if you want to save the world, be disagreeable

Posted on: Tue, 07/01/2014 - 12:46 By: Tom Swiss

Those of us who always got "needs improvement" on "works well with others" on our report cards, are less likely to work well with others to implement authoritarian violations of human rights. If you want to save the world, be disagreeable.

Are Polite People More Violent and Destructive?

Now a new study using a variation of Milgram’s experiments shows that people with more agreeable, conscientious personalities are more likely to make harmful choices. In these new obedience experiments, people with more social graces were the ones who complied with the experimenter’s wishes and delivered electric shocks they believed could harm an innocent person. By contrast, people with more contrarian, less agreeable personalities were more likely to refuse to hurt other people when told to do so.

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...It turns out that people holding left-wing political views were less willing to comply with demands to inflict suffering. A third group was also more likely to go against the grain and refuse destructive orders—women who had previously participated in rebellious political activism such as strikes or occupying a factory.