Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things

When faced with difficult choices people are often times forced to make decisions while under pressure. When given a problem humans have the power to choose. The choice made reflects on the human's true self. Break Through! the Bible for Young Catholics, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, "Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things." by Maria Godoy, and "The Taking of Indian Lands:Perspectives of Native Americans and European Americans” all show how people react to difficult situations in both positive and negative manners. Break Through! the Bible for Young Catholics, In the book of Matthew shows the difficult decision that Joseph had to make when he found out about Mary's pregnancy. Man's Search for Meaning Focuses on

As Frankl said, “Between Stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response” (Frankl). Just because choosing becomes an option does not necessarily make it easy. Choices in life are not always as clear cut. Often, individuals have a difficult time determining the right choice. A single bad choice can lead one to believe that a person has bad intentions, although this can not always be the case. Godoy explains, “ In general, when we think of bad behavior, we think about it being tied to character:Bad people do bad things. But that model, is profoundly inadequate” (Godoy). The choices people make are not as clear as they appear from the outside looking in. This shows that when looking into the psychology of people making terrible decisions that the person often times does not realize their mistake until well after it has been made. In the article “The Taking of Indian Lands:Perspectives of Native Americans and European Americans”, “A Puritan Minister in Boston Justifies the colonists’ acquiring Indian land for little to no Payment . ‘The Indians made no use of it,’ he asserts, ‘but for hunting’”(National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox , 2). As known, how the Europeans took the Native Americans land without any repercussion deemed terrible. In many ways, all of the Europeans involved in the incident could have a “bad person” label. They faced a choice and they chose to rob the Native Americans of

This person, when dealing with a tough choice remains, “Brave, dignified, and unselfish” (Frankl). A person who makes decisions in this way are seen as empathetic and simplistically they are good people. In the Bible Joseph was said to be “A man who always did the right thing, but he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly:so he made plans to break off the engagement privately”(Break Through! the Bible for Young Catholics, Matthew 1:19). He could have easily broken off the marriage publicly, which in turn would have caused Mary to get stoned to death due to her pregnancy that happened out of wedlock. This would have been the easy option for Joseph. Instead he had the intention to break off the engagement privately because his ambitions were not selfish. He thought not only about himself and how his life could be affected but also of Mary’s. According to Godoy, “When we feel empathy toward others, we want to help them out” (Godoy). The concept of feeling empathy for other humans shows what both fraudulent Toby and the European settlers lacked when making their decision. When being empathetic towards others the person must be careful that they are not being tricked though. The way that one makes a decision about a hard choice says a lot about them and “In our response lies our growth and our freedom” (Frankl). This shows growth because if you make one bad