Darkness begets dishonesty, study finds.
Dim lights can make it seem as if no one is watching, triggering moral transgressions in many people, a new study suggests.
Past research has shown that when people are concealed from view by others, say when they are wearing hoods, these individuals will be more likely to commit criminal acts and other bad behaviors.
But what about times when we’re not actually anonymous – people can see us – yet we feel like we’re hidden? The researchers of the new study describe it as the adult version of hide-and-seek: Kids often believe no one can see them when they cover their eyes even though they are hiding in plain sight. Turns out, a dark room can have a similar psychological effect on adults.
So does it follow that women who don’t cover are likely to be more honest and have fewer moral transgressions than those who do?
thabet, 
aziz, and 5 others are discussing. 
plimfix 12:39 am on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Al-Hafiz
How many heed the enormity
of the crime of
worldly conformity?
johnpi 8:25 am on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thabet:
and
Ignoring the implications, or ignoring discussing the implications, is bad for my iman, the kind of thing that at least has the appearance of credibly challenging orthodoxy, and which rattles around in my head and becomes a much bigger blockage than it should. The more I try to ignore something, the more power it seems to have over me…
And of course this isn’t just a question for Muslims: Nuns who wear a habit and orthodox Jewish women cover too…
And overthrowing one reason to cover doesn’t undo any other reasons someone might choose to cover: “Clothes made the man…a religious habit derives from the same motivation: to publicly show membership in a certain group. “
thabet 1:39 am on March 3, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Not a good idea to base your arguments on me =)
abunoor 10:12 am on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
John,
This is one of the more bizarrely silly posts I’ve read. I thought of engaging it to show why it is so silly, but that would be giving it too much credibility.
johnpi 1:25 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I knew this was smackdown material when I posted it, but it is important all the same. There are two questions I’m raising here, and I probably bouched this post by mixing them:
1) The relationship of science and new information to the deen.
2) How do you address information that comes to new converts that challenges Islamic practices or doctrine? When I was a new convert this is the kind of thing I would have a huge question that I wanted to engage with people of Islamic knowledge, but the question seemed so big and threatening and insulting in a way that I refrained from asking it. And as I said, the unasked question, the suppressed doubt weighs on the mind, and the lack of input and engagement causes it to loom large.
A convert may have a question that is silly, that is bizarre, that is completely lacking in credibility, but that doesn’t mean the appropriate response is to attempt to ridicule it away. It satisifies you personally, but it doesn’t satisfy the convert or the seekers needs.
Abu Noor, if you would like to recover me to orthodoxy, you should take the question seriously… think of this as a question at the dawah table. How do you respond?
And Aziz, really, is that what you say to new or recent converts when they come to you with questions that seem silly, bizaare, etc: F$%ktard, F$%k off, etc.
I’m beyond being called a ‘recent convert’ but I recall the experience of reading or taking in contrary or challenging information and then having no one to really process it with because the level of obvious disdain or hostility was so high – and how that lack of engagement caused something that might have otherwise been easily processed to take on distorted significance – a process I’m painfully repeating in this thread by making a bigger deal out of this than it merits, but I think there is value to the community and to dawah efforts to advocate not walling off questions from people who are otherwise trying to draw closer to the religion…
johnpi 1:36 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Willow, I think you’ve gotten at what I’m trying to illustrate better than the others: How the lack of engagement and context, the isolation of facts and assertions that do exist as being outside the realm of acceptable dialogue, can lead to the problems you describe.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 2:19 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
John, I have to be honest I understand you to be a serious and sincere person but I find it hard to believe that this would be a sincere questioner: “I don’t get this hijab thing because it’s “scientifically proven” that people are more dishonest in the dark or when nobobdy knows them”
And it is actually best not to engage people who seem to be insincere in their questions. Or if it someone like you who I perceive to be sincere about something but they have latched onto a bizarre distorted example it is easiest to simply show them how wrong they are about the example, but that is not going to do anything for whatever the bigger concern is.
So, yes, I could tell you above what Aziz and Willow have already pointed out that far from making people “anonymous” wearing hijab at least in a non-Muslim country is more likely to make people watch you and remember you. Many of us who are “visibly Muslim” notice that it affects our behavior in that we know that people who associate however we act with Islam. Of course, most importantly if a person is sincerely covering out of taqwa due to the commandment of her Lord, then her hijab is a good indication that she is aware that Allah (swt) is always watching and this is more effective than knowing that people are watching in preventing vice or dishonesty.
But of course none of that discussion would address the real problem, which is that someone who would latch onto that study and somehow think that it raises questions about hijab, has absolutely no confidence that the Qur’an and Sunnah are actually from God and that God’s guidance is the best guidance for the human. Discussing a specific fiqh ruling and trying to convince someone on grounds other than the sources of revelation of its truth will not remove such doubts from the one who has them. Of course you are right to note that simply dismissing the person or their concerns or treating them with disdain will not remove the doubts either.
I understand that all people often benefit from someone just listening to their concerns, whatever they might be, and being sympathetic to them. In my experience most people don’t even care too much how you answer the question that they are “asking” nor are they likely to be “convinced” by your answer. The best you can hope is that they feel closer to you for having shared something with you and that you don’t say anything to explicitly turn them off.
I worry however that in some cases sympathetic listening to certain complaints does reinforce bad, incorrect,or unhealthy habits of thinking. So I would be hesitant to engage your discussion as you tried to initiate it above just as I would be turned off if I saw some Muslim arguing, ‘this study proves that hijab is right’. It may seem to give some people comfort in the short run but in the long run it is a very superficial.
I don’t know….I’m sure in person I could explain to you more what I’m getting at John but right now I’m worried how much of what I’m trying to say will be communicated here……
aziz 8:08 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
And Aziz, really, is that what you say to new or recent converts when they come to you with questions that seem silly, bizaare, etc: F$%ktard, F$%k off, etc.
Im not clear on what my response has to do with converts… my comment was that the research in the article you cited, which suggests that teh perception of anonymity increases unethical behavior, is analogous to the behavior of people online, as perfectly and brilliantly described by Penny Arcade.
I am aghast that you could interpret my comment in any other way, and very confused as to what it has to do with conversion, but I do sincerely apologize for not being as clear as I thought I was.
I really dont see the relevance of the study to hijab at all, whether it be a muslim argujng in its favor or a non-muslim arguing against it. What does a hijab have to do with darkness? Or anonymity?
True, a niqab (as opposed to hijab) obscures identity, but that is a different dyamic because its purpose – regardless of whether the garment is worn by choice or by imposition – is to render the bearer invisible, to exclude them. The anonymity in the study you linked, and the Greater F$%kwad Theory, is a self-aggrandizing sort of anonymity which strips away the ethical substrate but puts the person on center stage.
aziz 8:10 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
2) How do you address information that comes to new converts that challenges Islamic practices or doctrine?
great question, one which the example given really doesnt serve very well. Maybe we can restart the debate in a new thread without th ebaggage? A far better example would be to reconcile scientific evolution and creationism. I personally believe in both. And there are aspects that do ddirectly contradict; I have my strategy for dealing with this and I am happy to discuss it. But in the context of the currentthread, it seems out of place.
Willow 10:54 am on March 3, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
John there certainly is plenty of scientific knowledge that would seem to challenge traditional interpretations of religion–Islam is not unique in this regard–but of all the points you could choose to bring up this is possibly the most frivolous. Darkness begets violence? Really? And from this you make a running leap to hijab, which covers less of the face than a pair of sunglasses?
Come on, man. Let’s get real here for a second. This post reads as either gullible or troubled. There is clearly something deeper going on that you’re worried about or have doubts about, and it has nothing to do with weird studies on the wearing of hoods. Let’s address whatever that is instead, because in the long run your own spiritual and emotional health is much more important than this red herring.
Willow 10:52 am on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
By this logic, the British Isles and the Pacific Northwest must be crawling with the most unsavory characters on Planet Earth…I hope the next time you’re out on a hot sunny day you’ll remember to forgo a hat and sunglasses in order to avoid sinking into criminality.
This tempts me to think that the acquisition of scientific facts is much like the acquisition of hadith: reading a few truisms here and there haphazardly on the internet, without sitting down to a serious course of study that provides methodology and context (and common logic), results in paranoid hand-wringing rather than knowledge.
aziz 11:05 am on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
the methodology of the study sucks. But I can plausibly believe the result as a general finding about human nature; I think we can safely conclude that its irrelevant to hijab.
Really its just evidence in support of the Greater Internet F$%ktard Theory.
cbarwa 2:45 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Reading the title, was worried this was some study about skin-colour
anon 7:48 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
It is not a good idea to paint people in broad strokes and then judge them. Everything depends on INTENTIONS. (and the Quran says, only God knows what is in our hearts)
A criminal may want to cover up because he has intentions of stealing or other criminal activities—thus his intentions govern his behaviour.
A Muslim woman covers up because she feels it fulfills a religious requirement–thus her intentions for covering are not for criminal acts—but for piety.
Which is why, In Islam we will be judged not just on our actions, but also on our INTENTIONS!