The power of socialization and conditioning exceeds personality traits.

Why good people do bad things.

There are many models of personality and social dynamics to explain human behavior. In psychiatry some of us use what is referred to as the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. While each of these domains: the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual are important, no one alone is usually sufficient to explain motivating causes for behavior. While individual factors are important, social psychological research such as the Asch and Milgram experiments have shown that social factors often overshadow individual factors. Social pressures explain why good people do bad things.

In our individualistic culture little attention is paid to the power of socialization and conditioning on groups of people. These forces for most people operate at an unconscious level and seem to the person questioned about them as "normal" or "just how things are." It is the rare person who is mature enough to have a mind of their own, stand on their own two feet, and take responsibility for their own behavior in spite of the group norms and attitudes or the expectations of authority figures.

So, it is interesting to study how group dynamics are created, operate, are sustained, and change. This study of group dynamics involves "metacognition" which means thinking about how we think and believe. The simplest way to get to this question is to ask a person, "What makes you tick?" Most people can't tell you. They get scared and defensive and some will say things like, "Well, I don't know. That's the way I was raised," or "doesn't everyone think/believe that?" 

One of the first skills of spiritual intelligence is understanding the factors that have contributed to and maintain our own worldview. As Cindy Wigglesworth states it in her book, SQ21: Twenty One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, " Do you feel that you can explain to others the impacts of your culture, your upbringing, and your mental assumptions on how you interpret the world around you?" Low, Medium, High.

People who get caught up in social movements, conspiracy theories, cults usually don't have enough self awareness to know that they have been brainwashed. So to what extent do they have free will and are able to function with responsible agency?

Personality models explain some of individual behavior but they may be limiting at explaining the broader social forces at work in group behavior.

Why do good people do bad things? Because of social pressures and the expectations of authority figures who can punish and reward them. Few people have the maturity to function based on their own reason and moral understandings.

One of the models that describes the human capacity for agency is spiritual intelligence. Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to function with wisdom and compassion, while experiencing inner and outer peace, regardless of the situation. This capacity is based on high levels of self awareness and understanding of oneself and relations with the world one inhabits.

Spiritual intelligence can be thought of as low, moderate, and high. How would you rate the spiritual intelligence of yourself and other people you observe?