How Nice Are WE? Most Think They are Nicer Than They Are!

The whole racism thing, however, just leads into a larger point.

Imagine that tomorrow you run across a person in need -- say a co-worker loses everything he owns in a fire, and everybody is making donations to help him out. In your imagination, how much would you give?

Now cut that amount in half. That's how much you'd give if the situation actually presented itself.

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Which is bad if you gave him your child to help clean up.

See, no matter how much we make self-deprecating jokes or talk about how we suck and play the role of the lovable loser, experiments show that deep down, we think we are nicer and more generous than we actually are. Psychologists have long known that people tend to think they are more altruistic than the world in general, but researchers weren't sure if that was because we overestimate how great we are or because we underestimate everyone else. Hint: It's the first one.

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People are dicks except for you; you're an adorable little buttercup!

Which brings us to the hypothetical situation above. A study at Cornell found that over the course of two experiments, of the participants who said they would donate to a charity (a staggering 80 percent), only half actually did when given the chance. Those who did donate gave only half as much as they previously said they would.

But, strangely, the amount of money donated in reality was close to what the participants predicted others would contribute. In other words, we have a pretty accurate idea of how selfish the rest of the world is, but in our imaginations, we don't perceive ourselves as being members of "the world." We all picture ourselves as members of an "elite moral minority."

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"All right, homeless man, take the money -- just don't touch me!"

It wasn't just with money, either. Another study involved predicting whether subjects would take on a complex task rather than an easy one when they knew somebody else would get stuck with the task they didn't take. Most people thought, "Of course I'll do the harder task! It's only fair," but when actually presented with the task, they were far more likely to pawn it off on the other person ... even if they were told that person was a 10-year-old girl. Buckle your ass down, little Suzy!

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You'd better get on and solve that economic problem we're having!