How Do We See Others?

It could be because it's beneficial for well-being and cooperation, but it could just be how we think about everything. We have a tendency to reflect on a thing's positive traits; this is called

A belief in the morally good self can give a person hope to keep trying in poor circumstances.

Alternatively, it could be fuel for a kind of existential crisis if your life doesn’t match up to your “true self.” 

More pressure to "be yourself" or "find yourself" can add to that stress—...

If having a morally good true self is core to our identity, then acting immorally isn’t just doing the wrong thing—it threatens our sense of identity and causes a lot of distress. 

In response, some people might respond to the distress by denying that they're acting immorally and getting de...

The true self is what people believe is their essence. It's the core of what makes you you; if it was taken away, you would no longer be you anymore. People believe that their true self is the parts of them that are

A study found that when subjects were asked to think about criminal offenders, people were more willing to say that a person’s true self is morally bad. 

The more people think that a person’s true self is morally bad, the more they support retributive punishment. The idea that the true self...

Though we all believe in a morally good true self, our definition of what's moral varies—and we define the “morally good” part of our true selves based on our own values. 

Even when we strongly disagree with someone, it doesn't necessarily conflict with a belief in the true self, since the ...

We can start with the idea that people “have some essential drive to be morally good, while emphasizing that work needs to be done to realize that with some reliability in practice.”

Acknowledging our belief in a good true self can be a way to appreciate our capacity for goodness. Then, we ...