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<DIV>I agree. On the one hand, these considerations are a big part of cognitive psychology (and cognitive therapy on an individual basis), for example see Ted Beck's "Prisoner's of Hate" for an interesting analysis of reactions patterns that lead to hostility. They are also a big part of the study of unconscious social perception (i.e. attribution theory, dissonance, stereotypes, social schemata, nonverbal communication, marginal perception). Yet even though there's a fair amount of good empirical research in this area already, it has traditionally been very disjoint: a pile of promising data with a few scattered attempts at unifying themes. The result is that the research is still very easy to extrapolate into political arguments by taking advantage of the lack of conceptual unification. I still hold out some hope that evolutionary models will help unify the data and provide a general model of how we build and respond to our inner representations of each other. </DIV>
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<DIV>Todd</DIV>
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<DIV>--There really ought to be more focus on how people<BR>misperceive cues by others. In addition to ubiquitous<BR>misreading of signals across gender lines, there is a<BR>lot of misreading of signals in arguments and<BR>conflicts. People who interpret criticism as an attack<BR>are more likely to fall into the shame-rage spiral and<BR>become violent. It might be a lot easier to teach<BR>criminals to interrupt the steps of the spiral than to<BR>expect them to learn from punishment weeks or months<BR>after an assault has been committed. It would also be<BR>helpful in negotiations between highly emotional<BR>parties in politics. <BR><BR>Michael</DIV></BODY></HTML>