PAWcast: Adam Mastroianni ’14 on the Illusion of Moral Decline

Princeton Alumni Weekly Podcasts

Today I am very pleased to tell you: I have good news. Morality is not actually declining in our country or anywhere else. The widespread belief that morality is declining is an illusion. That’s the conclusion Adam Mastroianni ’14 reached in a study recently published in the journal Nature. With Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert *85, Mastroianni found it just isn’t true that people overall are less kind, honest, and respectful than they used to be. So why do we believe it? On the PAWcast, Mastroianni explained the psychological effects behind this phenomenon, and the danger we flirt with when we allow this belief to take hold.