Do People Want to Be More Moral?
Year: 2020
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Most people want to change some aspects of their personality, but does this phenomenon extend to moral character and to close others? Targets ( n = 800) rated their personality traits and reported how much they wanted to change on each trait; well-acquainted informants ( n = 958) rated targets’ personality traits and how much they wanted the targets to change on those same traits. Targets and informants reported a lower desire to change more morally relevant traits (e.g., honesty, compassion, fairness) compared with less morally relevant traits (e.g., anxiety, sociability, productiveness)—even after we controlled for current trait levels. Moreover, although targets generally wanted to improve more on traits that they had less desirable levels of, and informants wanted their targets to improve more on those traits as well, targets’ moral change goals were less calibrated to their current trait levels. Finally, informants wanted targets to change in similar ways, but to a lesser extent, than targets themselves did. These findings suggest that moral considerations take a back seat when it comes to self-improvement.
Source: Psychological Science
Authors: Jessie Sun, Geoffrey P. Goodwin
Institutions: University of California, Davis, University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2972018125