A major scientific study reveals that our belief in declining morality is an illusion
If you have ever felt that people today are less honest, less kind, or less decent than they used to be, you are not alone. In fact, you are in remarkably good company. The ancient Roman historian Livy complained about the declining morality of his fellow citizens more than 2,000 years ago. Generation after generation, people around the world have shared the same worry. But here is the surprising and genuinely uplifting news: a comprehensive study published in the prestigious journal Nature has found strong evidence that this widespread belief is simply not true.
The research, conducted by psychologists Adam Mastroianni of Columbia University and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University, analyzed an enormous body of data spanning seventy years and sixty countries. Their findings offer a refreshingly optimistic message for our times: people are just as kind, honest, and good as they have always been. What we experience as moral decline is, in fact, a psychological illusion that our minds naturally create.
A Universal but Unfounded Worry
The researchers examined 177 surveys of American attitudes collected between 1949 and 2019, involving over 220,000 participants. They also analyzed data from 59 other countries. The pattern was remarkably consistent: in every nation studied, the majority of people believed that morality was declining. In surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center across 40 nations, people in every country reported that moral decline was at least a moderate problem.
But here is where the story becomes truly encouraging. When the researchers examined what people reported about their contemporaries’ behavior over the decades, they found something remarkable: those reports had not declined at all. When people in 1970 were asked how helpful, honest, and trustworthy others were, their responses were essentially the same as those reported in 2020. If morality had truly been declining year after year, we would expect these assessments to have dropped steadily over time. They did not.
Why Our Minds Play This Trick on Us
Understanding why we perceive moral decline when none exists is itself good news, because it means we can recognize this bias and correct for it. The researchers propose a straightforward explanation based on two well-established features of human psychology.
First, we are naturally drawn to negative information about strangers. News media, social media, and everyday gossip tend to emphasize bad behavior over good behavior. This makes the present seem darker than it really is. Second, our memories work in our favor regarding the past. Negative experiences tend to fade from memory more quickly than positive ones, and even negative memories often lose their emotional salience over time. This makes the past seem rosier than it really was.
When you combine these two tendencies, the present looks like a moral wasteland while the past looks like a wonderland. We conclude that conditions have worsened.
The People We Know Best Tell a Different Story
Perhaps the most heartening finding from this research involves the people closest to us. When participants were asked about the morality of people in their personal lives rather than people in general, the pattern reversed. People believed that their friends, family members, and colleagues had actually become more moral over time, not less.
This makes perfect sense. We have direct, ongoing experience with the people in our lives. We see their everyday acts of kindness, their struggles to do the right thing, and their growth as human beings. Our perceptions of these people are not filtered through sensationalized news stories or half-remembered anecdotes. When we judge the people we actually know, we see the truth: human beings are fundamentally decent, and they remain so.
The Real State of Human Kindness
Other research supports this optimistic picture. Studies examining cooperation in experimental games have found that people have actually become more cooperative over the past several decades, not less. And when we look at the historical record of extreme behaviors like violence and exploitation, the evidence compiled by researchers such as Steven Pinker shows dramatic improvements over centuries. Modern humans treat each other far better than our ancestors did.
The everyday kindnesses that make up the fabric of social life have remained stable. People still offer directions to lost strangers, help neighbors with their groceries, and treat each other with basic respect. They do so at the same rates as their parents and grandparents.
What This Means for You
This research carries a genuinely hopeful message. The next time you find yourself thinking that people have become more selfish or dishonest, remember that this feeling is almost certainly an illusion. The stranger on the street is just as likely to help you as strangers were fifty years ago. Your new neighbors are just as trustworthy as neighbors have always been.
Other research has shown that people consistently underestimate how willing strangers are to help them. We avoid asking for assistance because we assume others will refuse or resent the request. In reality, people are generally happy to help. Recognizing the illusion of moral decline might help us feel more comfortable reaching out to others and depending on the kindness of strangers.
Humanity has its problems, certainly. But a fundamental breakdown in human decency is not among them. People are good. They have always been good. Despite what our biased minds might suggest, they remain good today.
Reference: Mastroianni AM, Gilbert DT. The illusion of moral decline. Nature. 2023 Jun;618(7966):782-789.
