I teach part time and as part of the training they covered why* speculation about motivations is so often very wrong. The Cosby trial was going on at the time, and I recall hearing the same questions being raised that I had just learned were terribly misleading. "If this happened, why did she come back?" "If this happened, why did she act friendly and thank him?"
I'm still amazed we don't teach theses lessons to everyone at a young age. If we know our gut impressions about evaluating evidence will mislead us, that sounds like a valuable lesson to learn before it hurts us or others. This doesn't have to be about rape, it covers handling grief, reactions to getting feelings hurt, social bullying, things everyone will encounter.
*why = more accurately, we were told that our impressions were inaccurate with a few sentences of explanations, such as the fight/flight/freeze response and how trauma is processed (or not) plus some statistics. Actual understanding takes more work, but the caution against assumption is the easier lesson.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 11.5 ms ] threadI'm still amazed we don't teach theses lessons to everyone at a young age. If we know our gut impressions about evaluating evidence will mislead us, that sounds like a valuable lesson to learn before it hurts us or others. This doesn't have to be about rape, it covers handling grief, reactions to getting feelings hurt, social bullying, things everyone will encounter.
*why = more accurately, we were told that our impressions were inaccurate with a few sentences of explanations, such as the fight/flight/freeze response and how trauma is processed (or not) plus some statistics. Actual understanding takes more work, but the caution against assumption is the easier lesson.