The Psychology Behind Doing the Right Thing

Musings from an Aspiring Therapist

As we all know, it’s always good to help others in need. During times like these, it can be incredibly challenging, especially with the additional hurdles that 2020 has presented.

From a young age, we often have a lot of lessons that teach us about morality. We generally apply them to our everyday lives, and usually, we emulate parts of these skills well into adulthood.

It’s easy to lose such fundamental skills, especially when we’re surrounded by toxic people who almost always make us forget. Plus, if you’re in the deep throes of drowning, it’s kind of hard to uplift others.

However, once you are able to help yourself, and find the right level of support, it’s much easier to help others, especially when they’ve supported you.

Fiery Cushman, a psychologist and director at Harvard University’s Moral Psychology Laboratory has done a great deal of research surrounding the science of morality.

When we do the right thing, it is often a fleeting, automatic, and instinctual process. However, culturally-embedded norms play a large role in drilling these norms into our minds.

For example, if you’re a North American who is living abroad, you might feel tempted to tip the waiter, even if it's not the cultural norm of that specific country. Burdened with guilt, you might tip anyway, much to the surprise of the waiter.

Thus, Cushman’s work suggests that morality surrounds our default personal habits and that societal inclinations influence some of these habits to be more automatic, for better or for worse.

Furthermore, in prior studies, researchers gave participants money just to perform a task. However, the researchers would sometimes prime participants by telling them another group wasn’t given any money for the same task.

If the participants were asked if they wanted to share, the longer it took the participant to think it out, the less likely they were to do so. In other words, we are not typically selfish by impulse.

Instead, we are usually kind by default, especially in our formative years.

Sometimes we hear stories in the news about a person doing an incredible Herculean feat, like someone jumping into the ocean to save someone from sharks. Often, we find that the heroes say something to the effect of:

“I’m not a hero. I just did what anyone else would do in this situation.”

Some people might roll their eyes at such comments and assume that they don’t have it within themselves to do the same thing. However, looking at the situation, we’ve got three different kinds of well-intentioned people:

• Those that help others just for the sake of helping, like those nomadic travellers who provide support despite having very little themselves
• Those that help but also follow logic or ulterior motives, like a corporate manager saving face by donating to a charity of their own choosing
• Those that help during a spur-of-the-moment encounter, like the person who saved another from the jaws of sharks

Either way, I’d like to think that each of us is extraordinary. We might possibly be one chance encounter away from showcasing a heroic deed. Plus, it’s a great story to tell the potential kids and grandkids, especially when you get older and wiser with age.

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