See no evil: People find good in villains

Study: What makes Voldemort tick? Children's and adults' reasoning about the nature of villains. Whether it's on television or in a movie, we love the villain. No matter how egotistical, power hungry or greedy the person is, many of us are still attracted to their dark side-in part because we suspect some may have a redeeming quality. In fact, according to a new University of Michigan study, both adults and children more often reported that villains were inwardly good than that heroes were inwardly bad. "In other words, people believe there is a mismatch between a villain's outward behaviors and their inner, true self, and this is a bigger gap for villains than for heroes,” said Valerie Umscheid , U-M psychology doctoral candidate and the study's lead author. Inside, villains are a little less evil than they outwardly seem while heroes are fully good guys inside and out. Umscheid and colleagues conducted three studies with 434 children (ages 4-12) and 277 adults to determine how individuals make sense of antisocial acts committed by evil-doers.