"Jerks Are Not Born - They're Made!" The Daily Improviser and the Fundamental Attribution Error

"When some guy cuts you off in traffic, you probably think instinctively: What a jerk.  (Or perhaps your inner voice is more vulgar.)  What you almost certainly don't think to yourself is, Gosh, I wonder what's wrong that he is in such a hurry."

In their book Switch, Chip Heath & Dan Heath use this example to make a point about the way in which our behavior (in this case, the "jerk" driver's) is often driven, not by any hard-wired personality characteristic, but by the situation we find ourselves in.  And unfortunately, as the Heaths note:

"We are frequently blind to the power of situations. In a famous article, Stanford psychologist Lee Ross ... noted that people have a systematic tendency to ignore the situational forces that shape other people's behavior.  He called this deep-rooted tendency the 'Fundamental Attribution Error.'  The error lies in our inclination to attribute people's behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in."

I think that the Fundamental Attribution Error also represents another instance of the Negativity Bias ("Bad is stronger than good"), which I referred to in my previous article.

Think of the last time a driver cut you off (and I'm assuming everyone's had that experience).  Recall that sudden, reflexive, overwhelmingly negative feeling you had toward the "jerk" in the other car.  That's the Negativity Bias at work - the unfair power advantage of Bad over Good.

Now think of the last time someone "cut you off" at a business meeting, by interrupting you or ignoring your comment.  Did you immediately think, Poor guy, he must be having a bad day to be acting so cross.  Or did you think ... something else?
 
For the Daily Improviser in these instances, the Yes And approach would involve exploring the situational aspects of events rather than giving in to the knee-jerk "jerk" reaction.  The goal is not really to put a positive spin on the event but to at least find a more neutral explanation that puts you in a better frame of mind to Advance with Positive Purpose.