Why harming others makes us feel so bad

​Why do people do things that harm others?

Socially harmful behaviours, like discrimination and hate speech, are still common in modern society. But where do these behaviours come from?

According to self-determination theory, pro-social behaviours (like tolerance and fairness) come from within, because we have a personal desire to engage in them.  In contrast, harmful acts are normally motivated by an external source, such as social pressure to conform.

​For example, school bullying may be encouraged by those classmates that intimidate other students. In order to avoid being bullied, and also to become close to the popular children in school, some kids may also start bullying others.

Bullying can be promoted by toxic social norms. Image: Wikimedia

To summarise, helping other people gives us real pleasure and enjoyment, while harming others only brings recognition from others and helps achieve our goals.

Even though discrimination is not truly motivated by our own values and beliefs, from this perspective, is it possible that harmful behaviour can become a part of our identity and represent who we really are?

Discrimination can be a consequence of social norms

One cause of discrimination are the social norms associated with the groups we belong to.

In an attempt to fit into society, we follow the norms of our own groups. These norms, however, are not always oriented to benefitting the interests of people in other groups.

For example, an organisation with racist norms that dictate choosing job candidates that belong to the Caucasian ethnic group rather than choosing based on qualifications, will motivate the recruiter to follow these norms and to discriminate against certain ethnic groups.  

We may follow discriminatory norms in order to feel we fit in with our group, or that doing so promotes our group’s values or goals.

When a behaviour is considered normal in groups we belong to, but is actually inconsistent with what we personally believe in, this creates a sense of conflict within our identity.

Compartmentalisation helps us deal with inner conflict

This feeling of contradiction between our values and our situation reflects an underlying resistance to engage in harmful actions.

For example, a recruiter who personally believes that job candidates should be hired based on their merit will feel an internal conflict when following the firm’s discriminatory norm.

In response to inner conflict, we tend to separate the harmful (e.g., discriminatory) behaviour from other life situations and contexts.  This is called compartmentalisation.

Going back to the example where Caucasian candidates are preferred when hiring, this would mean that the conflicted recruiter would restrict ethnic discrimination behaviour only to work situations and would not generalise it to other life contexts.

By using this compartmentalisation strategy, the harmful social behaviour is restricted to a particular life context and does not become representative of the entire person. From the self-determination perspective, compartmentalisation also protects one’s identity from negative evaluation.

People do not enjoy discriminating against others

Many people want to believe that human nature is inherently good, and that no one would willingly harm others and feel good about themselves. The results of our studies confirm that people who discriminate do not necessarily enjoy their actions harming others.  Rather, they are more likely to feel an internal conflict when discriminating.

On this positive note, we conclude that harmful behaviors are somewhat more difficult to accept as a part of who we are. Although specific life situations may sometimes dictate discriminatory actions, they generally bring less pleasure and enjoyment. Instead, causing harm to others evokes feelings of internal conflict and dissociation, which the majority of us will try to minimise.

- Guest post by Ksenia Sukhanova and Catherine Amiot, Université du Québec à Montréal

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Read full article:
Amiot, C. E., Louis, W. R., Bourdeau, S., & Maalouf, O. (2017). Can harmful intergroup behaviors truly represent the self?: The impact of harmful and prosocial normative behaviors on intra-individual conflict and compartmentalization. Self and Identity, 1-29.