When Tragedy Hits Your News Feed
It's been a tough few days. Mothers in particular are feeling grief and worry over the latest headlines in Australian news. I felt the need to write about something a little outside my normal scope today. Because I know my community is hurting, but I also feel that my community, like me, are critical thinkers and learners.
As I was listening to Radio National this morning I was struck by my own knee-jerk desire to know more about the individuals involved in a particular tragedy, whilst the interviewee was stoically continuing the honourable task of focusing on the broader issues (the 'bigger,' systemic, pressing national issues) that lead to this event taking place.
I remembered something I learnt in Social Psychology, something I have harped on about in the past, relating to victim blaming. There is a reason we almost immediately begin making assumptions, speculating on finer details, and interrogating (even just in our own heads) the victims of a tragedy. And the reason is fear.
It is an extremely uncomfortable feeling to consider that something awful could happen to anyone, at any time. Freak accidents, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, loss of a loved one, financial ruin, homelessness, mental illness… it is much easier to believe that these things won’t happen to us. And in the discomfort, and fear, of having to consider that it COULD happen to us, we naturally (and often without much cognitive awareness) look for reasons why it wouldn't, couldn't, won't….reasons that imply we are safe.
The downside of this is that we inadvertently imply the victims involved in crimes and tragedies were MORE likely to become victims due to something THEY did. It is one of the reasons even the ‘wokest’ of feminists might ask “where was she when it happened?” or “what was she wearing?”
We then reassure ourselves that WE don’t do that or wear that…WE are different, so it won’t happen to us.
And it’s why when some news stories break, people start questioning, justifying or assuming things about the individuals involved. “But they must have been pretty bad parents to end up dealing with child welfare” “Did she fight back? Why didn’t she just run?”
This is a normal reaction. In fact in psychology it’s called the Attribution Error (see definition below). But it is fear-driven. And it does nothing for the victims, and definitely does nothing to prevent it from happening again. I found a good article on Very Well Mind, which succinctly points out that this behaviour “deprives people who have been harmed from the empathy and support that they need.”
This post is straying from my usual postpartum-focused content. And I’m not writing this because I think the members of my community are prone to the Attribution Error. I’m writing this because I want my community to be armed with this information as they converse with others outside our network, over coming weeks. To disseminate this information so that, as a women-centred and heart-led community, we can encourage others to lead with their hearts too, to encourage real change in our systems, politics, and even economy.
I wish after every tragic incident reported on the news they would interview a social psychologist who could remind people of this phenomenon. Remind people to check their cognitive biases, their natural urges for self-preservation. But it doesn’t happen often. So don’t underestimate your own powers of persuasion within your family or social group. I encourage you, whenever you have the capacity, to channel your anger, grief, or worry into conversations that make a difference.
And I guess that’s all I had to say, apart from saying that I am holding so many peoples' losses in my heart. My deepest compassion is for the mothers who are losing their babies and the babies who are losing their mothers. And I can’t help these people individually, but I can help our culture move towards more safety, love, and equality in the future.
*The fundamental attribution error is a bias that involves attributing other people’s behaviors to internal, personal characteristics while ignoring external forces and variables that also might have played a role.1
Artino AR, Durning SJ, Waechter DM, Leary KL, Gilliland WR. Broadening Our Understanding of Clinical Quality: From Attribution Error to Situated Cognition. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2012;91(2):167-169. doi:10.1038/clpt.2011.229
