Dispositional Attribution Error

The fundamental attribution error a more common name for the correspondence bias is defined as the tendency of people to make dispositional attributions for others behaviors. (Duff, 2012) For example, if a cashier failed to smile at you while checking out at the store, you might assume that they are just miserable and rude. You wouldn’t take anything else into consideration. You’d be judging their behavior based “who they are” rather than taking situational factors into consideration.
The observations that I made for this particular paper were done two weeks before the paper was due. The first part that was asked of me was to take a 24-hour period and note all of the times that I had made a judgement of someone's behavior. The second part
was to take another 24-hour period to note all of the times in which I believed that someone was making judgements about my behavior. I felt that the first part was definitely way easier to make notes on than the second part. I could easily write down my judgements because I was the one that was making them while on the other hand trying to decipher whether someone was judging my behavior was a lot harder than I thought. It was hard to believe how many times I actually judged someone, at the end of the first 24-hour period I looked back on my notes and was surprised. The second part was harder because it's hard to try and figure out what someone else is thinking and whether or not they were truly judging me, at the end of the day I realized that I had never actually paid as much attention to someone's judgement till that day.
My first 24-hour period was a typical Friday, I woke up at 7am then I proceeded to wake up my brother because I had to eventually take him to school and then be on my way to school. After I finished getting ready, I waited for my brother to finish up. As soon as he came out of the room was when the first judgment of the day happened. Keep in mind that my brother is a normal 10-year-old that has to wear uniforms so the only way that he can truly show his "style" is through his shoes. It just so happened that today he wanted to wear long Nike socks with his Converse sneakers. I made a judgment on his choice of shoes and socks. It was only 7:45 and I was already judging his behavior, my immediate reaction was to make fun of him and then proceeded to tell him to change in which this case he said that he didn't have any other clean socks. This led to me focus on the situational attribution, and judge him on this for not having any other clean socks to wear, after all, it was Friday and typically by this day all of his laundry needs to get washed. I then proceeded to drop him off and headed to work. I work at Tumbleweed Recreation Center, where I do many different positions on this particular day I happened to work at the child care center also known as The Treehouse. When you are surrounded by many kids and parents so early on there tends to be a lot of judgement passed especially on my part. It may sound rough but sometimes parents and kids act up in ways that make me form an opinion about them. There were several instances on this day in which I judged someone's behavior. The first judgement I made was regarding a parent. The parent picked up the kids, then proceeded to tell my coworker and I to not play the movie that we were watching ever again because her kids were not allowed to watch movies with scary scenes, my coworker and I kindly said that we were sorry and that we would keep that in mind the next time that they were there. I was very confused because we were watching Disney's Tangled. I understood that she didn't want us to watch certain movies but she didn't have to say it as rudely as she had said it. Therefore, I was quick to judge her as "rude and inconsiderate" because one her kids aren't the only ones that attend the Treehouse and two because it is our job to take care of the kids and we only play movies that are kid appropriate. Then I thought about possible alternative explanations as to why she acted the way that she did. The first alternative explanation was that she probably has had problems with her kids and watching that movie before and two she was probably tired; after all, it was early. The next judgement was also on a parent; the parent is a regular so I know how he is. There is something that he always does in which I judge him for and it's the way that he treats his daughters. I know it's not my place to sit there and judge someone especially if it' something like that but I only do it because I know how his daughters all too well and I know that they hate getting treated the way that they do. He babies his daughters a little too much, he'll talk to them as if they were 2 and 3 when they're really 5-year-old that are more than capable of doing their own things. Now the only reason why I judge him for this is because he seems to be the only one that does this, not only that but he'll take his sweet time to actually leave he'll come into the Treehouse, talk to his daughters about what they did for five minutes, then make them go to the bathroom, takes his sweet time washing their hands and then proceeds to finally leave. He does this all the time, and at first, I didn't mind it but once he started doing this with 5 minutes till closing that's when I started to hardcore judge him and on this particular day he did the same. In my head I judge him based on his behavior because the parent doesn't acknowledge the fact that we are waiting on him to leave because the rules are that we are not allowed to leave anyone behind, we are to leave after the room is cleared out. I feel that I judge him because I'm the impatient one in this scenario. Situational attribution definitely played a role in this especially because I was going to meet up my boyfriend after work so I was mad that he had taken his sweet time.
The second 24-hour period was a Saturday, I woke up and headed to work.
On this particular day, I was working a birthday party. As a staff member I host the party, this particular one was a "Bake with me party". We bake pizza and cookies with the guest but I also have to interact with parents and my coworkers. The first time that I felt that I was being judged was when I was putting up the decorations up for the party. My coworker asked me if I had decorated before and I mentioned that I had only done once or twice before. That's when it dawned on me, she was judging the way that I had put up the streamers. I believe that she was doing this because I had mentioned to her before that I wasn't very creative, therefore I believe that she took the dispositional judgement and put it on the fact that I had mentioned that I wasn't very creative. On the way home when driving I hate to admit that I was both texting and talking on the phone. I did get dirty looks from other people, and I completely understand. I'd do the same, it is very common. Many people hate this, but I do feel that I get judged when doing this. I feel that people take the dispositional judgement especially when it's a young person like me. They'd most likely label me and others as "reckless and dangerous". These words are typically used when judging a teenager or a young adult. As if I didn't feel judged enough, I later headed to my boyfriend's house, we have been together for about a year and a half now and to
this day, I still cannot seem to feel completely comfortable with his family. Therefore, I dread the days that I'm forced to sit with them and interact. I do this every time that I go over because I don't want to be labeled as rude, so I sit there with his mom and his sisters. Every time that I'm with them I feel completely judged by them, I think that it's because I've seen the way that they talk about others that makes me feel so insecure just hanging out with them. On this particular day, they asked the same thing they do all the time "Why are you so quiet, Leslie?" They ask this all the time, therefore, I know I'm being judged by them. If they make this judgement with the dispositional attribution they might think that I'm shy or even rude because I don't talk much. If they made this judgement with the situational attribution they might think that I'm bored or even possibly having a bad day. Regardless of whether the people throughout the day judged me.
When researching the fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias) I came across a very interesting website, one of the ones that stuck out to me was about the poor and the fundamental attribution error.
It mentioned, “to say that we tend to downplay or ignore the power of situations. When we see bad behavior we don't tend to look at the environmental context, the situational causes and pressures. We tend to go looking for bad apples.” As humans, it is our natural instinct to think of the worst of people. Therefore, instead of taking the situational attribution and judging their behavior we jump to conclusions and make a judgment that is dispositional. There are many reasons as to why we choose to do this but this article explains that we do this “Because it's easier, quicker and cleaner. It's easier to locate, blame and punish a lone perpetrator than to rethink environments, systems, and organizations that produce the "bad" apples.” Which brings us to the way that we judge poor people. We judge them and say that they are “lazy, undisciplined, and lacking in work ethic.” These are all dispositional traits. When in reality there is more to someone than their characterological
traits. I think that the observations that I made were beneficial to understanding why and how we react to people’s behavior and vice versa. Regardless of whether I’m judging someone with the dispositional or situational attribution, I feel that this little experiment that I did was beneficial to helping me figure out why it was that I judged people and why they judged me. It may be very easy to just judge someone but thinking it out and understanding where your judgement is coming from is important. There are many steps that I can take to reduce my own biased impressions of others. The first one is to think about their situation, think of all the possible outcomes as to why they are acting the way that they are. Instead of straight up judging them, taking the extra steps to understand their behavior can help me reduce bias in the future.