A tragic, but understandable misunderstanding

Accounts of the police shooting of an innocent man in a London subway appear to be changing. Recent news reports, based upon leaked documents, have cast doubt upon key elements of the story initially circulated concerning the tragic incident.

Misfortune seems to have plagued the police surveillance operation investigating the London subway bombings from the very beginning. Jean-Charles de Menezes had been spotted leaving a block of flats where authorities believed two terror suspects were living. The undercover officer charged with identifying individuals exiting the area had apparently been away from his post “relieving himself” when Mr. de Menezes left. This officer’s duties had reportedly included videotaping suspects leaving the area, and transmitting his observations to others on the surveillance team.

Initial media reports indicated that Mr. de Menezes had been “acting suspiciously.” Early news accounts had him attempting to elude police officials by jumping a ticket barrier at Stockwell Underground station, and failing to respond to commands from officials on the scene. A witness reported that the suspect was wearing “…a thick coat that looked padded.” Another claimed he “…appears to have a bomb belt with wires coming out.” Citing witness reports, Reuters said the victim, “…was shot five times in the head after being chased on to an underground train by undercover police.”

Subsequent substantiated reports, however, have established that Mr. de Menezes walked calmly through the subway station, apparently unaware that he was being observed by police. He was apprehended in an underground train and was reportedly being restrained by a police officer when he was killed. The autopsy report cited by the press indicated that Mr. de Menezes was hit in the head by seven bullets fired by London police. Three other bullets were reportedly fired, but missed. Photographic evidence confirmed that he was wearing a light denim jacket, not a bulky coat capable of concealing explosives, as previously reported.

How could an innocent man, looking and behaving normally, be mistaken for a suicide bomber? By what process could a patently false story concerning the circumstances of the shooting materialize?

Some have accused police officials of lying, and of conspiring to cover up the facts surrounding the shooting. Although a police cover-up cannot necessarily be ruled out, an explanation based upon fairly well established psychological principles seems plausible, and possibly sufficient, to explain this unfortunate episode.

According to the British television channel ITV, when de Menezes entered the Metro car, officials "formally identified" him as one of the suspects involved in the suicide bombing attempts of the previous day.

Although Mr. de Menezes had been described by witnesses as “an Asian looking man,” he was, in fact, Brazilian. The actual bombing suspect was Ethiopian-born Hussein Osman. Looking at side-by-side photos of the two men published by news media, it would appear easy to distinguish one from the other. Nevertheless, both men would be recognizable as “foreigners,” not matching the White, Anglo-Saxon stereotype. Both, in other words, were members of an “out-group,” in reference to the stereotypical Londoner.

It is well established that individuals are better able to visually identify and distinguish between members of their own ethnic group, or “in-group,” as compared to members of ethnic groups to which they do not belong. How often have you heard someone say, “Those (fill in an ethnic group), they all look alike…”? Assuming that the positive identification of Mr. de Menezes was made by native Europeans, under tense conditions, such a mistake seems understandable. I would, however, be surprised if an ethnic Brazilian or Ethiopian would have mistaken one man for the other.

While that might help explain the case of mistaken identity, how do we explain the eyewitness accounts of Mr. de Menezes wearing a bulky coat, a bomb belt with wires coming out, jumping a ticket barrier, etc.?

One’s memories of events are always incomplete, fragmentary. That’s because being human, it is impossible for us to record every aspect of an event the way a camcorder might. One’s attention naturally focuses upon certain aspects of the event more than others. Much important information may go unnoticed, and thus, fail to be encoded into memory.

In addition, our understanding of an event is affected by our knowledge and understanding of similar events. If, for example, I tell you that I had an unpleasant visit to the dentist’s office, you might form an impression of my experience, without my ever having told you specifically what had occurred. Your impression would be a product of your preexisting knowledge and experiences relating to dentist offices. If you later recount the story to someone else, you might contribute new information that was missing from my original account, without even realizing what you are doing. Chances are you would be correct, but you could be wrong. It is quite possible that my unpleasant experience had been an atypical one that you couldn’t have easily imagined.

Psychologists speak of organized sets of beliefs and expectations they call schemas, our existing knowledge frameworks, that influence our interpretation of situations and events. Thus, when our recollections are incomplete, our schemas help us to fill in the missing parts from our store of information concerning similar events.

We all have preexisting ideas about how suicide bombers look, dress, behave, etc. Witnesses recounting their experiences immediately following a subway shooting, in the context of the recent bombings, would be expected to fit their recollections into the general outlines they already have concerning such events, potentially providing faulty eyewitness accounts of the incident. Could this explain why witnesses in the London subway reported the things they did?

Other factors potentially adding to the confusion were also in play. Londoners, on the day Mr. de Menezes was shot, were undoubtedly in a heightened state of anxiety and vigilance. It was just two weeks after fifty-two innocent commuters were killed and hundreds injured in four suicide attacks carried out on London’s mass transit system, and one day after multiple suicide attacks were again attempted, albeit, unsuccessfully. Intense emotions like fear, anxiety, shock, and anger can have detrimental effects upon individuals’ perception and interpretation of events, their judgment, and their later recollections of events. Decisions needed to be made quickly. Authorities, we learned, had issued standing “shoot to kill” orders to prevent terrorists from detonating explosive devices while in the process of being apprehended by police.

Knowing what we know about the human propensity for making errors in identifying suspects and recalling events, does it seem reasonable to maintain a “shoot to kill” policy on terror suspects? What about the principle of a suspect being “innocent until proven guilty?” I imagine that controversial police policy will come under intense critical scrutiny during the ensuing investigation.

Some thoughts on internet pornography

The internet has become a mainstay of contemporary society, a virtually indispensable tool for education and research. It provides ready access to information, opinions, news, entertainment, products, services, email, chat, and, of course, pornography.

In recent years, sexually explicit pictures, literature, and movies intended primarily for the purpose of eliciting sexual arousal have become easily downloadable from the internet. The increased availability of such materials has added a new dimension to the age old debate about the effects of such material on viewers and societies. The arguments are familiar.

Religionists sometimes insist that the acts depicted in pornography are immoral, and that they entice those who view them to harbor sinful desires or commit immoral or sinful acts. Others avoid the morality issue by arguing that pornography promotes unhealthy attitudes and behavior among those who view it regularly or excessively.

Some express concern that pornography, particularly in its more extreme or violent forms might inspire or promote antisocial behavior, especially violence against women. Some feminists argue that whether or not pornography leads to violence, it is inherently degrading to women, promoting male dominance and a view of women as sex-objects.

The “pornography as catharsis” perspective proposes that exposure to pornography acts as a “relief valve,” preventing the deviant acts others suggest it causes. In her web article, “The Porn Myth,” post-feminist author Naomi Wolf suggests that, far from inducing men to rape women, pornography makes men less interested in traditional sex. According to Wolf, "The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.’” She supports this absurd argument with anecdotal evidence of conversations she claims to have had with “young women” on “college campuses.”

According to Wolf, “…how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?” She can’t be serious!

Wolf, in my view, seems to be describing a fetishistic disorder, in which a person develops an abnormal obsession with an inanimate object, like shoes or women’s underwear, and becomes incapable of becoming aroused in the absence of the object, in this case pornographic materials. Although such cases undoubtedly exist, it is a safe bet that they are not representative of “a whole generation of men,” as Wolf suggests.

While Wolf’s analysis seems rather extreme, the possibility of adverse effects for some consumers of pornography cannot be automatically discounted. I’m thinking of those whose primary source of knowledge about sex comes from pornography. Such material can clearly be misleading.

When my generation was coming of age in the early ‘70s, we admittedly gawked at the nudes in the pages of men’s magazines like “Playboy” and “Penthouse”, but also had access to popular, authoritative works like David Ruben’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex,” and Alex Comfort’s “The Joy of Sex” with all those tasteful illustrations. I wonder if today’s youth have access to similar resources, or if they get their sex education instead from watching porn.

Because pornographic sites must compete in an overcrowded market worth billions, many try to distinguish themselves by pushing the envelope in depicting extreme or otherwise unconventional sex acts. As a consequence, young, immature, impressionable, and/or sexually naïve individuals might develop bizarre ideas concerning the prevalence and acceptability of certain deviant activities in the general population.

The psychological literature on the effects of pornography at present appears inconclusive. Although some correlational studies suggest an association between pornography, especially violent pornography, and a potential for sexual violence, it goes beyond the limits of this research to suggest that pornography causes such behavior. Pornography is, after all, only one factor among many that may influence a person to behave aggressively. Nevertheless, I don’t think we can on the basis of research rule out the possibility that violent pornography could have adverse effects on some people. At the very least, it seems neither flattering, nor beneficial to women.

Because the literature provides no clear answers, it is easy for unscrupulous or unsophisticated individuals to misrepresent psychological findings to support their own respective political agendas. This can result in public confusion and misunderstanding of the issues. Those who cite scientific research in support of censorship go beyond the limits of current research. Besides, if history is any indication, prohibition of commodities that are in demand serves only to increase their allure, while eroding personal liberty.

What makes us the way we are?

Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra recently appeared alongside former Prime Minister and chairman of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) Anand Panyarachun in a televised interview to discuss their respective approaches to the political unrest and violence in the Southern Provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat. Mr. Anand has proposed strategies for building trust and reconciliation between the government and local Muslim communities. Prime Minister Thaksin has promoted a tougher stance, emphasizing the use of policing tactics to quell the violence.

It was interesting to notice the stark contrasts between these two Thai leaders. While both men have risen to positions of national and international prominence, their respective personal styles, their politics, and their approaches to the challenges posed by the situation in the South appear fundamentally different.

We usually take it for granted that people exhibit distinctive differences from one another in many of the attitudes that they hold, in their social behavior, and in the way they respond to events. Psychologists use the term personality to refer to an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Numerous theories of personality have gone in and out of fashion during the 100 or so years since Freud proposed the first comprehensive theory of personality. Theorists have proposed personality traits such as introversion and extraversion to try to capture the individual differences we attribute to personality. Even attitudes that underlie different political persuasions like those of Anand and Thaksin have been tied to personality characteristics.

Psychologists who study personality have generally attempted to narrow the number of personality traits to a minimum, while still capturing the rich variety of personality styles found among humans. They have worked to develop valid and reliable instruments to measure those traits, and have looked for relationships among the proposed traits and the behavior of those possessing them.

When we think of all the ways people can vary in personality, the question arises as to the origins of these differences. How do we account for the fact that some people seem much more conventional in their thinking, while others exhibit a great deal of originality? Why do some people crave adventure and risk, while others routinely appear more cautious? Why do some people characteristically exhibit hostility and aggressiveness, while others seem more even-tempered and sociable in their relationships?

Answers to these questions are usually variations on the theme of “nature versus nurture.” Our attitudes, emotions, and behavior are influenced by our biological nature, by our experiences in life, and by interactions between the two. Differences of opinions usually revolve around the relative importance attributable to heredity versus the environment.

Psychologists have traditionally emphasized environmental influences on behavior. Since personality differences appears to begin to emerge very early in life, a major focus was placed upon early childhood experiences, relationships with parents, and exposure to early trauma. Recent research, however, has suggested that heredity plays a much more important role than previously imagined.

In order to sort out personality differences attributable to heredity versus environment, psychologists typically study twins. They select samples of identical and fraternal twins raised together, as well as those raised apart. Identical twins raised together share a common genetic make-up, and similar upbringing. Measured differences in their personalities can serve as a baseline for comparing differences found between identical twins reared apart, fraternal twins reared together, and fraternal twins reared apart.

Psychologist Auke Tellegen and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota reported on a very well-designed investigation of this type in 1988. Results indicated that the effects of environmental factors upon most measures of personality appeared negligible. Genes, it appeared, were the primary determinants of personality differences. These findings, contrary to widely held beliefs at the time, are, nevertheless, consistent with other studies of personality differences using twins.

Investigations of this sort typically reveal some pretty amazing parallels between the lives of identical twins raised apart and in isolation from one another, in terms of similar interests, habits, family, and career paths. In one particularly remarkable example, a set of identical twins born in Trinidad were separated shortly after birth. One was taken to Germany where he was raised Catholic and exposed to Nazism. The other was raised in Trinidad as a Jew.

When reunited by researchers in their late forties, both men appeared for the study wearing blue double-breasted suits, mustaches and wire-rimmed glasses. They exhibited similar gestures and mannerisms. Both had a taste for spicy foods and sweet liqueurs. They had a habit of flushing the toilet before using it, liked to dip buttered toast into coffee, and enjoyed sneezing in elevators to startle others.

The conclusion that genetic factors are a prominent determinant of personality may be disappointing to those psychologists who devote their lives to studying the effects of environmental variables like child-rearing practices, socioeconomic status, and parental educational status. Compared to the influence of our genes, it appears that environmental factors amount to small potatoes when it comes to shaping our personalities.