Thoughts on Thursday - The Psychology of Judgment

In my class last week we learned about two interesting terms - the fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias.

The fundamental attribution error says that we attribute the behavior of others to dispositional causes (a personal trait, motive, or attitude) while ignoring situational variables. If someone cuts us off on the highway we say that person must be a jerk. We don't step back and think about his situation. Maybe he's had a bad day, etc.

Self-serving bias states that we attribute our own successes to dispositional factors and our failures to situational ones. When other people fail we tend to attribute it to dispostion. When we fail, we attribute it to the situation we are in.

I was reading the scriptures the other day and read, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." In thinking about these psychological terms, the scripture had new meaning to me. If we love ourselves by attributing our failures to the details of a situation, shouldn't we do the same for others? We need to give others the benefit of the doubt. We need to look at the situational factors when someone does something that we don't approve of. We would be wise to refrain from immediately judging their character.

I have been thinking about this a lot because it helps me understand the principle of judgment better. I am bothered by people who I feel are judgmental. I especially don't like it in the church. I understand better now what bothers me - it is when people evaluate others and link perceived negative actions to a person's character and disposition. It bothers me when situations are not taken into account. I wish more people would think, "What are the factors that I don't know about that caused this person to act this way?"

I believe it was Marjorie Hinckley who said, "There are only two kinds of people in this world. Those you love and those you don't know well enough yet." Would we judge others differently if we knew their whole life story? I think so.

I also know that when I myself have felt judged, looked down upon, and misunderstood, it is because others have not taken my situation into account. I have been labeled mean, selfish and rude because of things I have done. Would someone who knew and understood my human circumstances have made these same judgments? If you knew that my hormones were out of whack or that I had a bad fight with my husband that morning, would more allowances be made for my character in relation to my actions? I think so.

We make evalutions and judgments everyday. It is part of how we live and survive in this world. I think we love ourselves and spread goodness into the world when we do our best to explain things situationally. When we try to understand why a person acts they way they do giving them the absolute most credit that we can, we feel better about ourselves and the world we live in.