I was really bugged by the Minneapolis video more by the other cops who stood by and did nothing presumably as a tribe culture of protecting their own first. I have seen this culture also amongst doctors and lawyers who may criticize a fellow doctor in private but never in public.
I am calling it “Tribal behavior” but is there a scientific / psychological name for it ?
I have also seen other professions where debate and disagreements are a core part. Scientists for example, but even there it is not completely true.
Beside the tribal notion of protecting your own, is there some other aspect of sociology or psychology going on here ? Are there any groups or organizations that has reduced this behavior effectively?
Yes, there’s the concept of “professional courtesy”, but the question is why it applies to some professions but not others. When a scientist violates professional ethical norms, other scientists want them out of the profession. When a police officer violates professional ethical norms, other police officers circle the wagons in defense. Why the difference?
Regarding groups that have a reduced level of that behavior, I’m a computer programmer, and my observation is that computer programmers’ first instinct is to claim that every other computer programmer is an idiot, and in many cases the only reason they’re not shouting from the rooftops that the program their company sells is a buggy piece of trash is because they don’t want to get fired.
This reflex to be critical usually comes from untold hours dealing with messes other alleged-programmers made. It really saps the professional loyalty.
I think you also see this type of behavior in the military. Similarly to the police, you are putting your life, not your livelihood, but your actual life, in the hands of your fellow officers and soldiers. It is ingrained in those cultures to have your brother or sister’s back.
I would opine that another piece of it is that cops deal with some of the worst elements of society on a daily basis. Sure the average first time DUI and shoplifting kid isnt much of a problem.
At the same time cops deal with people pretty regularly who would happily fabricate a complaint if it might get them a lighter sentence or cast any doubt of the behavior/honesty of the officer even where no misbehavior on the part of the officer exists. Their fellow officers are sometimes the only friendly witness. A review of the witness statements from the Michael brown shooting makes an interesting example.
So true.
In my observation, Plumbers and professional Engineers tend to be neutral, programmers tend to be – not. Which is interesting, because engineers have been traditionally criticized by management for not being team players, and some people in programming do now work in team environments.
Knowing and working with a lot of Doctors and Lawyers and a few Scientists, I wouldn’t characterize Doctors and Lawyers as Tribal. Lawyers love criticizing other lawyers. Sure, they’re afraid of libel suits and contempt-of-court orders, and they understand that most problems start with clients, but keeping silent isn’t what I would call a characteristic.
Similar with Doctors. Doctors are fairly smart in their own area, so they understand the limits of their own knowledge and expertise. They don’t go around calling calling out other Doctors, and can be fairly contemptuous of those who do, but that’s not tribalism or defensiveness: it’s just a combination of keeping their mouth shut when they don’t know what they are talking about, and a trained respect for patient privacy.
I agree that this is likely ingrained in the culture, as it certainly was in the military, but it’s not justified in law enforcement. In the US, the coronavirus has killed about 0.032% of the population. In 2019, 0.007% of law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty (and these are based on conservative estimates). So the coronavirus is almost 5 times more likely to have killed you than the odds of a cop running into the next Matt Frank Hoover this year. It’s not as safe as a work-from-home data science gig, but there are a lot more deadly jobs you could have, such as groundskeepers, truck driver, garbage collector, and of course, fishermen and loggers.
Compared to law enforcement officers, how many of the other more deadly jobs you mentioned were feloniously killed in the line of duty? The people involved in the other occupations you mentioned have a risk of dying on the job from human error (theirs or others) or mechanical failures but not at the hands of others intentionally trying to kill them that feloniously killed indicates.
Coronavirus deaths are not relevant as anybody can contract and die from it no matter if they are on the job or not and it wouldn’t be an intentional act by another.
I think the difference may have to do with shared suffering leading to bonding. Police work is often a stressful and dangerous job, similarly medial residency and the stresses of having peoples lives in your hands, leads you to strongly emphasize with those who have been through what you have and “get it”. This is the reason that so many groups engage in hazing rituals as a way of binding members to them. While finishing a dissertation may be a bit stressful, there isn’t a whole lot of suffering for a career in science. So there isn’t nearly the level of bonding as there is in these other professions.
I think it’s simply that doctors, lawyers and cops tend to perceive themselves as being under a degree of threat from outside their respective communities - malpractice suits, general suits, and literal violence, respectively, as well as a huge dose of uninformed criticism from outside. How many people have gone to Dr. Google and then got all over a doctor because they didn’t do something that they think they should have? Or think about how ignorant people are of the law and basic legal process?
So they tend to circle the wagons and give each other far more benefit of the doubt in terms of sketchy behavior, poor practice/performance, etc… because they feel like it could be themselves in the crosshairs unwarrantedly. And since all 3 are licensed professions where there’s a lot of leeway/judgment in terms of how they perform their jobs, there’s a lot of fear of losing one’s license/job.
The problem is that you end up with doctors like Christopher Duntsch, who ended up killing four people and maiming 33 others before his license was finally revoked, presumably because the Texas Medical Board is populated mostly by doctors and they’re extremely reticent to yank licenses. Most state Bars are more apt to do so, but even then, it usually takes gross crookedness, not just regular unethical behavior.
Obviously both of you have never attended a hospital tumor conference, where rancor is commonplace (for instance, oncologists routinely rag on each other, and pick on surgeons, radiologists and pathologists as well). While not advertised to the public, these are not closed-door meetings and anyone can attend for entertainment purposes, and if you’re lucky, coffee and bagels.
The current controversy over aspects of the coronavirus pandemic and medications alleged to treat/prevent it should effectively counter the belief that doctors don’t publicly criticize each other. Example.It’s worth noting however that hospitals and physicians can be loath to censure misbehaving/misperforming doctors due to fears that the targeted docs will sue them.
In general, public attention and controversy generated by a profession plus the extent to which its pluses and minuses are reported, regulated and attacked by outsiders are proportional to the amount of clannishness displayed by members of those professions. People seldom march on the state capitol to protest a plumber who failed to fix a leaky toilet.
I don’t know anything about Chris Duntsch or the TMB, but in my country (Australia), the state medical boards were prevented from revoking licenses by the courts, and the state board doctors were eventually replaced by lawyers.
Doctors are much less supportive of failing colleagues than is generally supposed. A bad doctor means more work for other doctors, and bad medical outcomes. (Doctors notoriously care more about medical outcomes than people. That’s not true of most doctors of course, but enough for it to be a slanderous stereotype.)
Doctors do understand the unpredictability of medical outcomes, and don’t routinely attribute bad outcomes to bad doctoring. But they do regard bad doctoring as a moral, intellectual and legal failing indicative of a lower level of humanity.
Sure, but I think there’s a fair degree of doctors as a group giving their colleagues the benefit of the doubt in the case of poor outcomes than maybe there should be. And it’s for the simple reason that they know that all doctors have poor outcomes sometimes, and in large part it is out of their control, so they apply the Golden Rule to other doctors.
It’s totally understandable, but I think at some point, it can become less of a professional courtesy and more of an ethical problem at some point.