"This seeming inconsistency can be confusing, or it can be instructive. Different groups experience change differently, and by noticing those differences, we can learn, adapt, or prepare. Social learning (watching how others cope and then adjusting our own strategies) is one of the most powerful tools humans have for navigating uncertainty. Yet attempts to learn from history, or from others, often backfire. In Greek tragedy, characters repeatedly misinterpret signs or lessons: Oedipus flees Corinth to avoid killing his father, only to fulfill the prophecy elsewhere."
"The tragedy lies in acting decisively on a fundamental misreading of the situation. Contemporary stories play on the same mechanisms. Sitcoms and soap operas thrive on characters misreading intentions, leaning on stereotypes, or projecting their own anxieties onto other people. We can see this as a mix of attribution bias and low tolerance for ambiguity, when someone, under stress or pressure, needs to simplify complex realities into neat but misleading interpretations of the present situation."
Human lives unfold within overlapping systems—families, communities, workplaces, nations, and global networks—with unevenly interlocking layers. Crises, technologies, or political upheavals reach different groups at different times and intensities. Recognizing differential experiences enables learning, adaptation, and preparation through social learning. Attempts to learn from history or from others can fail when actors misread signs and act decisively on faulty interpretations. Cultural narratives—from Greek tragedy to sitcoms—illustrate how attribution bias and low tolerance for ambiguity lead people to oversimplify complex social realities. Individuals continually negotiate how much effort to shape external circumstances versus adapting to larger collective forces.
Read at Psychology Today
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