{"title":"Chapter 1. Adaptive Biases: Making the Right Mistakes in International Politics","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9780691185606-003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691185606-003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":314714,"journal":{"name":"Strategic Instincts","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134132011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Strategic InstinctsPub Date : 2020-09-08DOI: 10.23943/PRINCETON/9780691137452.003.0008
Dominic D. P. Johnson
{"title":"United We Stand","authors":"Dominic D. P. Johnson","doi":"10.23943/PRINCETON/9780691137452.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/PRINCETON/9780691137452.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the strategic advantages of the in-group/out-group bias. It discusses people that have a powerful tendency to favor their own in-group and its members, while disparaging out-groups and their members. It also clarifies the strength and prevalence of the in-group/out-group bias that forms a bedrock foundation in social psychology and is critical to social identity and intergroup relations. The chapter investigates how group prejudices can have appalling human consequences in the bias's contribution to the oppression of minority groups, ethnic conflict, and genocide. It highlights the implication of the role of the in-group/out-group bias in fanning the flames of the Balkan wars, the Rwandan genocide, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict.","PeriodicalId":314714,"journal":{"name":"Strategic Instincts","volume":"197 S572","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113972710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Strategic InstinctsPub Date : 2020-09-08DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691137452.003.0001
Dominic D. P. Johnson
{"title":"Our Gift","authors":"Dominic D. P. Johnson","doi":"10.23943/princeton/9780691137452.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691137452.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter describes strategic instincts as rapid, adaptive decision-making heuristics that all human beings have and are not achieved by accident. It elaborates how strategic instincts keep people alive and successful over the many millennia of human evolutionary history and in fast-moving situations of uncertainty. It also confirms the continuation of the same strategic instincts that serve as tools of survival for individual human beings and the nations they lead, significantly in times of crisis and war. The chapter focuses on whether and when cognitive biases cause or promote success in the realm of international relations. It discusses the interpretation of cognitive biases that appears to be exacerbated by focusing on disasters and looking at isolated events.","PeriodicalId":314714,"journal":{"name":"Strategic Instincts","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131080092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Overkill","authors":"Dominic D. P. Johnson","doi":"10.4135/9781452229300.n1342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452229300.n1342","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers an important caveat about the adaptive advantages of cognitive biases and looks at the argument that biases can be advantageous as long as they are manifested in appropriate settings and in moderation. It notes biases that become extreme or arise in the wrong contexts that are liable to be counterproductive and result in disaster. It also emphasizes how human cognitive biases are not extreme, but instead are tendencies that marginally steer behavior in some particular way and vary from person to person and situation to situation. The chapter considers how strong biases should be effective when the consequences become overbearing. It explores the red lines beyond which strategic instincts go too far by revisiting the Pacific campaign in World War II.","PeriodicalId":314714,"journal":{"name":"Strategic Instincts","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130301244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Guardian Angels:","authors":"","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvz0h8t8.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvz0h8t8.14","url":null,"abstract":"What are angels? An angel is a pure spirit created by God. The Old Testament theology included the belief in angels... The name applied to certain spiritual beings or intelligences of heavenly residence, employed by God as the ministers of His Will. The English word “angel” comes from the Greek angelos, which means ‘messenger’. In the Old Testament, with two exceptions, the Hebrew word for “angel” is malak, also meaning ‘messenger’. The prophet Malachi took his name from this word. He was himself a messenger and he prophesied about the coming of “the messenger of the covenant”, Jesus Christ. Although the word ‘angel’ in the Bible, meaning a messenger, nearly always applies to heavenly beings, it can occasionally apply to human messengers. Malachi himself said a priest was a messenger of the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 2:7).","PeriodicalId":314714,"journal":{"name":"Strategic Instincts","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115107023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}