The recent James Kim incident has made me ever more certain Professor Lee D. Ross at Stanford University was right about the attribution biases of humans. There are numerous articles from armchair critics that blame the man's actions on disposition rather than circumstance. Errors in attribution are why it is inevitable that many more will be lost to the snowy Oregon wilderness.
The basic facts are that the man lost his life trying to help his family. Not surprisingly, the news story was tracked by millions, and easily beat out the Iraq Study Group as the top news story that week. My belief is that people are interested because many feel that this could have been them. Every once in a while, a news story comes up to remind us of our mortality.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
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