Why is the Self-Help Industry so Self-Focused?

Research suggests that moral considerations take a back seat when it comes to self-improvement.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an “other-help” section of the bookstore. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a biohacking video on Instagram that talked about “how to biohack your way to true love”. I don’t recall ever seeing a Dave Asprey video where he says “Drink coffee with butter so that it makes you a better human being.” We basically take it for granted and even have come to expect that self-help will be mostly about, well, helping the self.

Don’t get me wrong: Helping the self is fine, but I would argue that moral development is a crucial aspect of developing the self. Why isn’t moral development more prominent in the self-help industry? Is there any market for it at all?

Research shows that most people do want to change some aspects of their personality— in particular, 78% of people state that they would like to be more extraverted, emotionally stable, conscientious, agreeable, or open to new experiences. But what about moral character? Psychologist Jessie Sun and Geoffrey Goodwin set out to answer this question in their 2020 paper called “Do People Want to Be More Moral?”. What did they find?

Overall, people report the strongest desires to be less anxious, depressed, emotionally volatility, and angry and to be more creative, productive, and sociable. So far, this tracks what the self-help industry is selling. In contrast, people reported weaker desires to change on traits that were more morally relevant such as honesty, general morality, compassion, and fairness.

What’s more, moral improvements were rarely prioritized. Only about 9% of people prioritized a goal to become more compassionate and only 3% prioritized their general morality. People were much more inclined to focus on reducing anxiety and depression. These results also applied to close others— close family and friends were more interested in changing nonmoral traits in close others compared to moral traits. If anything, people wanted to change themselves on morally relevant traits to a much greater extent than close others wanted them to change.

You may think that people who are already high in morally relevant traits may wish to change those traits the most, but the researchers found that knowing someone’s current standing on a morally relevant trait provided relatively little information about whether they want to have higher or lower levels of that trait.

The researchers conclude that their findings suggest “that personality change goals might be primarily motivated by the desire to improve one’s own life rather than by more noble considerations. Still, on an uplifting note, close others generally accept us for who we are but overwhelmingly want us to change in ways that are in our best interests.”

So I guess there’s a silver lining there. But what’s going on here?

Why do people not seem to care much about improving their moral character?

The researchers raise the possibility that people may see less room for improvement on their moral traits. A related possibility is that people are less motivated to improve on moral traits because they already see themselves as having “good enough” levels of morality, even if they acknowledge they could be more moral.

Another possibility is that it’s just part of human nature to be motivated to change in ways that will improve one’s own well-being (“The Personal Fulfillment Hypothesis”). People might think that becoming less anxious and more socially skilled has greater personal benefits on well-being than becoming a kinder, more compassionate human— especially if you think you’re already at the “good enough” level of those traits.

A follow-up paper by Jessie Sun and Jonathan Berman sheds more light on the issue. Indeed, they found that people were more interested in improving the traits that they believed would lead to greater happiness benefits.

Intriguingly, people were also interested in becoming more intelligent, efficient, organized, responsible, and self-controlled, despite not believing they are particularly low in those traits nor thinking that improving those traits will make them much happier. This tracks the self-help and biohacking focus on becoming more “disciplined” and “gritty” like David Goggins (who is widely considered a hero in the self-help world).

To be clear: It’s not that people think that improving moral traits will make them less happy: People reported that becoming more compassionate, honest, and moral would make them happier than they currently are. What seems to be the case is that people believe that less morally relevant improvements would lead to even greater increases in their day-to-day happiness.

In a second study, the researchers tested this idea further and generalized to other aspects of personal fulfillment, such as meaning in life, social connectedness, and goal attainment. Again, they found that people were more interested in improving the traits for which they perceived greater deficiencies in themselves, and which they believed would improve their goal attainment, happiness, meaning in life, social status, and social connectedness to a greater extent. Consistent with all the other studies mentioned so far, they were less interested in improving more morally relevant traits. They perceived trade-offs between moral traits and nonmoral traits for their goal attainment and happiness.

Reflections

These findings may not seem all that surprising. People mainly want to improve aspects of themselves that will get them closer to reaching their personal goals and will bring them greater well-being. As the researchers conclude, “In the context of self-improvement, people seem to primarily be using, ‘What’s in it for me?’” Trust me, the self-help industry is very well aware of that fact.

However, are people correct? I would like to challenge people’s perception that increasing their nonmoral traits would bring greater increases to their well-being than working on their moral traits. In our research on the “light triad”, we found that traits such as believing in the fundamental goodness of humans, treating everyone with dignity and respect, and not using people for your own personal gain is very strongly correlated with a wide ranging of well-being-related variables, including life satisfaction, meaning in life, awe, and spirituality. I think it’s very much worth prioritizing moral character, or at the very least paying more attention to it!

Which brings me to another point, and that’s the importance of values. Values are different than personality traits. You score higher than average in compassion but value others things, like power, more. Indeed, the researchers found that what domains of life people prioritized mattered. As the researchers note, “someone who is more interested in increasing their social status tends to be more interested in improving the traits that they believe would lead to larger increases in their social status.”

Their research is in line with a new theory of well-being called “Value Fulfillment Theory” that proposes that well-being should be defined as the fulfillment of well-integrated values, whatever they are. As Colin DeYoung and Valerie Tiberius note, “Well-being is the effective pursuit of a set of nonconflicting values that are emotionally, motivationally, and cognitively suitable to the person.”

I am well aware that my own writings and emphasis on creative self-actualization and self-transcendent values is not for everyone. The audience that religiously follows the latest biohacking news or certain self-help gurus who talk nonstop about happiness and agency is its own definite vibe. While the tribe of that vibe may be the predominant one, I’d like to believe there is still a large number of us who do prioritize our moral development and don’t see it as a trade-off for reaching our personal goals and attaining higher levels of well-being.

Maybe that’s you? Let me know in the comments.