The psychology behind our moral outrage
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What causes moral outrage in humans?
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Hello, it's Lisa Leong from This Working Life, helping to make your work life better with advice from the world's top experts, like psychotherapist Esther Perel. Many conflicts are about power. Power is when I dismiss what you're bringing up. Power is when I magnify a problem. And Professor Adam Grant.
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Hey there, a heads up, this episode is one from our archives. There is just something about youth that makes you think you're invincible. Kirk Gray was a pretty typical teenager in that he thought he was invincible, especially behind the wheel of a car. So when he and some friends were running late to the movies one night, he hit the gas.
It had just rained and I had gotten my driver's license not long ago and it was dark. So I was rushing up the road. I wasn't paying a lot of attention because the music was blasting and we were talking about high school gossip. And I was just about to blow by the exit when friend over the back shouted over the dead, you're going to miss it. Turn left, turn left. And so I immediately turned left. Reflexively, I didn't look at my blind spot.
That's too bad, because in his blind spot was a brand new Mercedes-Benz.
I hear it, see it, obviously. You know, we start squealing and spinning. And eventually we stop. The steam coming up from the road, the orange sodium lights. And there's no one around, just the two of us cars. And I unroll my window to apologize. And the guy gets out of the car. He's looking so angry. And he points to me and says, you're fucking dead. I'm going to kill you.
Wow.
You know, I freeze and then I do what seemed to make sense and I slam on the accelerator.
Kurt starts driving in a blind panic. He doesn't really know where he's going. And he ends up driving into a strip mall parking lot where he's cornered.
He gets out of the car, you know, menacingly walks over to us. And I lock the door at the last second. And I unroll my window a little bit to apologize. And then he reaches into my window as I'm apologizing. He's trying to unlock the door. I'm slapping his hand away while apologizing. It's like a very awkward season two, right?
This is terrifying and comedic now with distance.
Sorry, great with distance. Eventually, my friend in the backseat, she holds up a cell phone, which was still rare at the time. She says, if you don't stop, I'll call the cops.
How have humans developed morality over time?
He stops and says, yeah, you call the cops, and I'll tell them what you did.
Now, this comment confused Kurt, and it incensed him because, yes, of course, it was wrong that Kurt had nearly smashed into the guy, that he could have killed him, but now Kurt felt like he was the victim, with this guy cornering him and threatening him.
This comment was so strange to me because to me it was obvious that I was the victim. He was literally slacking me around, literally threatened to kill me. And yet he says that the cops would be on his side, right? That he feels righteous. And I realized, you know, through time, through my research especially, I realized that we both felt convinced that we were the victims in that situation. And that feeling of threat of harm gave us the moral conviction that we were right.
Kurt Gray is all grown up now, and he's a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. He's also, hopefully, a better driver. But the fact that both he and the Mercedes driver thought they were the bigger victims, that they were most harmed, Kurt says that explains the crux of why we get stuck in all kinds of heated arguments on everything from abortion to, yes, road rage.
It's so self-evident to us that our moral convictions are true, right? Your opinion on immigration or abortion or taxes. But then someone else can have exactly the opposite opinion and also think that they are absolutely true.
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