Political Psychology, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2012 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2011.00861.

How Can We Study Heroism? Integrating Persons, Situations and Communities

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Eranda Jayawickreme University of Pennsylvania Paul Di Stefano London School of Economics

Heroisman individuals commitment to a noble purpose, usually aimed at furthering the welfare of others, and involving the willingness to accept the consequences of achieving that purposehas received little attention from political psychologists, even though a person is arguably as liable to act heroically as she is to act in a morally reprehensible manner. Specically, important questions remain in how heroes can be identied beforehand and how such behavior can be successfully studied and promoted. We posit that recent work in genocide studies, positive psychology, personality psychology, ecological psychology, and moral psychology provides new and promising directions for better understanding heroic behavior. These developments can provide the tools for understanding the complex interplay of factorsincluding traits, situations, and communal beliefs motivating heroic behavior.
KEY WORDS: heroism, interactionism, positive psychology, affordances, morality

Despite recent interest in human strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), the concept of heroisman individuals commitment to a noble purpose, usually aimed at furthering the welfare of others, and involving the willingness to accept the consequences of achieving that purpose (Becker & Eagly, 2004; Franco & Zimbardo, 2006; Franco, Blue, & Zimbardo, 2011), regardless of whether they are positive or negativehas received relatively little attention from psychologists. The exploits of such gures as Oskar Schindler, who saved close to 1,200 Jews during the Second World War, and Paul Rusesabgina, who saved more that 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutus at the Hotel des Milles Collines during the 1994 Rwanda genocide, have been widely praised and discussed, yet little is known about what distinguishes such heroes from bystanders. In this review, we discuss the concept of heroism and synthesize research from a number of distinct perspectivessocial psychological studies of rescuers in genocidal contexts, positive psychology, personality psychology, ecological psychology, and moral psychologyto provide new insights into what constitutes heroism, how heroes are created, and how heroic behavior can be studied and promoted. An additional implication of this synthesis is that it provides recommendations for the study of virtuous and prosocial behaviors more broadly.

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Specically, we make three points in this article: 1) Positive psychology provides a vocabulary to examine heroism, specically recent work on character strengths. Additionally, research on rescuers in genocide studies and the social psychological literature provides us with a detailed prole of one form of heroismrescuing behavior in the context of genocidal conict. Future conceptual work should aim to differentiate heroic behavior from other forms of moral and prosocial behavior. The rescuers that provided assistance to others at great costs to themselves during the genocides of the twentieth century offer us insight into the distinctive personality proles of such heroes. Rescuers reason in accordance with internalized standards and values, manifest social responsibility, and display a deep concern for the plight of others (Batson, 1997; Baum, 2004; Bierhoff, Klein, & Kramp, 1991; Janssen & Dekovic, 1997; Midlarsky, Jones, & Corley, 2005; Midlarsky & Kahana, 1994; Miller, Eisenberg, Faber, & Shell, 1996; Penner & Finkelstein, 1998). Such work has provided a vivid picture of one form of heroism as rescuer that can clarify how heroism is dened. However, the combination of personological and situational elements that determine heroic behavior point to the fact that heroism can take more than one form (Walker & Frimer, 2007). Moreover, the emerging eld of positive psychology highlights the value of human strengths, and the traits that heroes exhibit can be measured in terms of character strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Seligman, 2002a; 2011). Specically, two identied character strengthsbravery and integritymay be related to heroic behavior. 2) Given that heroic behavior is frequently (but not always) situation-specic, examining heroism as an interactive function of both character trait and situation (i.e., in terms of affordances) provides a promising area of future research that builds on recent work regarding moral personality and moral exemplars. Recent work on character strengths provides useful insight into how people can be prepared for heroism through the fostering of the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral competencies that can lead to heroic behavior. Given that these strengths are only elicited in specic situations, we argue that an interactionist perspective that conceptualizes such strengths in terms of opportunities for behavior provided by the situation (Fleeson, 2007; Jayawickreme & Chemero, 2008) may provide new insights into understanding heroic behavior. Recent groundbreaking work on moral exemplars (e.g., Walker & Frimer, 2007) also highlights the importance of person-situation interaction. 3) Recent advances in moral psychology highlight the fact that what constitutes a hero may differ for various moral communities and, as a result, that special attention needs to be paid to culture and context. New advances in moral psychology (Haidt, 2007) provide both valuable insight into how heroes are viewed in different contexts, as well as the type of education required for the promotion of heroic behavior. Importantly, the likelihood of heroism, as well as the social costs that may be incurred by heroic behavior, may be tied to the moral beliefs valued by the heros community. Dening the Hero Despite the denition above, providing a denitive conceptualization of heroism raises a number of complex philosophical questions. For example, does the purpose underlying moral behavior need to be objectively moral and noble, or is it sufcient for one to believe that ones motivation is moral and noble?

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One relevant area of research that provides some clarity is rescuing behavior in the midst of genocidal conict. Given the egregious nature of genocidal conict, most research has focused on the morally reprehensible actions of perpetrators (Browning, 1992; Chirot &McCauley, 2006; Du Preez, 1994; Hatzeld, 2005). However, if heroes are moral agents who characteristically go beyond the call of duty in contexts in which terror, fear, or the drive for self-preservation would prevent most people from doing so (Flescher, 2003, p. 109), then genocide bears special signicance as it gives rise to all three elements. By examining motivation for such heroic behavior, one can begin to piece together the different situational and dispositional factors and life experiences that contribute to heroism. Heroes are often distinguished by the courage that underpins their potentially costly altruistic deeds (Flescher 2003, p. 109). Thus, a hero is not simply someone who engages in helping behavior where no cost is attached to her actions, but an actor who displayed sustained courageous action, aimed at furthering the welfare of another without expectation of reward, regardless of the negative consequences or risk to the actor. The rescuers commitment to save life is durable (Hilberg, 1993, p. 213), frequently renewed, and potentially involves serous consequences (Shepela et al., 1999). Joseph Campbell (1991) famously asserted, A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself (p. 151). Thus, most denitions of heroic behavior typically highlight three necessary characteristics: the behavior (1) occurs in the context of an atypical situation (such as a natural disaster or a situation where one is physically threatened); (2) is seen as unusual, in part because of the signicant personal risks involved in performing that behavior; and (3) is aimed at furthering the welfare of others. One Form of Heroism: Rescuers It is difcult to determine the social determinants of heroic behavior with any degree of certainty (Bauman, 1989, p. 5). For example, the socioeconomic situation, occupation, education, and family background of rescuers are so diverse that these variables cannot be reliable predictors of altruism (Fenyvesi, 2003; Monroe, 1996). However, it may be possible to predict, if individuals in possession of certain psychological traits might be more likely to act heroically. Three main characteristics of rescuers have been identied in the genocide studies literature: a deep sense of empathy, a universalistic worldview, and prior exposure to models of moral behavior. While the actions of rescuers are regarded as heroic, the rescuers themselves typically hesitate to view themselves as heroes. Curiously, when rescuers are pressed to explain their motivation for such courageous behavior, they often respond that they had no choice (Monroe, 1994, 2004). On the surface, this response seems obviously inaccurate; the presence of perpetrators and bystanders alongside rescuers proves that other choices were available. However, it may be that rescuers had no other real choice; their psychology did not allow immoral options to obfuscate moral clarity. While perpetrators distance themselves from their victims through devaluation (Baum, 2008) and justworld thinking (Fein, 1993), and bystanders remain inactive through a diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latane, 1970), rescuers are drawn into the victims moral universe through a deep sense of empathy and a humanistic attitude to life (Geras, 1995, p. 24). Indeed, research has shown that rescuers seem to possess a greater universalistic perspective. Monroe (1996) asserts: Altruists simply have a different way of seeing things. Where the rest of us see a stranger, altruists see a fellow human being (p. 3). This sense of a common humanity or extensivity (Cohen, 2001, p. 63) is deeply embedded within an empathic perspective. As noted above, it is this perspective that prevents the other immoral choices from presenting themselves to the rescuer. Visceral reactions triggered by seeing others in pain distinguish rescuers from other individuals (Oliner & Oliner, 1988, p. 174). This intense empathic reaction leads to a passionate sense of sympathy, which links rescuers with others and gives way to an assumption of responsibility for

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them. By dening the threshold of the intolerable as exactly the same for everybody (Cohen, 2001, p. 293), the rescuer includes the needs of strangers (Ignatieff, 1984) within her moral universe of obligation (Fein, 1993). Of course, empathy does not automatically generate heroic behavior; as Oliner and Oliner (1988) note, rather than attempting to alleviate the pain, one may choose to escape it (p. 174). However, the likelihood that individuals who possess a universalistic perspective grounded in empathy will act heroically is arguably increased by exposure to positive models of moral behavior. Oliner (2003) observed, parents played a very inuential role for both rescuers and nonrescuers; however, signicantly more rescuers perceived their parents as benevolent gures, modeling values conducive to forming close, caring attachments to other people, including diverse groups of people who might be different by virtue of status, ethnicity, or religion (p. 44). This conclusion was replicated in a recent comprehensive survey that examined the motivation for rescuing using the testimony of 31 Rwandan rescuers (Di Stefano, 2010). Many of those Rwandans who rescued Tutsi in 1994 had vivid recollections of their parents saving others during previous waves of violence that swept through the nation, especially in 1959. Just as violence has the potential to beget more violence, it may be that exposure to heroic behavior must similarly create the possibility for more altruistic action. One interesting area for future research is exploring the extent to which heroic behavior can facilitate enduring positive changes in ones personality. Many Forms of Heroism: Brave vs. Caring Exemplars The work of Walker, Frimer, and colleagues (Frimer, Walker, Dunlop, Lee, & Riches, 2011; Walker & Frimer, 2007; Walker, Frimer, & Dunlop, 2010; Walker & Henning, 2004) is explicitly focused on understanding and explaining exemplary moral behavior and uses a quantitative methodology to build on previous qualitative work, such as that of Oliner and Oliner (1988) and Monroe (2004) discussed above, and Colby and Damon (1992), who examined the moral excellence of small group of social activists. Part of the motivation for this work was the realization that moral cognition, which was traditionally assumed to be the primary driver of moral behavior (Kohlberg, 1984), in fact explained only about 10% of the variability (Blasi, 1980): a relationship that has been termed the judgment-action gap (Straughan, 1986). One possible explanation may be that the relevant personality traits associated with moral behavior have not been precisely indentied (Walker & Frimer, 2007). In their research program (Walker & Frimer, 2007; Walker, Frimer, & Dunlop, 2010),Walker and colleagues evaluated the personality proles of 50 participants who had received awards for exceptional bravery or caring and compared these proles to 50 control participants. They found that the moral exemplars had stronger motivational themes of both agency and communion, were more likely to see redemption in critical life events, and reported being more securely attached. They also found that the brave and caring exemplars had different personality proles, with the caring exemplars being more nurturant, generative, and optimistic. Situational factors appeared to play a greater role for the brave exemplars, who were typically rewarded for a single act of heroism. Cluster analysis revealed three types of moral personality: a communal cluster that was strongly generative and relational, a deliberative cluster that had heightened moral reasoning skills and self-development motivation, and an ordinary cluster made up of people with more commonplace personality traits (Walker, Frimer, & Dunlop, 2010). Interestingly, most of the people in the ordinary cluster were brave individuals rewarded for a single heroic act. These ndings are important for at least three reasons. First, the self-reported motivation of many moral exemplars is highlighted by a universalistic perspective as well as a strong belief that they had no choice but to do it, as highlighted in the genocide studies literature. Such themes closely mirror those reported by heroic rescuers. Secondly, the different and contrasting proles associated with moral heroism highlight the fact that heroism can take many forms and can have

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multiple sources. Caring individuals had a more strongly developed moral personality, while compelling situational factors motivated many brave exemplars. Thirdly, understanding the relative role of situational and personological factors in determining different types of heroic behavior can lead to a more nuanced understanding of heroism. Traits of the Hero Positive psychology is a growing branch of psychology that places emphasis on the factors contributing to optimal human functioning. This eld has as its central insight the notion that human goodness and excellence are as authentic as disease and distress (Peterson & Park, 2003; Seligman 2002a, 2011). During the past decade, the eld has supported and stimulated research aimed at redressing the imbalance between psychopathology and disease relative to human strengths and well-being (Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006) and furthering the elds goal of creating a psychology of positive human functioning . . . that achieves a scientic understanding and effective interventions to build thriving individuals, families and communities 3 (Seligman, 2002b, p. 7). The pace at which the eld has grown has been substantial (Forgeard, Jayawickreme, Kern, & Seligman, 2011), and it represents a signicant antidote to a medical model, which emphasizes a decitcentered repairshop conception of health as the return to normal (Ryff & Singer, 1998). One notable area of relevance to the study of heroic behavior is the study of character strengths. According to Seligman (2002b), we will learn how to build the qualities that individuals and communities not just endure and survive but also ourish (p. 8) through the evaluation of positive human traits. Character Strengths and Virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) represents one attempt to scientically classify human strengths and virtues, and is, to a signicant extent, inuenced by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders (DSM). Virtues are dened as the central characteristics valued by moral philosophers and religious thinkers worldwide. Six central virtues were dened following extensive historical studies: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. In this account, virtues are seen as universal traits possibly grounded in biology through an evolutionary process that selects the best traits for solving the most important tasks at hand. Character strengths are the means one may employ to exhibit a particular virtue. While each of these strengths requires the acquisition and use of knowledge, and is intimately (though not exclusively) connected with a particular virtue, they are distinct from one another. Generally, a virtuous individual would only exhibit one or two strengths from a particular virtue group. The strengths in the classication were derived from extensive cross-cultural and historical investigations, repeated reductions of larger traits lists, and satised a rigorous set of criteria for inclusion. With these criteria in mind, 24 strengths were selected through an extensive review of historical and literary sources (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). A team of scholars classied these strengths under six virtues identied through a review of philosophical and religious traditions (Dahlsgaard, Peterson & Seligman, 2005). Of these, the strengths listed under courage are most relevant for understanding heroic behavior (Fogelman, 1994). Two strengths listed under couragebravery and integrity merit special attention. Bravery involves not shrinking from threat or challenge even when signicant opposition exists and acting on conviction when such activity is unpopular. In short, it involves the ability to overcome fear and do what has to be done, regardless of the consequences. Important elements of bravery include the voluntary nature of the action, an understanding of the risks involved, and the acceptance of those risks and the presence of danger, risk, or potential injury. Integrity involves speaking the truth as well as self-presenting in a genuine manner. Behavioral criteria include public justication of moral convictions even if those convictions are not popular, treatment of others with care, and being sensitive to the needs of others. Both strengths seem necessary to heroic behavior, as it almost always involves actions that are done at risk to oneself that are motivated by a need to be true to oneself (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

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The Situation of the Hero One major objection to the study of character is that research in the social and personality psychology literature arguably represents evidence against the existence of virtues, thus rendering any talk of virtue and character strengths redundant (Doris, 1998, 2002; Harman, 1999). This challenge against virtue and character originally stems from the controversy over trait theories in the personality psychology literature in the late 1920s (Hartshorne & May, 1928). Mischel (1968) argued that situation-specic behavior was the rule rather than the norm and challenge other psychologists to provide evidence to the contrary (Bem & Allen, 1974). Experiments conducted in the early 1970s appeared to support Mischels claims (e.g., Darley & Batson, 1973; Isen & Levin, 1972) and were subsequently invoked as evidence for the primacy of situationism as an explanation of behavior. This claim from situationism has elicited a number of responses, and many resolutions of the debate have been proposed (Fleeson & Noftle, 2009). For example, Fleeson (2004) has argued that advances in personality psychology show both sides of the person-situation debate being correct to some extent: while people routinely act in a number of ways on a given dimension of behavior, their ranges of behavior are centered on different portions of the dimension, and an individuals center remains very stable over the long term, with a correlations on relative positive central points at different times typically being around .9. Thus, while people may act very differently in different situations, their typical behavior remains highly consistent from week to week. This resolution of the person-situation debate is premised on a reconceptualization of traits as density distributions of trait-relevant behaviors (Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson & Gallagher, 2009). However, the question of how situations interact with individual character traits to produce heroic behavior remains unanswered. This is important because many people who engage in heroic actions are not people who have distinguished themselves in all domains of their lives, but have seen a particular situation as providing sufcient cause for displaying phasic strengths and acting heroically. The importance of acknowledging the signicance of situational triggers of behavior has been noted, if seldom studied. Peterson and Seligman (2004) briey discuss the importance of situational themes, which refer to the specic habits that lead individuals to manifest particular character strengths in a given situation. In Peterson and Seligmans view, any sociocultural variation can be explained primarily at the level of situational themes, thus increasing the cross-cultural validity of the classication. However, little empirical work has focused on linking specic traits with situational themes. One relevant distinction here is that between tonic and phasic strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Seligman, 2002). Tonic strengths can be continuously and steadily displayed, unless there are good reasons not to do so. Examples of such strengths are modesty and zest. Phasic strengths are only seen in situations that afford it; they rise and fall according to the demands of the situation. Part of the challenge of scientically assessing heroic strengths such as bravery and integrity is that they are not frequently elicited: it is hard to assess bravery in the laboratory with any external validity. Heroism Explained as Affordances A more promising approach involves studying heroism in terms of moral affordances. Jayawickreme and Chemero (2008) proposed that those interested in the empirical study of human moral behavior should consider the concept of affordances, which is central to the Gibsonian ecological psychology tradition, as an approach to studying virtues and strengths in a manner that recognizes the importance of the situation while rejecting eliminative situationism (Jost & Jost, 2009). In ecological psychology, which sees organisms and the environment as interacting dynamically with each other, affordances are conceived as a means of understanding perception such that it is directly connected with behaviorthey can be dened as a relation between an animals abilities and aspects of a situation that enable those abilities (Chemero, 2003).

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Like many in personality psychology (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1988; Fleeson, 2007), this perpective recognizes the importance of traits in predicting behavior, but also that such traits are elicited in appropriate opportunities. Under this view, strengths can be better dened as moral affordances. Just as the affordance being-climbable is a relation between climbing ability and height, so one can similarly dene moral affordances as an opportunity for moral behavior. As with affordances, moral affordances are relations between morally relevant abilities and morally relevant situations (see also Reis, 2008, and Oishi & Graham, 2010 for discussions on the importance of affordances). Lapsley and colleagues (Lapsley & Hill, 2008; Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004) have stipulated an approach to studying moral character that assumes that character and situational variables are mutually implicative and that a stable behavior signature emerges at the intersection of person by context interactions (Hill & Lapsley, 2009). Thus, the accessibility of moral schema and the conditions of schema activation underlie individual differences in moral character. An individual with high moral character under this perspective has chronic accessibility to her moral schemas (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004). Chronically assessable moral schemas would be online, easily primed, and easily activated, so that such an individual would be able to interpret the situation at hand in light of ones moral commitments and select the appropriate behavior (Hill & Lapsley, 2009). Additionally, certain situations might lend themselves more readily to provoking a particular trait behavior. Psychologically active characteristics of situations are dened as characteristics of a situation that provoke a change in the type of trait content being manifested (Fleeson, 2007). For example, being in a situation where people are very friendly may afford the opportunity for people to act in a more extraverted way (i.e., increase their levels of state extraversion). These approaches highlight the importance of interactionismthe position that behavior is the result of an interaction between situations and persons (Fleeson, 2007)and helps explain why otherwise very ordinary individuals nevertheless can engage in extraordinary actions. For example, Jabar Gibson, a convicted felon, single-handedly rescued many people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by driving a busload of people from New Orleans to Houston. Gibsons behavior was heroic, yet it was also true that his behavior was activated by the situation. More specically, being able to engage in sustained heroic behavior may be premised on psychologically active characteristics of the situation (for example, the organizational structure that the Hotel des Milles Collines provided Rusesabagina). Moreover, affordances are especially valid for studying traits associated with heroic behavior, since traits such as bravery and integrity are phasic and are thus tied to specic situation contexts. Understanding the link between psychologically active characteristics of situations and character traits would provide valuable insight into how otherwise ordinary people can behave in courageous ways under pressure (Seligman, 2002). Future research should focus on relevant characteristics of situations that activate heroic behavior. The Morality of Heroism Recent research in moral psychology has highlighted the relationship between moral judgments of right and wrong and fast, automatic, emotional intuitions (Andersen, Moskowitz, Blair, & Nosek, 2007; Greene & Haidt, 2002; Haidt & Kesebir, 2010). These emotional reactions provide gut feelings about right and wrong that are elaborated upon through slower, deliberate, controlled cognitive processes. Such reactions gure directly into moral judgments of whether someone should punish another who has engaged in harmless but offensive acts (Haidt, 2001). As specied by the CAD hypothesisbuilt on Shweder and colleagues (1997) work on cultural variations in moral worlds people associate violations of rights, obligations, and purity with the emotions of anger, contempt, and disgust, respectively (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999). Building on this perspective, moral foundations theory (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Haidt, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004) indenties ve core moral intuitions that form the foundation for individuals moral beliefs: Harm (sensitivity

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to, or dislike of, signs of pain and suffering in others); Fairness (emotional responses related to tit-for-tat, such as negative responses to those who fail to repay favors); Hierarchy (concerns about navigating status hierarchies); Purity (related to the emotion of disgust, necessary for explaining why so many moral rules relate to food, sex, menstruation, and the handling of corpses); and Ingroup/ Outgroup Loyalty (questions of ingroup loyalty and patriotism). On this functionalist account, moral systems are sets of interlocking values, practices, institutions, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selshness and make social life possible (Haidt, 2007). Based on this theory, Graham, Haidt, and Rimm-Kaufman (2008) distinguish between two ideal types of morality: individualizing moralities, which focus on the extension and protection of individual rights, and binding moralities, which focus on the promotion and protection of social groups and institutions. While violence and oppression are seen as the main threat in individualizing societies, attacks from other groups and threats from traitors and free riders within the group pose the greatest threat to societies characterized by binding moralities. Such societies are more likely to follow an ingroup-favoring norm (Wildschut, Insko, & Gaertner, 2002) that encourages them to do what is best for their community regardless of how much outgroups may suffer as a consequence. Following moral foundations theory, conservative and more collectivistic cultures are more likely to have binding moralities and thus value all ve moral intuitions, while more liberal communities are likely to hypervalue harm- and fairness-based concerns and subscribe to individualizing moralities. This distinction becomes important because what constitutes heroic behavior differs depending on what ideal moral type the community identies with. For more liberal, individualizing communities, valued forms of heroes would involve defending rights and bucking oppressive social norms (for example, Rosa Parks), while communities that emphasize binding moralities would value heroes who remained loyal toand defendedthe communitys integrity. Understanding this distinction becomes important when we consider how differences in context can sometimes challenge the impulse towards heroism (see Rai & Fiske, 2011, for a related discussion). Heroism and Moral Communities Little formal work has examined methods for teaching and fostering human behavior. Franco and Zimbardo (2006) have discussed the importance of fostering the heroic imagination as a method for encouraging heroic behavior. That said, people who have been educated as moral group members (i.e., most people in the world) would value heroes that have sacriced their well-being for the greater good of the community. Soldiers who sacriced their lives for the well-being of their battalion and country would be fted as heroes for precisely this reason. However, many heroes have exhibited high levels of individualism and espouse politically liberal attitudes (Staub, 1995). Thus, heroes may frequently adhere to an individualizing morality while the community at large is mobilized by a binding morality. Thus, an unfortunate side-effect of such a group-minded morality is that heroes who buck social norms and customs to do the right thing are frequently shunned and even denounced as traitors. For example, in Rwanda, Hutu rescuers were often shunned by the their communities, experienced violence, or even killed because their heroism during the genocide meant that, once the genocide ended, they were in a position to denounceand testify againstthose who committed crimes (Di Stefano, 2010). Even Rusesabaginas widely publicized heroism has been doubted due to his criticism of the RPF government that took charge following the 1994 genocide, with some in Rwanda accusing him of hijacking heroism and trading with the genocide (quoted in Waldorf, p. 114). These comments are symptomatic of an ongoing debate in Rwanda on the rightful place of the righteous individual within a complicated ethos that wishes to both venerate its heroes and vilify its perceived detractors (Rosoux, 2006). Presently, the position of hero remains ambiguous. While

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Rwandan NGOs have attempted to highlight the actions of rescuers through a variety of means, there is still much debate about the timing for such veneration (Rosoux, 2006). In a deeply fractured society where, in many cases, victims live alongside perpetrators, the usefulness of such an endeavor remains to be investigated: Thirteen years after the genocide, references to the past, whatever their nature, continue to cause division, thus creating a paradox for this retrospective exercise: intent on producing unity, it instead fuels mistrust and blows on the embers of ethnic division (Rosoux, 2006, p. 498). Hence, a paradox: any form of education aimed at making people members of a ourishing moral community could actually promote delity to group norms that dissuade and punish heroic behavior that bucks those norms. Future Directions Heroism is a complex phenomenon that dees easy denition and examination. However, in light of our discussion of different areas of research relevant to the study of heroic behavior, we agree with Franco and Zimbardo (2006) that heroism is indeed an important and worthy topic for further research. As we have noted, research in genocide studies has documented many of the traits that characterize one type of hero: those who deploy phasic strengths and risked their lives on a daily basis to save others and provide us with a template for understanding those people who rise to the occasion when heroism is demanded of them. However, research on moral exemplars highlights at least two types of heroes: caring individuals, who have a more developed moral personality, and brave exemplars who are motivated by compelling situational factors. Future work needs to distinguish further between different forms of heroismfor example, heroic behavior driven by either tonic or phasic strengths, and heroic behavior differentially motivated by psychologically active properties of situations and by individual traits. We outline some directions below. As discussed above, positive psychology has provided researchers with the vocabulary to document character strengths associated with heroic behavior. More importantly, it has provided a list of strengths and virtues that attempts to be comprehensive and cross-culturally valid. Such a list has the potential to trump previous arbitrarily assembled lists of human virtues that may not adequately capture the range of virtues across different cultures and contexts (Smith, Turk Smith, & Christopher, 2007). Future research should consider using the Character Strengths and Virtues classication instead of generating arbitrary lists of virtues (see Frimer & Walker, 2008, for an extension of this argument). Moreover, the relationship between specic strengths and heroism needs to be conceptually claried. The identication of heroic character strengths raises the question of the conceptual relationship between traits such as bravery and integrity on the one hand and the construct of heroism on the other. Are bravery and integrity necessary for the manifestation of heroic behavior to occur? Is heroism merely a synonym for courage, or can the two be distinguished? A related question of interest is whether engaging in heroic behavior can trigger long-term personality change. This is an especially interesting question for those individuals who have engaged in one-off expressions of heroic behavior. Does the expression of such behavior constitute a peak experience (Maslow, 1970) that results in signicant personality change? One line of research in positive psychology relevant to this question is posttraumatic growththe notion that people who have experienced signicant stress may perceive changes in their personality (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995). Given that heroic behavior is frequently stressful for many reasons (risk to ones life, bucking social norms), the subsequent ramications of the behaviors may result in personality growth. Identifying individual differences and boundary conditions related to this possibility represent fruitful areas for future research. Additionally, conceptualizing heroic behavior in terms of affordances would enable us to understand the motives and triggers for heroic behavior with greater specicity. As Walker and Frimer (2007) note about future research on moral exemplars: more systematic exploration of the

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interaction of personal and situational variables in the moral domain could be undertaken in experimental studies that entail a greater degree of control (p. 857). Such an approach would also help researchers better understand the role of context and culture in motivating heroic behavior. Importantly, just as different types of heroism exist within one culture, different notions of heroism may exist in different moral communities. Relatedly, one promising line of research, following Fleeson (2007), involves using methodologies such as experience sampling methodology (ESM) to identify psychologically active characteristics of situations that activate heroic behavior. ESM involves a representative sampling of an individuals life over a specic time period (e.g., two weeks). Using such a methodology can potentially provide important insights into situational contexts that are more likely to stimulate heroic behavior. Moreover, observing individuals in standardized laboratory activities could help determine characteristics of situations that help facilitate the long-term prosocial behavior of caring exemplars (Walker & Frimer, 2007). External validity concerns would preclude the use of laboratory studies for examining characteristics of situations motivating the behavior of brave exemplars. Recent innovations in moral psychology should also inform future research on heroism. As noted earlier, Haidts (2007) argument that much moral decision making is driven by intuition and moral emotions raises many interesting and important questions for future research. Does the hero engage in reective cognitive evaluation of her choices and responsibility before acting, or are her actions the result of fast, intuitive, and reexive processing? Franco and Zimbardos (2006) perspective assumes a more cognitive approach, although the current evidence does not strongly support either view. Given this paradigm shift towards the role of moral emotions and intuitions, future research along these lines would give us important insight into how ordinary people become heroes, as well as further clarify the respective roles of moral emotions and cognitions in determining moral behavior. Finally, it is important to understand that the term hero is a value-laden one, and who constitutes a hero may vary from community to community, as discussed above (Graham et al., 2008). To repeat the clich: one mans terrorist is another mans freedom ghter. While many scientists might prefer that it be possible to remain value-neutral (Kendler, 2000), we believe that it becomes harder to remain value-neutral when we consider such practical issues of whether the promotion of heroic behavior in Rwanda can be extracted from its political implications in a postconict context. The desire to refrain from committing the naturalistic fallacy (that is, draw ethical conclusions from natural facts) can have negative consequences and has been disputed by Schwartz (2000), who argues that a richly developed psychology cannot avoid offering prescriptions on what a good life entails. In a similar vein, Frimer and Walker (2008) argue that theories of moral personhood should not only include goals for how people should reason right from wrong, but also what they should value as being good and bad; that is, they should have a nonneutral denition of what constitutes moral behavior. These are difcult questions that psychologists are wary of addressing, but they nevertheless remain important ones, and researchers would be well advised not to ignore them. Conclusion Heroic behavior is uncommon, single-minded, and frequently solitary in nature. It is a complex phenomenon and one that can clearly benet from a synthesis of approaches from different areas of research. Recent advances in positive psychology provide us with the vocabulary to describe the hero, while the genocide studies literature contributes some of the richest prototypic descriptions of heroism. The sophisticated interactionism of personality and ecological psychology provides promising directions for understanding how relevant traits and situational factors interact to construct the hero. Moreover, new research in moral psychology highlights the highly subjective nature of what constitutes heroic behavior within different moral communities. That heroism is such a complex

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phenomenon is not surprising, since such behavior represents altruism in its purest form. A greater understanding of the complicated gure of the hero, and how heroes are created, remains a critical area of future research. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. Many thanks to Sheila Bote, Will Fleeson, Mike Furr, Helen Haste, Nuwan Jayawickreme, Kathleen McKee, Peter Meindl, Christian Miller, Stephen Schueller, and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the manuscript. Eranda Jayawickreme is now at Wake Forest University, and Paul Di Stefano is now at John Abbott College. Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Eranda Jayawickreme, Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, P. O. Box 7774, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, United States. E-mail: jayawick@ sas.upenn.edu REFERENCES
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