Out of Character: Surprising truths about the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) lurking in all of us By David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo (Part III)
DeSteno and Valdesolo devote separate chapters to each of the following topics:
Hypocrisy vs. Morality
Soul Mate vs. Playmate
From Pride to Hubris
Compassionate or Cruel
Fairness and Trust
Playing It Safe vs. Taking a Gamble
Tolerance vs. Bigotry
In each of these areas DeSteno and Valdesolo talk about their own experiments and others’ research which clearly demonstrate that under certain circumstances people will not make the moral choice.
There are three take aways that I have gotten from the this book:
1. Before we all become too righteous we need to understand that good character is something that is a challenge to all of us mortal beings.
2. I believe the second point of the book is that the more we understand and the less we judge what causes us to make good moral decisions the more inclined we are to behave in a positive way
3. The last point is that we need to work with both our “Grasshopper” (short term, instinctual, impulsive self as well as our long term, logical “Ant’ self if we are to make moral choices that show us to move toward our best character.