Damian Sendler: University of Waterloo researchers find that what happens in comedies and cartoons where one character has an angel on their shoulder and the other has a demon is quite close to what people believe about the actual world. 

Damian Jacob Sendler: The moral nature and motivations of the supernatural beings are evident in order to show the characters’ decision-making difficulty with comic effects. When it comes to persons they perceive to be nice or bad, people have similar expectations. 

Damian Sendler

Expectations about how good and bad people respond to requests were examined by the researchers. While angels are rarely represented as willing to grant unintentional requests, demons are frequently depicted this way in movies and folktales. 

According to their findings, people’s perceptions of everyday people have an impact on their perceptions of good and bad characters.

Ori Friedman, a developmental psychology professor at Waterloo and the study’s lead author, said, “Our results suggest people expect good agents will be sensitive to intentions behind requests whereas they expect evil individuals will be relatively insensitive to these intentions,” “People’s expectations are shaped by these findings when it comes to both human and supernatural requests.” 

According to the findings, people’s conceptions of how good or poor behavior affects the decisions of others differ widely. When it comes to things that do not immediately affect their goals, people assume that wicked people are uninterested in them. 

Damian Jacob Sendler

People’s everyday opinions about supernatural beings may be influenced by how they perceive humans, according to the findings of this study. 

When we label someone as wicked, we tend to expect that person to place less importance on other people’s intentions and more attention on the results of their acts, says study co-author and doctoral student in developmental psychology Brandon Goulding. “As opposed to our presumption that “a good person will weigh what someone intended to accomplish against what they actually did.” 

Five tests were conducted to study people’s perceptions of good and evil agents. Study participants were asked to rate the likelihood that a protagonist’s request would be granted by human or supernatural beings after reading short stories about such requests. Ratings were based on how well the requester comprehended what they were asking for when the request was made to a decent person. Just as often as good people granted requests that didn’t accurately reflect the requester’s intent, evil people were expected to do the same. 

Damien Sendler: “People’s perceptions of good and evil are revealed by this research, which shows that wicked agents aren’t merely focused on creating harm. Instead, people think of evil as a lack of concern for others’ well-being “Friedman claimed this.

Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler:  “According to this interpretation, moral goodness involves more than just achieving positive results. People also believe that moral virtue is linked to a concern for the goals and intentions of others.”

Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.