Giving others the benefit of the doubt extends vigilance against one’s own blind spots
Evidence
The two preceding injunctions are in fact based on a more essential third, which requires from each member of a community a certain ADVANCE OF TRUST to the others: you shall listen to others starting from the principle that they are doing their best and that they generally have good reasons for feeling, thinking and acting as they do. (We see that here we are dealing with a corollary to the postulate of practical rationality discussed in the first chapter.) If someone seems to feel, think or do something aberrant, it is probably, therefore, because we do not see the good reasons that have led them to behave in that way – in the same way that we do not see the tiger or the snake coming up behind us. Far from being at odds with our initial vigilance, and pertaining to naivety, this advance of trust within the group extends the distrust (of its own blind spots) which explained the very foundation of joint attention. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 333
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Vigilance about bias can be adaptive and self-esteem protective; People minimize discrimination attributions for themselves while readily applying them to others — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 131; People self-sabotage to preserve excuses that protect self-esteem — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 247
Broader Connections
- Vigilance about bias can be adaptive and self-esteem protective
#expands(0.78) - People minimize discrimination attributions for themselves while readily applying them to others
#complicates(0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 131 - People self-sabotage to preserve excuses that protect self-esteem
#exemplifies(0.72) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 247