RE: Psychology Addict # 50 | Why Good People Do Evil Things?
In her reports for The New Yorker she remarked that she actually expected to see a monster.
The Picture of Dorian Gray was partly based on and playing with (and made sense because of) the belief at that time that inner wickedness would express itself outwardly on the face of the wicked person. Something in us - perhaps our attachment to beauty, which we connect with all good things - refuses to believe that good faces could happen to bad people.
Kariniga – A nice person who brought himself to kill
I disagree with Jared on this one: what makes us think that nice people don't kill? Our superheroes at the cinemas kill people all the time. Our great works of literature have good people killing bad people more often than not. I'd say the idea that killing is always bad and therefore cannot be done by a good person is a minority opinion.
Added The Raft to my watchlist! I wonder where Genovés got his idea from, whether it could possibly be influenced by the Hitchcock movie.
This is an incredibly insightful comment Alexander. Thank you!
It brought to might a phenomenon psychologists refer to as the ‘halo effect’, which basically drives us to attribute positive characteristics to attractive people, despite having little of lack of evidence to back such attributions ref.. I believe the halo effect plays a part in the way we perceive the wrongdoings of our superheroes, as they typically are (really) good looking. Together with some confirmation bias!
I am glad to hear The Raft has been included in your watchlist. I have no doubt you will like it. I had never heard of Lifeboat before (I know nothing about the works of Hitchcock). But I know that Genovés’s idea was inspired by an incident he witnessed on an airplane. So, who knows … Lifeboat + incident on plane = a very, very peculiar experiment!
Thank you for stopping by and disseminating wisdom around these quarters!
All the best to you 😊