Scott Alexander over
at Slate Star Codex is one of the best writers around today. He not only offers a seemingly endless supply
of wisdom and discernment about contemporary issues. His short stories are equally full of
remarkable insight. For instance, one recent story includes a character, named Yellow, that swallows a yellow pill,
allowing that character to read and search the mind of anyone they see. Whereas many people might exult at finally
finding out everybody's dirty little secret and perhaps turn to a life of crime
as the world's most successful blackmailer, Yellow becomes a forest ranger
after making a startling discovery:
People's minds are heartbreaking. Not because people are so bad, but because they're so good.Nobody is the villain of their own life story. Everybody thinks of themselves as an honest guy or gal just trying to get by, constantly under assault by circumstances and The System and hundreds and hundreds of assholes. They don’t just sort of believe this. They really believe it. You almost believe it yourself, when you’re deep into a reading.
Yellow's instant
comprehension of everybody's internal struggle makes social interaction a
Herculean burden, so he removes himself from the incessant heartache to a
little cabin in the woods.
This brings me to
the paper I've read most recently.
Across five studies, researchers demonstrated what they call
"motive attribution asymmetry."
When someone is talking about their in-group, engagement in conflict is
considered to be motivated by love for the in-group. When talking about the out-group, however,
engagement in conflict is thought to be more motivated by hatred. This pattern was found for several
populations. Democrats believed
Democrats were motivated by love for Democrats.
And Republicans believed Republicans were motivated by love for
Republicans. However, Democrats believed
Republicans were motivated by hate for Democrats. And Republicans believed Democrats were motivated
by hate for Republicans.
 |
| Israelis' attributions of both Israelis and Palestinians |
 |
| Palestinians' attributions of both Israelis and Palestinians |
The same pattern of
love-for-us and hate-for-them was true of Israelis and Palestinians. One exception, however, is that Palestinians
attributed both love for Palestinians
and hate for Israelis as important motives for Palestinians engaging in
conflict. Graphs of these patterns can
be seen below.
This motive
attribution asymmetry was correlated with a raft of other beliefs and
intentions about intractable conflict.
In an Israeli population, those who most exhibited this tendency were
less willing to negotiate, believed that a win-win scenario was less likely,
were less likely to vote for a peace deal, believed Palestinians were less
likely to vote for a peace deal, and believed Palestinians were essentially
unchangeable.
Unlike those of many
other papers, the authors of this paper were not content with simply
documenting yet another bias in the crowded menagerie of biases in the human
mind. They went further by exploring a
potential corrective for this motive attribution asymmetry. In one experiment, the researchers gave both
Democrats and Republicans a monetary incentive to accurately attribute motives
to the opposing party. They found that
people became remarkably more moderate when money was on the line. People attributed love more and hate less as
a motive for the out-group.
Despite their
impressive empirical work, the researchers' theoretical explanations for these
findings are a bit lackluster. One
potential mechanism, they say, is that people don't often observe out-group
members expressing love. Rather their
observations of love are almost exclusively perceived among in-group
members. Hate, on the other hand, is
quite evident among out-group members in situations of conflict. Thus, the motive attribution asymmetry. This explanation, however, is inconsistent
with the fact that incentivized participants were able to more accurately
attribute motives of love and hate. If
observations of one's in-group and out-group were the whole story, one wouldn't
expect to find people changing their minds once money was on the line.
Another potential
explanation for these findings, they say, is that people are engaging in
motivated reasoning. They are convincing
themselves that the out-group lacks any prosocial values as a means of
dehumanizing them and justifying harm towards them. When presented with a monetary incentive,
however, a new motive kicks in, the motive to be accurate. This explanations seems much more plausible
and reflects the wisdom of the maxim: "A bet is a tax on bullshit." It's unclear, however, in what other circumstances people might become motivated to report the truth. Money is a great incentive, but what about a safe and stable nation? Why aren't Israelis, Democrats, and Republicans incentivized to resolve conflicts for the good of their nation? Wouldn't interminable conflict be a tremendous cost to the nation? If so, then true patriots should want to end conflicts as efficiently as possible and be more incentivized to accurately perceive an opposing group's motives. Further research on the conditions that change intergroup attributions would be a natural next step. Research on interpersonal attributions would also be of interest. Would a similar pattern emerge among individuals or is this effect a result of groupish norms? Would this result be found among different cliques in high school? How about in sports? More research along these lines is necessary for exposing the exact mechanism for this phenomenon.
If people really
knew why people engaged in conflict, there would be much less conflict. Unfortunately, people aren't mind readers,
not even close. Instead, the results
suggest people are systematically predisposed to misinterpret other people's
minds. It requires effort to actually
figure out what other people are thinking, an effort that is all too often
shirked in favor of scoring points for the in-group. Although people pay lip service to resolving
conflicts positively, that won't be possible until people are willing to take
steps towards gaining an impartial understanding of their opposition's goals and
desires.
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