A paper that helps explain rep and dem views on cause of mass shootings

[HereSince1628]

Last edited Fri Oct 16, 2015, 09:46 PM - Edit history (1)

The paper is text for a presentation at an academic meeting...it's got some interesting things to say about how conservatives/republicans and liberals/democrats are guided by different world views to make different attributions of cause. It's interesting in and of itself, but it also suggested to me how it is that such a broad consensus has become established blaming the mentally ill for gun violence.

Attributing Blame in Tragedy: Understanding Attitudes About the Causes of Three Mass Shootings

Department of Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, 504 Blake Hall
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66044

http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=702000084013070001066111019065018065061037007020071061119066027014064114077100118101058020007125050109119007019114003125119001030071029038092096115008116006069024038042022097098021026082082026085009095003000007067078065101106102086007093019067066111&EXT=pdf

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.

While this oversimplifies their work, the gist of their findings confirms their hypothesis that republicans and democrats use their pre-existing views and biases to make attributions of cause to mass shootings. Very roughly they find that republicans tend to attribute blame to individuals and their character, while democrats are open to the notion that a person's context and environmental factors contribute to causes of mass-shootings.

Another finding was that among democrats owning a gun tends to reverse the general partisan attributions of blame. Gun-owning democrats are more likely to blame individuals and their character than attribute gun violence to environmental causes (video games, movies, newscasts, etc).

The general question I wonder about is why are about 80% of Americans willing to attribute mental illness as the cause of mass gun murder? It may be a matter of how conservative and liberal thinking constructs the relationship of mental illness and individual/personal characteristics. My suggestion, and I think it could possibly be tested, is that conservatives place mental illness inside the box that contains each mass-shooters personality, while liberals place mental illness outside, but immediately close to each mass-shooters personality. Human nature wants attributions that can guide decisions about safety and policy, by attributing cause of mass murder to mental illness both conservatives and liberals can satisfy the requirements of their preexisting and guiding beliefs -AND- come together in a broad consensus that reinforces each others perspective.

Anyway. Their paper is an interesting look at how partisan views influence where attributions of blame are placed.