Why it Matters What We Post After Atrocities

Our brains respond to justifications for prejudice

Does it matter what we post on social media in the wake of atrocities?

I don’t tend to have hot takes about news. As Adam Grant noted this week, some of us are slow, and private, in formulating our thoughts. I think, for nearly everyone for nearly all events, it is ok not to post a take at all, or even to have one succinct enough to post.

I have been scarce on social media for a while now, but when I took a look at X (the erstwhile Twitter) in the wake of the massacre in Israel, the first content that the algorithmic “for you” feed presented to me included justifications — and even some outright celebrations — of horrific civilian deaths in Israel. I expect, if I check back soon, the algorithm will be ready for me with posts making light of civilian deaths in Gaza. Does it matter?

In the early days of this newsletter, I occasionally used it to try to process some of my own thoughts about current events. Not even to come to conclusions, necessarily, but to turn to research to try to find something more useful for my thinking than what I was getting from the news and social media. To do that, I would try to come up with a specific question, and begin to investigate it. (This post, regarding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, was an early example.)

I decided to do that again this week. My question was whether the reactions of the general public on social media to deaths in Israel and Gaza are important — aside from just being alternately heartening and painful to their target audiences. I certainly don’t purport to have a complete answer. But I started at “I don’t know,” and after reading an influential research paper about prejudice, my needle has moved in the “it probably matters” direction.

The paper, by psychologists Christian S. Crandall and Amy Eshleman, is: “A Justification-Suppression Model of the Expression and Experience of Prejudice.”

In it, Crandall and Eshleman are trying to make sense of a huge body of research on the prejudices that people express, whether on the basis of race, religion, sex, nationality, or simply negative feelings about employees at a competing business.

They point out that a wealth of research has shown that the expression of prejudice, even for a given individual, is not stable from moment to moment, and varies highly with the context. For example, people are more likely to act on stereotypes when they are stressed, tired, drunk, frustrated, distracted by a cognitive task, or after they’ve been insulted, even if the insult has nothing to do with the group targeted by their prejudice.

Crandall and Eshleman write:

“All of the theories we have reviewed can be reduced to the following structure. People acquire, early and firmly, prejudice toward racial out-groups. As cultural norms become increasingly negative toward straightforward prejudice, and as people mature, they become motivated and skilled at suppressing many of their prejudices. A simple equation summarizes these two-factor theories of prejudice:

prejudice + suppression = expression.”

In other words, our latent prejudices are basic emotional reactions, honed over years of bonding with our own in-groups, but the expression of those implicit feelings is moderated by factors like our explicit values, our self-image, and the norms of our society. This moderation takes effort, especially at first, and especially if the prejudice is very strong. That is why, Crandall and Eshleman write, people in studies display more prejudice when they are mentally fatigued or overwhelmed; they don’t have as many cognitive resources available to engage in suppression, even when it fits with their values.

The paper reminded me of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s writing in his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, about our brain’s so-called “System 1” and “System 2.” Kahneman writes:

“-System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.

-System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.”

System 1 is very efficient for handling most of our daily activities, from understanding a simple sentence, to quickly interpreting social situations. System 2 steps in when you’re trying to park in a tight spot, evaluate a complicated logical argument, or monitor whether your own behavior is appropriate for a given situation — which might involve modifying your reflexive desires or initial instincts.

That sounds to me conceptually akin to what Crandall and Eshleman are explaining about prejudice: there’s a gut reaction, potentially followed by a more thoughtful moderation that yanks the reaction in line with our larger goals. Except, their model involves more than just suppression of prejudicial gut reactions. They call it the “Justification-Suppression Model” for a reason.

According to their framework, after the gut feeling of prejudice is moderated by suppression factors (self-image, values, norms, etc.), it is bolstered by justification factors — rationales to embrace the prejudice without guilt or shame, or any change in one’s self-image. Basically, the gut feeling goes into a stew along with the suppression and justification factors, and out comes the actual expression (or lack thereof) of prejudice.

Sometimes, the psychologists write, the very feeling of being encouraged to suppress prejudice becomes a justification for expressing more of it. They note that researchers have found, particularly in strongly prejudiced people, a sort of “rebound” effect, in which individuals made to suppress a prejudice may eventually rebel against that suppression, and experience very positive emotions (a release of tension) when they eventually let their prejudice emerge. Thus, they feel incentivized to express more prejudice.

But suppression can be maintained over the long-term, and the factors that help are pretty general. Practice apparently has an impact, as do social norms, and an individual’s commitment to egalitarian goals.

Justification factors are more idiosyncratic, and often involve stereotypes specific to the target group. One theme, though, according to Crandall and Eshleman, is that “We do not like people who harm themselves.” They reference work showing that we will often “find responsibility among those who are suffering that justifies prejudice and discrimination,” whether that pertains to people who smell bad, are out of work, or are victims of historical and social forces beyond their control.

That resonates with what I think is going on on social media. Even people who are generally committed to egalitarian goals have ample material to find victim-blaming justifications. The many children in Israel and Gaza who have died or who will die can’t possibly be responsible for any of this. And yet, a “Well, what did they expect?” attitude was pervasive in the few minutes I spent scrolling X. So, to get back to the original question: Do those social media posts matter? 

Based on the Crandall and Eshleman framework, I think they do. If social norms appear to justify violence against a group, a whole lot of latent prejudice is going to come out of the woodwork at once. Jay Van Bavel, a professor of psychology and neural science at NYU, put it succinctly:

“Genuine prejudices are often restrained by values and norms, until the situation allows people to justify their expression. …This is why it's crucial not to openly justify or rationalize violence against other groups. People who were (secretly) prejudiced all long will see this as a justification to express their own virulent beliefs, which can lead to mass discrimination or violence.”

Van Bavel referenced another study which found that social norms were strong predictors of individuals’ expressions of prejudice. In that work, the people who worked hard to suppress their own prejudices were the most influenced by social norms, and would express strong prejudice when it seemed socially acceptable.

Is this Justification-Suppression Model view of the world depressing? Perhaps, in that it says that there are massive aquifers of prejudice bubbling just below our collective surface. But I find it hopeful. It suggests that effort matters, and practice matters, and individual values matter, and that social norms can prevent prejudicial behavior, even when prejudice is common.

Like it or not, social media influences social norms. So if you do choose to post on social media, or to share a post, stop to think about the larger narrative it enforces. Hopefully, the narrative is that the harming of innocents is always a tragedy to be mourned, no matter who those innocents are.

Thanks to cognitive scientist (and my friend) Scott Barry Kaufman, who shared a post that led me to read the paper. And thank you for reading.

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Until next time…

David