by Zoë Pollock
Stanford psychologist Benoît Monin has identified why "overtly moral behavior can elicit annoyance and ridicule rather than admiration and respect." It's called anticipated reproach:
Argue on behalf of an environmental cause, and non-environmentalists, anticipating your moral reproach, will think you're stuck-up and self-righteous. Often, the anticipated reproach — driven, as it is, by fear — is exaggerated and caricatured: vegetarians, Monin finds, aren't nearly as judgmental of meat-eaters as meat-eaters think they are. Unfortunately, one or two genuinely judgmental do-gooders can put everyone else on a hair-trigger, twisting discussion about moral issues into a vicious circle, in which both parties anticipate reproaches from one another, and put each other down in advance.
The Dish 