Understanding Attribution

Psychologists have long known about the concept of Attribution.  There is something deep in human nature that makes us want to attribute cause to things.

Have you ever stubbed your toe on some object and felt angry for a fleeting moment, wondering what you had ever done to hurt IT?

When thinking about cause, we tend to attribute things internally or externally.  By this, we mean, where was the control?  For example, if you see someone walking along the street and a piece of rubbish falls out of their pocket, do we think they just threw it down because they don't care about litter (internal cause) or do we assume they dropped it by accident or a gust of wind blew it away without their knowledge (external cause)?

Psychologically, we will use many clues to help us come to a quick judgement.  If it's a smiling, friendly elderly lady, we will probably assume it was an accident.  If it was a teenage Goth who was smoking and carrying a can of lager, we're more likely to assume it was an internal cause.  We could be wrong on both counts, but as humans, we instinctively try and attribute cause to our understanding of the world.  In part, it is because that feeling of control helps us feel safer - we like to understand the rules.

Another aspect of causality is whether something is perceived to be stable or temporary and specific or global.  For example, if someone drives aggressively behind you, we have a tendency to think that it is a bad driver (a stable, global statement).  However, it could be that they are in a hurry to get to their mother's funeral, and therefore it is a temporary situation.  It could also be that they misjudged their speed on that last stretch of road and it was only an isolated incident.

Interestingly though, it feels more comforting for us to think of them as a bad driver (we can understand that), whereas temporary glitches in normal behaviour are quite scary for us.  If going for surgery or sitting in the dentist chair, we don't like the idea that human beings might be occasionally irrational, inconsistent and subject to environmental factors.

So how does this affect matters of faith?

There are two areas I'd like to explore.  The first is about the Christian vs non-Christian dynamic, the second is between disagreeing Christians.

1.  As Christians, we can easily treat nonbelievers as a single, homogenous category.  However, there is huge diversity in each of us, and if we rely on too many assumptions, we might make significant mistakes.  Over the last few months I have been wrestling with my fear of telling people I am a Christian.  The reason?  I like them, and worry if they know I have a Christian faith then they will not want to know me any more.  I worry they will think I am a judgemental, irrational, homophobic hypocrite.  But who is they?  Nonbelievers are not one person.  There is a spectrum of belief and if I am embarrassed, might not some of my friends likewise be keeping their beliefs private?

There is also a risk that we mistakenly assume nonbelievers do not have a sense or morality or that they might try to act out of love or the best interests of others.  We need to remind ourselves that we are all created in God's image and many of our human motivations are wonderful ones.  This can easily be lost with a message the church sometimes gives that says "you are all sinners and need to repent and accept God's mercy".  For a start, it is "we" not "you".  Secondly, many people don't even know who God is or anything about his unfailing, boundless love.  His mercy is about experiencing that love so that we might be filled by that love and be in relationship with the God who loves us beyond all measure.

When relating to nonbelievers, I believe we need to take each person as an individual and pray for wisdom to know how to show God's love to that person.  There are no stock solutions or one off sermons and we cannot presume to judge their hearts or their spiritual journey.

2.  But the area that interests me more in terms of attribution errors is when I witness arguments among believers.  More conservative minded folk appear to love to argue and debate.  I find them argumentative and at times they forget the love they need to show or they rationalise love to be some kind of truth telling exercise.  You will notice perhaps that I have made some attributional statements there?  Often when I see a debate between believers, it can get quite ugly.  Often someone will say something, which another will disagree with strongly.  The first person nearly always defends their position and counters with a comment.  It will not be long before attacks become personal, and hurt people will start to make more global, stable and internal attributions about the other.  Instead of saying "I found that comment quite hurtful and disagree with..." we are more likely to witness something along the lines of "you are being judgemental and harsh and you are a poor witness to Christianity etc".  It won't be long before labels like liberal, judgemental, hypocritical, nasty etc. get banded about.

In the recent issue I blogged about in my previous post, 2 Christians are arguing and their blog titles are using words like "a public reply to the lies and slander being spread by...". Both bloggers are calling the other to repent.  What is most interesting however, is the comments of others.  Many are moving from disagreeing about details and facts to calling people liars.  This is a shift in attribution from temporary to stable, internal and global.  Telling something inaccurately does not make someone a liar... But as humans, we prefer that it does (at least, if it is someone else).  It's easy to back up a view we hold - all we need to do is hunt around for more evidence (and unwittingly ignore any examples of truth telling).

This I think is at the core of so many interpersonal conflicts.  Rather than take something in isolation and only focus on the issue at hand, we like to broaden to scope to fundamentally shift our attribution.  It is easier to dislike someone who says things we strongly disagree with than to accept that someone we like has views that might be abhorrent to us.  It is easier to categorise people into groups (liberals, traditionalists etc) than to wrestle with individually expressed views.  In other blogs I have at times challenged a more conservative view only to be told that I am probably not even a Christian.

We all have a desperate human need to understand the world.  Some of us will attribute good things in our lives as God's blessing on us, whereas bad things are a satanic attack or a punishment from God.  Yet in our quest to attribute cause (and blame) for things around us, we can be at risk of forgetting the greatest instruction Jesus gave us.  Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (regardless of our circumstances) and love our neighbour as ourselves (if we allow ourselves off the hook for being tired, mistaken, having a bad day, meaning well etc., then do we forgive others in the same way?).

Next time you witness some bad driving, an action that offends you or read a Facebook comment or email that hurts, pause a moment, pray, and ask God to help see this situation through His eyes, not your own ones (that will desperately and in all likelihood inaccurately, be trying to attribute cause).