Why did Tom give up his seat on the bus to someone frail and elderly? Perhaps only to impress his girlfriend, perhaps rather to be considerate, out of concern for the elder's welfare. Or maybe it was just a random act, entirely out of character, and due only to his being in a good mood. Alternatively, it might be quite in character for him to act that way. Kindness may be one of his character traits, manifest in that act.

Or so one might think without a second thought. Such reasoning seems typical of how we constantly try to understand people's conduct. Based on a body of troubling results in social psychology, however, an intriguing critique has been pressed against such character trait attributions. Here we shall review the most striking, best known results, and the arguments based on them.

The Attack Presented

The Milgram Experiments

In the early sixties, experiments conducted by the psychologist Stanley Milgram at Yale University had disturbing results (Milgram 1963, 1974). In multiple replications, moreover, the results have held up with impressive consistency. Milgram's experimental subjects believe themselves to be participating in a study of the effects of punishment on learning, and to be playing the role of “teachers” in that study. Here is the scenario. The experimental subjects are expected to administer electric shocks to “learners” (who are in fact Milgram confederates). In one version, the teacher/subject sees the learner/confederate strapped down to an electric chair in a separate room.