Attributing Blame in Tragedy: Understanding Attitudes About the Causes of Three Mass Shootings
Donald P. Haider-Markel & Mark R. Joslyn
University of Kansas
Department of Political Science 1541 Lilac Lane, 504 Blake Hall University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66044 Email:
[email protected] Phone: (785) 864-9034 Fax: (785) 864-5700
Paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2011.
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Attributing Blame in Tragedy: Understanding Attitudes About the Causes of Three Mass Shootings
Abstract: Individuals develop causal stories about the world around them that explain events, behaviors, and conditions. These stories may attribute causes to controllable components, such as individual choice, or uncontrollable components, such as systematic forces in the environment. Here we employ motivated reasoning and attribution theory to understand causal attributions the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, the 2009 Fort Hood shootings, and the 2011 Tucson, Arizona shootings. We argue that causal attributions stem from individual reasoning that is primarily motivated by existing dispositions and accuracy motives. Both motivations are present for attributions about these mass shootings and we seek to understand their significance and whether dispositional motives condition accuracy drives. We are able to test several hypotheses using individual level survey data from several national surveys to explain attributions about the shootings. Our findings suggest a substantial partisan divide on the causes of the tragedies and considerable differences between the least and most educated respondents. However, our analyses also reveal that while education has virtually no influence on the attributions made by Republicans, it heightens the differences among Democrats. We discuss these findings for the public’s understanding of these tragedies and more broadly for attribution research. .
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In 2007, 2009, and 2011 Americans were shocked by three mass shooting tragedies that received extensive national media coverage. In each case a lone gunman sought a perverted sense of justice by firing at those he perceived as enemies. However, each case is dramatically different in terms of context and the perceived motivations of the gunmen. The April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech shooting tragedy was the deadliest peacetime shooting incident in the United States. The attack was perpetrated by an apparently mentally unstable individual and resulted in the deaths of 27 students and five faculty members, while 23 others were seriously wounded. The November 5, 2009 Fort Hood shooting tragedy was also perpetrated by an apparently mentally unstable individual who was an officer in the U.S. Army; he killed 14 people and injured 29 others. Then in January 8, 2011 a lone gunman killed six people, including U.S. District Court Jude John Roll, and seriously injured 13 others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) at an open town-hall meeting that Representative Giffords was holding in a Tucson, Arizona supermarket parking lot. Unlike the first two cases, in the Tucson shooting was carried out primarily to assassinate one person, Representative Giffords. In the other cases the gunman appeared to try and kill and wound as many people as possible to send a message of angst to a broader population. But although the mental stability and personal motivations of the individual gunman differ, and the context in which the tragedies took place was dissimilar, in each case the massive media attention on these tragedies sooner or later focused on the notion of attributions. Specifically, who or what did the public blame for the shootings and what are the policy consequences of such causal attributions? Once causes are identified, policy alternatives that seek to eliminate or reduce the problem can be more thoroughly
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debated. Indeed, as Stone (1997, 189) observed, ―Causal stories are essential political instruments for shaping alliances and for settling the distribution of benefits and costs.‖ Accordingly we conceive causal attributions a central component for understanding public attitudes following a tragedy and potentially foundational for the policy agenda setting process. Theoretically, these tragic events provide an opportunity to apply theories of motivated reasoning to causal attributions. We argue that causal attributions stem from individual reasoning that is primarily motivated by existing dispositions. Both motivations are present for attributions about these mass shootings and we seek to understand their significance and whether dispositional motives condition accuracy drives. We begin with a review of motivated reasoning and derive several hypotheses for the determinants of causal attributions. We then test hypotheses using national survey data recorded immediately following each of the three mass shootings. The data include questions about blame for the tragedies. Our results reveal a substantial partisan divide on the causes of the tragedy and considerable differences between the least and most educated respondents as well. However, we also show that educational differences disappeared among Republicans but amplified among Democrats. The outcome is considerable polarization among the most partisan educated respondents. We discuss these findings for the public’s understanding of the tragedy and more broadly for attribution research.
Motivated Reasoning
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Theories of motivated reasoning posit that the human mind works to satisfy two distinct motivations – directional and analytical thinking. These motives affect reasoning through the utilization of a biased set of cognitive processes: ―strategies for accessing, constructing, and evaluating beliefs‖ (Kunda 1990, 480). For example, directional motives seek a specific conclusion. Individuals reason in ways that support a conclusion consistent with existing beliefs and dispositions. The goal is to ―marshal the best available evidence for the preferred conclusion or against the unwanted conclusion‖ (Baumeister and Newman 1994, 5). When a particular conclusion is sought, it may not be desirable to attend to all relevant evidence. Rather individuals are likely to focus selectively on sources of information that reinforce a favored alternative. For example, Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979) utilized subjects that were for and against capital punishment and exposed them to studies that either supported or opposed the notion that capital punishment deterred crime. Subjects were significantly less critical of the study’s research methods if conclusions supported their prior positions than if they opposed them. Similarly, Taber, Cann, and Kucsova (2009) observed an attitude congruency bias where people evaluated political arguments and evidence that supported their predispositions as more compelling than contrary arguments. Further, in processing political arguments on policy issues, people displayed a disconfirmation bias where they counter-argued or discounted information that was inconsistent with their prior beliefs. Kruglanski and Webster (1996) suggested that these types of cognitive dynamics promote a sense of closure, whereby individuals prefer a firm and definitive conclusion; in such cases, a conclusion that is consistent with a preferred disposition.
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Decades of important political science research confirm the powerful control of predispositions on political judgments. Campbell et al. (1960, 133) provided the enduring conception of party identification as a ―perceptual screen through which the individual tends to see what is favorable to his partisan orientation.‖ When a partisan conclusion is sought, party identification anchors cognitive processes, biases memory searches and information retrieval. Taber and Lodge (2006) found that people are quick to challenge evidence that is inconsistent with their prior attitudes yet immediately accept supporting evidence. People are thus ―often unable to escape the pull of their prior attitudes and beliefs, which guide the processing of information in predictable and sometimes insidious ways‖ (Taber and Lodge 2006, 767). Finally, Gaines et al. (2007) found that Democrats and Republicans construed the same factual information – U.S. troop causalities – in a manner consistent with their support or opposition to the War. Democrats for example consistently interpreted given levels of troop causalities as higher than Republicans. By contrast, analytical thinking is defined by cognitive effort, depth, and the pursuit of accuracy. When motivated by accuracy, people search for confirming and disconfirming evidence, attend to relevant information, entertain a greater number of alternatives, and process information more deeply using more complex rules (Kunda 1990, 485). Studies confirm increased accuracy motives lead to the elimination or reduction of cognitive biases. For example, Freund, Kruglanski, and Shpitzajzen (1985) demonstrated that individuals motivated to be accurate were less likely to use ethnic stereotypes and less likely to exhibit primacy effects in impression formation. In addition Tetlock (1985) found that accuracy-motivated subjects were less likely to commit the
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fundamental attribution error (see also Kassin and Hochreich 1977). In short, accuracymotivated people process information more carefully, tend to apply more complex strategies in their thinking, are in fact more accurate, and rely far less on biased strategies or cognitive shortcuts. The most obvious and conventional proxy utilized for the motive to think analytically is education. Compared to the less educated, the highly educated possess substantially greater motivation to be accurate in their political judgments. It is in fact the purpose of education to develop intellectual capacities and expose students to alternative modes of thought (Dewey 1916). The mental exercises common throughout the educational ladder challenge students to develop their minds, refine their command of prevailing political and social systems, and apply factual understanding and scientific principals to solve existing problems. Importantly, an educated citizen is thought vital to maintaining the American economic and political system (Easton and Dennis 1973). Education transfers content that bears directly on a greater understanding of the political system (Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes 1960, 250-1; Almond and Verba 1963; Greenstein 1965). Indeed students are taught about the political system in order to function within it (Hess and Torney 1967).
As a consequence education enhances
motivation to attend political stimuli and participate in political affairs. Educated individuals are thus apt to acquire factual information about their social and political worlds, and less likely to rely on bias information processing strategies. Important empirical studies have shown this to be true. Compared to the less educated, the highly educated are more likely to participate in political activities (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995), frequent sources of
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political information (Zaller 1992), and know more political facts and about political processes (Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes 1960; Delli-Carpini and Keeter 1996). In Converse’s (1964) classic examination of the public mind, he observed the capacity of the most educated segment of the public to organize information in consistent patterns. This organization or constraint was associated with greater precision in political distinctions and increased predictability of stated beliefs across issue domains. Hence educated individuals possess a more elaborate cognitive structure regarding political phenomenon and appear to apply more complex information processing rules. While the absence of such constraint connotes an unorganized and often unpredictable belief system, it almost certainly signifies a diminished motivational state as well. We thus anticipate that differences due to education are in part driven by motives to think analytically and deeply about political phenomenon and include the relative absence of biases in information processing.
Causal Attributions In his widely cited work on attributions, Fritz Heider (1958) argued that people strive to predict and control their environments. Understanding the causes of events and behaviors helps achieve control. Causal attributions thus serve an important psychological purpose and guide attitudinal and behavioral responses to inferred causes. Two types of attributions are internal and external. An internal attribution suggests that the character, attitudes, or dispositions of individuals give rise to their behaviors: The cause of behavior is the individual. By contrast, for an external attribution the immediate environment or social context causes the given behavior. The
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individual producing the behavior did so because of causes in the social setting that compelled the action. Political researchers have utilized this formulation to understand citizen’s causal influences on a variety of public policy matters. For example Democrats and Republicans employ different causal attributions for poverty (Pellegrini, et. al. 1997; Iyengar 1991) Due to political socialization differences that promote distinct belief systems which include specific causal attributions, Democrats attribute poverty to external causes – institutional biases and market forces – whereas Republicans believe individual characteristics are responsible. Similarly, Williams (1984) reported that liberals, compared to conservatives, were less likely to attribute blame to welfare clients and theft victims. Liberals also expressed more sympathy for the victims. Other studies showed that conservatives attributed poverty to individual dispositions whereas liberals attribute poverty to situational sources (Griffin and Oheneba-Sakyi 1993; Zucker and Weiner 1993). This research suggests directional motivation may be driving attributions. Motivated to attribute in a manner consistent with political predispositions, people select the attribution that squares with their priors. Because Democrats view the poor as victims of larger social and market forces, government becomes the vehicle through which poverty can be alleviated. Thus a situational/environmental cause of poverty fits well with the Democratic orientation, producing support for governmental intervention in the market place. A Republicans’ internal attribution, by contrast, places blame on the homeless and thereby justifies a more limited view of governmental intervention. In both instances attributions arise from and reinforce prior beliefs.
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The three shootings provide an opportunity to examine the role of internal and external attributions immediately after tragedy. Generally we expect Democrats to report external or systemic causes to violent tragedies, reasoning that such brutal behavior stem in part from larger problems in society, and not one single cause (Haider-Markel and Joslyn 2001; 2008; Maestas, Atkeson, Croom, and Bryant 2008). This attribution corresponds with Democrats’ positions on issues that are often highlighted by such tragedies: inadequate gun laws, societal neglect of the mentally ill, among others. By contrast, Republicans are likely to infer causes of mass shootings as internal or individualistic and relate to the character and beliefs of the assailant. This inference narrows responsibility and therefore does not imply a need for government intervention or policy change. Finally, we anticipate education will be associated with an external or systemic attribution for the mass shootings. By applying more complex reasoning and taking into account a wider array of evidence, the salience of the individual assailant and his motivations are likely to diminish in an educated person’s reasoning. Broader causes such as gun accessibility, the assailants’ history of mental illness, and family history are likely to be part of careful processing, enlarging the perspective to include multiple causes, rather than single causes, found in the broader social environment. Indeed a study by Tetlock (1985), which highlighted the role of behavioral choice, provides support for this assertion. Study subjects motivated to be accurate made less dispositional attributions about a target person when that person was perceived to have had little choice in deciding whether to engage in the observed behavior. It is thus not unlikely for an educated, analytically minded public to link intentions and mental illness.
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Attributing blame to larger social problems takes this into account, appreciating the intricate nexus between mental afflictions and directed behavior.
Data and Methods In order to understand public attributions about mass shootings we employ data from several national surveys conducted following the events in 2007, 2009, and 2011. We explain and examine the data in chronological order. In April of 2007, the Pew Center for the People and Press conducted a national survey of American adults that included several questions that suit out needs. Of particular importance, respondents were asked, ―Do you think Virginia Tech shooting and others like it reflect broader problems in American society, or are things like this just the isolated acts of troubled individuals?‖ Approximately 49 percent attributed the shootings to broader, systematic, problems. We use responses to this question as our dependent variable and code the systematic response as one and the individualistic response as zero. To understand attributions about the 2009 Fort Hood shootings we are restricted by available polling data. CBS conducted a national poll of adults in November 2009 and asked: “From what you have heard or read, do you consider the shooting incident at (a US (United States) Army base in) Fort Hood, Texas to be an act of terrorism (48 percent; coded one) or not (38 percent; coded zero)?‖ (an additional fourteen percent were undecided). Although this question is not an ideal attributions question, it does ask about a cause that focuses on the individual shooters motivation versus a broader or more systemic attribution. We consider those respondents who said the shooting was an act of
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terrorism were attributing a singular motive to the shooter and were therefore making an individual attribution. Several national surveys asked questions about attributions about the 2011 Tucson, Arizona shootings. A January 13-17, 2011 national poll of adults conducted for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal asked ―Thinking about the shootings of a Member of Congress, a Federal judge and others in Tucson, Arizona last weekend do you feel the extreme political rhetoric used by some in the media and by political leaders was an important contributor to the incident (24 percent; coded one) or do you feel this is more of an isolated incident by a disturbed person that occurs from time to time (71 percent; coded zero)?‖ Here we considered the first response to be indicative of a more systematic attribution and the second response to be an individualistic attribution. Finally, the poll also asked ―How much responsibility — If any— might the following groups bear for contributing to a climate that some say encouraged the shootings of a Member of Congress, a Federal judge and others in Tucson Arizona last weekend – a great deal, a good amount, not too much, or none at all?‖ Respondents were then read the following list: 1) Radio and Television political commentators, 2) Blogs on the Internet, 3) Television shows and movies, 4) Political groups like the Tea Party and MoveOn.org, 5) Elected officials, and 6) Democratic and Republican Party Officials. Most respondents indicated that these groups and organizations bore little or no responsibility for the shootings, but about 40 percent suggested that political commentators on radio, television and blogs and the Internet bore at least a good amount of responsibility for the shootings. Because these questions highlight the degree of responsibility, we expect those respondents making more systemic attributions will
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indicate a higher degree of responsibility on most items, while those making individualistic attributions are less likely to place much blame on any of these groups.
Independent Variables Recall party identification and education are the key variables for the analyses. In each survey respondents were asked to identify their political party affiliation. For the first portion of our analysis we simply code Democrats as one and all others as zero. Education was measured on a one—grade eight or less through seven – post-graduate training. Several important controls are required before testing the hypothesized relationships between the causal attribution, party, and education. First, in all of the models we are able to control for rural – urban residences, race, age, and gender. These variables are frequent determinants of gun related policies and tragedies such as mass shootings often highlight gun regulation issues (Haider-Markel and Joslyn 2001). In several of the models we are also able to control for gun ownership, but not all of the surveys asked this questions. We attempt to use gun ownership surrogates in the remaining models.
Results and Discussion We examine the results models using 2007, 2009, and 2011 data in chronological order. Table 1 provides estimates derived from logistic regression predicting attributions for the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. As expected significant differences existed between Democrats and Republicans (b=.43, p
