Darkness increases dishonest behaviour
Monday, March 15, 2010 - 09:49
in Psychology & Sociology
Darkness can conceal identity and encourage moral transgressions; thus Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 'Worship' in The Conduct of Life (1860), 'as gaslight is the best nocturnal police, so the universe protects itself by pitiless publicity.' New research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that darkness may also induce a psychological feeling of illusory anonymity, just as children playing 'hide and seek' will close their eyes and believe that other cannot see them, the experience of darkness, even one as subtle as wearing a pair of sunglasses, triggers the belief that we are warded from others' attention and inspections...