Jumping to Conclusions and Making Assumptions
How can this be? During the 1950s and 1960s, scholars conducted a lengthy series of research projects known as attribution studies. Their goal was to learn how normal people determine the cause of a problem. To uncover the thought pattern, they provided subjects with descriptions of people engaging in socially unacceptable behavior (a woman steals cash from a coworker, a father yells at his children, a neighbor cuts in front of you in the checkout line) and then asked the subjects, “Why did that person do such a thing?”
It turns out that people aren’t all that good at attributing causality accurately. We quickly jump to unflattering conclusions. The chief error we make is a simple one: we assume that people do what they do because of personality factors (mostly motivational) alone. Why did that woman steal from a coworker? She’s dishonest. Why did that man yell at his children? He’s mean. Why did the programmers fail to conduct a test? They’re arrogant, lazy, and selfish.
How can we be so simplistic and inaccurate? Most of the time human beings employ what is known as a dispositional rather than a situational view of others. We argue that people act the way they do because of uncontrollable personality factors (their disposition) as opposed to doing what they do because of forces in their environment (the situation).
We make this attribution error because when we look at others, we see their actions far more readily than we see the forces behind them. In contrast, when considering our own actions, we’re acutely aware of the forces behind our choices. Consequently, we believe that others do bad things because of personality flaws whereas we do bad things because the devil made us do them.
In truth, people often enact behaviors they take no joy in because of social pressure, lack of other options, or any of a variety of forces that have nothing to do with personal pleasure. For example, the woman stole because she needed money to buy medicine for her children. Your neighbor cut in line at the market because he was tending to his two toddlers and didn’t notice that he wasn’t taking his turn. Your half cousin was hauled off to jail for holding up a convenience store partly because of greed; then again, maybe the slow and painful failure of his business contributed too.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Assuming that others do contrary things because it’s in their makeup or they actually enjoy doing them and then ignoring any other potential motivational forces is a mistake. Psychologists classify this mistake as an attribution error. And because it happens so consistently across people, times, and places, it gets a name all its own. It’s called the fundamental attribution error.
Naturally, when we spot an infraction, we don’t always conclude that the other person is bad and wrong and wants to make us suffer. For instance, a dear and trustworthy friend is supposed to pick you up at the dentist’s office and drive you home. She’s 30 minutes late. “What’s going on?” you wonder. Your first thoughts turn to a traffic jam or an accident. You’re worried.
However, if the person has caused you problems in the past, you may jump to a different conclusion. Say she’s often been unreliable. Maybe she constantly criticizes you. Worse still, you’re standing in the pouring rain while your head is pounding with a migraine.
Under adverse conditions people more readily make the fundamental attribution error. During accountability discussions, the fundamental attribution error is as predictable as gravity: “She’s late because she’s self-centered. She doesn’t care about me. Just wait until she gets here!” The more tainted the history is and the more severe the consequences are, the more likely we are to assume the worst, become angry, and shoot from the hip.
Choosing Silence or Violence
Silence
Not everyone who tells an ugly story angrily leaps into a conversation ready to exact a pound of flesh, at least not immediately. For many people it takes a while to become upset, smug, or self-righteous. In fact, when we began studying accountability 25 years ago, we learned that the vast majority of the subjects we observed were inclined to walk away from violated promises, broken commitments, or bad behavior.
When we asked the subjects why they backed off, they explained that it was usually better not to deal with issues the first time they occurred. After all, many of those problems were anomalies. They weren’t likely to be repeated, so why make a big deal and come off as a micromanager? There may be some truth to this, but as we suggested earlier, avoidance may be the real reason for the inaction; most of the research subjects in our study avoided taking action for fear of getting into a heated argument, which they assumed could lead to even more problems. Who could blame them for going to silence?
However, it’s not as if choosing silence were a product of scientific inquiry. We back away from people because we conclude that they’re selfish or rotten. Then we act on that conclusion as if it were the truth: “Who’s going to approach these folks? They’re selfish and rotten!” Therefore, we opt to stay silent.
No matter what the reason is, walking away from violated promises and broken commitments can be risky. When you see a violation but move to silence rather than deal with it, three bad things happen:
• First, you give tacit approval to the action. If you see an infraction and say nothing, the other person can easily conclude that you’ve given permission. You may feel that you’ve given permission, and then, realizing that you’ve given the action the green light, you find that it’s harder to say something later.
• Second, others may think that you’re playing favorites: “Hey, you never let me get away with that kind of stuff!”
• Third, each time the other person repeats the offense, in part because of your failure to deal with it, you see the new offense as evidence that your story about his or her motives was correct. You continue to tell yourself ugly stories, you fester and fuss, and it’s only a matter of time until you blow.
Violence
Eventually, as problems gnaw at you, there comes a time when you can stand it no longer. You leap from silence to violence. A person interrupts you in midsentence for the hundredth time, and you finally blow a gasket. Your assistant misses an important deadline for the hundredth time, and you come unglued. Of course, you may not become physically violent, but you do employ debating tactics, give people your famous stare, raise your voice, make threats, offer up ultimatums, insult the other person, use ugly labels, and otherwise rain violence on the conversation.
Surprised by your sudden and unexpected eruption, the other person thinks that you’ve lost all touch with reality. “Where did that come from?” he or she wonders. But alas, the other person knows the answer. You did it, he or she concludes, because you’re stupid and evil. You’ve now helped the other person commit the fundamental attribution error about you, which feeds that person’s silence or violence, and the cycle continues.
Rare is the sudden and unexpected emotional explosion that wasn’t preceded by a lengthy period of tortured silence.
Violence Is Costly
When you move from silence to violence, you no longer keep accountability discussions professional, under control, and on track to achieve a satisfactory ending. In fact, when you move to violence, the consequences can be nothing short of horrendous.
You Become Hypocritical, Abusive, and Clinically Stupid