![]() However, are there really any drivers that haven’t made a mistake at least once while driving? Have you ever gotten distracted and accidently swerved into another lane? You attributed their behavior of cutting you off to be a demonstration of their own internal traits or character. ![]() If a person cuts you off you might assume they are a jerk and get angry at their carelessness. In this case, though both you and your spouse were snippy with each other, you concluded your spouse was a jerk while also concluding that you were just tired.Īnother example of the actor-observer difference in daily life is in traffic mishaps. The actor-observer difference occurs when we see others’ behavior as a result of internal factors and our own as a result of external factors (Gruman, Schneider & Coutts, 2017). At the same time, you attributed your own snippy behavior to your frustration with your kids’ late bedtime. Their day was rough, but instead you attributed their lack of helping behavior and snippy attitude to their personality. Little did you know, your spouse got stuck in traffic on their way home from work after getting reprimanded by their boss for a mistake they didn’t make. Right there, you just fell into the actor-observer difference. I had a right to be crabby, he/she, however, did not,” you say. I was so tired because I got up early and the kids were relentless at bedtime. “He/she was so snippy when he/she talked to me. In sheer exhaustion you can’t hide your annoyance with them and an argument ensues.Įarly the next morning your friend calls and you tell him/her about the argument you had the night before with your spouse. You’re hoping your spouse helped out, but instead you find them sitting on the couch watching TV. The last time you checked, there was a pile of dishes in the sink and toys in the living room that needed to be picked up. Your children are finally asleep after a normal bedtime routine turned into a relentless battle of the wills between parent and child. You’ve been up since 5:00am and the numbers on the clock are starting to blur together. When we come out of the position of an observer and put ourselves in the situation of others, and when we keep the possibility of unexpected causes in mind, we can reduce the actor-observer bias.It’s 10pm on a Tuesday night. Therefore, we should be more generous toward others. ![]() As we cannot understand others’ situations and thoughts 100%, even if we think we’re considerate of others in our own ways, it may still be a misunderstanding. In order not to fall into this error, we need to make an effort to understand others. Essentially, people tend to make different attributions, depending upon whether they are the actor or the observer in a situation. The actor-observer bias is a term in social psychology that refers to a tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external causes, while attributing other people’s behaviors to internal causes. Everyone gets this psychological error at one time or another. ![]() If you messed up the test, you think it’s because the test was too difficult, but if others messed theirs up, you conclude that it’s because they did not study hard. But if your coworker is late, you regard him as a lazy person. If you are late for work, you justify yourself that there were enough reasons for it such as a traffic jam or a long bus interval.
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