One thing I learned very quickly is this:
Never make any judgments or take any actions until you have as much information as possible. In every conflict, there are at least two sides to the story.
Given our natural tendencies toward creating coherent narratives in our minds, based on our strong tendencies to make attributions about our worlds, it is easy to fall into the trap of hearing a complaint from one party, filling in the blanks with any relevant information that you might have, and coming up with a judgment.
One reason that this process is problematic is that once people come up with judgments, changing our minds tends to be difficult.
When a student hands a paper in late to a teacher, attributional reasoning often kicks in, with the teacher trying to figure out if the student's excuse is plausible. The teacher has partial information and is trying to fill in the blanks (asking questions such as whether the student is "a good" student, whether this failure is part of a broader pattern, etc.).
When a colleague is late to a meeting, other colleagues will (often silently) try to figure out if this tardiness is some character flaw of the tardy colleague.
When two of your friends have some kind of conflict and one of them independently reports their side of the situation to you, you may well find yourself agreeing with the narrative that this friend presents—often lock, stock, and barrel. Sometimes, in a situation like this, our attributional reasoning that encourages the creation of narratives is so strong that we might not even feel a need to hear the other side. You might find yourself saying, for instance, "I've heard enough!"
This combination of (a) our strong tendencies to take limited information and create coherent narratives coupled with (b) our powerful changing of our attitudes and beliefs leads to all kinds of social problems in our daily lives.
So, if you've ever seen a situation in which someone takes partial information (such as one person's side regarding a conflict between two people), forms a total judgment about someone else, and even takes strong public action without even making an effort to get the other side of the story, I'd say that our deep-rooted attributional nature helps us to understand why.
“Railroaded” which happens when some belief or perception about someone, even if based only on partial information, gains enough momentum (like a freight train) that it becomes essentially unstoppable.
Interestingly, someone who is being "railroaded" may well actually have a whole other side to the story that others don't know or don't even want to hear. The person being railroaded might, in fact, be largely in the right.
Because of our strong attributional tendencies—coupled with our deep proclivities toward belief perseverance—we can easily see how someone can get railroaded by others based on limited information.
Often, when it comes to the human social world, facts actually don't matter.
Human minds are attribution machines that are often more interested in having a story that makes sense rather than having the truth.
The older you get, the more you come to realize that there is nearly always more than meets the eye. Truly understanding this fact can help us better—and more compassionately—navigate the often-treacherous waters of the social world.
Comments