Comment by dane-pgp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dane-pgp | Hacker News Reader

> Sure, the people in your tribe may do bad things, but only in response to extraordinary circumstances.

Attribution Error gets doubly dangerous when combined with another cognitive bias, the Out-group Homogeneity Effect[0], which leads to the Group Attribution Error.[1]

This latter error leads people into thinking the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, so "When someone in my tribe does something bad, they're not really in my tribe (No True Scotsman / it's a false flag)" whereas "When someone in the other tribe does something bad, that proves that everyone in that tribe deserves to be punished".

I think the author is not exaggerating by suggesting that solving Attribution Error could dramatically change the outcome of human civilisation, but just identifying it as a problem isn't even half the battle. Perhaps the best we can do for now is develop some sort of polite shorthand for saying "You might be Attribution Erroring", which can be used for calling out bad news reporting, bad social media posts, and unhelpful framing of issues when people are having conversations. Then we need to train our brains to always be looking out for this problem, like a bad "code smell" when doing a code review.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_attribution_error

I'm pretty sure the combination of those two is 90% of the "cyclists don't obey the law" meme. When a cyclist breaks the law they make the whole out-group look bad, but a driver who breaks the law is just "one bad driver."

The other 10% is confirmation bias.

From my time as a cyclist I can tell you that all car drivers constantly disobey the law.

In truth all groups of road users consistently disobey traffic laws, the laws worth breaking just differ from vehicle to vehicle. It's easiest to condemn those that break laws that you aren't breaking, even if you yourself are no less innocent.

Possibly, but I think someone who didn't pass a driving test is going to know driving law less well than someone who did, so there'll probably be more cyclists violating the law.

Also, a cyclist violating the law is much less dangerous than a driver doing so, the latter has over a hundred times the kinetic energy. So a cyclist might feel that those laws shouldn't apply to them.

As a cyclist, I constantly break the law, and I’m aware that I do so.

The thing is, most traffic laws are designed to keep drivers safe. They’re also designed for cars. Bicycles aren’t cars, and car drivers tend to be impatient and don’t pay attention, so we have to adjust—-which sometimes means, for example, running the red light a couple of seconds before it turns green. Or turning left on a red light, since I’m not crossing any lanes. Or treating a stop sign as a “slow” sign.

(This is a left-side driving country.)

All of that is necessary to keep my life expectancy up. As for the pedestrians, well, unlike a car I’m perfectly capable of spotting their existence. Nor is a slow-moving bike particularly dangerous.

Don't make the mistake to believe others are thinking wrongly, that their conclusions rely on errors. Such insights are valuable to correct your own thinking and you can share the insights you have gained.

Aside from attribution errors, it could just be a political play to push responsibility of the behavior of certain individuals on groups. That is a common and deliberate political strategy that happens without anyone making an error.

Eh, someone is making an error if such political play is successful, it just may not be the speaker. Populist rhetoric is all about telling people what they already want to hear, that is, exploiting and amplifying existing cognitive biases in the target audience.

Here’s the definition of populism: “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.”

Does that not describe both of our political parties?

I can't say, I live in a country with a multi-party system.

> Perhaps the best we can do for now is develop some sort of []polite[] shorthand for saying "You might be Attribution Erroring", which can be used for calling out bad news reporting, bad social media posts, and unhelpful framing of issues when people are having conversations.

FWIW, we tried this against (what is now know as) political correctness, and now I'm starting to see people actively defend political-correctness-as-such. Not saying it can't work, but it might be important to make sure it's a impolite shorthand. Other than that, though, this sounds like a good idea.

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