# 53. Social manipulation ## 53.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ### 53.5.3. Defensive attribution hypothesis This bias makes us more likely to attack someone for a mishap when it is serious. When it is less serious, the tendency is lower. When a mishap is more serious then the tendency to blame is higher. This tendency to attribute responsibility is also increased by any similarities between an outside observer and the victim of the mishap. So, in general, more responsibility will be attributed to a harm-doer by the observer when the outcome becomes more severe, and the victim is more similar to the observer. **Example:** Men are statistically more likely to apportion some responsibility to a rape victim than are women because some men tend to sympathise less with the victim than do most women. Manipulators use this bias to generate antagonism towards either the object or subject of a mishap, or both. The stirring up of antagonism amongst a particular group is a powerful source of manipulative influence. For instance, when a young woman dies during a miscarriage in a country which forbids abortion, then the reaction of many women in that country is understandably to attack the laws that allow this to happen. Other outsiders (men and women) will blame the woman's husband for allowing her to give birth in such a morally backward country. Yet another group will use the event to strengthen their anti-abortion views and the definition of the guidelines for allowing termination. The case is very serious, so there has to be blame. A manipulator can use such an event to fan the flames of an argument in favour of allowing legal termination of pregnancy to save a mother's life. Regardless of the moral issues at stake here, the bias is a powerful force in persuading victims to take up a particular moral stance.