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Nov 21, 2002 My wife and I have differing opinions about the best style of driving. I prefer to arrive alive. She prefers a more dramatic approach. She claims that I drift across the lanes and tend to miss my exits. I claim that she tailgates and intentionally creates scenarios which make every trip -- even to the grocery store -- a mini soap opera. We respect each other’s opinions and refuse to talk about it anymore, except when we’re yelling. She disregards all of my "psychobabble" and, likewise, I ignore her "nonsense." However, I think we may be on to something. Driving, perhaps more than some activities, reveals fundamental elements of one’s character: My wife is in a hurry to get somewhere, I am lost most of the time. Perhaps, before I wade too deeply in matrimonial waters, a less personal example is in order: It is a slightly humid July morning and you are driving to work minding your own business, perhaps sipping on some coffee or fiddling with the radio dial. Since every other station is playing commercials, you find yourself listening, very loudly it seems, to Phil Collins singing "su su sudio. . . whoa oooa..." Perhaps it’s the music or maybe the caffeine is finally making its way to your brain, but you feel pretty good. The sun is shining, the sky is blue . . . Then (because we all knew this bliss couldn’t last) someone cuts you off. Whether it’s a hillbilly gravedigger in his rusty, smoke-belching, diesel truck or some BMW-driving, professional prig with his slicked back hair, his mocha latte and his cell phone, it doesn’t matter. Insert any stereotype -- the white-haired grandmother with the saucer-sized glasses in her Cadillac, the lead-footed teenager with his backwards baseball cap and a zit on his cheek in his Iroq-Z -- and the result is the same. You condemn that driver. You call him (or her) jerk and moron and other nasty things. You wave your hands and hold up choice fingers. You bang on the steering wheel and look very menacingly at the passenger seat or the stick shift. You change Phil Collins to Metallica and curse and spit and huff and puff until you get to work. Most of you will then drink some more coffee and grumble under your breath. Most of you will write off the stupid driver as one the billion halfwits who pollute the earth. Most of you will wish that person gets pulled over by the police or worse. Hardly any of you will consider why that particular person at that particular moment did that particular thing -- cut you off. Perhaps you haven’t any more time to waste considering halfwits. Perhaps, also, you are making a hasty and all-too-common mistake called, very profoundly I might add, the fundamental attribution error. I know about this because I recently uncovered my old college psychology book, which is very thick and heavy and has highlighted passages and scribbled notes in the margins -- proof that I did not spend all my time in college elbowing for room around a keg in a dusty, crowded basement. To understand the fundamental attribution error, you also have to understand the roles of situational factors and dispositional qualities. (If I ever spoke like this, my wife would smack me and tell me to shut up and not miss my exit.) Situational factors, like the name suggests, are factors present in a given situation (like driving). They are the external causes for a behavior (cutting someone off): Late for a job interview because your newborn baby had a cold and you couldn’t take him to daycare so you had to find a babysitter which took quite a while, sun glare, a lapful of hot coffee, no brakes, the wrong medication, word that your mother had a heart attack and is in intensive care, a hemorrhoid flare-up. Dispositional qualities are qualities which are characteristic of the actor. They define who he or she is: a terrible driver, a nitwit, a jerk, an arrogant, selfish, no-good, low-down scumbag who ought to be dragged into jail and beaten with billy clubs. (The preceding was a direct quote from my wife.) Now that you know all that, you will understand the fundamental attribution error, which occurs when we attribute too much weight to the dispositional qualities and not enough weight to the situational factors. In other words, we fail to give people the benefit of the doubt. We automatically assume because someone made a mistake, because they did or said or wrote something that somehow, however indirectly, affected you, that they are a jerk. We pass judgment but do not have all the situational evidence. Yet, I can sympathize with you horn honkers and one-finger saluters. It is sometimes fun and almost second nature to pass judgment, to lean on the horn and shout at crazy drivers. It’s like yelling at refs -- a part of the game. But then again, if you pretend every driver who goes too fast or comes too close has a sick mother or just really has to go to the bathroom, it might make your commute a little less cruel and less stupid. You may actually find yourself singing along to Phil Collins: "su su sudio. . . whoa oooa. . ." It’s hard to stay angry when your singing songs like that. ------------ Jeff Milligan lives in West Sadsbury Township, Pennsylvania with his wife and two children. He falls in the following demographic categories: Age 25 - 34. Race: Whitish. Shaving: Does not enjoy it.. Email Jeff: JIam41@aol.com Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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