A question for the missionaries

The Fundamental Attribution Error happens (all them time) when people attribute poor behavior to the fundamentally bad nature of the people who are behaving poorly--when in fact, it is a matter of their choices and especially circumstances.

We know that poor behavior is significantly a function of circumstance because of evidence from trials, like the Milgram Experiments and the Stanford Prison Experiment.

As far as I'm aware, there are only two reasonable interpretations of said evidence. We can decide that virtually all people are fundamentally bad, or we can decide that virtually all people are fundamentally malleable. I believe that people are fundamentally malleable.

If we accept this premise (and you're welcome to debate it with me), we come swiftly to the conclusion that the circumstances in which people are placed, circumstances shaped by our societal institutions, are of paramount importance.


Having laid this groundwork, I now pose a question which applies to any conservative (/"conservative"?) form of Christianity. Research has shown that three greatest predictive factors for how frequently rape happens in a given society are:

-Separation of genders
-Level of power women hold
-General level of interpersonal violence.

Therefore, why would God--presuming there is a God, who desires a world where the occurrence of rape is minimized, within the constraint of preserving human agency--set up organizations and social structures in which genders are segregated and women are prohibited from holding primary power positions?

Sheep III

The Reverse Milgram

Of course after spending the whole book going on about how herds can make "good people" "evil," for a proper Disneyland finish Zimbardo had to spend the last chapter discussing how our propensity for groupthink can be used for the forces of good.

One of his better suggestions seems to be that we go about pulling "reverse Milgram" experiments--using the lessons we've learned about social influence from the famous Milgram obedience studies to influence people to be, well. . . better. He recommends three Milgram tactics in particular:

(1)The foot-in-the-door tactic is exactly what it sounds like. If you want some one to go out on a limb, start by only asking them to take the first step. Zimbardo's example was a study where people were asked to display signs in their yards urging safe driving--a step they were far more likely to take after first displaying barely visible signs to the same effect in their front windows.

(2)Social modeling is also what it sounds like. People are more likely to behave in the ways people around them behave; in the Milgram experiment, hearing another "participant" resist shocking the "student" was a very high predictor of resistance.

(3)Finally, identity-labeling is the tactic that seems to indicate patting one's self on the back is sometimes a handy step towards social change. In a parallel to the individuation/deindividuation process that's so essential in becoming a torturer or an unconscious consumer, people who are called "blood donors," "altruistic," or any variety of other things (positive or negative) are more likely to behave in ways that reflect those labels.

Softy that he is, Zimbardo suggests that we "carry out the reverse-Milgram experiment in your own life. . ." Perhaps we might start by manipulating ourselves into putting a "foot in the door." For myself, know that whether you're trying to get out the vote, increase literacy and competent communication in your community, make life better for abused children, or save dogs at the local humane society, you have my full endorsement in attempting these tactics on other people. . . just let me know how it went.

The Fundamental Attribution Error,

sometimes known as the FAE, is a major concept in sociology and (I'm told*) behavioral economics.

It goes about like this: we human beings like to attribute a lot of things to disposition. We talk about bad apples, bad seeds, about what and who we are. The FAE says this is an error in attribution; that many of the things we attribute to our nature are actually a function of our circumstances.

There's a startling lot of evidence for this theory, both in controlled situations and not. The Stanford Prison Experiment** was sort of the landmark beginning, but it's results have been echoed repeatedly, twice using hospital or mental hospital scenarios and once as a test run (using ordinary citizens) of a county jail. In all cases, the normal inmates began exhibiting the characteristics one would expect of them if they were criminal or mentally ill. In all cases, there were participants ("normal" people)who exhibited symptoms of severe psychological duress.

On top of this, we have a plethora of evidence suggesting that we human beings are incredibly responsive to authority--whether or not that authority is reflecting the values we, individually, hold. In the Millgram Obedience studies it was discovered that almost all participants were willing to administer apparently lethal electric shocks to a random stranger if assured by a "scientist" in a lab coat that
a) they caused no lasting damage,
b) they "must" go on, and
c) that they had no responsibility for their actions--the experimenters would take all responsibility.

Milgram himself ran several variations of the study, and plenty of less extreme but equally disturbing studies have come in it's wake. For example, Nurses, when asked, said that if a doctor told them to administer two or three times the recommended dose of a medication, they would refuse--but when put to the test in a working situation, virtually all complied. Outside the "laboratory," we have everything from strip search scams to concentration camps, which had to be staffed, built, and maintained by somebody.

The reading*** I've done is mostly concerned with applications of the FAE in prison reform and with regards to the military, but I am mostly intrigued by another situation that people respond pretty badly to.

Few contend that we are short of problems in America today, but even less of us are willing to take responsibility for that fact. We say that single teenage mothers got themselves into that jam and should learn to take responsibility, to lie in the bed that they have made. We say that gang members are stupid and that they need to clean up their act. We say, I voted for Gore.

I am a believer in Mill's idea that any individual's absolute freedom is nearly sacred. However, I also believe, very strongly, that if we don't take note and inflict change on the situations that shape our world, the results will continue to be the same. We will not have an engaged democracy without transparency and active discourse. I've heard a lot of people tell me that all those other people, they just won't get involved, and that's why it all sucks; I've often heard that "I really should get informed about politics, but it's so hard and I'm so busy. . ."

It is by awareness of how situations effect us and those around us that we might change that. I believe that by altering situations we might build a society where "people"-"They"-rather than merely embodying whatever vague concept (often as whipping boy or scapegoat) we wish to attribute to them--are engaged in Democracy and actual discourse. . . which, for a variety of reasons, could be much, much better for us all.




*I'm also told (by someone else) that Heidegger figured this out, presumably with no behavioral experiments whatsoever, and that it was sort of a major deal within his philosophy. Got to love those Nazis. . .

**In the SPE, a group of male college students were extensively tested for "normalcy" and psychological health, then randomly assigned to the roll of prisoner or guard and placed in a mock prison setting to be observed. It was halted after six days in the wake of three nervous breakdowns (on the part of the prisoners) and behavior that verged into torture on the part of the guards.

***This post also (clearly) owes much to The Lucifer Effect, though I've been reading other bits and pieces as well.

sheep II

This is about how normal people come to commit torture, genocide, and a multitude of lesser sins when circumstances are created where those actions are normal. It's taken slightly abridged from Phillip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect, pp 273-275, bold emphasis mine.


Ten Lessons From the Milgram Studies: Creating Evil Traps for Good People

Let's outline some of the procedures in this research paradigm that seduced many ordinary citizens to engage in this apparently harmful behavior. In doing so, I want to draw parallels to compliance strategies used by "influence professionals" in real-world settings, such as salespeople, cult and military recruiters, media advertisers, and others. There are ten methods we can extract from Milgram's paradigm for this purpose:

1. Prearranging some form of contractual obligation, verbal or written, to control the individual's behavior in pseudolegal fashion. (In Milgram's experiment, this was done by publicly agreeing to accept the tasks and the procedures.)

2. Giving participants meaningful roles to play ("teacher," "learner") that carry with them previously learned positive values and automatically activate response scripts.

3. Presenting basic rules to be followed that seem to make sense before their actual use but can then be used arbitrarily and impersonally to justify mindless compliance. Also, systems control people by making their rules vague and changing them as necessary but insisting that "rules are rules" and thus must be followed.

4. Altering the semantics of the act, the actor, and the action (from "hurting victims" to "helping the experimenter," punishing the former for the lofty goals of scientific discovery)--replacing unpleasant reality with desirable rhetoric, gilding the frame so that the real picture is disguised.

5. Creating opportunities for the diffusion of responsibility or abdication of responsibility for negative outcomes: others will be responsible, or the actor won't be held liable. (In Milgram's experiment, the authority figure said, when questioned by any "teacher," that he would take responsibility for anything that happened to the "learner.")

6. Starting the path toward the ultimate evil act with a small, seemingly insignificant first step, the easy "foot in the door" that swings open subsequent greater compliance pressures, and leads down a slippery slope. (In the obedience study, the initial shock was only a mild 15 volts.)

7. Having successively increasing steps on the pathway that are gradual, so that they are hardly noticeably different from one's most recent prior action. "Just a little bit more." (By increasing each level of aggression in gradual steps of only 15 volt increments, over the thirty switches, no new level of harm seemed like a noticeable difference from the prior level to Milgram's participants.)

8. Gradually changing the nature of the authority figure (the researcher, in Milgram's study) from initially "just" and reasonable to "unjust" and demanding, even irrational. This tactic elicits initial compliance and later confusion, since we expect consistency from authorities and friends. Not acknowledging that this transformation has occurred leads to mindless obedience (and it is part of many "date rape" scenarios and a reason why abused women stay with abusing spouses).

9. Making the "exit costs" high and making the process of exiting difficult by allowing verbal dissent (which makes people feel better about themselves) while insisting on behavioral compliance.

10. Offering an ideology, or a big lie, to justify the use of any means to achieve the seemingly desirable, essential goal. (In Milgram's research this came in the form of providing an acceptable justification, or rationale, for engaging in the undesirable action, such as that science wants to help people improve their memory by judicious use of reward and punishment.) In social psychology experiments, this tactic is known as the "cover story" because it is a cover-up for the procedures that follow, which might be challenged because they do not make sense on their own. the real-world equivalent is known as an "ideology." Most nations relay on an ideology, typically "threats to national security," before going to war or to suppress dissident political opposition. When citizens fear that their national security is being threatened, they become willing to surrender their basic freedoms to a government that offers them that exchange. Erich Fromm's classic analysis Escape from Freedom made us aware of this trade-off, which Hitler and other dictators have long used to gain and maintain power: namely, the claim that they will be able to provide security in exchange for citizens giving up their freedoms, which will give them the ability to control thing better.

Such procedures are utilized in varied influence situations where those in authority want others to do their bidding but know that few would engage in the "end game" without first being properly prepared psychologically to do the "unthinkable." In the future, when you are compromising position where your compliance is at stake, thinking back to those stepping stones to mindless obedience may enable you to step back and not go all the way down the path--their path. A good way to avoid crimes of obedience is to assert one's personal authority and always take full responsibility for one's actions.


P.S. On an entirely unrelated note--happy birthday to Tony and Toad. :)

sheep I

Researchers have also studied minority influence in the context of simulated jury deliberations, where a disagreeing minority prevents unanimous acceptance of the majority point of view. The minority group was never well liked, and its persuasiveness, when it occurred, worked only gradually, over time. The vocal minority was most influential when it had four qualities: it persisted in affirming a consistent position, appeared confident, avoided seeming rigid and dogmatic, and was skilled in social influence. Eventually, the power of the many may be undercut by the persuasion of the dedicated few.

How do these qualities of a dissident minority--especially its persistence--help to sway the majority? Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. the persistent minority forces others to to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the decisions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.

-Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect p.266