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Behaviors are caused by physical things, namely brain states, so it's perfectly reasonable to attribute a category of behavior to a physical characteristic of t
by samd 17y ago
Behaviors are caused by physical things, namely brain states, so it's perfectly reasonable to attribute a category of behavior to a physical characteristic of the brain. If people who behave fundamentally differently than others aren't physically different then what accounts for their behavior?
- metamemetics 17y agoYour making what's known in social psychology as the Fundamental Attribution Error: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
- AndrewHay 17y agoCan you enlighten us as to how he is making this error?
- metamemetics 17y agoWe are always biased to overestimate the component of behavior attributable to some intrinsic quality of the person. The classic example is Nazi Germany\The Holocaust. Everyone started asking how could the Germans commit so many horrible atrocities, it must be something intrinsic and Freudian about their personality maybe they have a strong need for discipline, etc. Then along comes Milgram and his famous electroshock study http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment , showing that Americans will perform actions even if they directly violate their internal beliefs, returning the primacy of behavior to the situation. It has been reproduced cross-culturally\many different times and variations. Another influential study is the Stanford Prison Experiments. Personally I still agree with the poster (samd) that everything is physical including brain states, and dualism is bonkers. But if we take that step, there is no longer a metaphysical ego holding personality. There is no distinction between individual and environment and the causality between the two is bidirectional, rendering the question moot.
- samd 17y agoThere is no distinction between individual and environment and the causality between the two is bidirectional, rendering the question moot. You are definitely on to something.
- a-priori 17y agoSee also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_neuroscience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_neuroscience
- rue 17y agoYou could just as well make the argument that such "violating internal beliefs" is actually the exposed core and that such beliefs are the veneer furnished by upbringing.
- berntb 17y agoAfaik, adoption studies support that psychopathy is inherited (to a large part) genetically.
- AndrewHay 17y agoAh yes, I see your point metamemetics, thanks. Which is the more leading cause of violent criminal behavior: circumstance or the person themselves? though, the rate of re offending seems to point towards the people themselves somewhat.
- samd 17y agoI don't think so, I haven't really made any claims about how much of their behavior is situational versus dispositional. I'm just saying that disposition plays some role.
- aphyr 17y agoI agree that behaviors are caused by physical states. However, stating that people who behave in a fundamentally different way aren't physically different is misguided. Every person is physically different. The difficulty is that unless there are gross brain lesions, it's very hard to see what makes people with psychopathy different. It might be a slight difference in the sensitivity of key neurons to one of twenty neurotransmitters, for example, or a slightly different pattern of connections in one region. Psychology (like many sciences) is all about developing reliable abstractions for these complex physical states. The surprising thing is that it works: you can change the neurotransmitter balance of the brain in many cases just by sitting down and talking to people for a year.