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Huge for my mother. Great news, really powerful day. She called to ask me if this was life. Just moments before taping. Okay, so i am really, really thrilled be here. This has been a pleasure to plan this event. This event would not have happened without the very hard work of. Gayles publicist, lori graff, who really got us here and did such an incredible job advocating for gayle. And i also really would like to thank Stephanie Goldenhersh for with us here to moderate this event tonight. And its such a pleasure working with both of them. Theyve been a dream for an audience manager, really easy to work with and. So i have a little script. Im going to read for both of our tonight. We have a and we have our author and this is the kind of book that is really just wonderful introduce the pleasure to introduce because its very sense making and to me it can help you a little more sane after sorting through maybe the front page of the internet for a few hours and feeling like you dont you know anything anymore. So i think you know, i think that this is a really important event. And i think im not alone in being excited that we have something this going on at the group tonight. So i we do have a couple of people who are going to come in late parking is a little around here so youre going to notice some people sort of pulling in. And then if you dont mind scooting in, if it seems like maybe they dont have seat. So in blame and Political Attitudes i forgot to write in the subtitle the called the psychology of americas culture war gail sahar demonstrates that the cultural emphasis on value differences whether conservatives and liberals in the us or between religious groups and secular countries on a global level, on a global level ignores commonalities in the ways that people think about issues questions about the causes of events from terrorist attacks to Mass Shootings to the economic and health crises, dominate conversation. So across the us and gail proposes that focusing on perceived causes of social problems is a much more promising avenue for dialog than trying to reconcile fundamental Belief Systems informed by the latest psychological science. This new take on to change attitudes has implications. Anyone seeking to influence the viewpoints of others from politicians and activists, ordinary people talking about Current Events at a dinner party. I love that last part. Um, its more relatable to me, i guess. Yeah. Gail sahar, a professor of psychology at Wheaton College in massachusetts her research, focuses on attitudes, its controversial social issues such as poverty, abortion and terrorism. Gayle earned her ph. D. At ucla and her be a u. S. In her childhood in rural washington state. She has been fascinated by how intelligent people can have such drastically diverging opinions on. The issues of the day, and hope to find ways to bridge the gaps between these ideological opposites. And now we also have stephanie hirsch, who who told me that this is one of the two terrifying things she has decided to do this year. Just before im blowing up her spot a little bit by review. But i heard that she doesnt mind. She says stephanie, the associate director for the Family Practice at Harvard Law School and is also a clinical instructor, still at the legal. Its all its all based at the Harvard Legal Bureau in cambridge. So where she supervises students, the bureaus domestic relations practice, formerly she practiced at Legal Assistance corporation of central mass, handling all manner domestic relations litigation and 209 abuse prevention orders. Ross coen was also the project manager for units. Us department of justice grant under the violence against women act, which partnered with local battered Womens Service providers to ensure continuity of Legal Services to Domestic Violence survivors prior to entering services, she worked for fully hogue llp, participating in environmental and probono advocacy for survivors of Domestic Violence um miss golden hirsch received a b. A. Degree in sociology and womens studies from brandeis and a jd from university of michigan and so i am so thrilled tonight to host both of these wonderful academics and people and thinkers in politics. Thank you very much. Please give a round of applause. I think i should have mentioned the way were going to do this is i think gail is going to summarize a little bit of it at the podium, first since we to watch for it and to discussion. Gail that speaks to the future. You think youre going to see that really in a few minutes at least but keep mind. Okay, im going to give gail grade. I think ill even come up there for this part oh one. So i just leave this here. Okay. I think you actually have. Oh, okay. Lets see if i. Feel bad. If i. Get tired of. Oh, well, i think it goes i think were just going to just have to hold it. Okay. Thats all right. Its okay. So thank you all so much for. Oh, thank thank you all so much for coming. I really appreciate it. I know it is a Beautiful Day out there, so probably you would you could be at the beach or doing Something Else. Open it up for being funny. So im very relieved to know that. And thank also to chase and the whole staff here at the harvard coop for hosting us and to laurie grace, as she said my, my book would be on a dusty bookshelf somewhere if it werent for laurie, im pretty sure. So thank you, bert. And thank you also so much, stephanie for joining me in this. Its really wonderful so i just i know that not everyone probably has had a chance read the book yet. I thought i might say a few words about this sort of general idea of it, and i promise i, im a liberal arts college professor. I dont i usually like to have a discussion, so ill this very, very brief and then well move right into, some questions. So the books idea is really simple one, which is that human beings want to understand the world. So we spend a lot of time thinking about the social world as were going about our day, even only relative to politics, even in our regular social lives, were often about, you know, why did that just happen, for example . And the theory i work with, which is called attribution theory, is really all about that, about how we determine the causes, events that happen to ourselves and other people and. There have been decades of research, much of it by people other than myself. So ive done some of it, which suggests that when we make causal attributions have a very big effect on our emotions, on our behavior, etc. So let me just give you an example to think about for second. Imagine youre supposed to meet friend for coffee and you show up and restaurant. Youre sitting there 10 minutes go by, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. The person doesnt show up. What is likely to occur to you in those moments . Probably youre thinking about what happened, where is she . Why didnt she come, right. So we automatically do this without much without much thought, right . Its sort of an automatic response that we do this. And we can generate all kinds of of reasons. She might not have been. So she could have gotten a flat tire right. She could have forgotten. She could have gotten mad at you and decided you dont want to come right. All kinds of reasons. And what attribution a study is, what are the effects of those conclusions . Draw right. If you draw the conclusion she had a flat tire, youre probably not going to be upset with her. Right you probably will even feel sympathy and try to make another date if instead you find out that she had Something Better to do or just feel like coming right. That would be a case in which you might say, hmm, i dont think i want to be friends with this person, or at least i want to put it on the back burner for a while. So whats going on there . What attribution is the suggest is that it has to do with we see the cause as controllable. Her did could she have done otherwise if she was had control over it right she could have come. Then we feel maybe a little bit annoyed if we think that it was uncontrollable. Such a car accident or a health emergency, we respond in a different way, a much more sympathetic way, and we probably want to continue the relationship. Right . So the idea is really, really simple. When i talk to students about it, they say, well, thats common sense. It really is common sense. So my contribution to this field has been to apply the model to Political Attitudes, to think about whether or not something is going on. When we think about social problems, is it partly that were thinking about what is the cause of the problem right and ive done a number of studies over the years on things like poverty and abortion and terrorism. I gravitate toward them. The controversial issues you can see to look at whether or not that kind of model there. Right. Is our attitude toward determined in part by what we think causes poverty right. Imagine if i think poor people themselves i responsible, theyre not working hard enough. Im going to feel very differently than i think. Well, societys its societys responsibility were not providing enough education, enough jobs. And so it sets off this kind of a chain of events as i saying of emotions, do i feel sympathetic or angry . And then whether or not i want to help or perhaps even become aggressive, im angry at someone. Right. So so that is the sort of model ive been with. And as i worked on it over the years, i discovered that it isnt only poverty. Poverty is a pretty obvious one. I think, but there are lots of other issues that it seems to apply to. And so my emphasis has been looking at model and also looking at how it fits with peoples political ideology. So liberals will not surprise you have a little more tendency to hold society responsible and have a have a little more tendency to hold the individual responsible to say no the responsible for pulling themselves by their own bootstraps right. So ive also been looking at that and i also look a little about how culture informs those things. So americans are pretty in general. Some cultures do a little less blaming than we do. Were very much interested in, sort of personal, individual responsibility. So thats sort of the book in a nutshell. And i go, for those of you, we havent had a chance i go through in each chapter a different topic, a different political issue and kind of think about how this theory plays out in regard to all these different issues. I think its important right now because were in a moment where were very polarized. And i know stephanie and i are probably going to talk more about this. It sort of is route to thinking about political besides these sort of polarizing ideologies. So maybe instead always worrying about conservative versus republic and excuse me, conservative versus liberal versus republican, we might be thinking instead about things like causality. What do you as the cause of the problem which has direct consequences for what kinds of solutions you would endorse. So thats thats the book in a nutshell and so i think were going to go into a little discussion. So think stephanie is going to ask some questions and then we will open it up to everybody else. And we are sharing a make. Yes. Are not tall enough to move the chair. Well see that. So we move around a little bit up here. Oh, my. God. All right. So full disclosure gayla and i met over zoom earlier this week, scheduled an hour and, got off the phone about an hour and 45 minutes later. I dont know if ill ask any of the same things because i cant stop thinking about it. Oh, thats nice. So if you havent had the chance to read the book, i highly recommend it, it is not overly it is not boring but it is very cited lots of good footnotes. So let just start it up here we see the what does. Oh, right, sorry what does blame mean to you in like what is your definition . Oh, thank you. Thats a very good social science question. We talk about Operational Definitions and social science, which is sort of how is it really being measured, right . So i think of blame as sort of somewhere between response, ability and anger. So if you see something as controllable, someone you hold them responsible for. It just to say theyre responsible for is rather unemotional. Right. More of a cognitive, a thought and anger is a full on emotion right. Im aroused. Im annoyed with you, etc. And i think of blame as sort of almost in between those two things. So it has definitely the element of responsibility but it also has sort of negative view of the other so i blame is i think we think of that right as not a very nice thing to say to someone so its kind of an interesting thing theres a theres a philosopher i just read about that a had sent me the information about thinks that we should be able to disconnect those things and it should be possible hold someone responsible without blaming them. But i think we generally tend to go from one to the other. So i hope that is answering your question. Yeah, it okay. And i a laugh about the idea of disaggregating blame and responsibility. And i think thats one of the things that we talked about was do we to assign blame in order to make society. I dont know if thats the question to ask. Its a very reason. Its a little of a bit of a philosophical question. But so i think actually blame is sort of necessary for society to some extent. I mean, when people do something, they ought to be held responsible, right . I mean, at we think of it that way. We think that children example should learn that theyre responsible, their actions, etc. So i dont think it itself is necessarily a bad thing. I just think that we often jump to it a little more quickly than necessary. We sometimes attribute blame where it doesnt belong. Thats my experience with with studying this. So i think absolutely sometimes people are respond, sometimes people do things to other people on purpose. Theres no question. Right. But theres a tendency for us to kind of assume blame when it isnt. There because its a very easy way of seeing a problem. Right. Well, youre poor. You ought to just work harder. That kind of thing or you could have done that differently. Or, you know, we often will jump to the conclusion that someone is responsible and blame them without a lot of information to support that claim. And i think thats where it becomes kind of dangerous because were the idea with the function blame could be Holding People responsible behaving well in society. But i think if we overuse, we can become really acrimonious and i feel like our culture is in that state right where its constant barrage of blame by politicians in particular. But i dont think its unique to politician. So i think its kind of necessary. I think it could use to be dialed back. I would say that. One of the things and in the introduction learn has struck me, which is idea that intelligent people can disagree and i feel like that. Is something i used to all the time. And in the last, lets say, eight years, i theres this sense that if you disagree with me, you are stupid if you disagree, you are uninformed. If you you dont know what you are talking. Im and i guess my question here is how can we use your understood your description of whats going on in minds to move forward and move out of that. Yeah is a very another very good question sorry. No its good to make me think about these things. I think youre absolutely right. This is not a surprise to you that the country is extremely polarized, but its not really so in regard to how people view issues more polarized in the emotional so that there was a study that came out not so long ago that showed that as bad as racial animosity was in this country for many years. It is now people would be hesitant to have their child marry someone who belonged to the other political than from a different race. Now thats saying something because weve not been super tolerant in that regard for a very long. So thats how bad it is. So its whats frustrating to me is most americans are not really most people are like sort of moderate pragmatists. A lot political scientists think. But the hatred is what sort of driving it. So so what i would and maybe you call me naive, im sort of an optimist is that by talking about things like causality it is possible to find common ground. So just to give you an example, we keep talking about how polarizing abortion is right. Its such a polarizing issue. Everybody says its the most polarizing in the us, but the vast majority of human beings who american are either republican, democrat actually believe that abortion should be legal in a number of circumstances its only in particular circumstances right where it becomes tricky. So i feel like thats the there is just to talk things like well what about in the case Sexual Assault or what about in the case health of the mother . There are there is common ground. Its only a very small, you would say, not even in those cases should it be allowed. So i guess what i would advocate for is to spend a little more time. People really talking about causes and Solutions Rather right away going to or thats just your religion or thats just or idea, which i just its just not helpful to do that. I think. A million questions. Hang on. Lets get into the abortion question and one thing that was very striking, me and i, one of my favorite things just coming out of reading the book is, just seeing that what you have done is sort of crystallized. So Much Research thats out there that of us dont read right. There are so many other people who have done research so much that you have done and you distill it into something that be absorbed. And its its fantastic. So thank you. But i cant help but notice there is not any research about theres research about blames the woman seeking an abortion and therefore what choices should or should not be available to the woman seeking an abortion based on how she got into this circum are there any about the. Donator. Of you said it was open to comedy. That wasnt actually my intent. But im glad it was funny. Are there any about whether not and when we should hold the other half of the genetic material responsible. Not. Not at the time that i was doing my studies. Surprisingly, its not something people talked about. It is one of those things that and i think its very similar actually with Birth Control, even though there are Birth Control that can be used by men, the vast majority there was just an editorial in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago about this about Birth Control, an issue of responsibility. And it was really focused on the woman who could become pregnant. So, yeah, i mean, i think thats really lacking. I think would be a great study to do because i think it is really problematic, but it does tell you a little bit about how we think about the right that it is a matter of i think some some people believe and i dont believe everyone whos against abortion sees it this way but. For some people i think it is holding a woman responsible for being reckless. You deserve this. And would we help you by allowing you to terminate pregnancy . Right. Because you got into the situation and. Its such a its an old idea, our culture. And its surprising that it has not faded very much. Yeah. So i guess maybe this leads me to the less. Do we need to in order to really move out of this move and come for solutions. Do we to instruct or assist people in even a blame of who might be responsible more broadly than theyre doing so . Open up that sort of myopic view that we be looking at, looking through, looking with. To to really figure out what are the ills and how do we fix them. Yeah, there is there is some limited hope in that regard. And these all very new studies just in the last few years. There are a few studies that have been published that and this was why i felt sort of particularly pressed to finish book because there are some studies that show you can in fact change peoples views of these things. Right. We know how hard it is to change someones or religion or any of those sorts of things. Probably not going to happen. But there have done some some studies in which they present people with information and they actually change the kind of the way they see causality. So for example, ill just give you a couple of quick. There was a there have been a couple of different studies where theyve had people who really like ten minute poverty simulations. They have the experience of what is like to be poor and they will go kind of this is what happens in your day, etc. Even these tiny interventions cause people to make more societal attributions for poverty and fewer individual holistic ones, meaning theyre blaming the poor less there have been studies. Theres a recent one where they they thought part of the problem with with poverty is that people really believe in upward mobility. They believe that if you try hard enough you live the American Dream we can bring ourselves up to the top. And the evidence suggests thats at all true. The evidence suggests, social mobility in this country is incredibly low. Your chance of raising your level of social class is extremely slim. And when people learn that, they then make different attributions for why some people are not successful done ones with race even where where people are exposed to information about white and it causes to make less individualistic attributions for racial inequality, racial and economic inequality. Even there was even one study of a rape situation in which they found by focusing more on describing the perpetrator than victim people were less victim blaming. So theres a lot of hope. We can talk about issues in a way that i think wouldnt draw people to blame so quickly and i youre right education i mean i dont know who will do this it probably wont. But i think that i think exposing people to information a lot of americans are not very informed people grossly underestimate things like racial for example. And so thats not necessarily everybody has bad intentions. I think but that they really dont understand how serious the problem is right whats whats causing it so so that thats i think reason for hope before we move to guys i want to that brings out that i found incredibly interesting that for those in the room who have not yet read your book would, you talk for a moment about the finding about what helps change peoples mind, whether its stories like the personal Human Interest stories that we see on the news or what we usually view as the dry social statistics, which works. Absolutely. So this book is really been around for a while. It was already when i was in grad school, so that was 30 years ago or so. And its i think was out even for a while before that. And it was a book that looked how the media presents issues. And so its a term they use in the media called framing you can frame in different ways and what this Shanto Iyengar is the name of the person who does this work is a political communication specialist. I think hes at now. But he was at ucla when was there and he studied how news programs present social issues and what he found was there are two main ways of framing one is like an individualistic frame and youve seen this where theyre like were talking about poverty in the united. Lets talk to this one poor person and find right their situation etc. Or there is the more societal frame, structural frame which is lets look at poverty statistic what percentage of the population is poorer etc. , right . So the bigger view versus the individual, to the surprise of my students, i talk about this the individual stories make people blame the individual more and the and the statistics. I know its very surprising because we always its going to make you feel empathy, right. Doesnt seem to work that way. Its when you see the Bigger Picture society, thats when people begin to think, hmm, maybe something is wrong with society. Why is this so important . He pointed out the vast majority of stories on these problems are individualist. So our and i understand why. I dont think its that the necessarily the news has evil intentions i think theyre not aware of the effect of what theyre doing. Perhaps not maybe all, but many. So absolutely. Its a its a really fascinating thing and something to become aware of that we are excited mentally where we have such a proclivity toward blame that if we have somebody there, its just so easy and quick well get a job right. Its that of thing. Whereas statistics are harder, i think, to to walk away and, say, oh yeah, 30 of our population is lazy or whatever it is. So yeah, very surprising. I agree. I all right. So what would all like to ask and i want to say again, if you read the book, if its a controlled, controversial she goes there so dont be afraid of thats the fun stuff. Oh. Because we can keep talking. All right. And we will keep. Oh, good. Its just nice. One of the things is you talk. Yes, people need to be held responsible for things. But we do a lot of blaming where theres no need to hold. People respond. Sibal one of the things that i heard some point in my life about what makes people happy i heard this on the radio and it actually kind of changed my life a little bit. They said there are two things that happy people have common and one is they wake up in the morning and they say, this is going to be a good day, but the other one is that when things go wrong instead of going around and saying, whose fault is it . Who, what, what you . Say, what do we do now . And its much productive to say what we do now that its your fault. So why is it we need somebody to blame . I its. Oh, sorry, i, i think it is sort of to some degree, perhaps a human tendency. I do think its much western like a countries that are more collectivist do a lot less of it. They tend to see relationship. And i think thats kind of where youre going. Youre seeing the good of the family for example, or the good of the community as opposed to this person needs to be held accountable. But i do think in this culture, i think were sort of socialized that way. I think we kind of automatically learn to i mean, i dont, i, i, i talk about this so should be better than it, but i do it all the time. Mean im driving, driving. I mean, im a driver. Thats an aggressive. Im sort of an aggressive driver. I have taken action. And if somebody in front of me is driving really slowly, do i think, oh, poor person, maybe theyre having a hard they know him like whats wrong . So i do think that our better angels do what youre saying. And i see glamor. We do it probably for ones right. You might, you know, your kid does something that you think was a bad idea, but you may not really you yell at them because you feel like we just have to solve this problem. Theyve suffered kind of thing. Right. But i think were often not in the habit of doing that. And it takes real fortitude to. Well, let me take it a personal level. Yeah, i this with my daughter who blames herself for everything and said it doesnt do you any good to. Sit around and blame yourself get on with your life. Go do something can you address that whether or not that the right approach to the blames not only other people we blame ourselves for things and it doesnt do any good. Absolutely. Yeah. So one one of the things when i teach this stuff, i even really talk about selfdirected attribution, which is what youre talking about. Absolutely. I think youre youre very because you cant feel, for example, another emotional emotion unless you take responsibility for something good. So you deprive of that just as you will, depressed if you hold yourself responsible for every negative thing. So actually attribution stuff even used in some depression clinical work where they try help people make different attributions that are not so negative about the self and thats so permanent. So maybe you failed but next time you can do better, that kind of thing. So yeah, very insightful i absolutely agree with you. I was just about the circumstances in which maybe im going to change the word from blame to to taking responsible liberty. I think part of the problem and i want to know what you think this is that when people are blaming constantly, they really should be blaming themselves little bit. And and the correlation between a a person who doesnt really see themselves to responsible for much all and their willingness to blame is a huge problem. Im wondering where where youre sitting with that in the book. Yeah sort of where is the line because i agree with you there is the opposite. Theres the person who blames themself for everything and the who takes responsibility for nothing. And i think pollitz in particular, im sure you can think of folks that you would put in that category, right, that as well. It was the medias fault was, you know, so i absolutely agree with you that its its an unfortunate thing because accountability is important. And i think its especially important with politicians because democracy is based on the idea. Right. But we have the power that we vote out if theyre doing the wrong thing and when nobody is ever responsible anything, it becomes very right what you do. So i do talk a bit about that in the book mostly about politics, but i agree with you that even in our social lives we probably know people like this. Like i dont know it wasnt my fault that kind of thing also not good and i think thats where blame in handy because i think there is some function to to Holding People like that responsible and saying no actually you caused it and it hurt someone else right so i, i guess my approach is to sort of strike a balance. Um, but i totally agree. You can go too far either way. So you earlier that americans and im assuming this is research that americans do tend to blame that we tend to blame. And i was wondering about the political ideologies other countries that may dont necessarily tend to blame and if had any opinions or speak on that and kind of if theres any kind of vast Socio Economic economical differences and social differences there. Id be curious. I mean, i can think off the top of my head what know what my opinion would be, but dont know from research what like france is way better, but anyway, i was just curious. Thats a really good question. Yeah, i mean, think part of it is, is sort of cultural. I think there is absolutely a political aspect and it is of the countries you would imagine. So Asian Countries tend to be very collectivist and and their the concern is kind of what is best for the group. And people are not seen as individual actors in the way we tend see people. We tend your people are in a web of relationship and things are multiplied cause its just a little bit more nuanced of view. But in its a little hard to compare because there are so many differences. But i think even in certain Northern European countries that are more socialist yeah, i think there there is a less of a tendency to its all about the greater good kind of thing. And ive read recently an interesting study actually of ukrainians ukrainians in which they found that. Americans tend to want to punish someone more the responsible they are for a negative event. Ukrainians look instead at how bad was the outcome, how big was the harm and thats how the punishment is, is proportional to the harm rather than to the blame. So is not exclusive to east Asian Countries and certainly think, you know, latin countries are also a bit more collectivist. But i dont its an interesting thing i wouldnt be surprised if there were a political connection but now that you ask i dont remember ever encountering a that looked at that how does what would be a great study to do. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Um, there, there was a piece in the book that i about blame. I tend to do this the time, but it was sort of a positive effect blame. So someone gets sick, you know, and you say, well, why, why did that happen . Oh, he was he smoked right so so smoking is going to lead to Heart Disease or. This person was overweight or i had covid. I wanted know why are these people dying after eight days . Because it was the beginning. And i was on the phone here with, ana, because my temp was spiking and i had to understand, you know, like went out. Im not going to go out. Im here, you know, but its not their fault that theyre not so the thing about it is that there is a comfort part and blame in one positive aspect of it is that you think that you can understand as you said at the beginning and then have control, you know, and then the bad things cause and effect, the bad things wont happen, except sometimes they still do. And so i think thats part of where then this is in a question exactly. But thats part of where the chasm to widen you know, because we have control you know so there is a real connection between blame control and in terms cause and effect you know right. I mean you could probably talk about it more if if, but i ive been thinking about it so much since i read your book. Yeah. Oh, thank you. But no, youre. Im glad you brought it up actually, because there are a couple of questions about why we blame so much. And one of the reasons we do it probably is that idea of comfort. Like if i see somebody who got cancer or and i know they smoked, then i can say, well, thats not going to happen to me because i dont smoke. But of course i could get cancer very easily without smoking, right . So this idea there is there are some theories. Its called the belief in a just world that prefer to hang onto the idea. The world is just something bad happen to you is because you didnt you deserved if you didnt succeed, its because you didnt try hard enough. That way we can live in the world and feel comfortable. Okay as long as i do everything right. I work hard and i dont smoke, then bad things wont happen to me. Theres even a more political, which is called a system, just vacation, a fact, which is that we blame people to justify the system were in so if i were to blame poverty entirely society, it might then call into question. Capitalism was working very well. So this idea that certain things we kind of dont even go because we dont want to consider the possibility that the system is flawed, which would require changing the system, etc. And it would also mean wed have to live in a world that we think is unjust which is very painful. I its probably why liberals are less happy overall conservative, which isnt true but i think it is its hard live in a world that you think is unjust. Right. See it everywhere. And you know, these stickers that say if youre not angry, youre not paying attention. So yeah, but very good point. I agree. And i will let you can keep coming the questions but but that thing that that idea of i have to blame someone there has to be a reason comes out in the book with regard to the with regard to poverty in so many spaces Police Violence this idea that if dont blame someone then something random can happen to us so we kind of need it which again makes me wonder how can how do we dis aggregate blame and instead just start. How do we fix it . Yeah, who cares what almost . Who cares what causes it, right . Is there way to fix it . So do you come out of this saying blame is good. Or we should move away from it or we just need to all know that we dont have all the information. How should we tell us what to do next . Do no ones ever asked me that individually to make ourselves better. People. Well, i think blame is sometimes an okay thing. As i was saying, there are times you can call people out, right . Weve been in situations where we felt like someone was behaving badly and it was the right thing to do to. Say, you cant do that to me or whatever is. But i do think that your point about lack of information is really critical. I do think that asking ourselves how do i know how i know the person isnt trying or how do i know that the kid deserved be shot or right . What information . I have to suggest that thats the case. I think just that would be a step in the positive direction. But also think that, you know, when we get emotional we we become less able to think clearly. So i do feel as though if we could stop responsibility, it might be more functional, you know, particularly when it comes to things like politics, where i think it it just makes things more sort of difficult and acrimonious and everything to have all that emotion going on. So i think my my advice would be try to get as much information, be aware of the fact that you probably have a tendency to jump to the conclusion that someone is to blame. Right. And sometimes just the awareness of it can help us to sort of do better. My phd students say that, that they thought about this and realized, oh yeah, it was i was right away jumping to this conclusion and in fact, ive done it myself many times, you know, and then found out i was wrong, that the person really did have a car accident on the way to school or whatever it is. Right . So i think just using a little more caution would be a very start. But i dont think we can i think it would be unrealistic to wed get rid of blame entirely. And im not even sure it would be a good thing. Theres a philosopher who wrote a book recently called in defense of blame and he basically says society couldnt exist without some level of blame because. We have to rely on each other. Right. And if you think about being in a family with someone or working with someone whos constantly doing things that harm, other people, its thats not okay, right . Its not its not like i should say, oh, well, its okay. I dont im not concerned about it. I think there are times when taking it on is the right thing. So i guess both. Good. Whats your next . What are you working on now now . Only an academic would ask that question. Someone asked me when was finished with the book. When i was going to write another and im like, after death. So my next actually i have a sabbatical the spring. What i really want to do is work these studies that show how you can change attributions because that work is news and i was studying this stuff and i would love to, to do some studies where i actually had people exposed to different information to see if i could influence attributions for different things. So whether its poverty or racial inequality, you international conflict, theres all of ways that it could apply. So that would be, i think what id really like to try next is to see if i can replicate some of those studies and do maybe some new things. So i think its really promising this idea right . You could change things and im hesitant. These are Laboratory Studies with a small number people. You dont want to get ahead of yourself and it would work in the general public, but i would love to do some more testing of that to see if it was possible possible. Let me ask you a little more. Your that what next and sort of your academics. And im lawyer, right . I do i domestic relations law so. Im a divorce lawyer and i am blown away by how much. This makes sense to me in my day to day. We talked for a while about that wrecking notion that in a court case, especially in a divorce, can if if you havent been through you may not know it can take a year, two years, six years to happen and during that time their lives of children, their peoples lives are on. And so youre trying to get things before that law and order style trial where all of the information gets out so that problem began day one and isnt resolved until much much later and we talked that for a while. I tell us a little about how psychology kind of affect other elements of life. Clearly its polity law making thats just not how i ever thought about psychology oh yeah yeah so im curious what else we should all go read or give you to research or try to research ourselves, understanding how like the way our brains and the way our our so social or interactions are affects everything so that too big a question are we going to do my best. Well it was one of the thank you, first of all, but it was one of the reasons why i wanted to write it because like many of your there are few academics here. We all know that there are often in the stuff we write a, handful of people that read it, right. So whole career its been writing Journal Articles that social not just only social psychologists or only political psychologists, ones who specifically work on attributions. Its a small number of people. So thats a bit depressing like, why are we producing all this research . For it to be of no use to anyone. And ive had very applied interests. Thats why i work controversial issues and so i think and i think a lot it is not that complex, right . I mean. I feel like in my field at least people write a very jargony way. So it seems very complex because psychologists have what we like to call physics and we use a lot to make everything sound really and so every everything you can think of in psychology has a technical name its probably theres a common name would be much more effective. So i really dont like that about the field and there are a number of psychologists have said, you know, we should be giving away the it shouldnt be this sort of secret thing because lot of it is really useful. And i do feel like its changing a bit. I think one thing is changing is that so many people are in therapy. So when i talk students, im amazed at how much they know cognitive therapy for, for example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and how to do things to to be less depressed, etc. So i do think those sorts of things are getting out the. Social psychology and political psychology, though it feels like less so. I totally agree with you i wish i wish we could get more people to be sort of communicating outside the field because i do think it could be helpful a lot of places the law is sort of a natural i mean when when lori told me that we had a lawyer to do this, i was thrilled. But part of it is, as i said to you, much of law, it feels to me like it is about blame, you know, i mean, criminal. Its like how right is the person responsible. Are there that lessen their responsibility. They get a lighter sentence. Its all responsible and blame and i imagine divorce. I mean i dont have to imagine. I know the divorce is so much about that. Right. So yeah. And i think thats what makes it so hard to solve these issues is same sort of idea. Instead of thinking about whats best for us, whats best for the family or whatever. People often just get mired in that. I want to you for what you did because blame you kind of thing. So yeah, dont know if i have an answer, but i agree you that i would love it if things got out there. And then well pick on everyone to have you talk again. But i think in law, i feel like there there is some of this question happening now, some of that systemic recognizing systemic problems that may be more to blame the behavior of someone still has to take responsibility. Mm. So so Restorative Justice practices coming in in certainly juvenile issues and in school, behavioral issues, but also the criminal system and in sentencing and in prison where theres move toward trying to understand what experience the perpetrator had that. Both may have led to this situation that allowed them to in a certain way without checking and then to go from there to recognize, be willing and able to recognize harm they have done. And then take steps to try to remedy harm. And i, i keep wanting to see that in the Domestic Violence context, in custodial, where theres a child who may be resisting or have a broken down relationship, one parent where we can you dont have to take blame but we to take responsibility and figure out how to move forward there. Yeah so i think thats why im loving this. All right. And if you want to comment or we bug them. Oh, just we can just i would just say i really agree. It is amazing what people can even forgive others for. And the race, i mean, im thinking about i teach a little bit about genocide, for example in my political psychology course and we talk about the case of rwanda, where people live next to people who killed their family members and have found ways to continue to coexist. So people have the ability to do it. And it but i think youre right has to be handled in a particular way. And yeah, that would absolutely be ideal. I think if you could really be focused on how do we now get back to some better situation. Yeah. I had a student some years ago actually who did a study about how peoples attributions for crime influence their beliefs about punishment. So it was looking at what do you think are the major causes of crime . This was an honesty system. She went on to get a ph. D. , which was great in criminal justice and psychology and it was it was all about that sort of what what is the cause of committing crime. And the more they saw it as something about this as an evil person its what surprised you right the more wanted to punish a lot they didnt see any much hope of the person rehabilitate thing etc. So really is very powerful the way we think about things. Yeah. And if you see someone is evil its theres not a lot hope, right. For even rehabilitation. So other questions. Ill ask about Something Else was really interested in that. I fascinated and this this in a big because its in the first chapter right it counts. There what you talk about a study in which people listen to a speech that was for or against fidel castro and first there was a group let me see if i got the i should let you do it you know this better than i do but the yeah just talk about it. Let me, just bring it there. I dont want to. Castor immediately brought it to mind all the studies. Its a famous old study in social psych, and it from the sixties, in fact. So thats why they were talking about fidel castro. And they had they had students come in and. They were told, youre going to be hearing someone give a speech about fidel castro, either pro or con. Some students were told the person picked the position. Others were told that they had been randomly assigned the position. They were just told, you have to write a procastro or an anti castro speech. Right. And what they expected was if if the if the subjects that the person had chosen their they would think, oh, yeah, the person who wrote the program speech is procastro. They expected the person who was randomly assigned the position would not. It meant anything about how that person felt. Right. So if youre told youve to write a procastro speech, it wouldnt shouldnt mean anything how you really feel. Right . So that was what they expected, what they actually found, no matter whether it chosen or assigned the students who listened to the speech, thought speaker was procastro or anti. If they had to give the anti castro speech, does that make sense . Its a little hard to. Okay, so what the what they was that its called the fundamental attribution error this tendency we have that we always assume a persons behavior, something about their character. If i see somebody do something, im unlikely to say, oh, theyre having a bad day. Im much more likely to say they were rude. Theyre a mean person, right and so it was kind of a shocking study and even the results didnt come out the way the experimenters expected. They were quite shocked that people would assume this. It seems so illogical, right . But its like we hear something out of someones mouth or we see someone do something. We automatically jump to this conclusion. Its them, right . So yeah, so really kind of surprising and fascinating yeah, and ill say as someone who is a public arguer right. I, i, i took it as. Again going to that issue of right now people dont seem done, although apparently in the sixties to people seem to understand that intelligent people can disagree and that there can be valid reasons for it. An opinion that you do not hold. And weve forgotten how to take the other side and look at an issue from a different perspective and then have a discussion that assumes the intelligence of person on the other side and just really down to where do we disagree what are the issues and being able to find a way forward but. Having been a high school debater, i dont know if anyone else in the room where you found out 5 minutes before which side you were arguing. It just blew my mind to think that people would automatically assume if you gave a decent speech that must be your personal. Yeah. Whats blowing your mind. I wonder about that. You were talking earlier, gail, as well. And about we attribution and sort of the way that we talk about things and im really interested in and like even listening to stephanie earlier in assigning blame like when say things like Police Violence or womens to choose or those are very evocative words like and i think something immediately that maybe it might provoke a completely different thought for somebody else. So like immediately when we when i think of Police Violence, im angry with the police right, im blaming them or womans right to choose. Im very empathetic and sympathetic because is a womans right to choose and those assigned values that we are that were talking about, i politicals sociologically, like whatever it is, like pretty much everything like if you could just speak to that a little bit and how i dont know, maybe we could find Work Solutions for that because its i think its it can be so volatile, so potent. What youre presenting. So just do you mean the tagline . Thats so a statement. Yeah i guess i guess im i am saying the political statement just because thats whats come into my mind but it would also but in addition sort of the way that things are then spoken about in general you were talking earlier the perpetrator the other side of the genetic the genetic material versus woman. I thought in my mind like okay, but we call this a womans right to choose. And thats in some ways evocative, you know, and somebody who wants to place blame, like, i dont if somebody else does, we put it all the woman negative or opposite and what that might the effect of what that has. Yeah thats a really interesting question and i agree with you language is really powerful. So for example, there have studies that show that if you ask how people about termination of pregnancy, theyre much more in favor than they are of abortion rights. Same so because its so emotionally loaded so thats the sort of thing youre talking about. Yeah, i do think its something to be sort of kept of and unfortunately i think politicians know this. So they use these terms. I mean, think about things partial birth abortion. I mean these things are often specifically designed to evoke a certain kind of emotion or or some kind of strong. But youre, youre questioned about Police Violence, too. Is absolutely true. There have been a bunch of studies, Police Violence, how people view Police Violence and and it is just as you would expect. Right. Majority of white people, although it was true with the most recent. The george floyd was a sort of breaking point a lot of ways where things really began to shift. But up until that point, white people often said, oh, well, the person must have done something to deserve it. Right. And and that gradually shifting. But yeah we, were, were so biased. Thats the other thing i hope people would learn from the book like its okay to make judgments if youre making them on real information. And i think but so often were jumping to these conclusions based on our particular orientation. Right, right, right. There is one circumstance, by the way, i feel like i should mention this. There is a circumstance where conservatives theres one study that found there are some circumstances where conservatives actually are less likely make an individualistic attribution. But its when its in their political interest to do so. So for example, if you watch how people blame other politicians you probably will see it right so you know my guy is been hes unpopular because the press the press being so hard on him, the other guys because he deserves it. So we have this bias in terms of sort of stuff. But there was a study that found that if they described a scenario in which an american soldier had killed a bunch of iraqi civilians and they had people make attributions for it, how much was he responsible that a circumstance in which political conservatives blamed the soldier less and liberals blamed him more. So its a little bit of a mean ive done a little bit of a broad brush by saying liberals are always more societal. It really depends. We all do what serves our political agenda. I guess you could say, right, our ideology and who we automatically assume is good or bad. And i hope ive answered your. Yeah. Its a complex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But is really interesting one. And the other is oh well i think were just about out time anyway. Well thank you all so much. This is really been fun and so nice to, to finish Something Like this and have people actually interested in talking about it. So im very appreciative. And i dont think yeah, but, but love, i never for. Publication was and this here we go now we and i love that this is a book that i feel like i do i have a million things i want to talk to you about. Well, and i again say read it and have somebody else read it also so that you can have conversation about a million things. So the book one more time, the title and do not dog your books. I dont usually write on them. This one is dog eared. This one is written on. But the book being lame and political attitude is the psychology of, americas culture war or yes, one war. Yes, but thank gail sahar see, i have to learn these. How to write and. One more thing. We talked polarization. I it took me i didnt realize until about eight years later, but every four years with the election, the media used to swap in the president ial which side was red and which side was blue and it changed with every president ial until bush, me, gore. And they stopped that. Oh, interesting. Even your cover art says little bit about the polarization of American Society inside. Let me give it back to you. So i will be signing books up here if anyone would like. And thank you again. I hope well, many of you i know. Ill see you again. Thank you very much for coming. You

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