One of the more peculiar findings to emerge from my laboratory over the past few years is what I've termed the posthumous effect, the tendency to psychologically alter our perceptions of the recently dead in a favourable direction.
In one study, participants were misled to think we were investigating how physical appearance influences people's judgments of others. Forty-seven undergraduate students from the University of Arkansas were shown "head shots" of three male strangers. In reality, I'd selected these photos - matched on physical attractiveness - from a generic image bank, but the participants were told these images were actual students of a UK-based colleague who was collaborating with us on the project. In a nutshell, we asked participants to rate these strangers on a number of desirable (e.g., "trustworthy," "intelligent") and undesirable (e.g., "hypocritical," "conceited") traits. This 38-item scale consisted of three separate subscales: traits dealing with Kindness and Morality (e.g., "generous"), Achievement-Relatedness (e.g., "hardworking"), and Social Skills (e.g., "affable"). One week later, participants returned and were told, "now that you've had a chance to think about your ratings, we want to give you a chance to re-rate the photos in case you have changed your mind." So this second phase of the study was identical to the first, with one exception. Prior to being shown one of the photographs (chosen at random) the researcher casually informed the participant that the individual shown in the photo had died over the weekend, but that he should be rated as though he were still alive.
And here's why the data are peculiar -- or at least not easily explained. We expected to see ratings from all three subscales shift toward more favourable evaluations for the dead character (which would reflect something like a general "don't speak ill of the dead" phenomenon), but in fact the only significant change between the two sessions (Week 2 - Week 1) was for traits on the Kindness and Morality subscale. In other words, the dead guy, but not the other two guys, became a better human being in the raters' opinion over the course of this week. But death didn't make him, say, any more industrious or improve his social skills.
In a second study, we analysed nearly 500 obituaries published in The New York Times to see if this selective posthumous effect -- emphasizing kindness and morality, but not necessarily other positive traits of the decedent -- occurred similarly in the real world. Indeed, the similarity here with the experimental study was uncanny. We first isolated 744 trait-related terms occurring in the obituaries of 311 men and 185 women; of these, 58.6% were prosocial/morally relevant, 22.2% dealt with achievement oriented behaviours, and 19.2% made reference to the person's social skills.
I have my hunches about why this morality-specific attribution shift occurs, none that I'd stake my career on at this early stage in the game, though. But if these data are indeed borne out in future studies and are cross-culturally replicated (even among groups that allegedly don't believe in an afterlife), then it may be that dying is the ultimate way to win friends and influence people. Those small acts of kindness you do today might not pay off immediately, but you may start earning profits from them as soon as the rigor mortis sets in. And this comment isn't entirely tongue-in-cheek, either, since your posthumous reputation can have genuine effects on your inclusive genetic fitness.
Here's the article in full as it appeared in Human Nature in 2005.
