Moral Chivalry

Guest: Oriel Feldman Hall, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Brown University Valentine’s Day being this week has us thinking about conventional courtship. Old ideas about chivalry say that women need their doors opened and arms held – this idea that women are somehow weaker and more in need of protecting. But some really interesting research by psychologists at Columbia, the University of Birmingham and New York University concludes two things: people generally default to protecting women over men when they have to make a choice which to save; and that urge is tied to social norms that tell us women need protecting.