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> A 2014 article in Psychology Today titled ‘Why We Don’t Give Each Other a Break’ used the example of someone who cuts into a line in front of you. You might t

> A 2014 article in Psychology Today titled ‘Why We Don’t Give Each Other a Break’ used the example of someone who cuts into a line in front of you. You might think, “What a jerk,” when in reality this person has never skipped ahead in a line before and is doing so now only because he would otherwise miss a flight to see a dying relative. Perhaps I am falling victim to “attribution error”, but I would bet considerable money that most cases I have witnessed of someone skipping a queue have nothing remotely like a dying relative behind it. This seems like a nice kumbaya sort of explanation that misdiagnoses reality.

taeric 2y ago
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers, but I think the point is it doesn't really matter? In particular, I think the point is that one is an escalation path of thinking. If you think someone in front of you is being a jerk because they are being a bad actor, you are more likely to get upset about it than if you took an alternative view.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  i am not a fan of this style of ends-motivated reasoning. i think it is easy to laugh it off even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks, i don’t have to pretend that they were somehow in the right just to not get upset
  - the_sleaze_ 2y ago
    > even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks This is the cynical negative worldview that a therapist would attempt to steer a patient away from. The more time a person spends in a negative headspace the more easily that person will find themselves in a negative headspace - just like a muscle the brain will build neural pathways to find that negative pattern faster and more efficiently. And the longer that person spends there the stronger that pattern building will get. Of course the person cutting in line's mother didn't die, more than likely they were lost in thought about their bills piling up, or feeling incredibly self-conscious about their weight, their husband's difficulty in finding a job or not ever being able to buy a home in these market conditions. If you had touched them gently on the shoulder and reminded them of the line they'd apologize profusely and move to the back.
    - oldpersonintx 2y ago
      [dead]
  - taeric 2y ago
    But this is now a false dichotomy. When in line, you are better off not escalating. When designing systems and lines, you are better off building ones that don't encourage and reward cheating. At the end of the day, you will be forced to reckon with the fact that the optimal amount of cheating is almost certainly not 0. Which sucks in many ways. But does not change that you are better not escalating anything.
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      who said anything about escalating? i am merely discussing correctly inferring people’s motivations. getting up in arms about it is another thing altogether and i don’t need to pretend that the line cutter has some pure motive to not confront or escalate.
      - taeric 2y ago
        My point is that one line of thought is more likely to be escalatory? Is literally how I entered this thread, if I'm not losing my mind. (Which, fair, debatable.) I am also not arguing for you having to assume pure motivation, oddly; but against assuming bad motive. My reasoning for this would be pointing at how many people are constantly escalating small encounters.
latchkey 2y ago
I'm in Vietnam right now and it is literally a whole country that was never taught to queue. Everywhere you go people just skip the line ahead of you, be it in a store or on a motorbike. Door opens on an elevator and people try to enter before letting people off. It just isn't in the culture to consider the people around you in that way. Thing is though, another part of the culture is that if you get angry about it, it reflects poorly on you to lose your cool. So, nobody seems to get upset about these things either. Somehow it all just works.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  right, i didn’t say anything about losing my cool - generally I laugh off people’s misbehavior (or cultural differences in this case) but i don’t see the need to engage in fairytale thinking about the motivations of the person involved is all
  - latchkey 2y ago
    I don't think they were suggesting you engage in fairytale thinking. The way I read it is that they were just trying to get you to realize this isn't about you, it is about the person skipping the line. The reasoning behind it could be anything, from cultural, to a dying relative.
mrguyorama 2y ago
This was literally an offhand example, of course you can find clear counterexamples to it, it wasn't supposed to be a load-bearing claim. A much much better example IMO is driving mistakes and bad driving. In my neck of the US, most people are acceptably good at driving safely. I recently was in Florida and it was clear that is not the case there, so I have to make my circumstances clear first: Humans struggle to see cars as actual machines driven by normal, fallible humans, for various psychological reasons. We are hypercritical of the failures of others on the road, while being hyperprotective of our own feelings after mistakes. Think of any time you have been angry or road ragey about someone doing something in traffic, and then think of the time you did nearly the same thing because of an honest misunderstanding, mistake, or poor choice. Even 95th percentile drivers will make a mistake often enough that they should be able to empathize with the other driver who is very likely just making an honest mistake or bad choice. Have you really, honestly, never cut off someone in traffic? Remember that the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, and it could literally save lives.

taeric 2y ago

I'd be interested in seeing the numbers, but I think the point is it doesn't really matter? In particular, I think the point is that one is an escalation path of thinking. If you think someone in front of you is being a jerk because they are being a bad actor, you are more likely to get upset about it than if you took an alternative view.

whimsicalism 2y ago
i am not a fan of this style of ends-motivated reasoning. i think it is easy to laugh it off even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks, i don’t have to pretend that they were somehow in the right just to not get upset
- the_sleaze_ 2y ago
  > even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks This is the cynical negative worldview that a therapist would attempt to steer a patient away from. The more time a person spends in a negative headspace the more easily that person will find themselves in a negative headspace - just like a muscle the brain will build neural pathways to find that negative pattern faster and more efficiently. And the longer that person spends there the stronger that pattern building will get. Of course the person cutting in line's mother didn't die, more than likely they were lost in thought about their bills piling up, or feeling incredibly self-conscious about their weight, their husband's difficulty in finding a job or not ever being able to buy a home in these market conditions. If you had touched them gently on the shoulder and reminded them of the line they'd apologize profusely and move to the back.
  - oldpersonintx 2y ago
    [dead]
- taeric 2y ago
  But this is now a false dichotomy. When in line, you are better off not escalating. When designing systems and lines, you are better off building ones that don't encourage and reward cheating. At the end of the day, you will be forced to reckon with the fact that the optimal amount of cheating is almost certainly not 0. Which sucks in many ways. But does not change that you are better not escalating anything.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    who said anything about escalating? i am merely discussing correctly inferring people’s motivations. getting up in arms about it is another thing altogether and i don’t need to pretend that the line cutter has some pure motive to not confront or escalate.
    - taeric 2y ago
      My point is that one line of thought is more likely to be escalatory? Is literally how I entered this thread, if I'm not losing my mind. (Which, fair, debatable.) I am also not arguing for you having to assume pure motivation, oddly; but against assuming bad motive. My reasoning for this would be pointing at how many people are constantly escalating small encounters.

latchkey 2y ago

I'm in Vietnam right now and it is literally a whole country that was never taught to queue. Everywhere you go people just skip the line ahead of you, be it in a store or on a motorbike. Door opens on an elevator and people try to enter before letting people off. It just isn't in the culture to consider the people around you in that way. Thing is though, another part of the culture is that if you get angry about it, it reflects poorly on you to lose your cool. So, nobody seems to get upset about these things either. Somehow it all just works.

whimsicalism 2y ago
right, i didn’t say anything about losing my cool - generally I laugh off people’s misbehavior (or cultural differences in this case) but i don’t see the need to engage in fairytale thinking about the motivations of the person involved is all
- latchkey 2y ago
  I don't think they were suggesting you engage in fairytale thinking. The way I read it is that they were just trying to get you to realize this isn't about you, it is about the person skipping the line. The reasoning behind it could be anything, from cultural, to a dying relative.

mrguyorama 2y ago

This was literally an offhand example, of course you can find clear counterexamples to it, it wasn't supposed to be a load-bearing claim. A much much better example IMO is driving mistakes and bad driving. In my neck of the US, most people are acceptably good at driving safely. I recently was in Florida and it was clear that is not the case there, so I have to make my circumstances clear first: Humans struggle to see cars as actual machines driven by normal, fallible humans, for various psychological reasons. We are hypercritical of the failures of others on the road, while being hyperprotective of our own feelings after mistakes. Think of any time you have been angry or road ragey about someone doing something in traffic, and then think of the time you did nearly the same thing because of an honest misunderstanding, mistake, or poor choice. Even 95th percentile drivers will make a mistake often enough that they should be able to empathize with the other driver who is very likely just making an honest mistake or bad choice. Have you really, honestly, never cut off someone in traffic? Remember that the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, and it could literally save lives.