We are more forgiving when people close to us misbehave
Leniency may come at cost of judger's self-worth, danger of normalizing unethical behavior

Date:
July 29, 2021
Source:
American Psychological Association
Summary:
When people behave badly or unethically, their loved ones may judge
them less harshly than they would judge a stranger who committed
the same transgressions, but that leniency may come at the cost
of the judger's own sense of self-worth, according to new research.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
When people behave badly or unethically, their loved ones may judge them
less harshly than they would judge a stranger who committed the same transgressions, but that leniency may come at the cost of the judger's
own sense of self-worth, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.


==========================================================================
"How do we react when our romantic partners, friends or family members
behave unethically? Past research tells us a lot about how we respond to
a stranger's unethical behavior, but very little about how we respond when
the perpetrator is someone we care deeply about," said lead author Rachel Forbes, MA, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. "When someone
close to us behaves unethically, we face a conflict between upholding
our moral values and maintaining our relationship. We conducted this
research to better understand this conflict." The study was published
in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Researchers conducted a series of four experiments involving more
than 1,100 participants. In one experiment, participants read about a hypothetical situation in which a romantic partner, a close friend or a stranger committed an unethical or immoral act, such as stealing money
from a charity collection jar. In another experiment, participants were
asked to recall a moment when they had witnessed a romantic partner,
close friend or stranger commit an unethical or immoral act. In a third experiment, participants kept a log of moral transgressions they witnessed
each day for 15 days. In each experiment participants answered a series
of questions about the person who committed the act, the severity of the
act and how harshly the transgressor should be punished. Participants
also answered questions about how they felt about themselves, including
any negative emotions they experienced and their own sense of morality.

In all three experiments, researchers found participants felt less
anger, contempt and disgust toward family and close friends who behaved
badly. They rated them as more moral and wanted to punish or criticize
them less than strangers. However, participants also felt more shame,
guilt and embarrassment and reported somewhat more negative evaluations
of their own morality when someone close to them committed a moral or
ethical violation.

In the fourth experiment, participants were physically paired with a
romantic partner, a close friend or a relative stranger. They were then
taken to separate rooms and asked to respond in writing to a series of questions about themselves. The pairs then swapped answers (via a research assistant) and were told to transcribe them into a book. In the first
round, the partners received genuine answers, but in the second round, participants were given fake responses indicating their partner had
behaved unethically, by lying, plagiarizing or acting selfishly. As in
previous experiments, participants then answered a series of questions
about their partner, the transgression, how harsh the punishment should
be and their feelings about themselves. The results were similar to the
first three experiments, but the effect was not as strong.

Forbes believes the less consistent effects observed in the fourth
experiment may be because the unethical information presented to
participants in this study was unknown to the participants prior to
the experiment and was first shared with them in a very brazen way by a stranger. "It's possible that participants were upset with their close
others because they did not tell the participant about the unethical acts beforehand and instead chose to tell the researcher. Hearing about an
unethical behavior by someone you care about from a stranger is likely
to be a bit more jarring than hearing about it directly from your friend
or loved one," she said.



========================================================================== "Across a diverse range of methods with both student and online
samples, our findings suggest that having a close relationship with the transgressor heavily affects responses to their bad behavior, supporting
the call for social- relational factors to be more strongly incorporated
into models of moral judgment," said Forbes.

The findings are important because, in everyday life, unethical behaviors
are often entwined with social ties, according to co-author Jennifer
Stellar, PhD, also from the University of Toronto.

"Identifying that observers are more lenient toward close others who
transgress raises deeper concerns about how moral norms are policed by individuals in these situations," she said. "This may allow people to
either overlook and/or fail to call out transgressions committed by close others, which poses a danger for maintaining the moral norms in society."
The researchers focused on close relationships, but Stellar believes
that the same processes may apply to other relationships, such as shared
group membership, and that should be incorporated in future research.

"One important limitation in our work is that we did not examine
responses to extremely severe immoral actions," said Forbes. "Highly
immoral acts would certainly place a greater strain on the relationship
and therefore could show different effects." One relevant example
she often uses when talking about this work is a quote by "TODAY" host
Savannah Guthrie in response to the accusations of sexual misconduct
against Guthrie's colleague and friend Matt Lauer. Guthrie responded to
news of the accusations on air, saying, "We are grappling with a dilemma
that so many people have faced these past few weeks: How do you reconcile
your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?"
"In the case of very severe unethical actions, the conflict with one's
moral values is likely more apparent. We don't yet know how close others
may respond because this is very difficult to study," said Forbes.

Another limitation was that the participants in the first three
experiments were approximately 80% white.

"Our paper provides an initial step in understanding responses to the
unethical behavior of close others, but future research should try to
more adequately represent not only a more racially diverse sample, but
also diversity in sexual orientation, which is particularly relevant to
the study of romantic relationships," she said.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
American_Psychological_Association. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Rachel C. Forbes and Jennifer E. Stellar. When the Ones We Love
Misbehave: Exploring Moral Processes Within Intimate Bonds. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 2021 DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000272 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210729095212.htm

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