We are more interested in the immoral and amoral than in the normies

Wylie, Jordan, and Ana P. Gantman. 2022. “People Are Curious About Immoral and Morally Ambiguous Others.” PsyArXiv. May 30. doi:10.31234/osf.io/zmcta

Abstract: Looking to the popularity of superheroes, true crime stories, and anti-heroic characters like Tony Soprano, we investigated whether people are curious for moral extremity, especially moral badness. Across five experiments (N = 2,284), we examine moral curiosity, testing under what conditions moral minds spark information-seeking. In Experiment 1, we find that among the most widely watched Netflix shows over a five-month period, the more immoral the protagonist, the more hours people spent watching. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we find that when given a choice to learn more about morally good, bad, ambiguous, or average others, people preferred to learn more about morally extreme, both good and bad. Experiment 3 reveals that people are more curious about explanations for morally bad and ambiguous people compared to morally good ones. Finally, Experiment 4 tests the uniqueness of curiosity for moral ambiguity. We find that people are more drawn to moral rather than aesthetic ambiguity, suggesting that ambiguity, which is cognitively taxing and sometimes avoided, piques curiosity in the moral domain. These findings suggest that deviations from moral normativity, especially badness, spur curiosity. People are often curious about the morally corrupt; villains and antiheroes alike prompt engagement rather than avoidance.