Assignment 1 Discussion Question Attributions
By Saturday, April 26, 2014, respond to the discussion
question. Submit your responses to the appropriate Discussion Area. Use the
same Discussion Area to comment on your classmates' submissions by Saturday,
April 26, 2014, and continue the discussion until Wednesday, April 30, 2014 of
the week.
We make attributions every day about our own behaviors and
the behaviors of the people that we interact with. And depending on what we
attribute to the cause of a person or our behavior this directly affects our attitudes
and behaviors toward that person. If our attributions are correct,
then outcome can be positive, as they can help us to work
more effectively with that person or to make better decisions for ourselves.
However, if we make an error in our attribution of the cause of a behavior,
then our own following behaviors can negatively compound the situation.
Consider the following situations that we have all
experienced:
You go out to lunch with your friend and find that your
waitress is a bit absentminded and is not in the best of mood as she takes your
order and serves you. You tell your friend that this lady should not be a
waitress and needs to find a new job because her attitude stinks.
You pull into a gas station and there is only one free pump,
but you cannot get to it because there is a person at the first pump. You think
to yourself "What a jerk, I can't believe they did not pull up to the
second pump."
Why were these attributions and assumptions made in each
situation? Are they most likely accurate or not?
What are some alternative explanations for the behaviors of
the waitress and person pumping gas? Why do we typically not assume these later
explanations but rather jump to the conclusions made in the examples?
If you were the person in each of these scenarios and took a
minute to look back at these behaviors would you have the same thoughts about
yourself (you are in the wrong job or that you are a jerk)? Why might the
attributions of your own behaviors be different than your attributions of
others' behaviors?
With all of this in mind how will you apply this to your
future attributions and associated behavior when faced with these types of
situations?
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