First impressions are often made by people on those whom they first meet. Usually that means a person's character would be the first that people will see more than anything else. A person's character is more likely noticed than his actions.
People will look at a person's act based on what his character is. This has been the result of a study made by a group of researchers. Co-author Hanah Chapman from Brooklyn College has said that people find a behavior to be disgusting based on a person's character. People will find a person with bad character to have bad actions as well.
The study has been made in order to look into the two most predominant reactions people have towards bad actions. These reactions are anger and disgust. The previous work made by the study's first author, Roger Giner-Sorolla from the University of Kent has found that disgust will come from violating taboos. However, anger will be felt more when people violate rights. There are times though that people will show disgust when a person's rights are violated.
Sorolla and Chapman collaborated to make an online study that involved 87 participants, according to the Association for Psychological Science's site. The participants were made to read and evaluate two scenarios. In both scenarios, a man finds out that his girlfriend cheated on him. The first one has the man beating his girlfriend, while in the other the man beats his girlfriend's cat.
The study has found that most people don't find it morally wrong to have the man beat the cat. However, most people find the man to have a morally flawed character for beating the cat, as Science Daily reports. The study has also found that people's reaction to a morally flawed character to be one of disgust rather than anger.
The study has shown that people will react with disgust to a person who has a bad character than getting angry. Overall, the study shows that a person's character is more likely to be noticed than his actions. In another study, it has been shown that runners tend to think like musicians.
