Hostile attribution bias

Biological Parallel

Damselfish guarding eggs attack ANY movement near their nest—even neutral drifting seaweed. This hostile attribution bias is adaptive when nest predation is common: the cost of false alarms (wasted energy) is lower than the cost of missing one real threat (total reproductive loss). Natural selection favors hair-trigger threat detection in high-stakes environments. The bias becomes pathological when threat levels drop: damselfish in protected reefs waste so much energy on false alarms that their breeding success declines. Organizations that institutionalize threat sensitivity during crises often maintain hostile attribution long after the danger passes.