On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

But, how do you determine a person's character?

We think we know.

We "characterize" people all the time - nice, trustworthy, honest...

Or, not.

But, sometimes people we think are nice, trustworthy, and honest do something completely unexpected and we say, shocked, that it was so "out of character".

Examples include, (but are obviously not limited to):

• Tiger Woods
• Elliot Spitzer
• Mark Sanford (the very married governor of South Carolina who claimed to be hiking the the Appalachian Trail, but was actually in South America with his "soul mate")
• Lisa Nowak (the also very married NASA astronaut, who drove across the country - wearing a diaper! - to confront the woman who had "stolen" her boyfriend).

Were these people (and those like them) just acting "out of character", or had everyone misjudged them?

I wondered.

So, I recently read the book Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us, written by psychologists David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo.

The answer was enlightening.

And, terrifying!

Basically, according to this book, a person's character (Tiger's, Elliot's, mine, YOUR'S!), is constantly shifting along a continuum between short-term and long-term gains (almost like having an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other).

Factor in the sub-conscious, evolution, and environmental factors, and we're all pretty much capable of anything.

That being said, reading this book made me realize that I really can't judge anyone, because it's impossible to say what I would do given those exact set of circumstances.

This book also made me aware of the various forces that influence our decisions, and will (hopefully) help me make better ones in the future (help I desperately need!).