views on moral psychology and
his argument that deep down we all have the same
harm based moral mind. We also discuss how we can
bridge moral divides. I'm a longtime admirer of Kurt's seminal
research on morality and his theory of moral typecasting, where
(00:57):
we treat victims as angels and perpetrators as pure evil.
I learned a lot from this discussion, and I'm sure
you will too, So without further ado, I bring you
Doctor Kurt Gray. Professor Kurt Gray, Welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, I've been really looking forward this chat for a
long time, and it couldn't be more relevant.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It's a contentious time, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Your book is called Outraged.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
That's right. Why we fight about morality and politics and
how to find common ground.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, I really want to know the answer to all
those questions. Yeah, all the questions you're asking your book.
Now you're you got a PhD in social psychology from Harvard, right,
was it relating to morality?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's right. It was with Dan Wegner, and so he
studied all sorts of weird and wonderful philosophical things like
free will and thought suppression. He didn't study morality, but
he studied how we perceived the minds of others, and
it turns out that's really closely related to our moral judgments.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, definitely. He's famous for the don't think of a
white bear phenomenon, where all you do is think of
a white bear if you try not to. Yeah, okay,
So what was your dissertation on My dissertation was on
how the feeling of pain and a little bit pleasure
but mostly pain changes on the intention of the person
(02:19):
who's giving it to you.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So if you think someone's hurting you maliciously, giving you
an electric shock, I did a lot of shocking of
Harvard undergraduates. If you think you're getting shocked intentionally and maliciously,
it physically hurts more than if you think you're getting
shocked accidentally or benevolently. Hard to imagine getting shocked benevolently,
(02:43):
but we figured out how to make that happen.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So you direct the Deepest Belief Lab and the Center
for the Science of Moral Understanding at the University of
North Carolina. How and you you have a child, right,
the two kids?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Now, how do you manage two laboratories. I've never heard
of anyone having two laboratories at a universe. I've never
heard of this and have a family, and I mean,
how you do it all? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I ignore the cat. So that's that's how you got
to cut corner somewhere. And I spend less attention with
the cat. But well, you know, one's the lab that's
about running studies, and then the Center is a little broader.
It's kind of more you know, international collaborations, funding scholars
(03:32):
things like that, so they're kind of connect with each other.
But you know, it's busy for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, you say. Quote my job is to make sense
of moral disagreement and find ways to help people in
conflict understand each other. Is that still roughly what you do?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yes, you bet. Increasingly my research focuses on how to
understand moral divides and how to bridge those divides.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, it's just so poor. I mean, what as a
social psychologist watching this political collection, do you are you
in bewilderment? Uh? Or you kind of get it? Maybe
you just you get it, you like understand what's going on.
You're like, I get this.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, I mean, you know, all humans, the human condition
is bewilderment, I feel. But as far as the chaos
of elections, I think folks like me who study intergroup
conflict and our perceptions, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Okay, well we're gonna well not to me, so let's
make something.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Let's dig into it.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
That's why we're doing this podcast exactly who or you know?
Righteous indignation is just something so interesting. It's not something
so it's it's it's it's it's a powerful, deep seated
human something. I don't know what it is. Righteous indignation
what we call it? Is it a need of humans.
(04:55):
I mean, it feels like a great Yeah, it's a
great question. Right, No one keep I'm thinking like, no
one wakes up in the morning left right. You know,
whether you're a politician or a pundit on either side,
no one wakes up in the morning thinking I'm a monster,
I'm evil.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right. Everyone thinks they've got the best intentions and they're
doing the right things, or you know, maybe the ends
justify the means. Maybe doing some bad things, but ultimately
for good. And so I think each one of us
feels righteous and that we're doing good. And so when
someone argues against us, or does something different or believes
something different, then that's where the indignation and outrage come in, right,
(05:35):
Because if I'm moral and you're different, well then you
must be a moral Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
That's so true. I mean, people really are. It feels
like more divided right now than pre twenty sixteen. Is there?
Do you have any data that that's true? It just
feels that way.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
There, Yeah, great question, there is data on this. So increasingly,
not only have policy positions moved apart as much as
really any kind of average person you know is really
focused on policy. It's usually kind of focused on our
group identity, but policy positions have moved apart. It's also
the case that your dislike of the other party has
(06:18):
gone up and up every year. So even if you
don't like your party, then you really dislike the other party. Right,
You're like, I just don't want them to get into
the White House. So it's less about us and more
about not them.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Is this Trump's fault?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, it's probably complicated, but I think, you know, some
policy didn't help more than others, right, kind of capitalize
on concerns and fears and catalyze as kind of like
feelings of us versus them. So certainly, you know there's
a market increase in kind of like animosity that around
(06:57):
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know, I'm trying to just take a step back
here and think if if that's what it is. It
feels like, you know, I'm a personality psychologist, so I
come at it with like, you know, individual differences are
gravitated to different messages, and you know, it feels like
there are a lot of people who find standard politics
(07:19):
as usual boring, and I feel like Trump is like,
for the first time in the history of politics brought
entertainment like WWF style entertainment to politics, and a lot
of people it's suddenly like I feel like it took us.
I think if I feel like in twenty sixteen, we
like we left the political domain and went into some
other universe and the traditional politicians and way of talking
(07:42):
and everything suddenly became like, oh, that's old news, that's boring.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, it's a good point, right. I think over the decades,
it's been increasingly about entertainment, right, So the first televised
debate where Kennedy looks so much better than Nixon, for instance,
and then we get to now right where I mean
Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. Yeah, right, even Reagan you know,
was president in the eighties. And so I think it's
(08:09):
increasingly become about you know, who you trust, what kind
of personality you know, talk about personality, what kind of
personality do you trust to kind of protect you and
your interests? And I think the rise of populism recently
has been really about, like, let's put our faith in
strong personalities. Who you know, people don't necessarily think that
(08:30):
Trump is you know, moral and the kind of classic
ways we might think about it. But I think those
who are voting for and things will stand up right
for their rights and protect them. And I think that's
ultimately what our votes and our moral judgments are about.
Right concerns about protecting ourselves and our family.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yes, you say, deep in our minds, every fight about
morality comes down to one thing, competing perceptions of harm.
We get outraged at people when they deny our asumptions
about what causes suffering, and when they reject our views
of victimhood. Well, this is just this is right up
my alley. It almost feels like people don't leave space
(09:10):
for there to be multiple victims at the same time.
It's like people can't wrap their head around that, Like
everyone's so self absorbed. Am I wrong?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
No, you're right, You're right for sure. You know. I
talk a little bit about this about how our perceptions
of victimhood and who's a perpetrator like one hundred to
zero right, And it's totally fair to think that your side,
your preferred side, is maybe a little bit more the
victim right. So like, take immigration right, if you're kind
(09:39):
of promegration, maybe you think the victim are families fleeing
violence at the border. And if you're more anti immigration,
you think the victims are citizens harmed by you know,
undocumented or legal immigrants, and so you know, our moral
judgments are tied to those perceptions. But in addition to
like the fact that like, well, if I'm pro immigran,
(10:00):
I like only think of people who are fleeing violence
at the border and not citizens who might get harmed.
I think that there's like zero percent victims right of
American citizens, and and those like zero versus one hundred
perceptions make it really hard to have conversation. It's like
black and white.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's so black and white, and and so much of
it relates to your brilliant, brilliant research, which I have
really uh adopted and uh and has has really brought
me a lot of quarity from my own book and
my own work. So thank you and your work specific
on moral typecasting is what I'm talking about. It is
It's genius, Kurt, It really is genius. And it's and
(10:38):
I don't even know if you fully realize how relevant
it is to the moment when it's so I feel
like we're living in the age of competitive victimhood. Absolutely
is the way I put it in my book, and
and and and I think moral typecasting perfectly explains it,
because everyone it's a very coveted spot to be if
(11:01):
you're viewed as the victim. Yeah, it's a coveted it's coveted.
It's a coveted, coveted special status where.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Then you can do no wrong, right, And no one
wants to be victimized, right right?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Right? But that's great, right yeah, great distinction, great distinction.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Right. So no one wants to like suffer. But if
there's a conflict and one person is a labeled the
perpetrator and one person or side is the victim, everyone
wants to be the victim instead of the perpetrator.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, who wants to be the perpetrator?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah right, no, right again, because we all think of
ourselves as good people. No one's like, you know what,
I'm the one who's like victimizing people here.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I remember, I just I'll never forget. Like O. J.
Simpson on like in his second trial, you know, and
he was trying to defend himself. He's like he's like, oh,
everyone's against me, you know, Like it's just it's funny
to see like kind of people with a victim mindset.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Absolutely, I mean everyone, I mean even in you know,
make this point too, Like, you know who who like
type casts themselves as a as a victim or a perpetrator.
I mean everyone type casts themselves as a victim, and
it's especially when people are about to blame you, right,
Like I feel like that's the crux of type casting,
(12:19):
Like when when someone's trying to show you as a
victim or sorry, when someone's trying to show that you're
a perpetrator, like Harvey Weinstein, right, he comes into court
like shuffling with a cane. He's like, I'm like old
and infirm, like no, you're you're a serial rapist, you know, sir? Yes,
And so we you know, sometimes these disagreements are genuine,
(12:40):
and sometimes people are using them to shape our moral
judgments in a kind of sneaky way. And so I
think we need to maybe distinguish when people, you know,
people feel aggrieved versus people are like I'm going to
try to trick others with my victimhood.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah for sure. I mean I there's some really interesting
research showing a correlation between virtuous victimhood signaling and the
dark triad personality traits.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Oh interesting, And so.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
There's definitely, you know, a correlation there between those who
at every turn they feel the need to signal that
they're the virtuous victim.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah you're you know, you're the expert on personality. I
feel like we cite a little bit of stuff in
one chapter on people who who have like a victimhood mindset,
and it's connected to two things like narcissism, but also
to bad attachment. You know that you like, you use
victimhood as a way to get attention and to and
(13:38):
to feel like you might connect with others. But of
course ultimately this backfires.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It does. I have a section in my book recognize
your own capacity to be the perpetrator. I just think
that's huge. Yeah, you know, and there's something in psychology.
I promise I'll interview you, but I'm excited. I'm trying
to have a back and forth here. So there's this
really interest sting hypothesis called the Copone hypothesis that has
(14:04):
has come out and you know, named after al Scarface Copone.
Despite many of his victims regarding him as quote pure evil,
he views himself as follows quote I've spent the best
years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping
them have a good time, and all I get is
abuse the existence of a hunted man.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Wow, psychologists have called that the copone hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
That's amazing. I mean, Harvey Weinstein as well has this
quote about how he was the front runner of helping
women in the movie business. He's like, I was, I
had women in my film before anyone, and no one
talks about the good that I've done. And so just
the fact that you know someone who's done so much evil,
maybe because they've done so much evil, right, they're compelled
(14:47):
to see themselves as especially a victim to escape Blaine.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yes, that's exactly right. So okay, let's let's let's talk
more about the excellent arguments in your book. You know,
it's inter because you do make the case that we
have a harm based moral mind. Is that always the case?
Are there instances of moral thinking that don't involve harm.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
That's a great question, and it's something that the field
has been debating for some time. My research, you know,
and it's controversial in the field, but a lot of
my research suggests that it's always about perceptions of harm,
and the fact that one side might not see the
harms that you see really sets the stage for moral disagreement, right,
(15:34):
Like we all agree that child abuse being against child
abuse is about harm, but something like your stance on
voter fraud, your stance on immigration or drugs. Right, that
one side's like I'm trying to protect kids from harm
and you're just trying to let everyone use drugs. Right,
But both sides are legitimately grounding their moral judgments in harm, right,
(15:55):
Like maybe someone uses marijuana to help with their glaucoma
or there are right, So it's always about it's always
about harm.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That's so like my gut tells me like, oh, there's
got to be an example I can think of that
that that dispels that, but I can't. Oh, you're right,
Like I'm trying, because you know, I'm trying to be
a good psychologist, right, I'm trying to be a good
critical thinker. But you're right. I think of things like
a lot of us feel like some things are moral.
(16:26):
I'm thinking like Jonathan Height's research, you know, like some
of the examples he gives, like there isn't actually harm
being done, but people still say it's a moral. But
because you're right, because they perceive harm, So you're still right.
But I was trying to think, do you know what
I'm saying. I'm trying to think of examples he gives
of just disgust response, which is not actually causing anyone
(16:48):
harm in some of his classic vignettes. But your point is, well,
the whole reason why they find it immral is because
they're perceiving.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Harm exactly, and and harm is not like a binary, right,
you could see less harm in some of the examples
he uses. And I guess to zoom out right. So
you know, I'm one of John's biggest critics when it
comes to his theory of like, you know, there's morality
beyond harm, and he's he's one of my biggest critics.
And this is why I try to be so careful
(17:16):
and comprehensive with the studies that I run. And so
what I do in my studies is I take the
examples that he's come up with, Okay that you know,
if you're not a moral psychologist, they're pretty they're pretty
out there, right, like consensual incest or having sex with
the frozen chicken and then eating it right, like it's disgusting.
(17:37):
People are like, well, maybe it's wrong, but you know,
but but it doesn't seem harmful, but it does seem disgusting.
But so we run careful studies where we, you know,
really look at people's intuitive reactions to these these scenarios,
and what we find is that people's moral judgments are
driven by their intuitive, automatic kind of like visceral feelings
(18:01):
of harm. And it can't be just discussed because there's
so many disgusting things out there that are not seen
as wrong, And so what distinguish it, Like, you know,
if you're a parent, you get covered in poop when
you change a diept Like that's gross, but no one's
like you monster, you know, And so what distinguishes the
(18:23):
kind of immoral or immoral discussing things from non immral
discussing things is like really the presence of harm according
to you, yeah, I mean you could you know, you
can even just think about it, right, I'm trying to,
Like a height has an example of like rolling around
and urine for performance are or using some of these examples.
(18:48):
You know, again I didn't come up with them, like
letting a kit and rub itself on your genitals to
be aroused, Like these seem so wrong, I think because
you're like, well, think of the harm to these poor
animals or to people or you know, and I think
it was just disgusting, like someone stepped on some gross poop. Well,
(19:09):
then that's disgusting, but it's not immoral because it's not harmful.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Just talking about politics for a second, like or I
should say, returning to politics, because it's just on everyone's
mind right now. You made a really cool point, you said.
But while someone on the left might emphasize the threats
of growing inequality between rich and poor, systemic racism, and
the destruction of the environment, someone on the right might
emphasize the threats of banning firearms, restricting religious freedoms, and
(19:41):
destroying sacred national symbols. Okay, So whenever I try to
make such an argument to some of my extremely like
left committed psychology colleagues, they go berserk and say, you
can't both sidism this. The Republicans are the true evil.
Now I get I get this all the time, you know,
(20:01):
all the time, are there are these Our field of
psychology is full of like left committed biased psychologists. It's
the truth. And but and so they get so mad
when I say that because I like to think like that,
like like that sentence, I just read of yours is like,
is how I like to think. I really like that
(20:22):
kind of balance there. I want to understand what's in
front of me and make some decisions based on what
we currently have. And so I love that way of thinking.
But but do you understand that? So there are a
lot of people who would really balk at that based
on their own commitments and say, you can't both side this.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean I think folks on the you know,
speaking of both sidism, right, like folks on the left
and the right think that any willingness to try to
understand the other side is betrayal. They do, you're right,
and so but you know, as a cetal psychologist, you know,
I feel like we have to understand the minds of everyone.
(21:04):
And that's including folks who might vote or think differently
than us, but it doesn't mean their minds are different.
And I think this is the big is the big
worry with some theories out there that's like one side
is you know, authentically moral and the other side is not.
And you know, there are theories out there that say,
like what, it's really liberals or it's really conservatives who
are the good people? But I think at the end
(21:26):
of the day, you know, we all have the same hardware,
we all have the same desire to protect ourselves, and
so you need to take those facts as a given
when you look at the mind and try to figure out, well,
what drives moral disagreement, And that sentence you read suggests
that it's different concerns about protecting ourselves and different kind
of basic assumptions about what causes harm.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yes, and it's terribly a conversation here. I think there's
there's something else going on that I've noticed where I
think that if transgressions are happening on your in group,
much more likely to just excuse it and just overlook it.
If you're committed to that group, then the other side
is to let it go, you know. And I saw
(22:09):
this in the most recent Trump rally in Madison Square Garden.
You know, I wrote a tweet like I didn't feel
like the tone was very humanistic and kind. It was.
There were a lot of things that I felt were
objectively rude to like the people Puerto Rico, for instance,
(22:32):
And to me, it boggles my mind that that's not
just an objective truth, that that's rude. So the way
people responded were, Oh, Scott, you're so caught up on
the left that you you don't understand that this is
the stuff subjective? And I guess I just don't get it.
Like if I say to you, fuck you, Kurt, I
hope you die, how could someone say, oh, Scott, that's subjective,
(22:54):
that's you're you're being biased because of your own lens.
So do you see my point? I don't understand why
there aren't certain things that are so obviously rude to
everyone that we can't at least all admit that's rude.
I guess I don't get it. Can you explain this
to me? And you want to you share my confusion
at all.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It's kind of funny, right, because we were just talking
about how these perceptions of harm vary from group to group, right,
And I think that this is another example, right, Like,
this is an example that you know, on one side,
you're like, look, this is so like calling what an
island of garbage that comedian said, right, that seems so
obviously wrong and harmful to many people, right, to both
(23:37):
of us, I think, But for folks on the other side,
they're like, look, it's just a joke. And in fact,
you know, we we're doing some research now about these
perceptions of comedy, right, and seems to be like, hey,
just lighten up. It's just a joke. It's just poking
fun at our you know, at our convictions. And so
I think as many folks on the right as well,
(23:58):
argued like Mark Rubio, right, he was like, that's not
a very funny joke, if you call it a joke
at all. So I think there are folks on both
sides who think that. But the whole point of of
our perceptions is that they do vary. They do vary,
and so maybe some people say, well, you know, the
real harm we should be considering ish policies or you know, like,
(24:20):
so it.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
All comes down to a hierarchy or ranking of perceived harms,
not just not not whether or not something in isolation
is good or not, because people, if they see a
greater harm on the other side, then there'll be more
likely to forgive the harm on their side.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah. Actually, yeah, So I appreciate you bringing that up,
because all these contentious moral issues are ultimately trade offs, right,
They're trade offs about like when it comes to abortion,
no one's like I just want to hurt women if
you're on the right, you say, or you're you know,
pro life, you say, well, I really want to protect fetuses,
and I just know that, you know, I acknowledge that
there might be some suffering caused. Likewise, pro choice folks
(24:58):
are like, well, I just want to protect women's reproductive rights,
and I understand right that there might be some harm
cost of fetuses. So I think these are trade offs.
But when you're in those positions, you only emphasize the
kind of dominance of the harm you're concerned about.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I get it. That's that's really really elucidating, Kurt. Thank you.
I've got to ask at this point, why does harm
drive our moral minds? Like, what about the course of
human evolution made that be the case?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, great question, And I think ultimately it comes down
to our nature, and that's a nature I think we've
misunderstood for a long time. So if you think about
you know who we are deep down, who we evolved
as you look at museum dioramas, right, let's say the
Museum Natural History, and there's like pictures of cave men
(25:48):
and women with spears hunting mammoths, and I think that's
that's mostly not true. Not in the mist of evolution.
So to hunt a mammoth or any big animal, right,
you need stone tip spears, You need a lot of coordination.
We didn't have stone tip spears for a long time.
(26:08):
We just had sharpened sticks. And we were a lot
smaller back in the day than we are now. So
we were a little, you know, furry, ultimately terrified apes
that spend most of our time hiding from predators and
not hunting them. And I think if you look back
in the record, you'll find that that mostly we were prey.
(26:32):
We were terrifying our you know, kids were picked off
by eagles, we slept in the night, and our children
got eaten by cougars. Right, So our entire psychology is
built around concern about getting harmed and protecting ourselves. And
and you can draw kind of almost a straight line
from millions of years ago of being afraid to being
(26:53):
afraid today, not of animal predators but of moral predators.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, that's that's a great, great kind of tree that
the evolution of this. So it is something really deeply
ingrained in us. Earlier, I was trying to say, what
is it?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Is it a need?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Is it it's it's a module. It's like you know
it's an evolutionary module in a way.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, I mean I'm a little that module is a
is a powerful word. But I think I don't think
you need to say it's like that, you know, encapsulated
in our mind as much as just like underlying a
lot of things, right, like just the history that's kind
of like baked into all sorts of places in it
in our brain.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
You're such a social psychologist, I know clearly there's a
I mean, if it's evolutionary, you just made the argument,
you're definitely there is. Definitely it's in our genes. That's
that's that that would be a logical outgrowth of the
evolution that you just described.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, I agree, I agree that you know definitely it's
in our genes. And then the question is like where
is in our brain? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
To me, it's a black box. It just cools the blood.
As far as I you know, as far as I know,
I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I love this. I love this whole conversation. Oh boy. So,
and and then how does harm fuel morality? How does
the process work? Can you guys go a little bit
deeper into what you've observed?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You bet so? As I mentioned, right, It's all about
a matter of perception. And so maybe this is a
little more kind of like in the science than than
is in the book. But we have a kind of
template in our minds. So here's an example of a template.
Let's say I say, like, what's it like to go
(28:35):
to a restaurant? And then your template is like, while
I sit down and someone comes and takes my order
and then brings me food, right Like, and if something
was that was exactly you know, you sit down, you
take your take your order, bring your food, you pay
for it. You're like, well, that's a restaurant. And when
it comes to morality, our template for something that's immoral,
for something we should get outraged about, is harm, and
(28:59):
in particular victimization to someone vulnerable. Right, So if you're like, look,
this act victimizes someone vulnerable, like child abuse, You're like,
that's obviously immoral. And then and then the more it
kind of resembles that kind of thing, the more you
think your mind kind of detects something in the world
as immoral. Right. And so if if you're like, well,
(29:23):
you know, I kick something out in the woods and
I'm like, okay, well I'm assuming it's a tree, so
it's probably all right. And then you're like, well it
turned out to be a puppy. I'm like, oh, wow,
Now I know that's moral because there's like this vulnerable
victimization and so ultimately our mind is like a vulnerable
victimization detector when it comes to morality, and the more
there's that, the more a moral sense is triggered.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There's a lot there because it feels like there's a
difference between the left and the right in there focus
on quote, vulnerable populations, but that's only at first Blush.
You're giving additional nuance here, suggesting that while that may
be an explicit thing, you know, with the left using
(30:13):
that phrase, you know, we care about vulnera publishing and
the right caring more about other issues. In reality, it
sounds like you're saying, like even the right, a lot
of it comes down to what they view as the
vulnerable populations to protect. Is that a fair statement.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, it's absolutely fair. But I think you do hit
on a nuance that. Well, I'll go through the data.
So we asked, you know, thousands of liberals and conservatives
to tell us who they think is especially vulnerable to
victimization and by how much. And what we find is
(30:51):
that conservatives, you know, we're talking like committed conservatives seven
out of seven on a conservative scale, they think that
all people are round about equally vulnerable to suffering. So
whether you're white or black, right, whether you're an immigrant
(31:13):
or a citizen, whether you're a Muslim or Christian, you're
roughly the same. And this kind of like really mirrors
ideas of like America as a collection of individuals an
individual agency. And so they would still base you know,
committed conservatives would still base their moral judgments on vulnerability.
But they see everyone as kind of equally vulnerable. Whether
(31:34):
you're a CEO or you know, a worker and a company,
you can still bleed if you're cut right, you're still
disappointed if your goals aren't met. On the other hands,
committed liberals like a one out of seven on conservatism.
They see really big differences in who's especially vulnerable to victimization.
(31:55):
They see folks like Muslims, undocumented immigrant, right, maybe poor
African Americans as exceptionally vulnerable to harm. And then folks
that you know, belong to groups that are maybe you
could argue, or less marginalized right, especially in progressive circles
(32:16):
those billionaires, Yeah, billionaires exactly, cops right, Progressive see those
folks as basically almost impervious to harm. And so you've
got this really powerful tension now between liberals who are like, look,
there's two groups of people in the world, oppressors and
the oppressed, the vulnerable and the invulnerable, and then conservatives
(32:40):
who are like, look, everyone is basically equally vulnerable to suffering.
And those are hugely different narratives, right, Like Conservers are like, well,
it doesn't matter to what group you belong you can
still suffer, and liberals are like, well, it matters vastly
what group you belong to, and that dictates whether you
can suffer or not. And I think think we could,
(33:00):
you know, we could agree that folks on the far
ends of the spectrum are not typical. Right, that's the
whole point. But but it's interesting how they disagree. It's
ultimately about vulnerability, but they see it really differently. What
do you think, Well, you know, that's a it's a
good question.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
What's the truth?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
I mean, you know, the truth is hard to ferret
out because we see the world so imperfectly, and there's
so much room for wiggle. But I think there's a
grain of truth in both, not to you know, again
to kind of like see the humanity in both sides.
But I think it is the case that there are
(33:42):
systemic differences in vulnerability based on your group identity. Right,
It's just and I think even conservatives, you know, all
but the kind of most most extreme conservatives, do believe this.
So we do find differences. Right, It is the case
that if you grew up extremely poor, you are generally
(34:05):
more vulnerable to being mistreated, right, and then someone who
grows up rich. At the same time, I think we
should also understand that, you know, individuals have some agency
and have some choice, and you know, and even if
you are a richer person, you still suffer. You know,
(34:26):
if your child is injured, if your child is killed, Right,
that's still sad. And so it's a tension between kind
of this idea of like a victim as an individual
versus a victim of someone belonging to a group.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Oh, well, that's that, you nailed it. You nailed it.
That's it individualism versus yeah, group based harm. Well, yeah,
that really helped to help me really see that within
that framework. Thank you. Look, let's just spend the rest
of the time talking about what we can do to
bridge divides.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, it's tricky, it's hard, but you've thought about it.
I can tell you one thing that you shouldn't do.
That that my research kind of reveals, kind of surprised us.
So if you ask people what's going to take for
you to respect someone on the other side, the majority
(35:18):
of people and we've done this, they tell you, just
give me the facts.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
If I'm talking to someone on the other side, I
want them to give me the facts and then we
can agree on what the truth is and then take
it from there. And we say, great, great, let's test
a conversation now, and here are some facts. Well, it
turns out people they say, those aren't the real facts.
Give me the real those are fake facts. Right. And
(35:43):
so the problem with kind of political conversations now is
we have such different facts that we can't find common
ground when it comes to statistics or you know data. Instead,
what our data show is that the best way to
bridge devise is through stories, you know, personal experiences, where
(36:03):
you talk about the harms you suffer, where you talk
about the vulnerabilities that you fear might get exploited, and
those are the ways to better bridge divides.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Do you see good examples of that happening anywhere?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I mean absolutely, I mean, you know, we any kind
of media source you look at, you'll find some differences.
So in one study, we looked at YouTube videos about abortion,
and we looked at the comments of those videos. And
the comments of YouTube videos are not known to be
(36:34):
especially supportive or kind, so it's kind of, you know,
a challenging way to test our hypothesis. And some videos
are about people's abortion stories. You know, this is my abortion,
or this is my decision not to have an abortion,
or some of those videos are about statistics right here,
how many abortions happen in America today. Here's how easy
(36:56):
or hard it is to have an abortion. And when
we looked at those video comments, we found that the
videos where people talked about their stories, the comments were
much kinder and much not only more positive, but also
like socially affiliated. These people wanted to be like, oh,
you know, I want to be your friend. Basically, we
find it in you know, shows on Fox News on CNN,
(37:21):
hosts are more generous with their guests when they emphasize
personal stories and facts and we find in conversations too.
And I think you know listeners today, well you know
you just tried at Thanksgiving or Christmas whatever, you know,
any holidays where there's potential for division, and it works
a lot better. And I'm happy to talk about more
more tips as well, please, So you know, one of
(37:44):
the best tips I'll say is to when you're having
a conversation, try for understanding. Yeah, not for winning. And
this is why started that, I know, right, don't we
all want to win? Is that where we're here on
this earth to dominate the other side with right, Like
(38:05):
you look at social media, you're like, I just own
this person and that's the video you want to click.
You know, I can't wait to see my side own
the other side. But like, no one comes away from that,
you know in the end, like happier, no one changes
their mind based on fact. Like no one's like, oh,
you know what, I believe this about abortion or immigration,
but then this person gave me the statistic and like, boy,
(38:29):
now I change my Like never, that never happens, right, Instead,
if you want to be like, oh I had a
good conversation and now I see the humanity on the
other side a little more. Yeah, that comes from like, oh,
they were trying to understand me, and I was trying
to understand them, and they were telling me about their
personal experiences and I was trying to learn about not
(38:51):
when learn about them. You know, I have this like
uber ride with a Christian nationalist some time ago. You know,
I'm like, I studied morality and politics, and folks are
usually like, will hold my beer, you know, like, here's
my story. Yeah, and you know, I don't know if
you know many Christian nationalists. I don't, but there's potential
(39:13):
for me to be like, well, you know, I don't
know about that idea. But at first I was like, well,
tell me how how you think about this idea? Right,
tell me why with the roots of your belief and
like what stories about yourself led you to this belief.
And that conversation went when much better than it could
have because he felt like I was trying to understand
and not win. So it can work even in kind
(39:34):
of extreme cases.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, people really just want to have their voices heard.
They want to feel like they matter, and they want
to feel like yeah, they get it. They want to
get it out. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean I always
find it interesting, like these examples of these, like people
who kind of infiltrate the Kokook's Klan, you know, kind
of befriend them and then eventually change their minds. You know,
(39:57):
like there are real good examples of that. But I
think it's a certain kind of person to do that.
To put the outrage to the side is not easy
when your own self is threatened. Absolutely right, It's easier
to just intellectually put the outrage to the side when
it's not something self relevant.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
But yeah, right again, Like you know, if our minds
are motivated by victimhood as as you know, we both argue, right,
if you're in a situation where you feel threatened, where
you feel like someone's the clear perpetrator, and not only
are they victimizing others, but also you like in this
case of Darryl Davis, the black man and blues musician
(40:38):
who befriended hundreds of Kika k members and got them
to hang up their robes. Like absolutely, that takes a
special persons who's willing to over you know, like you're
gonna sit down with someone who thinks that you're less
than human. Wow, that takes a ton of fortitude and
compassion and patience, and there are people out there who
(40:59):
willing to do it and and bridge divides. I'm not
saying people shouldn't have to do that, but it's it's
good for humanity that there are people who are willing
to do that.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
But it's it's just it's just interesting, like people are funny,
like even with their beliefs, Like they don't have those beliefs,
they don't hold those beliefs all the time, and the
humanity can crack through, I think with even with anyone.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, right, like at the end of the day, you know,
we can interact as as fellow and equal human beings.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
So you say that facts don't bridge divides? Why why
is that? Why? Why why is science so under attack
these days?
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah? I mean, I think there are lots of reasons
why facts don't bridge divides today. Right, we have different
media environments on the left and the right, social media bubbles.
But I think you know, if we go back to evolution, right,
our genes and our brains, we've never really been well
(42:00):
equipped to deal with statistics, to deal with you know,
these kind of distributed facts that we're we're talking about today, Right,
if you're sitting around the campfire. It's night. You know,
you've got your family and friends around you, you're camping.
The things you're going to talk about, the things that
are going to resonate with other people, are stories, right,
like this thing happened. I heard this thing happened, there
(42:24):
was a bear attack. Whatever. You're not like sixty seven
percent of people right like that. That is not a
good campfire story because our minds had not evolved to
process statistics. And so when you're in conversations, especially when
you feel threatened, right, You're not going to really think
about the truth of statistics. You're going to You're going
to kind of anchor onto these stories, especially these stories
(42:46):
of threat And so this is why I think facts,
you know, aren't great. And when it comes to morality,
facts just seem like not the right currency. Ir yeah, exactly,
you know, they're.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Not the right Actually a shame though, because like what
didn't whatdn't I logical like Stephen Pinker. Stephen Pinker would
be like, oh, I want to know the probabilities and
the exact evidence that this is causing harm before I
make my conclusion. But you're saying most people don't think
like Stephen Pinker, don't you know what I'm saying. Stave
Picker would think.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Like that, Come on, I like, I like your Pinker voice.
It's very erudite, so you know. Yeah, Steve Pinker asked
me a question actually when I was a second year
grad student about, uh, you have a presentation about moral
exemplars like Mother Teresa. And his question was basically like, ah,
I know you'd think that, you know, you have in
your study that Mother Teresa is a hero, but like,
(43:41):
wasn't she actually kind of cruel and callous she took
care of so obviously I still remember that, you know, twenty.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Years later, Tony, No, I mean, wouldn't do you see
what I'm saying? What in a really logical rational mind
want the facts.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yes, I think that's true, and I think everyone wants
facts when it's about like what blender should I be?
You know, which which model car should I buy? But
when it comes to morality, we just think that those
facts are not the right facts, right, that there must
be facts out there that support my idea. So you
still want facts, but you want the facts that support you, right,
(44:15):
Like if I'm like, look this, many people suffer at
the border, there's many immigrants, you know, innocent immigrants like fleeing,
I don't know, sectarian violence in Central America. And then
you're like, if you're anti immigration, you're like, well, sure,
but the real when they come into the country, you know,
they cause crime and take jobs, and so the real
(44:37):
facts we should be considering are experiences, yeah, being killed,
you know, how many citizens or jobs are taken or
being killed by you know, gangs of immigrants. Right, So,
like I think you're just like, look that that's not relevant.
And I want to say, facts do matter once you
kind of like establish these stories, right, but when you're
(44:57):
so entrenched in your moral view, you only consider facts
that are are consistent with those beliefs.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, my mind just keeps thinking about the oh they're
eating our dogs, you know, like that's a story, not a.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Fact, exactly exactly right. And so then you get into
the and this is maxed you know, too too huge
a question for any you know, one podcast of like
well what does it mean to be true? Like aren't
facts collection of stories? And is in the story of
particular fact? And it gets it gets kind of like
(45:30):
head spinny real fast. But I think we're just used
to dealing with like one person's experience. And this is
why when people lie, like the that news anchor who
who lied about being in a helicopter crash. Yeah, I'm blank,
and we're like so felt so betrayed because we're like,
wait a second, you can't lie about stories because you
know what happens to you.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
You know, I hear Steven Thinker's license my head. Do
you know what what he's saying? Do you know what
he's saying? In my head? He's saying, court datum is
not data. True.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
I feel like that's the first time I've heard the
word datum in a long time. Very very erudite. Again,
but again, you can you know, we're confronted with so
many studies where we're like, well, those data aren't the
right data. They weren't collected or modernist. It's true, right,
but like lived experiences, you know, do matter. And even yeah,
(46:29):
even if you think about folks like Pinker, and even
if you think about folks like Height right, who often
a similar claims. Right, those folks will say, well, here's
this experience I had on Twitter, Here's this experience I
had teaching in my classes. Even those folks will anchor
on their own experiences then and then martial facts that
(46:50):
kind of support those those feelings. So all of us
in a sense are kind of powerless in the face
of our own lived experience because we're human beings, you know,
and that's the lens we see the world through.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah, good point. Why is hope and humility important for
helping us?
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Bridge divides well, at the end of the day, whether
you you know, live in a community or a city
or a country. You know, we might vote for different
people or believe different things, but ultimately we need to
come together to achieve greater things. We need to have
conversations to figure out the right way forward. And those
(47:32):
compromises and conversations require us to see each other as
human and work together. And I think that's why humility
is necessary, and I think hope is warranted because at
the end of the day, no one we talk about this,
you know a little bit. I talk about this in
the book, Like, no one is out there trying to
destroy the world. No one's a super villain who just
(47:54):
like wants to burn it all down for the sake
of it, Right, We're all trying to just build something better.
Altimate Lee and I think recognizing that core human motivation,
I think can give us hope to have those conversations,
to bridge those divides into work together.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
As my grandmother would say, from your mouth and God's ears, Kurt,
I can't impress upon you enough how important I find
your research and how it's influenced me in my own work.
And I really truly wish you all the best with
your book tour, and thank you for chatting with me today.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, thanks very much for having me on
One person is labeled the perpetrator. In one person or
side is the victim. Everyone wants to be the victim
instead of the perpetrator.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Today. It's great to have doctor Kurt Gray on the podcast.
Doctor Gray is a psychology professor of the University of
North Carolina an author of the new book called Outraged,
Why we Fight about morality and politics and How to
Find Common Ground. Wow. What a timely book and timely episode.
In this discussion, we discuss why people seem so divided
(00:34):
today and why everyone seems to be filled with outrage
for the other side. We also discuss the psychology of
righteous indignation and doctor Gray's views on moral psychology and
his argument that deep down we all have the same
harm based moral mind. We also discuss how we can
bridge moral divides. I'm a longtime admirer of Kurt's seminal
research on morality and his theory of moral typecasting, where
(00:57):
we treat victims as angels and perpetrators as pure evil.
I learned a lot from this discussion, and I'm sure
you will too, So without further ado, I bring you
Doctor Kurt Gray. Professor Kurt Gray, Welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, I've been really looking forward this chat for a
long time, and it couldn't be more relevant.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It's a contentious time, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Your book is called Outraged.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
That's right. Why we fight about morality and politics and
how to find common ground.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, I really want to know the answer to all
those questions. Yeah, all the questions you're asking your book.
Now you're you got a PhD in social psychology from Harvard, right,
was it relating to morality?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's right. It was with Dan Wegner, and so he
studied all sorts of weird and wonderful philosophical things like
free will and thought suppression. He didn't study morality, but
he studied how we perceived the minds of others, and
it turns out that's really closely related to our moral judgments.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, definitely. He's famous for the don't think of a
white bear phenomenon, where all you do is think of
a white bear if you try not to. Yeah, okay,
So what was your dissertation on My dissertation was on
how the feeling of pain and a little bit pleasure
but mostly pain changes on the intention of the person
(02:19):
who's giving it to you.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So if you think someone's hurting you maliciously, giving you
an electric shock, I did a lot of shocking of
Harvard undergraduates. If you think you're getting shocked intentionally and maliciously,
it physically hurts more than if you think you're getting
shocked accidentally or benevolently. Hard to imagine getting shocked benevolently,
(02:43):
but we figured out how to make that happen.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So you direct the Deepest Belief Lab and the Center
for the Science of Moral Understanding at the University of
North Carolina. How and you you have a child, right,
the two kids?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Now, how do you manage two laboratories. I've never heard
of anyone having two laboratories at a universe. I've never
heard of this and have a family, and I mean,
how you do it all? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I ignore the cat. So that's that's how you got
to cut corner somewhere. And I spend less attention with
the cat. But well, you know, one's the lab that's
about running studies, and then the Center is a little broader.
It's kind of more you know, international collaborations, funding scholars
(03:32):
things like that, so they're kind of connect with each other.
But you know, it's busy for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, you say. Quote my job is to make sense
of moral disagreement and find ways to help people in
conflict understand each other. Is that still roughly what you do?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yes, you bet. Increasingly my research focuses on how to
understand moral divides and how to bridge those divides.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, it's just so poor. I mean, what as a
social psychologist watching this political collection, do you are you
in bewilderment? Uh? Or you kind of get it? Maybe
you just you get it, you like understand what's going on.
You're like, I get this.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, I mean, you know, all humans, the human condition
is bewilderment, I feel. But as far as the chaos
of elections, I think folks like me who study intergroup
conflict and our perceptions, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Okay, well we're gonna well not to me, so let's
make something.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Let's dig into it.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
That's why we're doing this podcast exactly who or you know?
Righteous indignation is just something so interesting. It's not something
so it's it's it's it's it's a powerful, deep seated
human something. I don't know what it is. Righteous indignation
what we call it? Is it a need of humans.
(04:55):
I mean, it feels like a great Yeah, it's a
great question. Right, No one keep I'm thinking like, no
one wakes up in the morning left right. You know,
whether you're a politician or a pundit on either side,
no one wakes up in the morning thinking I'm a monster,
I'm evil.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right. Everyone thinks they've got the best intentions and they're
doing the right things, or you know, maybe the ends
justify the means. Maybe doing some bad things, but ultimately
for good. And so I think each one of us
feels righteous and that we're doing good. And so when
someone argues against us, or does something different or believes
something different, then that's where the indignation and outrage come in, right,
(05:35):
Because if I'm moral and you're different, well then you
must be a moral Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
That's so true. I mean, people really are. It feels
like more divided right now than pre twenty sixteen. Is there?
Do you have any data that that's true? It just
feels that way.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
There, Yeah, great question, there is data on this. So increasingly,
not only have policy positions moved apart as much as
really any kind of average person you know is really
focused on policy. It's usually kind of focused on our
group identity, but policy positions have moved apart. It's also
the case that your dislike of the other party has
(06:18):
gone up and up every year. So even if you
don't like your party, then you really dislike the other party. Right,
You're like, I just don't want them to get into
the White House. So it's less about us and more
about not them.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Is this Trump's fault?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, it's probably complicated, but I think, you know, some
policy didn't help more than others, right, kind of capitalize
on concerns and fears and catalyze as kind of like
feelings of us versus them. So certainly, you know there's
a market increase in kind of like animosity that around
(06:57):
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know, I'm trying to just take a step back
here and think if if that's what it is. It
feels like, you know, I'm a personality psychologist, so I
come at it with like, you know, individual differences are
gravitated to different messages, and you know, it feels like
there are a lot of people who find standard politics
(07:19):
as usual boring, and I feel like Trump is like,
for the first time in the history of politics brought
entertainment like WWF style entertainment to politics, and a lot
of people it's suddenly like I feel like it took us.
I think if I feel like in twenty sixteen, we
like we left the political domain and went into some
other universe and the traditional politicians and way of talking
(07:42):
and everything suddenly became like, oh, that's old news, that's boring.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, it's a good point, right. I think over the decades,
it's been increasingly about entertainment, right, So the first televised
debate where Kennedy looks so much better than Nixon, for instance,
and then we get to now right where I mean
Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. Yeah, right, even Reagan you know,
was president in the eighties. And so I think it's
(08:09):
increasingly become about you know, who you trust, what kind
of personality you know, talk about personality, what kind of
personality do you trust to kind of protect you and
your interests? And I think the rise of populism recently
has been really about, like, let's put our faith in
strong personalities. Who you know, people don't necessarily think that
(08:30):
Trump is you know, moral and the kind of classic
ways we might think about it. But I think those
who are voting for and things will stand up right
for their rights and protect them. And I think that's
ultimately what our votes and our moral judgments are about.
Right concerns about protecting ourselves and our family.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yes, you say, deep in our minds, every fight about
morality comes down to one thing, competing perceptions of harm.
We get outraged at people when they deny our asumptions
about what causes suffering, and when they reject our views
of victimhood. Well, this is just this is right up
my alley. It almost feels like people don't leave space
(09:10):
for there to be multiple victims at the same time.
It's like people can't wrap their head around that, Like
everyone's so self absorbed. Am I wrong?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
No, you're right, You're right for sure. You know. I
talk a little bit about this about how our perceptions
of victimhood and who's a perpetrator like one hundred to
zero right, And it's totally fair to think that your side,
your preferred side, is maybe a little bit more the
victim right. So like, take immigration right, if you're kind
(09:39):
of promegration, maybe you think the victim are families fleeing
violence at the border. And if you're more anti immigration,
you think the victims are citizens harmed by you know,
undocumented or legal immigrants, and so you know, our moral
judgments are tied to those perceptions. But in addition to
like the fact that like, well, if I'm pro immigran,
(10:00):
I like only think of people who are fleeing violence
at the border and not citizens who might get harmed.
I think that there's like zero percent victims right of
American citizens, and and those like zero versus one hundred
perceptions make it really hard to have conversation. It's like
black and white.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's so black and white, and and so much of
it relates to your brilliant, brilliant research, which I have
really uh adopted and uh and has has really brought
me a lot of quarity from my own book and
my own work. So thank you and your work specific
on moral typecasting is what I'm talking about. It is
It's genius, Kurt, It really is genius. And it's and
(10:38):
I don't even know if you fully realize how relevant
it is to the moment when it's so I feel
like we're living in the age of competitive victimhood. Absolutely
is the way I put it in my book, and
and and and I think moral typecasting perfectly explains it,
because everyone it's a very coveted spot to be if
(11:01):
you're viewed as the victim. Yeah, it's a coveted it's coveted.
It's a coveted, coveted special status where.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Then you can do no wrong, right, And no one
wants to be victimized, right right?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Right? But that's great, right yeah, great distinction, great distinction.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Right. So no one wants to like suffer. But if
there's a conflict and one person is a labeled the
perpetrator and one person or side is the victim, everyone
wants to be the victim instead of the perpetrator.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, who wants to be the perpetrator?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah right, no, right again, because we all think of
ourselves as good people. No one's like, you know what,
I'm the one who's like victimizing people here.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I remember, I just I'll never forget. Like O. J.
Simpson on like in his second trial, you know, and
he was trying to defend himself. He's like he's like, oh,
everyone's against me, you know, Like it's just it's funny
to see like kind of people with a victim mindset.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Absolutely, I mean everyone, I mean even in you know,
make this point too, Like, you know who who like
type casts themselves as a as a victim or a perpetrator.
I mean everyone type casts themselves as a victim, and
it's especially when people are about to blame you, right,
Like I feel like that's the crux of type casting,
(12:19):
Like when when someone's trying to show you as a
victim or sorry, when someone's trying to show that you're
a perpetrator, like Harvey Weinstein, right, he comes into court
like shuffling with a cane. He's like, I'm like old
and infirm, like no, you're you're a serial rapist, you know, sir? Yes,
And so we you know, sometimes these disagreements are genuine,
(12:40):
and sometimes people are using them to shape our moral
judgments in a kind of sneaky way. And so I
think we need to maybe distinguish when people, you know,
people feel aggrieved versus people are like I'm going to
try to trick others with my victimhood.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah for sure. I mean I there's some really interesting
research showing a correlation between virtuous victimhood signaling and the
dark triad personality traits.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Oh interesting, And so.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
There's definitely, you know, a correlation there between those who
at every turn they feel the need to signal that
they're the virtuous victim.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah you're you know, you're the expert on personality. I
feel like we cite a little bit of stuff in
one chapter on people who who have like a victimhood mindset,
and it's connected to two things like narcissism, but also
to bad attachment. You know that you like, you use
victimhood as a way to get attention and to and
(13:38):
to feel like you might connect with others. But of
course ultimately this backfires.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It does. I have a section in my book recognize
your own capacity to be the perpetrator. I just think
that's huge. Yeah, you know, and there's something in psychology.
I promise I'll interview you, but I'm excited. I'm trying
to have a back and forth here. So there's this
really interest sting hypothesis called the Copone hypothesis that has
(14:04):
has come out and you know, named after al Scarface Copone.
Despite many of his victims regarding him as quote pure evil,
he views himself as follows quote I've spent the best
years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping
them have a good time, and all I get is
abuse the existence of a hunted man.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Wow, psychologists have called that the copone hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
That's amazing. I mean, Harvey Weinstein as well has this
quote about how he was the front runner of helping
women in the movie business. He's like, I was, I
had women in my film before anyone, and no one
talks about the good that I've done. And so just
the fact that you know someone who's done so much evil,
maybe because they've done so much evil, right, they're compelled
(14:47):
to see themselves as especially a victim to escape Blaine.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yes, that's exactly right. So okay, let's let's let's talk
more about the excellent arguments in your book. You know,
it's inter because you do make the case that we
have a harm based moral mind. Is that always the case?
Are there instances of moral thinking that don't involve harm.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
That's a great question, and it's something that the field
has been debating for some time. My research, you know,
and it's controversial in the field, but a lot of
my research suggests that it's always about perceptions of harm,
and the fact that one side might not see the
harms that you see really sets the stage for moral disagreement, right,
(15:34):
Like we all agree that child abuse being against child
abuse is about harm, but something like your stance on
voter fraud, your stance on immigration or drugs. Right, that
one side's like I'm trying to protect kids from harm
and you're just trying to let everyone use drugs. Right,
But both sides are legitimately grounding their moral judgments in harm, right,
(15:55):
Like maybe someone uses marijuana to help with their glaucoma
or there are right, So it's always about it's always
about harm.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That's so like my gut tells me like, oh, there's
got to be an example I can think of that
that that dispels that, but I can't. Oh, you're right,
Like I'm trying, because you know, I'm trying to be
a good psychologist, right, I'm trying to be a good
critical thinker. But you're right. I think of things like
a lot of us feel like some things are moral.
(16:26):
I'm thinking like Jonathan Height's research, you know, like some
of the examples he gives, like there isn't actually harm
being done, but people still say it's a moral. But
because you're right, because they perceive harm, So you're still right.
But I was trying to think, do you know what
I'm saying. I'm trying to think of examples he gives
of just disgust response, which is not actually causing anyone
(16:48):
harm in some of his classic vignettes. But your point is, well,
the whole reason why they find it immral is because
they're perceiving.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Harm exactly, and and harm is not like a binary, right,
you could see less harm in some of the examples
he uses. And I guess to zoom out right. So
you know, I'm one of John's biggest critics when it
comes to his theory of like, you know, there's morality
beyond harm, and he's he's one of my biggest critics.
And this is why I try to be so careful
(17:16):
and comprehensive with the studies that I run. And so
what I do in my studies is I take the
examples that he's come up with, Okay that you know,
if you're not a moral psychologist, they're pretty they're pretty
out there, right, like consensual incest or having sex with
the frozen chicken and then eating it right, like it's disgusting.
(17:37):
People are like, well, maybe it's wrong, but you know,
but but it doesn't seem harmful, but it does seem disgusting.
But so we run careful studies where we, you know,
really look at people's intuitive reactions to these these scenarios,
and what we find is that people's moral judgments are
driven by their intuitive, automatic kind of like visceral feelings
(18:01):
of harm. And it can't be just discussed because there's
so many disgusting things out there that are not seen
as wrong, And so what distinguish it, Like, you know,
if you're a parent, you get covered in poop when
you change a diept Like that's gross, but no one's
like you monster, you know, And so what distinguishes the
(18:23):
kind of immoral or immoral discussing things from non immral
discussing things is like really the presence of harm according
to you, yeah, I mean you could you know, you
can even just think about it, right, I'm trying to,
Like a height has an example of like rolling around
and urine for performance are or using some of these examples.
(18:48):
You know, again I didn't come up with them, like
letting a kit and rub itself on your genitals to
be aroused, Like these seem so wrong, I think because
you're like, well, think of the harm to these poor
animals or to people or you know, and I think
it was just disgusting, like someone stepped on some gross poop. Well,
(19:09):
then that's disgusting, but it's not immoral because it's not harmful.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Just talking about politics for a second, like or I
should say, returning to politics, because it's just on everyone's
mind right now. You made a really cool point, you said.
But while someone on the left might emphasize the threats
of growing inequality between rich and poor, systemic racism, and
the destruction of the environment, someone on the right might
emphasize the threats of banning firearms, restricting religious freedoms, and
(19:41):
destroying sacred national symbols. Okay, So whenever I try to
make such an argument to some of my extremely like
left committed psychology colleagues, they go berserk and say, you
can't both sidism this. The Republicans are the true evil.
Now I get I get this all the time, you know,
(20:01):
all the time, are there are these Our field of
psychology is full of like left committed biased psychologists. It's
the truth. And but and so they get so mad
when I say that because I like to think like that,
like like that sentence, I just read of yours is like,
is how I like to think. I really like that
(20:22):
kind of balance there. I want to understand what's in
front of me and make some decisions based on what
we currently have. And so I love that way of thinking.
But but do you understand that? So there are a
lot of people who would really balk at that based
on their own commitments and say, you can't both side this.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean I think folks on the you know,
speaking of both sidism, right, like folks on the left
and the right think that any willingness to try to
understand the other side is betrayal. They do, you're right,
and so but you know, as a cetal psychologist, you know,
I feel like we have to understand the minds of everyone.
(21:04):
And that's including folks who might vote or think differently
than us, but it doesn't mean their minds are different.
And I think this is the big is the big
worry with some theories out there that's like one side
is you know, authentically moral and the other side is not.
And you know, there are theories out there that say,
like what, it's really liberals or it's really conservatives who
are the good people? But I think at the end
(21:26):
of the day, you know, we all have the same hardware,
we all have the same desire to protect ourselves, and
so you need to take those facts as a given
when you look at the mind and try to figure out, well,
what drives moral disagreement, And that sentence you read suggests
that it's different concerns about protecting ourselves and different kind
of basic assumptions about what causes harm.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yes, and it's terribly a conversation here. I think there's
there's something else going on that I've noticed where I
think that if transgressions are happening on your in group,
much more likely to just excuse it and just overlook it.
If you're committed to that group, then the other side
is to let it go, you know. And I saw
(22:09):
this in the most recent Trump rally in Madison Square Garden.
You know, I wrote a tweet like I didn't feel
like the tone was very humanistic and kind. It was.
There were a lot of things that I felt were
objectively rude to like the people Puerto Rico, for instance,
(22:32):
And to me, it boggles my mind that that's not
just an objective truth, that that's rude. So the way
people responded were, Oh, Scott, you're so caught up on
the left that you you don't understand that this is
the stuff subjective? And I guess I just don't get it.
Like if I say to you, fuck you, Kurt, I
hope you die, how could someone say, oh, Scott, that's subjective,
(22:54):
that's you're you're being biased because of your own lens.
So do you see my point? I don't understand why
there aren't certain things that are so obviously rude to
everyone that we can't at least all admit that's rude.
I guess I don't get it. Can you explain this
to me? And you want to you share my confusion
at all.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It's kind of funny, right, because we were just talking
about how these perceptions of harm vary from group to group, right,
And I think that this is another example, right, Like,
this is an example that you know, on one side,
you're like, look, this is so like calling what an
island of garbage that comedian said, right, that seems so
obviously wrong and harmful to many people, right, to both
(23:37):
of us, I think, But for folks on the other side,
they're like, look, it's just a joke. And in fact,
you know, we we're doing some research now about these
perceptions of comedy, right, and seems to be like, hey,
just lighten up. It's just a joke. It's just poking
fun at our you know, at our convictions. And so
I think as many folks on the right as well,
(23:58):
argued like Mark Rubio, right, he was like, that's not
a very funny joke, if you call it a joke
at all. So I think there are folks on both
sides who think that. But the whole point of of
our perceptions is that they do vary. They do vary,
and so maybe some people say, well, you know, the
real harm we should be considering ish policies or you know, like,
(24:20):
so it.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
All comes down to a hierarchy or ranking of perceived harms,
not just not not whether or not something in isolation
is good or not, because people, if they see a
greater harm on the other side, then there'll be more
likely to forgive the harm on their side.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah. Actually, yeah, So I appreciate you bringing that up,
because all these contentious moral issues are ultimately trade offs, right,
They're trade offs about like when it comes to abortion,
no one's like I just want to hurt women if
you're on the right, you say, or you're you know,
pro life, you say, well, I really want to protect fetuses,
and I just know that, you know, I acknowledge that
there might be some suffering caused. Likewise, pro choice folks
(24:58):
are like, well, I just want to protect women's reproductive rights,
and I understand right that there might be some harm
cost of fetuses. So I think these are trade offs.
But when you're in those positions, you only emphasize the
kind of dominance of the harm you're concerned about.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I get it. That's that's really really elucidating, Kurt. Thank you.
I've got to ask at this point, why does harm
drive our moral minds? Like, what about the course of
human evolution made that be the case?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, great question, And I think ultimately it comes down
to our nature, and that's a nature I think we've
misunderstood for a long time. So if you think about
you know who we are deep down, who we evolved
as you look at museum dioramas, right, let's say the
Museum Natural History, and there's like pictures of cave men
(25:48):
and women with spears hunting mammoths, and I think that's
that's mostly not true. Not in the mist of evolution.
So to hunt a mammoth or any big animal, right,
you need stone tip spears, You need a lot of coordination.
We didn't have stone tip spears for a long time.
(26:08):
We just had sharpened sticks. And we were a lot
smaller back in the day than we are now. So
we were a little, you know, furry, ultimately terrified apes
that spend most of our time hiding from predators and
not hunting them. And I think if you look back
in the record, you'll find that that mostly we were prey.
(26:32):
We were terrifying our you know, kids were picked off
by eagles, we slept in the night, and our children
got eaten by cougars. Right, So our entire psychology is
built around concern about getting harmed and protecting ourselves. And
and you can draw kind of almost a straight line
from millions of years ago of being afraid to being
(26:53):
afraid today, not of animal predators but of moral predators.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, that's that's a great, great kind of tree that
the evolution of this. So it is something really deeply
ingrained in us. Earlier, I was trying to say, what
is it?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Is it a need?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Is it it's it's a module. It's like you know
it's an evolutionary module in a way.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, I mean I'm a little that module is a
is a powerful word. But I think I don't think
you need to say it's like that, you know, encapsulated
in our mind as much as just like underlying a
lot of things, right, like just the history that's kind
of like baked into all sorts of places in it
in our brain.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
You're such a social psychologist, I know clearly there's a
I mean, if it's evolutionary, you just made the argument,
you're definitely there is. Definitely it's in our genes. That's
that's that that would be a logical outgrowth of the
evolution that you just described.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, I agree, I agree that you know definitely it's
in our genes. And then the question is like where
is in our brain? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
To me, it's a black box. It just cools the blood.
As far as I you know, as far as I know,
I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I love this. I love this whole conversation. Oh boy. So,
and and then how does harm fuel morality? How does
the process work? Can you guys go a little bit
deeper into what you've observed?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You bet so? As I mentioned, right, It's all about
a matter of perception. And so maybe this is a
little more kind of like in the science than than
is in the book. But we have a kind of
template in our minds. So here's an example of a template.
Let's say I say, like, what's it like to go
(28:35):
to a restaurant? And then your template is like, while
I sit down and someone comes and takes my order
and then brings me food, right Like, and if something
was that was exactly you know, you sit down, you
take your take your order, bring your food, you pay
for it. You're like, well, that's a restaurant. And when
it comes to morality, our template for something that's immoral,
for something we should get outraged about, is harm, and
(28:59):
in particular victimization to someone vulnerable. Right, So if you're like, look,
this act victimizes someone vulnerable, like child abuse, You're like,
that's obviously immoral. And then and then the more it
kind of resembles that kind of thing, the more you
think your mind kind of detects something in the world
as immoral. Right. And so if if you're like, well,
(29:23):
you know, I kick something out in the woods and
I'm like, okay, well I'm assuming it's a tree, so
it's probably all right. And then you're like, well it
turned out to be a puppy. I'm like, oh, wow,
Now I know that's moral because there's like this vulnerable
victimization and so ultimately our mind is like a vulnerable
victimization detector when it comes to morality, and the more
there's that, the more a moral sense is triggered.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There's a lot there because it feels like there's a
difference between the left and the right in there focus
on quote, vulnerable populations, but that's only at first Blush.
You're giving additional nuance here, suggesting that while that may
be an explicit thing, you know, with the left using
(30:13):
that phrase, you know, we care about vulnera publishing and
the right caring more about other issues. In reality, it
sounds like you're saying, like even the right, a lot
of it comes down to what they view as the
vulnerable populations to protect. Is that a fair statement.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, it's absolutely fair. But I think you do hit
on a nuance that. Well, I'll go through the data.
So we asked, you know, thousands of liberals and conservatives
to tell us who they think is especially vulnerable to
victimization and by how much. And what we find is
(30:51):
that conservatives, you know, we're talking like committed conservatives seven
out of seven on a conservative scale, they think that
all people are round about equally vulnerable to suffering. So
whether you're white or black, right, whether you're an immigrant
(31:13):
or a citizen, whether you're a Muslim or Christian, you're
roughly the same. And this kind of like really mirrors
ideas of like America as a collection of individuals an
individual agency. And so they would still base you know,
committed conservatives would still base their moral judgments on vulnerability.
But they see everyone as kind of equally vulnerable. Whether
(31:34):
you're a CEO or you know, a worker and a company,
you can still bleed if you're cut right, you're still
disappointed if your goals aren't met. On the other hands,
committed liberals like a one out of seven on conservatism.
They see really big differences in who's especially vulnerable to victimization.
(31:55):
They see folks like Muslims, undocumented immigrant, right, maybe poor
African Americans as exceptionally vulnerable to harm. And then folks
that you know, belong to groups that are maybe you
could argue, or less marginalized right, especially in progressive circles
(32:16):
those billionaires, Yeah, billionaires exactly, cops right, Progressive see those
folks as basically almost impervious to harm. And so you've
got this really powerful tension now between liberals who are like, look,
there's two groups of people in the world, oppressors and
the oppressed, the vulnerable and the invulnerable, and then conservatives
(32:40):
who are like, look, everyone is basically equally vulnerable to suffering.
And those are hugely different narratives, right, Like Conservers are like, well,
it doesn't matter to what group you belong you can
still suffer, and liberals are like, well, it matters vastly
what group you belong to, and that dictates whether you
can suffer or not. And I think think we could,
(33:00):
you know, we could agree that folks on the far
ends of the spectrum are not typical. Right, that's the
whole point. But but it's interesting how they disagree. It's
ultimately about vulnerability, but they see it really differently. What
do you think, Well, you know, that's a it's a
good question.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
What's the truth?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
I mean, you know, the truth is hard to ferret
out because we see the world so imperfectly, and there's
so much room for wiggle. But I think there's a
grain of truth in both, not to you know, again
to kind of like see the humanity in both sides.
But I think it is the case that there are
(33:42):
systemic differences in vulnerability based on your group identity. Right,
It's just and I think even conservatives, you know, all
but the kind of most most extreme conservatives, do believe this.
So we do find differences. Right, It is the case
that if you grew up extremely poor, you are generally
(34:05):
more vulnerable to being mistreated, right, and then someone who
grows up rich. At the same time, I think we
should also understand that, you know, individuals have some agency
and have some choice, and you know, and even if
you are a richer person, you still suffer. You know,
(34:26):
if your child is injured, if your child is killed, Right,
that's still sad. And so it's a tension between kind
of this idea of like a victim as an individual
versus a victim of someone belonging to a group.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Oh, well, that's that, you nailed it. You nailed it.
That's it individualism versus yeah, group based harm. Well, yeah,
that really helped to help me really see that within
that framework. Thank you. Look, let's just spend the rest
of the time talking about what we can do to
bridge divides.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, it's tricky, it's hard, but you've thought about it.
I can tell you one thing that you shouldn't do.
That that my research kind of reveals, kind of surprised us.
So if you ask people what's going to take for
you to respect someone on the other side, the majority
(35:18):
of people and we've done this, they tell you, just
give me the facts.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
If I'm talking to someone on the other side, I
want them to give me the facts and then we
can agree on what the truth is and then take
it from there. And we say, great, great, let's test
a conversation now, and here are some facts. Well, it
turns out people they say, those aren't the real facts.
Give me the real those are fake facts. Right. And
(35:43):
so the problem with kind of political conversations now is
we have such different facts that we can't find common
ground when it comes to statistics or you know data. Instead,
what our data show is that the best way to
bridge devise is through stories, you know, personal experiences, where
(36:03):
you talk about the harms you suffer, where you talk
about the vulnerabilities that you fear might get exploited, and
those are the ways to better bridge divides.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Do you see good examples of that happening anywhere?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I mean absolutely, I mean, you know, we any kind
of media source you look at, you'll find some differences.
So in one study, we looked at YouTube videos about abortion,
and we looked at the comments of those videos. And
the comments of YouTube videos are not known to be
(36:34):
especially supportive or kind, so it's kind of, you know,
a challenging way to test our hypothesis. And some videos
are about people's abortion stories. You know, this is my abortion,
or this is my decision not to have an abortion,
or some of those videos are about statistics right here,
how many abortions happen in America today. Here's how easy
(36:56):
or hard it is to have an abortion. And when
we looked at those video comments, we found that the
videos where people talked about their stories, the comments were
much kinder and much not only more positive, but also
like socially affiliated. These people wanted to be like, oh,
you know, I want to be your friend. Basically, we
find it in you know, shows on Fox News on CNN,
(37:21):
hosts are more generous with their guests when they emphasize
personal stories and facts and we find in conversations too.
And I think you know listeners today, well you know
you just tried at Thanksgiving or Christmas whatever, you know,
any holidays where there's potential for division, and it works
a lot better. And I'm happy to talk about more
more tips as well, please, So you know, one of
(37:44):
the best tips I'll say is to when you're having
a conversation, try for understanding. Yeah, not for winning. And
this is why started that, I know, right, don't we
all want to win? Is that where we're here on
this earth to dominate the other side with right, Like
(38:05):
you look at social media, you're like, I just own
this person and that's the video you want to click.
You know, I can't wait to see my side own
the other side. But like, no one comes away from that,
you know in the end, like happier, no one changes
their mind based on fact. Like no one's like, oh,
you know what, I believe this about abortion or immigration,
but then this person gave me the statistic and like, boy,
(38:29):
now I change my Like never, that never happens, right, Instead,
if you want to be like, oh I had a
good conversation and now I see the humanity on the
other side a little more. Yeah, that comes from like, oh,
they were trying to understand me, and I was trying
to understand them, and they were telling me about their
personal experiences and I was trying to learn about not
(38:51):
when learn about them. You know, I have this like
uber ride with a Christian nationalist some time ago. You know,
I'm like, I studied morality and politics, and folks are
usually like, will hold my beer, you know, like, here's
my story. Yeah, and you know, I don't know if
you know many Christian nationalists. I don't, but there's potential
(39:13):
for me to be like, well, you know, I don't
know about that idea. But at first I was like, well,
tell me how how you think about this idea? Right,
tell me why with the roots of your belief and
like what stories about yourself led you to this belief.
And that conversation went when much better than it could
have because he felt like I was trying to understand
and not win. So it can work even in kind
(39:34):
of extreme cases.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, people really just want to have their voices heard.
They want to feel like they matter, and they want
to feel like yeah, they get it. They want to
get it out. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean I always
find it interesting, like these examples of these, like people
who kind of infiltrate the Kokook's Klan, you know, kind
of befriend them and then eventually change their minds. You know,
(39:57):
like there are real good examples of that. But I
think it's a certain kind of person to do that.
To put the outrage to the side is not easy
when your own self is threatened. Absolutely right, It's easier
to just intellectually put the outrage to the side when
it's not something self relevant.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
But yeah, right again, Like you know, if our minds
are motivated by victimhood as as you know, we both argue, right,
if you're in a situation where you feel threatened, where
you feel like someone's the clear perpetrator, and not only
are they victimizing others, but also you like in this
case of Darryl Davis, the black man and blues musician
(40:38):
who befriended hundreds of Kika k members and got them
to hang up their robes. Like absolutely, that takes a
special persons who's willing to over you know, like you're
gonna sit down with someone who thinks that you're less
than human. Wow, that takes a ton of fortitude and
compassion and patience, and there are people out there who
(40:59):
willing to do it and and bridge divides. I'm not
saying people shouldn't have to do that, but it's it's
good for humanity that there are people who are willing
to do that.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
But it's it's just it's just interesting, like people are funny,
like even with their beliefs, Like they don't have those beliefs,
they don't hold those beliefs all the time, and the
humanity can crack through, I think with even with anyone.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, right, like at the end of the day, you know,
we can interact as as fellow and equal human beings.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
So you say that facts don't bridge divides? Why why
is that? Why? Why why is science so under attack
these days?
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah? I mean, I think there are lots of reasons
why facts don't bridge divides today. Right, we have different
media environments on the left and the right, social media bubbles.
But I think you know, if we go back to evolution, right,
our genes and our brains, we've never really been well
(42:00):
equipped to deal with statistics, to deal with you know,
these kind of distributed facts that we're we're talking about today, Right,
if you're sitting around the campfire. It's night. You know,
you've got your family and friends around you, you're camping.
The things you're going to talk about, the things that
are going to resonate with other people, are stories, right,
like this thing happened. I heard this thing happened, there
(42:24):
was a bear attack. Whatever. You're not like sixty seven
percent of people right like that. That is not a
good campfire story because our minds had not evolved to
process statistics. And so when you're in conversations, especially when
you feel threatened, right, You're not going to really think
about the truth of statistics. You're going to You're going
to kind of anchor onto these stories, especially these stories
(42:46):
of threat And so this is why I think facts,
you know, aren't great. And when it comes to morality,
facts just seem like not the right currency. Ir yeah, exactly,
you know, they're.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Not the right Actually a shame though, because like what
didn't whatdn't I logical like Stephen Pinker. Stephen Pinker would
be like, oh, I want to know the probabilities and
the exact evidence that this is causing harm before I
make my conclusion. But you're saying most people don't think
like Stephen Pinker, don't you know what I'm saying. Stave
Picker would think.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Like that, Come on, I like, I like your Pinker voice.
It's very erudite, so you know. Yeah, Steve Pinker asked
me a question actually when I was a second year
grad student about, uh, you have a presentation about moral
exemplars like Mother Teresa. And his question was basically like, ah,
I know you'd think that, you know, you have in
your study that Mother Teresa is a hero, but like,
(43:41):
wasn't she actually kind of cruel and callous she took
care of so obviously I still remember that, you know, twenty.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Years later, Tony, No, I mean, wouldn't do you see
what I'm saying? What in a really logical rational mind
want the facts.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yes, I think that's true, and I think everyone wants
facts when it's about like what blender should I be?
You know, which which model car should I buy? But
when it comes to morality, we just think that those
facts are not the right facts, right, that there must
be facts out there that support my idea. So you
still want facts, but you want the facts that support you, right,
(44:15):
Like if I'm like, look this, many people suffer at
the border, there's many immigrants, you know, innocent immigrants like fleeing,
I don't know, sectarian violence in Central America. And then
you're like, if you're anti immigration, you're like, well, sure,
but the real when they come into the country, you know,
they cause crime and take jobs, and so the real
(44:37):
facts we should be considering are experiences, yeah, being killed,
you know, how many citizens or jobs are taken or
being killed by you know, gangs of immigrants. Right, So,
like I think you're just like, look that that's not relevant.
And I want to say, facts do matter once you
kind of like establish these stories, right, but when you're
(44:57):
so entrenched in your moral view, you only consider facts
that are are consistent with those beliefs.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, my mind just keeps thinking about the oh they're
eating our dogs, you know, like that's a story, not a.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Fact, exactly exactly right. And so then you get into
the and this is maxed you know, too too huge
a question for any you know, one podcast of like
well what does it mean to be true? Like aren't
facts collection of stories? And is in the story of
particular fact? And it gets it gets kind of like
(45:30):
head spinny real fast. But I think we're just used
to dealing with like one person's experience. And this is
why when people lie, like the that news anchor who
who lied about being in a helicopter crash. Yeah, I'm blank,
and we're like so felt so betrayed because we're like,
wait a second, you can't lie about stories because you
know what happens to you.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
You know, I hear Steven Thinker's license my head. Do
you know what what he's saying? Do you know what
he's saying? In my head? He's saying, court datum is
not data. True.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
I feel like that's the first time I've heard the
word datum in a long time. Very very erudite. Again,
but again, you can you know, we're confronted with so
many studies where we're like, well, those data aren't the
right data. They weren't collected or modernist. It's true, right,
but like lived experiences, you know, do matter. And even yeah,
(46:29):
even if you think about folks like Pinker, and even
if you think about folks like Height right, who often
a similar claims. Right, those folks will say, well, here's
this experience I had on Twitter, Here's this experience I
had teaching in my classes. Even those folks will anchor
on their own experiences then and then martial facts that
(46:50):
kind of support those those feelings. So all of us
in a sense are kind of powerless in the face
of our own lived experience because we're human beings, you know,
and that's the lens we see the world through.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah, good point. Why is hope and humility important for
helping us?
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Bridge divides well, at the end of the day, whether
you you know, live in a community or a city
or a country. You know, we might vote for different
people or believe different things, but ultimately we need to
come together to achieve greater things. We need to have
conversations to figure out the right way forward. And those
(47:32):
compromises and conversations require us to see each other as
human and work together. And I think that's why humility
is necessary, and I think hope is warranted because at
the end of the day, no one we talk about this,
you know a little bit. I talk about this in
the book, Like, no one is out there trying to
destroy the world. No one's a super villain who just
(47:54):
like wants to burn it all down for the sake
of it, Right, We're all trying to just build something better.
Altimate Lee and I think recognizing that core human motivation,
I think can give us hope to have those conversations,
to bridge those divides into work together.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
As my grandmother would say, from your mouth and God's ears, Kurt,
I can't impress upon you enough how important I find
your research and how it's influenced me in my own work.
And I really truly wish you all the best with
your book tour, and thank you for chatting with me today.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, thanks very much for having me on
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