Why do we drive like jerks, and behave like assholes on the internet?

Some of the more seemingly sophisticated arguments for God (or some type of higher power) revolve around the mysterious nature of human morality. Dismissing evolutionary explanations for morality, some people believe that we simply cannot explain traits like altruism through the evolution of selfish motives. They believe that reciprocity is only a small part of what we like to think of as decent behavior. However, if this is the case, why do we behave like jerks when we obtain a small amount of anonymity?

To the best of my understanding, the current theory is that we evolved altruistic tendencies in response to our social environments. Just as speed, strength and agility can confer a survival advantage in a natural environment, so can altruistic behavior and honesty¹ confer a survival advantage in a social environment. In turn, the reciprocal relationship in any social environment confers a survival benefit in most natural environments. Because evolution and natural selection will operate to select for traits in any type of environment, our morality is merely a product of our evolution in our given social environment.

However, the idea of reciprocity breaks down when you become an anonymous actor. If the evolutionary theory of morality is correct, then our morality works in such a way (or at least initially involved in such a way) that we behave in certain ways towards other people in the hopes that they will return the favour. For example, we do not lie to other people in hopes that they will be truthful with us, and we do not steal from them in the hopes that they too will not steal from us. The reciprocal relationship does not even have to be symmetrical, which is why somebody might endanger themselves in order to save another person. They do not necessarily expect the same in return from the person they saved, but rather do so in the hopes that they might receive help if they were ever in need of saving. The key to this reciprocal relationship is that the people or society we are behaving kindly towards in turn must know to whom they should reciprocate. If we act in an anonymous fashion, they would not know to whom they “owe” their reciprocal action. Similarly, we would not have to fear harmful reciprocation should we do something inappropriate or harmful.

Interestingly, this matches the behavior that we see in social atmospheres when people are granted anonymity. As mentioned at the start of this post, people are (or at least perceive themselves to be) anonymous when they are in their cars, or on the internet. When in these situations, people tend to behave like jerks; and do thinks that they would never think of doing to somebody’s face. However, when you keep the environment constant, but take away the factor of anonymity – say on a social networking site like Facebook -the behavioral differences seem to vanish².

So why do we drive like jerks, and behave like assholes on the internet? Because our morality evolved in a system of reciprocity, and when placed in an anonymous environment where reciprocity becomes irrelevant, our moral instincts break down.