Do-gooder derogation
Do-gooder derogation is a phenomenon where a person's morally motivated behavior leads to them being perceived negatively by others.
Research
Studies on meat eaters' perceptions of vegetarians indicate that meat eaters, who imagined the vegetarians morally judging them for their dietary choices, held more negative views towards vegetarians. From this, the researchers concluded that moral minorities may receive backlash for their morally motivated behavior from members of the mainstream who feel morally judged.[1]
A study on generosity in children indicated that initially children favored generous individuals, but that this preference was reduced when the child's own generosity was not as good as another child's. However, this did not hold up when the child compared their own generosity to an adult.[2]
A combination of moral and dominance personality traits in a person have been linked to an increased level of moral self-righteousness and dislike by perceivers.[3]
Research suggests that the most generous can be punished more than those less generous.[4]
References
- Minson, Julia A.; Monin, Benoît (2012-03-01). "Do-Gooder Derogation: Disparaging Morally Motivated Minorities to Defuse Anticipated Reproach". Social Psychological and Personality Science. 3 (2): 200–207. doi:10.1177/1948550611415695. ISSN 1948-5506. S2CID 13891898.
- Tasimi, Arber; Dominguez, Amy; Wynn, Karen (2015). "Do-gooder derogation in children: the social costs of generosity". Frontiers in Psychology. 6: 1036. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01036. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 4508481. PMID 26257688.
- Bai, Feng; Wu, Wei; Bao, Shiyao (2019-08-01). "Moral but Dominant: When Do-gooders Get Derogated". Academy of Management Proceedings. 2019 (1): 14563. doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2019.14563abstract. ISSN 0065-0668.
- Robson, David (2021-11-22). "Why overly kind and moral people can rub you up the wrong way". BBC. Retrieved 2021-11-22.