Many researchers have assumed that the logical choice is betrayal, since your potential outcomes, depending on what the other prisoner does, are zero or three years—less time on average than the consequences of staying silent (one or five years). Yet when faced with this problem, most laypeople make the illogical choice to remain silent. Why?

The answer, Krueger believes, is that they are employing social projection: They assume that the second prisoner will act the same way they will, and then they incorporate that assumption into the decision-making process. By that reasoning, the choice comes down to mutual betrayal (three years) or mutual cooperation (one year). Cooperation becomes the logical choice.

The mind-bending part of Krueger's theory is that participants are assuming that other people will act like them before they themselves decide how they are going to act. People don't decide on a strategy and then assume people will act similarly. Rather, they assume similarity and then act on that assumption. Krueger believes this may explain why we do many socially conscious acts, such as taking time to vote even though we know that our individual vote probably won't make a difference. The assumption that people will act like us actually influences our decision to participate.


"The result is that there are higher levels of cooperation in groups where people project their beliefs on others," says Krueger. "The collective good is a by-product of this. In this model there is no conflict between acting selfishly and acting for the public good. The latter comes from the former."

Talking off the Brown campus one evening, I ask Krueger about evil. If human reasoning has all these heretofore unknown positive aspects, how does one account for the horrors on the nightly news? Does social psychology have any hope of really understanding human misbehavior?

I'm not alone in wondering. Commenting on Krueger and Funder's paper, developmental psychologist Michael Maratsos of the University of Minnesota argues that the truly troubling revelation of Milgram's experiment was the extent of conformity and cruelty, "given how little the subjects had at stake." Throughout history, people have willingly done horrible things to avoid punishment or gain status; Maratsos cites foot binding, slavery, and recent corporate scandals as examples. Isn't it reasonable to begin studying humans, as Maratsos does, with the conclusion that people are "basically a disappointment"?

On the subject of morality, Krueger seems uncomfortable. He has talked admiringly, almost longingly, of research on vision, where issues of "good" and "bad" don't apply. No one expresses alarm when a researcher figures out a way to trick our visual perceptions. Visual misperceptions produced in the laboratory are assumed to reveal the mechanisms by which vision functions well in the real world. That isn't so with the science of human interactions.

"I'm not making the case that human behavior is wonderful and is the way it should be," Krueger says at last. "What I'm saying is that the field has been out of balance in pursuing errors and biases, and because of that we don't know as much about either the good or the bad behavior as we should. You can't understand the bad without understanding the good."

As Krueger and I walk, our attention is drawn across the street. A group of high school students is gathered at a bus stop. Suddenly there is a quick movement, some shouting, and a young man jumps up and begins running. We stand there straining to determine what is happening. Are the voices raised in distress? Is the young man running in retreat? My first thought is that I am the subject of a social psychology experiment. I glance at Krueger, then around me. Are there cameras or grad students hidden in the bushes, recording my reaction?

We walk on, but I'm slightly shaken. Should we have done something? We agree that there was nothing to do, but someone apparently thought differently: A police car soon comes by with its siren on. Over dinner, I harangue Krueger with questions. What was his impression of what we saw? How did that situation compare to the classic studies of bystander intervention? All the questions boil down to one: Did I do the right thing?

"Most things that happen to you in the world happen quickly," Krueger says.

"Fortunately, our fast and frugal reasoning tends to serve us very well in the long run. Life is an experiment without a control group. You will never know how your actions would be different had the situation been slightly different. That's why we do experiments. One thing is for certain: You can't carry all the research around and have a bird's-eye view of your

own behavior in every moment. You'd break down."

Perhaps, I suggest, there is solace, even absolution, to be gained by viewing human misbehavior in a wider context. "Yes," Krueger says. "I think the next wave of research will take us to a place of greater balance and acceptance. If we come to a more realistic and accurate self-understanding, we may be better able to forgive ourselves and others."

Of course, nothing will stop us from categorizing behavior as right, wrong, good, or evil. But understanding behavior and judging it are two different tasks; the first is scientific, the second is not. When it comes to understanding, it might be more fruitful to approach ourselves with wonderment instead of disappointment.

"I watch my kids," Krueger says, "and even when they are doing something that annoys me, I'm thinking that they are acting just the way they should, as the highly evolved mammal that they are. There is a Zen master who said something like 'Humans are perfect, but they could use a little improvement.' To the Aristotelian mind that idea would be a contradiction; it would be gibberish. To me it has great appeal."


Towards a Balanced Social Psychology: Causes, Consequences and Cures for the Problem-seeking Approach to Social Behavior and Cognition. J. I. Krueger and D. C. Funder in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Vol. 27, No. 3, pages 313–327; June 2004.