The
previous
post detailed a few Attribution Biases that cause us to make
errors based on our feelings more than sound reasoning, and we human
beings naturally show a prejudice for those things that we already
like. If we are good people who seek out other good people to
accomplish good things, we don't tend to anticipate certain problems.
This expectation intensifies when considering a religious leader
because they should be experts in and practitioners of good ethics
and morals. And if we seek them out, even apart from any kind of
considerations of hierarchy or authority that might influence how we
relate to them, we're likely to take for granted that they are
ethical. We certainly would not seek out a person whom we didn't
like.
We are predictable creatures who look for patterns in the things that happen around us. As the Cheerleader Effect notes, we have ingrained tendencies that show our anticipation and liking of faces. In our search for these patterns, we are given to create them if they're not apparent, misconceiving and misinterpreting random things as part of a pattern when there likely is none at all.
Add to
the power of liking the power of social interaction and social proof
among a group of people who gather to socialize as they contribute to
a common goal – and you have a double whammy of an influence. This
is critical to understanding spiritual abuse, because thought reform
exploits these good traits, especially in really compassionate and
trustworthy people. Understanding these tendencies helps us to
resist the pitfalls of these traits when we encounter situations that
challenge our own sense of appropriate assertiveness and personal
power. They make us particularly vulnerable to many attribution
errors.
We are predictable creatures who look for patterns in the things that happen around us. As the Cheerleader Effect notes, we have ingrained tendencies that show our anticipation and liking of faces. In our search for these patterns, we are given to create them if they're not apparent, misconceiving and misinterpreting random things as part of a pattern when there likely is none at all.
We also
don't like unanswered questions or enigmas, because we rely on
answers and clear understanding to develop a safe and proper
understanding of the world around us. To give us some structure and
ease, we are prone to that self-serving tendency to pay more
attention to the the data that helps support to the conclusions that
we find most comfortable and are more accepting of it, even if it is
ambiguous. And we're generally happy to conveniently forget that
data that challenges what we like and would like to think. We will
take an incomplete perspective and weave it into meaning that is
consistent with what we already believe, and we'll be critical of
that which challenges that web of meaning we've created. In a
nutshell, that process of following bliss without enough good cause
describes Attribution Errors.
Phenomenology or Pattern?
One of
my soapbox pet peeves at work has always been the tendency of
physicians to draw conclusions about the whole population based on
the last half dozen of people who sought them out for a similar
problem. It's not representative of liking and social proof, so I
think that it makes a good starting point example of just considering the simple attribution error of the availability bias.
The
physician who projects what has affected a number of patients with
whom they've come into contact more likely owes to the nature of
their practice and the types of patients they see. A family doctor
who practices near a high school with the largest and most
accomplished track team may end up treating lots of sports injuries.
Without taking the close proximity into account, it can trick them
into believing that the nature of those injuries also occur at the
same rate everywhere. A physician across town near a golf course may
see none of those injuries or see them among an older population, as
golf course condos for older individuals surround his office.
Truth
and Consequences
When we
mix all of that together, we
fall into common related pitfalls. We've already
considered many of them, but there are few more related ones that are
significant to this convergence of how well we like a person, how we
are connected to them socially, and their collective effect on us
when we're with them.
More
to come on
the
Truth Effect, F.O.M.O., the Bandwagon,
and
how individual survivors and survivorship itself
can
fast-track us into faulty reasoning.
For
Further Reading:
- The Cheerleading Effect article in Scientific American
- One of the $3 Kindle books about Cognitive Bias at Amazon.com
- Gilovich, Griffin & Kahneman's Heuristics and Biases
- Robert Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
