I wonder how many of you have been in a position where you've had occasion to change your mind about somebody because of the way they behaved one day. Often, we have relationships with people and we believe that they are good, they are worth cultivating as friends or colleagues or people that you can trust and depend on. Then, one day, suddenly their behavior changes and you make an imaginary tick mark against their name and say, "I've got to be careful with this person. This person isn't exactly who I thought he/she was. There's something different about them that they've kept quiet about until now. The danger of that is that from that point on, we begin to view them through different lenses.
It begs the question: is that something right? Are we doing the right thing in changing our understanding of that person, that, till this point, we had based on their character, references and so on? These things are so important even when hiring people. Character is so important. People ask for character references – skills are taken into consideration but then finally the character reference is required. We place so much weight on that and then one day, something happens that allows us to change our perception of the character.
It made me think of that for a while as I was leafing through a book that I picked up some time back called 'The Tipping Point.' In it, Malcolm Gladwell talks about this particular aspect, that context plays a large role in determining how people behave. Sometimes we don't give them enough leeway. What do I mean by that? Let me illustrate by using an example that he gives.
He talks about a time when a group of social scientists as Stanford University led by Philip Zimbardo, decided to create a mock prison in the basement of the university's psychology building. They created cellblocks painted in black, bars and solitary confinement. Then they advertised in the local paper for volunteers who would participate in the experiment. Thirty-five people agreed to do so and then they pruned that list down to twenty-one, based on normal and healthy psychological tests. Half of the group was asked to be guards, given uniforms and dark glasses. Their responsibility was to keep order in prison. The other half were prisoners and they actually got the Palo Alto Police department to arrest 'the prisoners' from their homes, cuff them, bring them to the station house, charge them with a fictitious crime, fingerprint them, blindfold them and then, bring them to the prison in the Psychology department. Then they were stripped and given a prison uniform with a number on the front and back that was to serve as their only means of identification. Then they were incarcerated.
Zimbardo says that it was amazing to see that the guards who they had picked, who had mentioned that they were pacifists, suddenly turned into people that they couldn't even identify. They would walk around, beating on the doors, get prisoners up at 2 am, make them walk around. They created such havoc for the prisoners that the experiment that was supposed to last for about 2 weeks, had to be stopped after 6 days because the prisoners just couldn't take it any more. The conclusion that they reached was that there are specific situations so powerful that they can overwhelm our inherent predispositions.
So, whoever we are, whoever people are around us, sometimes the situations that they can face can make them change the way that they behave. In no way is it really a change of character but just a particular situation impinging upon them. Yet, we find that as a knee jerk reaction, we change ourselves. Our opinions change. Really, what we ourselves are falling into is what social psychologists call 'The Fundamental Attribution Error.' The FAE, as it is commonly known as to psychologists, is really the way we respond to a particular situation.
For example, you are at school or at the office, and someone you know comes by and says 'Hello' and you say 'Hello' back to this person, and they respond with an unfriendly hello and walk away. How would you attribute this situation – why did this person act this way? If you react by thinking that the person is a 'jerk', then you have made the fundamental attribution error – the tendency for an observer, when interpreting and explaining the behavior of another person, to underestimate the situation and to overestimate the personal disposition. Instead of saying that the situation may have caused them to act in a way, as a normal observer, we instead attribute their behavior to their personhood – they acted in that way because that's the type of person they are. It could be that they had just received bad news – maybe somebody had died or was in the hospital, they had lost a job and so had responded like that. But we don't give them that leeway. Fundamental Attribution Error!
Thinking about that, I wondered how do we operate with these 2 different scenarios in our own environment. Do we allow situations to actually change ourselves? Or when we look at people who are changed by situations, do we give them that leeway as something may be going on in their lives, instead of cutting them off, reducing them, thinking less of their character and giving them a second chance. Situations have an immense bearing on how we act and react.
Yet, I think there's a way in which we can help in this particular area. If we have the authority, we can reduce those kinds of situations in our office spaces. I remember in the mid-1980s visiting New York, travelling the Manhattan-Brooklyn subway and being thoroughly appalled. There was graffiti all across. I was very fearful using the subway at night. I would stand close to the ticket counter, watching the type of people there – a fearful experience. Then I visited New York in the 90s and was amazed at the transformation. The subways were clean; people were freely walking around, no graffiti on the walls.
This was attributed to the then-Mayor of New York, who brought about this change. His name was Rudy Giuliani. He introduced what was then known as 'The Broken Windows Theory'. This theory stats that maintaining and monitoring urban environments to prevent small crimes such as vandalism, public drinking and toll-jumping helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening. Take care of the small things and the bigger ones get taken care of.
I brought that into our own situations, our office spaces. We work with colleagues. We have people who work with us, over us, under us. Maybe we have an opportunity to change the situations that impinge on people. Maybe in the little things that we can do in the organization, in our spaces, we can change the situation and make it better in such a way that we can bring down bigger things that may happen because we take care of the smaller things.
As I read this, I thought to myself: it boils down to us. Sometimes we are so quick to jump the gun and judge people based on what we have seen or heard or experienced, when there could be a larger picture behind. We have the ability to change, not to act like the Fundamental Attribution Error, not to allow that to happen in our lives. Then, in our own small way, to maybe apply the broken windows theory to our office spaces and reduce situations and circumstances that may trigger larger issues that may surface.
I'm going to leave you to put this in context this morning. But I was reminded of our Holy Scripture that says, "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Those are somber words for me, but words that motivate me to think a little more deeply into all of these issues and say, "Let me pull back before judging." Then maybe I can also change the environment a little as people who I work with – not to jump the gun and change my perception of them because of a particular situation. May God give us wisdom to be able to discern these things.
Can I pray with you? Almighty God. Help us to be discerning. Help us to be understanding. Help us to be able to take off our own shoes before we can stand in the shoes of others and understand what they are going through. Help us to look beyond the façades and be able to enjoy relationships that You have given us without jumping the gun on them. We ask this in Your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
• Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. Boston: Little, Brown.
• "Fundamental Attribution Error," http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Fundamental%20Attribution%20Error
• "Fundamental Attribution Error--Ethics Unwrapped." http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/video/fundamental-attribution-error
• Rudy Giuliani, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani
• "Broken Windows Theory," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
• Bible quote: "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Matthew 7:2. http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-2.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment