The Case for the Case Study

Forgiveness The Case for the Case Study What statistics, Holocaust descendants and "Fauda" can teach us about individuals. Posted September 17, 2026 Reviewed by Abigail Fagan Key points - Variability within groups can reveal important differences that averages conceal. - The show "Fauda" illustrates how people can resist assumptions based on identity or group membership. - People may share an identity or history while responding to it in profoundly different ways. - Outliers can challenge assumptions and sometimes point toward the next scientific discovery. When I ran a first-ever study at Harvard that brought together descendants of Holocaust survivors and Nazi perpetrators for an organized dialogue, I was struck not only by the statistical findings, but by what the findings made me realize about the relationship between groups and individuals. I reported the findings in my book Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II. The study examined how the participants interacted using the statistical method lag sequential analysis to pinpoint average patterns in their verbal exchanges. One finding was that participants on both sides, although in different ways, felt like victims. I remember discussing the findings with my mentor, Brendan Maher, who reminded me to look carefully at the variability within each group, rather than focusing only on the average statistical findings. Who did not fit the average? What did the outliers look like? Were there qualities that separated people who responded differently? His nudge stayed with me. Looking for variability I’ve spent decades teaching research methods, so I knew the importance of variability. But seeing this principle emerge from research involving people having a conversation was eye-opening. When we study human behavior, we often begin with a group. We compare groups, calculate averages, look for statistical patterns, and ask whether differences are meaningful. But there is another question statistics alone cannot answer and that is: What does this finding mean for this particular person? The average is not the person. A statistical average summarizes a group. It does not describe every individual within that group. The average can tell us what is typical. By contrast, variability can tell us how typical it really is. The problem occurs when a statistical description of a group becomes a prediction about an individual. Where do I fit within the distribution? Our histories, experiences, personalities, and choices contribute to who we are. Two people can belong to the same category and still be quite different. The goal is not to dismiss research when it does not correspond to our experience. One person’s experience cannot overturn a well-established finding. However, we need to hold both in mind, including what the research tells us about the group, and how it applies to this individual. Why the case study matters A case study allows us to examine an individual in context. So rather than reducing a person to a typical score within a distribution, it lets us examine relationships among experiences, behavior, and meaning over time. A case can also challenge a theory. If most people behave as a theory predicts and one person does not, we might simply label that person an outlier. But the outlier may raise an important question: Why is this person different? Perhaps there is another variable we have not considered. Perhaps the theory applies only under certain conditions. Perhaps what we thought was one phenomenon consists of several processes. A case does not replace larger-sample research needed to establish causation; rather, a case study shows us how a pattern takes shape in an individual’s life. Whereas statistics can tell us what is typical, a case study can reveal what a pattern leaves unexplained. Looking again I think back to the study that brought together descendants of Holocaust survivors and Nazi perpetrators. We found patterns in how participants interacted. But the more interesting question was never just, how did the average participant communicate? It was also, who was different, and why? For example, among the descendants of Holocaust survivors, there was a striking range of emotional responses to the Holocaust legacy. Some were deeply consumed by the past. The Holocaust remained an emotionally present part of their lives, shaping how they understood themselves and the world around them. For some, this could include an intense desire for justice, and, at times, even revenge. Others responded very differently. They did not spend much time thinking about their parents’ experiences and were more focused on their present-day identities and lives. The Holocaust was part of their family history, but it did not occupy the same psychological space for all of them. There was a similar range of emotions among the descendants of Nazi perpetrators. Some felt guilt and responsibility for what their families had done and wanted to acknowledge the past and make amends. Others felt like victims themselves and resisted being held responsible for crimes they had not committed and for which they had not even been alive. They resented being defined by the actions of a previous generation. These varying responses reveal that sharing a group identity, or even a family history, does not produce a single emotional response. People can inherit the same broad historical past and experience, interpret, and organize that past in remarkably different ways. The statistics helped us see the group pattern, but looking closely at individuals helped us see the variation. Both are needed. Fauda: Conflicts of the Present That same principle is relevant to the conflicts of the present. It is tempting, especially during periods of violence, to speak about Jews, Muslims, Christians or any other large category as though each group possessed one mind and one emotional response. But of course, actual people are more varied than the labels suggest. A contemporary example can be found in the Netflix series Fauda. The series is a fictional drama, not a scientific study of the conflict. But it is psychologically interesting because it repeatedly places individual characters inside categories more nuanced than the categories themselves. For example, the series depicts people from different backgrounds, including Israelis and Palestinians, soldiers and civilians, Muslims, Christians, Bedouins, Druze, and people whose identities cross these usual boundaries. Some characters are committed to violence, and some are motivated by revenge, family, loyalty, or the desire to protect others. Some resist the cycle of violence. In one storyline, a Muslim man tries to save his Israeli Jewish neighbors at a kibbutz. Whatever one thinks of the show’s politics, these characters complicate the assumption that identity determines behavior. The same complexity was visible to me when I lived in Israel. I encountered Israelis who refused, for reasons of conscience, to participate in the army, and others who believed that past injustices justified war. These differences reflected different understandings of loyalty, responsibility, compassion, and the possibility of peace. Political, economic, historical, and military factors matter a lot. I’m not suggesting that emotional differences explain a conflict by themselves, or that individual variation erases group histories or unequal power. The narrower psychological point is that within every group, people differ in their capacity for revenge, forgiveness, tolerance for ambiguity, sensitivity to injustice, and ability to imagine the humanity of someone on the other side. When we ignore that variation, we make people less understandable. We also make reconciliation more difficult, because we assume that everyone in the opposing group is equally committed to the same ends. The participants in my Holocaust study shared important identities, but they did not respond to the past in identical ways. The characters in Fauda dramatize a similar truth that people inherit histories, but they do not all deal with those histories in the same way. In sum, whenever we encounter a statistical finding, we can ask two questions: What does this tell us about people in general? And what might it mean for this person? The first keeps us grounded in averages. The second keeps us grounded in individuality. Percentages, probabilities, and algorithmic predictions can tell us what the average person might do, think, or feel. These numbers can be useful. But they can also create an illusion of certainty. There is a distribution of people. And within that distribution are individuals whose lives are more complicated than any single number can capture. That is why I think we need to bring the case study back into our thinking. Not instead of statistics and group studies but alongside them. The case study reminds us to look at the person behind the number. When we encounter a finding about a group to which we belong, we can ask: Where do I fit? When we encounter someone from a group we think we understand, we can ask: Who is this person? And when we encounter someone who does not fit the pattern, we can ask the most scientific question of all, which is, why? Sometimes the outlier is simply an outlier. And sometimes the outlier is where a deeper understanding begins. References Weissmark, M.S. (2026). Seeing the Other Side: Shifting perceptions. 2nd. Edition Amazon KDP. Weissmark, M. S. (2020). The Science of Diversity. Oxford University Press, USA. Weissmark, M. S. (2004). Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II. Oxford University Press, USA.