Is Your Dark Side Stronger?

Source: Irish Defence Forces/Flickr

“Is the dark side stronger?,” Luke asks.

“No, no. Easier, quicker, more seductive,” Yoda replies.

This exchange from The Empire Strikes Back seem prescient when considered alongside new evidence that it is in some way easier for us to endorse hierarchical, power-focused values than egalitarian, benevolent values. In the Star Wars perspective on good versus evil, the dark side encompasses values of power, authority, and ambition, while the light side embraces values of compassion and respect for others.

Such values are important contributors to our attitudes. In our first blog, we noted the role of attitudes in expressing values. It is easy to see this value-attitude relationship playing out in a variety of issues today, including the migrant crisis in Europe. This humanitarian crisis has some people focusing on values that involve protecting one's own group (or nation) and others on values that involve empathy for the plight of others.

If values that promote hierarchy and power are easier to endorse than more egalitarian, benevolent values, it could mean that reactions to crises like the current one are affected by how much time and energy people have to contemplate the issues. If we have little time and energy, then the easier path may entail leaning toward a protectionist, in-group-favoring point of view.

Laura van Berkel and her collaborators (2015) have obtained fascinating evidence that self-enhancing, hierarchy-promoting values are easier to endorse. Participants in several experiments were asked to complete surveys that are frequently used to measure values. These measures ask participants to rate the importance of diverse abstract ideals (e.g., equality, wealth, helpfulness) as guiding principles in their lives, and large sets of the values can be classified as being either hierarchical (e.g., power, social influence) or egalitarian (e.g., equality, helpfulness).

Prior research had shown that people tend to rate egalitarian values as more important than hierarchical values (e.g., Bardi & Schwartz, 2003). The remarkable finding in this study was that the preference for egalitarian values was significantly reduced (or, in one trial, even reversed) when participants had less time and energy to think about their responses. That is, this difference was smaller when the participants were given less time to rate the values, were made cognitively tired by a prior experimental task, or when they had a higher blood alcohol content (i.e., they were more intoxicated).

Put simply, hierarchical values were considered more important when people could not think as clearly.

Perhaps, then, we have to be wary of how fatigue, time pressure, and other depleting factors may influence our opinions. Indeed, consistent with the differences in values, participants in van Berkel’s final experiment also allocated more resources to high-status groups when under the cognitive constraints. In short, our current mental state affects which values are more important at a particular point in time; when our attitudes serve to express our values, this shift can be a vital determinant of our opinions and ensuing behavior.

Source: kurhan/Shutterstock

In reactions to situations like the humanitarian crisis in Europe, this kind of influence may make the difference between protectionist attitudes and benevolent attitudes. Of course, the speed and ease of the hierarchical mindset does not make it inherently worse, but Yoda may be right that this ease is an important source of its potency.

References

Bardi, A., & Schwartz, S. H. (2003). Values and behavior: Strength and structure of relations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(10), 1207-1220.

van Berkel, L., Crandall, C. S., Eidelman, S., & Blanchar, J. C. (2015). Hierarchy, dominance, and deliberation: Egalitarian values require mental effort. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41, 1207-1222.