Social Impact: Social Good, Social Neutrality, Social Bad, and Social Disaster: When Is Doing What You Have A “Right” To Do the “Right” Thing To Do?

Abstract

Social good has been defined as “services or products that promote human well-being on a large scale.” While there seems to be agreement about the definitional “space” of social good, concepts of social action, social justice, and social impact require further attention.

Producing social good does not require injustice: improvements can be made even when there is no injustice. Social good might be considered the first step in a triad containing social better (ment) and social best (good, better, best), with impactful results produced by social actors.

There may be large cultural “umbrellas,” widely held value bundles, which define whole societies at points in time and over time. We discuss two: “the lonely crowd,” and “party ID.”

We use a portfolio analysis to look at the elements of social good and social bad: social very good, social good, social neutrality, social bad, and social disaster, and then consider three examples of positive social impacts, and five examples of negative social impacts.

We suggest a guide to social action to help us make better decisions aimed toward the A or B outcomes (Social Very Good and Social Good), using three steps: awareness of hidden bias, regular decision refurbishment, and using decision rules.

The goal of this paper is to share ideas to help avoid social bad, and to help achieve social good. Ideally, social good considerations will become a regular part of the decision-making process.