On the last page of this tractate of Talmud, Abayye teaches this:
סוכה נו, ב
אָמַר אַבָּיֵי: אוֹי לָרָשָׁע אוֹי לִשְׁכֵינוֹ, טוֹב לַצַּדִּיק טוֹב לִשְׁכֵינוֹ [שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״אִמְרוּ צַדִּיק כִּי טוֹב כִּי פְרִי מַעַלְלֵיהֶם יֹאכֵלוּ״]
Abayye said: Woe unto the wicked, woe unto his neighbor. Good for the righteous, good for his neighbor,
Abayye is teaching us not to associate with bad people, but rather to seek the company of those who are good. This advice is easy to understand and makes a lot of sense. But as we have only recently come to understand Abayye’s advice is more profound than that. Very much more. To understand why, we need to remind ourselves about the work of Professor Lee Ross, who brought us The Fundamental Attribution Error.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Lee Ross, who died this June at the age of 78, was a psychologist who taught at Stanford for his entire career. His work, according to Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert, “came to dominate the field.” But really there was just one idea for which he was best known. It was what Ross called “the fundamental attribution error,” a term he coined in 1977 in a landmark paper. In it, he described how behavior that is caused by randomly assigned social roles struck those involved as arising instead from intrinsic character traits. Malcom Gladwell, whose work does much to popularize Ross’s ideas, explained in an interview that “almost all of my books are about the fundamental attribution error…It’s an idea I have never been able to shake.”
From here.
“If I had to pick only one scientific finding about how the human mind works and promulgate it in hopes of saving the world, I’d probably go with attribution error.”
Like many truly insightful findings, the basic idea can easily be understood. Here is how Robert Wright author of The Moral Animal, The Evolution of God, and, most recently, Why Buddhism is True, put it:
When we’re explaining the behavior of other people, we tend to put too much emphasis on “disposition”—on their character, their personality, their essential nature. And we tend to put too little emphasis on “situation”—on the circumstances they find themselves in.
Let’s say, Wright continues, that you see the face of a minister (or rabbi or imam) and then a picture of a prison inmate. You would likely assume that they have very different characters. But actually that is not correct. Ross, and his colleague Richard Nisbett explained what is really going on.
Clerics and criminals rarely face an identical or equivalent set of situational challenges. Rather, they place themselves, and are placed by others, in situations that differ precisely in ways that induce clergy to look, act, feel, and think rather consistently like clergy and that induce criminals to look, act, feel, and think like criminals.
The Fundamental Attribution Error (which is also known as correspondence bias or the attribution effect,) is our tendency to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations. The truth of the matter, Ross claimed, is that behavior is less to do with personality and more to do with the situation or context. Here is another example:
If someone cuts us off while driving, our first thought might be “What a jerk!” instead of considering the possibility that the driver is rushing someone to the airport. On the flip side, when we cut someone off in traffic, we tend to convince ourselves that we had to do so. We focus on situational factors, like being late to a meeting, and ignore what our behavior might say about our own character.
…in one study when something bad happened to someone else, subjects blamed that person’s behavior or personality 65% of the time. But, when something bad happened to the subjects, they blamed themselves only 44% of the time, blaming the situation they were in much more often.
So the fundamental attribution error explains why we often judge others harshly while letting ourselves off the hook at the same time by rationalizing our own unethical behavior.
Exceptions to the Fundamental Attribution Error
There are times, however, that we actually ignore the Fundamental Attribution Error. This is when we see ethical behavior in our enemies, and unethical behavior in our friends. Here again is Robert Wright:
(1) If an enemy or rival does something good, we’re inclined to attribute the behavior to situation. (Granted, my rival for the affections of the woman I love did give money to a homeless man, but that was just to impress the woman I love, not because he’s actually a nice guy!) (2) If a friend or ally does something bad, we’re inclined to attribute the behavior to situation. (Yes, my golf buddy embezzled millions of dollars, but his wife was ill, and health care is expensive—plus, there was the mistress to support!)
Or another example:
Yes, the Gazan gave aid to the Israeli, but he had to do so because he was being filmed; yes, the Israeli troops opened fire and there were civilian deaths, but what else could they do? They didn’t start the riot.
Do you see what is happening here? In the first case (an enemy, or at least not a good friend) we attribute good behavior to circumstance rather than character, and in the second (a friend) we attribute questionable behavior to circumstance. So we don’t always attribute good behavior to character. Sometimes we lean more towards the situation. And there are good reasons for doing so. It is important to keep our in-group in high esteem. Believing that members of our own tribe are highly reliable rule followers gives us a cohesiveness of purpose. In contrast, it is best to think of members of other, warring tribes, as morally bankrupt. That, after all, is why we are at war with them.
How to use the Fundamental Attribution Error
Once we are aware of the attribution error we can make our lives better by exercising cognitive empathy. Next time someone cuts in line in front of you at the airport, don’t think “How rude. What a selfish person.” Consider instead: “Maybe this person is late for a flight to visit his aunt who is dying and who has asked to see him one last time. “ Give more weight to a person’s situation, and less to their character.
BAck to Abayye
“Woe unto the wicked,” Abayye taught, “and woe unto their neighbor. Good for the righteous, good for their neighbor.” If you situate yourself with bad people (and yes, there still are bad people, even after accounting for the Fundamental Attribution Error) you are more likely to be pulled into a sphere of poor moral judgements and practice. That’s because, as the Fundamental Attribution Error teaches us, you are more influenced by your surroundings than you think. And if you situate yourself with good people, you are more likely to act in ways that reflect sound moral practice.
We like to think of ourselves as having a character that is not influenced by superficialities like who are our neighbors and friends. But as Abayye taught us and Professor Lee Ross verified, nothing could be further from the truth.
רמב׳ם הלכות דעות 6:1
דֶרֶךְ בְּרִיָּתוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם לִהְיוֹת נִמְשָׁךְ בְּדֵעוֹתָיו וּבְמַעֲשָׂיו אַחַר רֵעָיו וַחֲבֵרָיו וְנוֹהֵג כְּמִנְהַג אַנְשֵׁי מְדִינָתוֹ. לְפִיכָךְ צָרִיךְ אָדָם לְהִתְחַבֵּר לַצַּדִּיקִים וִלֵישֵׁב אֵצֵל הַחֲכָמִים תָּמִיד כִּדֵי שֵׁיִּלִמֹד מִמַּעֲשֵׂיהֵם. וִיִתִרַחֵק מִן הָרִשָׁעִים הַהוֹלְכִים בַּחשֶׁךְ כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יִלְמֹד מִמַּעֲשֵׂיהֶם
It is a natural tendency of man to be influenced in his ideas and conduct by his fellows and associates, and to follow the usage of the people of his state. Because thereof, it is necessary for man to be in the company of the righteous, and to sit near the wise, in order to learn from their conduct, and to distance himself from the evil-doers who follow the path of darkness, in order not to learn from their conduct
תם ולא נשלם מסכת סוכה
