{"id":1491,"date":"2012-12-03T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2012-12-02T16:40:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T21:40:58","slug":"the-seven-paradoxes-of-heroism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/2012\/12\/03\/the-seven-paradoxes-of-heroism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seven Paradoxes of Heroism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our research on the subject of heroism, we\u2019ve been surprised at times about the ways in which people choose and maintain their heroes.\u00a0 Here we present these surprises to you in the form of seven paradoxes.\u00a0 Maybe these paradoxes don\u2019t strike you as surprising at all, but to us they reveal an unexpected psychological richness about the hero concept.<\/p>\n

Paradox 1:\u00a0 The truest heroes are fictional heroes.\u00a0 <\/strong>When we\u2019ve asked people to list their heroes, a third of the heroes listed were the products of someone else\u2019s imagination.\u00a0 In fact, many people listed only<\/em> fictional characters as their heroes.\u00a0 When we asked one respondent to explain why he listed only fictional heroes, his reply was very revealing:\u00a0 \u201cThe only real heroes are fictional heroes.\u201d\u00a0 This mindset prompted us to conduct a study in which participants were asked to rate the overall \u201cgoodness\u201d of a group of randomly selected heroes and villains. We found that fictional heroes and villains were rated as more definitely good or bad than their real-world counterparts. Fictional heroes are indeed \u201ctruer\u201d heroes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paradox 2: \u00a0We all agree what a hero is, but we disagree who heroes are.<\/strong>\u00a0 Our research has shown that most people agree that heroes are supremely moral, supremely competent, or both.\u00a0 But people rarely share the same heroes. \"\"<\/a>Thus people who agree about the definition of heroes often vehemently disagree about specific choices of heroes.\u00a0 A telling example occurred when a colleague of ours loved our definition of heroes, agreed with our philosophy that \u201cheroism is in the eye of the beholder\u201d, but then fervently questioned our decision to include actress Meryl Streep as an example of a hero.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter that we pointed to the fact that some of our survey respondents listed Streep as their hero.\u00a0 What was most important to our colleague was that Streep simply didn\u2019t appear on her own personal list of hero exemplars.<\/p>\n

Paradox 3: \u00a0The most abundant heroes are also the most invisible.\u00a0 <\/strong>An important type of hero is called the Transparent Hero<\/em><\/a>, who does his or her heroic work behind the scenes, outside the public spotlight.\u00a0 Transparent heroes include teachers, coaches, mentors, healthcare workers, law enforcement personnel, firefighters, and our military personnel.\u00a0 People judge the transparent hero<\/em> as the most abundant in society, by far.\u00a0 Transparent heroes are everywhere.\u00a0 Yet they largely go unnoticed and are our most unsung heroes.<\/p>\n

Paradox 4: \u00a0The worst of human nature brings out the best of human nature. <\/strong>This paradox probably needs little explanation. Human-caused catastrophes such as the holocaust, the September 11th<\/sup> attacks, and the Virginia Tech shooting tragedy were fertile soil from which great acts of heroism blossomed.\u00a0 One year ago exactly, when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords<\/a> was shot outside a supermarket in Arizona, heroes stepped forward to protect Giffords from further harm and to prevent the gunman from targeting others.\u00a0 Stories of such heroism abound.\u00a0 Villainy always begets heroism.<\/p>\n

Paradox 5: \u00a0We don\u2019t choose our heroes; they choose us.\u00a0 <\/strong>There is considerable research evidence supporting the idea of inherited cognitive capacities that interact with experience to produce the ways that people think and construct their worlds. To us, the idea of inherited, universal hero narrative structures that provide a ready basis for adopting heroes seems quite plausible. Our minds may equipped with images of the looks, traits, and behavior of heroes, as well as the narrative structure of heroism as outlined in Joseph Campbell\u2019s<\/a> (1949) hero monomyth.\u00a0 These archetypes may prepare us for seeing and identifying heroes. Thus our heroes may choose us as much as we choose them.<\/p>\n

Paradox 6: \u00a0We love to build up our heroes and we also love to destroy them. <\/strong>\u00a0Our research shows that people are captivated by dramatic tales of underdogs who heroically prevail against the odds.\u00a0 Hero construction is inspiring and offers hope to all of us.\u00a0 But the reverse is also true: people also appear to crave the undoing of heroes.\u00a0 In fact, we suspect that this type of schadenfreude<\/em> is heightened in hero-perception.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>Our studies show that our greatest heroes cannot get away with anything less than near-perfect moral behavior.\u00a0 For this reason, many heroes are bound to fall from grace.\u00a0 People appear to believe in, and relish, a perverse law of heroic gravity:\u00a0 What goes up must come down.<\/p>\n

Paradox 7:\u00a0 We love heroes the most when they\u2019re gone.<\/strong>\u00a0 Many studies we\u2019ve conducted point to a rather morbid conclusion:\u00a0 As much as we love our heroes when they are around, we love them even more when they\u2019re dead. We call this phenomenon the death positivity bias<\/em>. This bias is seen in the factors that determine the perceived greatness of U.S. Presidents. Getting assassinated truly helps a president gain stature as a great leader. The greatest of our heroes must die to achieve their greatness.<\/p>\n

– –<\/p>\n

What accounts for these seven paradoxes?\u00a0 For us, the concept of heroism has proven to be slippery, mysterious, and surprising. To understand the paradoxes, we introduce the term intuitive heroism,<\/em> which refers to people\u2019s na\u00efve beliefs about the way heroism operates.\u00a0 Intuitive heroism is similar to intuitive psychology or intuitive physics: What we think isn\u2019t necessary so.\u00a0 Our na\u00efve beliefs may lead us to underestimate the idiosyncratic nature of people\u2019s hero choices. Intuitive heroism can make us oblivious to the impact of death in promoting heroism, and it can make us blind to our desire to see heroes fall as much as our desire to see them rise.<\/p>\n

It is the misleading nature of intuitive heroism that has prompted us to undertake a more scientific approach toward understanding heroes.\u00a0 We invite you to learn more about these paradoxes at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology website<\/a>.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been delighted by all the surprising findings in our studies of heroism, and we look forward to uncovering \u2013 and understanding \u2013 many more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2011). Heroes: What they do & why we need them<\/em>.\u00a0 New York: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n

Allison, S. T., Eylon, D., Beggan, J.K., & Bachelder, J. (2009).\u00a0 The demise of leadership: Positivity and negativity in evaluations of dead leaders.\u00a0 The Leadership Quarterly<\/em>, 20<\/em>, 115-129.<\/p>\n

Carruthers, P., Laurence, S., & Stich, S. (2005). The innate mind: Structure and contents<\/em>.\u00a0 New York:\u00a0 Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n

Cialdini, R. B., Borden, R. J., Thorne, A., Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L. R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34,<\/em> 366-375.<\/p>\n

Dehaene, S. (1997, October 27, 1997). What Are Numbers, Really? A Cerebral Basis For Number Sense<\/em>.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/www.edge.org\/3rd_culture\/dehaene\/dehaene_p2.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Dunning, D. (2011). He turned toward the gunfire. Personality and Social Psychology Connections. Retrieved from http:\/\/spsptalks.wordpress.com\/2011\/08\/23\/he-turned-toward-the-gunfire\/<\/p>\n

Goethals, G. R., & Allison, S. T. (2012). Making heroes: The construction of courage, competence, and virtue.\u00a0 Advances in Experimental Social Psychology<\/em>, 46, 183-235.<\/p>\n

Jung, C. G. (1917).\u00a0 The psychology of unconscious processes.\u00a0 <\/em>In Long, C. (Ed.), Collected papers on analytical psychology<\/em>.\u00a0 London: Bailliere, Tindall, & Cox.<\/p>\n

Jung, C. G. (1969).\u00a0 Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 1):\u00a0 Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious.\u00a0 <\/em>Princeton, NJ:\u00a0 Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n

Pinker, S. (1991).\u00a0 Rules of language.\u00a0 Science, 253,<\/cite> 530-535.<\/p>\n

Simonton, D. K. (1994). Greatness: Who makes history and why<\/em>. New York: Guilford Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals In our research on the subject of heroism, we\u2019ve been surprised at times about the ways in which people choose and maintain their heroes.\u00a0 Here we present these surprises to you in the form of seven paradoxes.\u00a0 Maybe these paradoxes don\u2019t strike you as surprising at all, … Continue reading The Seven Paradoxes of Heroism<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5444],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-and-analysis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phawtM-o3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}