Study of “moral grandstanding” helps explain why social media is so toxic
This study seems like it was designed to reach the specific conclusion that it did, based on the way that it defined &quot;moral grandstanding.&quot; Here are some questions they asked to measure it:<p>13. When I share my moral&#x2F;political beliefs, I do so to show people who disagree with me that I am better than them.<p>14. I share my moral&#x2F;political beliefs to make people who disagree with me feel bad<p>28. Even if expressing my moral&#x2F;political views does not help anyone, it is important that I share them.<p>…and lo and behold, they found that people who answered &quot;yes&quot; to those questions were also more narcissistic and more concerned with appearance than substance. Ok. Well, that&#x27;s not really surprising. But it tells us nothing about how prevelent these motivations are compared to genuine concern for the issues at hand.<p>I&#x27;m quite sure Hacker News would have ripped into this sort of study if it weren&#x27;t promoting the &quot;politics is sports&quot; narrative that this community is so fond of, which is sort of ironic given how the study specifically talks about &quot;echo chambers.&quot;