We view our loved ones as more moral and we are less inclined to judge them than a stranger.
- Participants viewed them as more moral and wanted to punish or criticize loved ones less than strangers.
- They also felt more shame, guilt and embarrassment when loved ones engaged in immoral behavior.
When a loved one misbehaves, we tend to be more forgiving than when it comes to a stranger. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyCanadian researchers from the University of Toronto have tried to understand why we are less severe with our loved ones, although this leniency can be detrimental to our values.
An inner conflict
“How do we react when our romantic partners, friends or family members behave unethically?asks Rachel Forbes, lead author of the study. Previous research tells us a lot about how we respond to unethical behavior from a stranger, but very little about how we respond when the abuser is someone we care deeply about. When someone close to us behaves unethically, we face a conflict between maintaining our moral values and maintaining our relationship. We conducted this research to better understand this conflict.”
For this study, the researchers conducted a series of four experiments involving more than 1,100 participants. First, volunteers read a hypothetical situation in which a romantic partner, close friend, or stranger has committed an unethical or immoral act, such as stealing money from a charity fundraising jar. In another experiment, participants were asked to recall a time when they saw a loved one commit an unethical or immoral act. Afterwards, they were asked to keep a diary of the moral transgressions they witnessed for 15 days. In each experiment, participants answered a series of questions about the person who committed the act, the seriousness of the act, and the severity with which the transgressor should be punished. Participants also answered questions about how they felt about themselves, including negative emotions they felt and their own sense of morality.
A mixture of emotions when relatives committed an immoral act
In each of the experiments, the researchers found that the participants felt less anger, contempt, and disgust toward family and close friends who misbehaved. They viewed them as more moral and wanted to punish or criticize them less than outsiders. However, participants also felt more shame, guilt, and embarrassment and reported somewhat more negative assessments of their own morality when someone close to them committed a moral or ethical violation.
Learning about bad behavior from a loved one by a third party is more shocking
In a fourth experiment, the participants and their relatives answered questions concerning them before they were exchanged. Initially, the partners were given genuine responses, but in the second round, the participants received fake responses from the researchers indicating that their partner had behaved unethically, lying, plagiarizing or acting selfishly. As in previous experiments, participants then answered a series of questions about their partner, the transgression, the harshness of the punishment, and their feelings toward themselves.
The results were similar to the first three experiments, but the effect was not as strong. “It is possible that participants are unhappy with their loved ones because they did not inform the participant of the unethical acts in advance and instead chose to tell the researcher.says Rachel Forbes. Hearing about unethical behavior from someone you care about from a stranger is likely to be a bit more shocking than hearing about it directly from your friend or relative..”
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