Fundamental attribution bias

Some psychology nuggets.. Just had my exam today.. so for the next 24 hours (before I forget all I mugged)... I am a psychology mini-expert....

What is the fundamental attribution bias? That is the tendency to assume that your own bad behavior is due to external factors and other people's bad behavior is due to internal factors...

Simply put... if you behave badly, its due to the conditions of that day.... if other people behave badly... its because they innately bad...

This inevitably leads to self-serving bias... Causing you to imagine that you are more generous and kinder than all others... This is due to overestimation of your own generosity as opposed to an underestimation of other people's generosity...

Simply put.. you think you are better than you actually are... and you think that other people are not as nice as you....

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With that said... I am precisely like that... when I am feeling down.. or feeling under the weather.. or my exams are coming.. I become mean and short tempered... and I attribute it to the surrounding factors.. not my fault... I am still innately a nice person.. its the external factors...

But when someone else behaves badly... We ALL tend to attribute it to the fact that... "This boy is just like that... very anti-social..." When in fact, the boy is just shy or feeling more inhibited for THAT day....

So perhaps... we all have to self check once in awhile... Learn how to attribute other people's bad behavior to external causes... Cut them some slack... This way.. you not only love them more... but also can be more consistent in your love for them... Even if they should misbehave.. your love for them is still there.. because you know its because of their innate meanessbut the external causes...

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This leads to the next topic I want to discuss.. we are all more similar than you imagine...

You know I have been expelled from NUSTKD... so in the last year.. I have been to Sportsteam, NTUTKD, Temasek Poly and even to the national squad... And what I realised is that people are the same everywhere.. They crack the same lame tkd jokes... They smile and clown around the same way.. even their warm ups are similar.. Yet.. (because most people hardly interact with other people in other clubs)... they imagine that it is all very different out there.. that somehow people are more united.. or less friendly.. somewhere else.. its not true la..

Truth be told.. you strip down the club names and have a combined training.. you will realise that you are all the same... which is a good thing.... =)

So when you try to relate to a new person.. understand that they are just like you.. treat them the way you want to be treated and read their expressions.. they are thinking the same way you would if you were in their shoes...

If you think about it this way... you are less likely to discriminate and separate from aliens from another club..