The science of human behavior is not as soft as its detractors would have you believe…
Because the experiments of the behavioral sciences repeatably demonstrate that most human beings…
- are easily distracted by events outside themselves.
- are readily hypnotized by the superficial and conspicuous.
- respond quite predictably to all manner of rewards and punishments.
- tend to over-value immediate pleasures and disregard future consequences.
- are quick to overgeneralize based on very limited experience.
- readily jump to self-serving conclusions.
- are inclined to accept the first easy answer–even if it’s the wrong answer.
- are swift to accept the data that validates their preconceptions and swift to ignore, reject, or deny the data that doesn’t.
- easily stereotype others based on their most visible characteristics.
- readily stigmatize and scapegoat the innocent and defenseless in order to justify their own shortcomings.
- greatly underestimate the ways and degrees to which the presence of others affects their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
- tend to mimic the behaviors of the herd that engulfs them.
- look first to others, not to themselves, for cues about right and wrong.
- easily relinquish the responsibility to act when others are present.
- tend to behave themselves only when they think they are being watched.
- are more apt to base their self-worth on what others think of them, not what they think of themselves.
- over-estimate their own competence and under-estimate the competence of others.
- attribute their accomplishments to hard work and virtue and the accomplishments of others to good fortune.
- judge themselves by their best intentions while judging others by the worst they have done.
- are quick to blame their mistakes and failures on bad luck or injustice while blaming the mistakes and failures of others on their dysfunctional characters.
- over-estimate the role they play in their successes and under-estimate the role they play in their failures.
- are more inclined to do something immoral or stupid than to disobey “authority”.
- and are more inclined to do something immoral or stupid than to risk becoming unpopular.