Research Hit: The Illusion of Moral Decline
How we all believe morals have declined since our birth - irrespective of how old we are or year of birth!
So our country (or countries) are not going to the dogs?!
Well, maybe your country is going to the dogs, depending on where you are! But that is a different question because there are multiple factors involved in that such as trade and international competition.
This group of researchers from clearer thinking wanted to find out and replicate findings in perceived moral degradation - perceptions only.
First of all: is this an illusion then?
Well, that was what the original paper by Mastroianni & Gilbert showed in 2023.
In what way?
They questioned 387 people of different ages and backgrounds on perceived moral attitudes in society. The questions were formulated as thus:
In this study, we’ll ask you how kind, honest, nice, and good people were at various points in time. If you’re not sure or you weren’t alive at that time, that’s okay, just give your best guess.”
They then rated this question of how kind, honest, nice, and good people were (this is the moral status) at different time points:
today
around the year the participant turned 20
around the year the participant was born
around 20 years before the participant was born
around 40 years before the participant was born
Ok and what were the results then?
Well, the results of this replication study by clearer thinking (with 533 participants) was almost identical. Everybody sees today as morally inferior to when they were 20 and, which in turn was lower than their year of birth. The two time frames before birth have the same rating as year of birth.
So basically we all see morality declining since our birth and worse today than at any time in the past.
Precisely!
But aren’t there differences of age or political leaning?
Yes, and no.
Both original study and replication showed that those who rated themselves as more conservative believed the moral decline was larger. We would probably expect that - based on standard conservative rhetoric.
However, there was a difference in age, with the original study finding that older participants saw more moral decline but this wasn’t replicated. Something to be investigated further.
So this moral decline appears to be related to a perception only!
Indeed, if it did decline every 20 years we would long ago have been in negative moral territory. Things do change over time but likely most human morality stays similar - it’s our perception that changes.
Wouldn’t it be good if politicians knew this?
Yes, indeed, but our gut feeling still feels this. Knowing this is one thing - convincing others that this is true, is another story!
Original paper
Mastroianni, A.M., Gilbert, D.T.
The illusion of moral decline.
Nature 618, 782–789 (2023).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06137-x
clearer thinking replication
https://replications.clearerthinking.org/replication-2023nature618/