The Science of Why Good People Do Bad Things
Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 7:05 am
I am using this quote from the Daily Devotions June 9th, 2017 to expose the justification Victor Hall gives for shunning anyone who leaves BCF.
By twisting scripture around, and using his particular power and manipulation of people, he has pressured good people to exhibit bad behaviour.
Those of us who have been part of BCF at any time in our lives can bear witness to the way we succumbed to the group pressure to conform, even it it meant doing mean, hurtful things to others.
The article after this quote explains how this happens...why good people do bad things!
By twisting scripture around, and using his particular power and manipulation of people, he has pressured good people to exhibit bad behaviour.
Those of us who have been part of BCF at any time in our lives can bear witness to the way we succumbed to the group pressure to conform, even it it meant doing mean, hurtful things to others.
The article after this quote explains how this happens...why good people do bad things!
Restoring my Soul daily devotions Friday 9th June 2017
Great distress and sorrow
Consequently, David was unable to trust, believe, or love his brethren. To him, they were all liars.
o When a person lets go of faith and trust, they are unable to have fellowship with God’s people.
o If the psalmist was unable to recover from this state of disconnection, his belief that all men are liars would have become like a spirit of antichrist within him.
o His love would most certainly have grown cold.
o A person who is motivated by the spirit of antichrist, rather than by a spirit of faith, is in bondage to the fear of death and rejects the reality that Christ, the Word, is coming in the flesh of their brethren.
o Eventually, because of offence, they depart from the congregation and persecute those who are of the fellowship of faith.
Thankfully, the psalmist did come to faith. What was the beginning point for his recovery? He turned again to the Lord and called upon His name. In the first instance, this meant crying out, ‘O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul! [Save my life!]’.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cu ... bad-thingsThe Science of Why Good People Do Bad Things
If people consider themselves to have strong morals, why do they often turn bad?
Ronald E Riggio Ph.D.
History is replete with entire groups of people, organizations, and nations, engaging in horrific, immoral behaviour, ranging from genocide, to riots and killings, to massive greed and corruption. Often, these are not the actions of individuals, but of collective groups led by a toxic leader. All too often, we point the finger at the leader as the cause of the bad behaviour, but without willing followers, the destruction would never occur.
I am attending the International Leadership Association conference and listening to experts discuss good leader (and follower) behaviour, and also bad leadership. I was particularly impressed with a talk by leadership ethicist, Craig Johnson. Craig begins with the well-known fact that in our leader-centric society, we give leaders too much credit for the good that happens (perhaps explaining how/why outrageously high CEO salaries seem justified), and more than their share of the blame for the bad (often a corrupt leader is imprisoned, but the aiding followers are often not prosecuted, arguing that “I was just following orders” – what Johnson calls “displacement of responsibility”).
In many of these cases, the leaders and followers are not initially bad or corrupt people. Johnson argues that processes occur that allow leaders and followers to disengage their moral reasoning and principals, and justify their bad behaviour.
He starts with the assertion that people believe we are more moral than we actually are, but the process of moral disengagement leads us to act immorally, and justify our bad behaviour.
Justification of bad behaviour occurs in a variety of ways. First,we begin to focus on desired outcomes, and rationalize the means to achieve them. If an outcome is important, we begin to believe that the “ends justify the means.” For example, the torturing of suspected terrorists (i.e., water-boarding), is justified because of the desired outcome of protecting citizens from terrorist attacks. ISIS also uses the same process to justify the killing of Westerners as an “acceptable” means of achieving their ends. This “deactivation of moral standards,” as Craig Johnson calls it, is a slippery slope that leads only to increases in bad behaviour.
Another way, according to Johnson, that we justify immoral behaviour is through using “euphemistic language.” So, killed or injured civilians in bombing or drone attacks are referred to as “collateral damage.” Likewise, it is easier to imprison or execute a journalist or tourist if the government labels the person a “subversive” or a “spy.”
Another means by which people justify their bad behaviour is through “advantageous comparisons.” They downplay their own bad behaviour by comparing it to the even worse behaviour by others (“sure I stole a small amount of money, but my boss really took the company for big bucks.”).
Often, people behave badly through diffusion of responsibility. This explains crowd behaviour, such as looting during riots (“everybody was doing it”), or hazing behaviour (“it’s a tradition, and I was hazed when I was a newcomer”).
Bad behaviour also occurs, and our moral reasoning fails us, through devaluing of the victims (“they started it”; “they deserved it”). Processes such as these lead to an escalation of violence (“he pulled out a knife, so I pulled out my gun”).
What is the antidote to moral disengagement?
The key is to take personal responsibility for our actions and being alert to the dangers of moral disengagement,
Craig Johnson offers these strategies and questions:
• When others try to encourage you to bad behaviour (“the dark side”) realize that you are an independent agent, and that you have a personal responsibility to behave morally.
• Step back and ask yourself, would I normally consider this action to be wrong?
• Does my language hide what is really going on?
• Who am I comparing myself to and am I making this comparison to excuse my behaviour?
• Am I excusing the harm I am doing by blaming others?
• Am I blaming the victim to excuse my harmful actions?