Questions of Character
Virtues, vices, and character
Christian B. Miller Ph.D., Blaine Fowers Ph.D., Bradford Cokelet Ph.D.
From Cinnabon to the Bathroom: How we may be influenced by subtle factors in our environment and what it could mean for moral character and virtue.
We should all become virtuous, but what does that even mean?
Is Bill Gates really a generous person? How can we tell if anyone is?
Are long hours and difficulties unplugging making you a worse person?
What is kindness and where does it come from?
What's to love about virtue?
In my recent blog posts, I have mentioned certain studies in psychology with dramatic findings about cheating. And when we look at these studies together we find a deeply puzzling pattern that begins to emerge.
Watching the news today, it is easy to think that most people must be dishonest. But studies suggest that, at least for most of us, our characters are not so bad that they deserved to be labeled dishonesty.
Cheating is very much in the news again. Anthony Weiner and the Internet. Baseball players and performance enhancing drugs. 70 Harvard University undergraduate students and their take-home exam. Are these just exceptional cases, and most of us are basically honest, trustworthy people? Or instead are most of us inclined to cheat too when the right opportunity comes along?
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