Page 201 - The Social Animal

Self-Justification 183

The concept of self-justification can be applied more broadly
still. Suppose you are in the midst of a great natural disaster, such as
an earthquake. All around you, buildings are toppling and people are
getting killed and injured. Needless to say, you are frightened. Is
there any need to seek justification for this fear? Certainly not. The
evidence is all around you; the injured people and the devastated
buildings are ample justification for your fear. But suppose, instead,
the earthquake occurred in a neighboring town. You can feel the
tremors, and you hear stories of the damage done to the other town.
You are terribly frightened, but you are not in the midst of the dev-
astated area; neither you nor the people around you have been hurt,
and no buildings in your town have been damaged. Would you need
to justify this fear? Yes. Much like the people in the Schachter-Singer
experiment experiencing strong physical reactions to epinephrine but
not knowing why, and much like our hypnotized friend in the rain-
coat and galoshes, you would be inclined to justify your own actions
or feelings. In this situation, you see nothing to be afraid of in the
immediate vicinity, so you would be inclined to seek justification for
the fact that you are scared out of your wits.
These disaster situations are not hypothetical examples; they ac-
tually occurred in India. In the aftermath of an earthquake, investi-
gators collected and analyzed the rumors being spread. What they
1
discovered was rather startling: Jamuna Prasad, an Indian psycholo-
gist, found that when the disaster occurred in a neighboring village
such that the residents in question could feel the tremors but were
not in imminent danger, there was an abundance of rumors forecast-
ing impending doom. Specifically, the residents of this village be-
lieved, and helped spread rumors to the effect, that (1) a flood was
rushing toward them; (2) February 26 would be a day of deluge and
destruction; (3) there would be another severe earthquake on the day
of the lunar eclipse; (4) there would be a cyclone within a few days;
and (5) unforeseeable calamities were on the horizon.
Why in the world would people invent, believe, and communi-
cate such stories? Were these people masochists? Were they para-
noid? Certainly these rumors would not encourage the people to
feel calm and secure. One rather compelling explanation is that the
people were terribly frightened, and because there was not ample
justification for this fear, they invented their own justification.Thus,
they were not compelled to feel foolish. After all, if a cyclone is on
the way, isn’t it perfectly reasonable that I should be wild-eyed with