Yale study: Jerks will be jerks, but nice people can become jerks too But nice people can become selfish

NEW HAVEN >> There are those of us who are basically nice folks, who will do the right thing without thinking about it, even if it’s not in our self-interest.

If we do think about it, though, we may change our minds and act more selfishly.

Then there are the selfish jerks among us, who don’t need to think about things to act like the jerks they are. And if they consider the consequences of their actions, they’ll keep acting like jerks. They won’t suddenly turn altruistic.

While those conclusions may be disheartening, they’re the result of a study by Yale University psychologists, using a mathematical model and game theory to determine how real people behave.

“Deliberating can only lead a nice person to become selfish sometimes, but it can never lead a selfish person to become nice,” said Adam Bear, a doctoral student in psychology at Yale University who developed the model with David Rand, professor of psychology, economics and management at Yale.

“There’s an asymmetry in what stopping to think can do,” Bear said. “Stopping to think can never lead a mean person to become nice. It can only lead to a nice person becoming mean.”

“The root of being nice is an intuitive desire to help people, not a cold, calculating understanding of morality,” said Rand.

While most of us might not think we are cold and calculating, when nice people think about what they’re about to do, they’ll sometimes change their mind.

“When you make people think more carefully about cooperative decisions, it often makes them more selfish,” Rand said.

“Much of the time, future consequences exist for your behavior,” he said. “In some situations, helping them is going to come back around to help you in the future.”

But if you don’t see anything in it for you, you might very well decide not to help out.

On the other hand, if you’re the type who doesn’t like to help out anyway and you refuse a favor right off the bat, thinking about it is not going to make you change your mind, Rand said. That’s because “the same scenarios that breed intuitive selfishness are precisely the kind of environments where it’s not worth the effort to cooperate,” he said.

So, meanies will always be mean, but nice people can turn mean too. “It seems surprising and that’s why this is cool,” Rand said.

Call Ed Stannard at 203-680-9382.