Hostile Attribution Bias - a tendency to err on the side of assuming malevolence in the intentions of others I get to work with and observe many people and this is just something that always fascinates me. I tend to think of it more as Optimism vs Pessimism (in more simplistic terms) but if you really want to "distill" it further.... those that see the glass half full vs half empty. It's the way people tend to lean the one way or the other way when experiencing the identical situation. The problem comes in with leaning too far either way, as that is losing touch with realism. I am by nature an optimist so life tends to look rosy to me, but I have a good dash of realism / pessimism as well because we all know life is not built on theories alone. But I'll always seek / see the positive side to most situations. Hostile Attribution Bias (HAB) I can understand (the what happens), but to me it does seem a bit like the fear of flying (where I look at the stats that show flying to be the safest form of transport, and I cannot understand why the same people with this fear would not be terrified of walking across a road or driving a car every day). But that said, the world needs all perspectives (we can't all be pessimists or optimists only) and is also why good work teams are a mixture of different types of personalities (including diversity). Even HAB types are needed to temper over-optimism or naivety. The question really though is, is HAB itself not leaning too far if it is a general trait (is it an extreme)? Personally, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until something more concrete and material manifests itself. Which is also why on social media I don't automatically label many posts as troll behaviour - I do try seek meaning behind why someone posts something (often they just can't express themselves well in English, or the meaning gets lost through text instead of face-to-face contact… http://bit.ly/2mTePYa
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