Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — A new psychological study showed nice people are more likely to be influenced to do some not so nice things.
The study built on a 1963 Yale University study by Stanley Milgram looking at the willingness of individuals' obedience. In the original study, each participant was asked by an authoritative figure to perform a specific act contrary to their beliefs.
Recently, this Milgram-like experiment investigated the behavior of 35 males and 31 females ranging from 26 to 54 years old when participating in a fake game show. The game show required participants to shock "contestants" when they failed at a given task. The intensity of the shock varied depending on each participant's willingness to inflict a higher intensity shock to participants.
The study looked to find out if personality affected an individual's obedience to the game show. Personality was defined by specific traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. The results found that personality indeed correlated with obedience.
"Results confirmed hypotheses that conscientiousness and agreeableness would be associated with willingness to administer high- intensity electrical shocks to a victim," authors wrote.
The shocking result though was "nicer" people tended to follow orders more willingly.
"It is interesting to note that personality traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness, which are widely related to positive outcomes such as better mental health, longevity, academic performance, parenting, reduced aggression, and prosocial behavior may also have darker sides in that they can lead to destructive and immoral obedience," the study stated.
With that, negative traits that are typically associated with more selfish people can actually be seen as positive in extreme situations.
"Some traits that often have negative interpersonal consequences, such as low impulse control, may in some extreme circumstances benefit others, such as when someone jumps into a river and risks his life to save a stranger," according to the study.
