Defensive attribution hypothesis

Biological Parallel

When a wildebeest is killed by lions, the herd faces a critical attribution question: random bad luck (could happen to me) or victim weakness (they were slow/old)? Defensive attribution—identifying victim defects—is adaptive: it restores sense of control and guides herd positioning (stay near strong animals, avoid weak). Zebras that fail to make this distinction don't adjust their behavior and suffer higher predation. The mechanism persists in humans but misfires: we blame car accident victims ('should have been more alert') in genuinely random events, psychologically protecting ourselves while preventing systemic safety improvements that could actually help.