10/23/19; Week 6: Response to Attributional Tendencies

Hello,

Today I am going to write about the different ways that cultures and people react or think about situations they go through or their successes and failures. This is called our Attributional  Tendencies. Here is a direct definition taken a website called SparkNotes under Social Psychology Summary, the definition is:

Attributions are inferences that people make about the causes of events and behavior. People make attributions in order to understand their experiences. Attributions strongly influence the way people interact with others.

There are basically two types of this one is internal and the other external.

Internal:

 This is where you contribute your success or anything positive to yourself. If you were able to do something difficult and you completed it well, then you would only basically feel that it was due to your own talent or skill.

External:

This is basically the opposite of internal. This is where if you were to complete something or achieve something good you would attribute your success to your surroundings, I.e your family or community. 

I want to share a story about this. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it is very easy for me to blame myself for my mistakes and to blame God for others. I tend to have a habit of thinking everything is my fault and also everyone else's. I like to place the blame where it belongs and take responsibility for my own actions. I tend to expect others to do the same. 

As an American I am very independently minded and my wife is not. Nor is her family. Around the time when we were first married her mother came to the US to visit. We were excited and everything to see her. When she got there we had some issues but mostly it was a good trip. One of the problems we had was when my wife and I were discussing my childhood. We were both studying Marriage and Family which deals with Family therapy and systems and so on. My wife's mother asked what we were talking about, my wife told her. And this opened a door that everyone would have preferred stayed close. 

My wife's mother worked long hours while also raising her daughter, my wife. She misinterpreted our conversation and believed that we were talking about her daughters upbringing. As a Korean woman she comes from a collective society. Another term I want to introduce is the Self-Effacing Bias. This is where you contribute your successes to your surroundings and your failures are strictly your own fault. My wife's mother took this conversation completely to heart and began to be upset. She said that because my wife had been raised around her family she was a very strong and successful woman, but because her mother had been too busy working when my wife was growing up she considered a few things.

She believed that my wife was unable to be a good wife because she herself had not been one, she also believed she could not be a good mother because she was not a good mother. She believed that our married life was difficult because of her failings as my wife's mother. 

We were newly married and brand new students, living in a new place and just living our daily lives while trying to learn about each other. Nothing we were going through had to do with her mom. It was just the realities of being married students in Rexburg Idaho. Her mother could not accept that our issues were our own. She became very sad and retreated to her room for many hours. My wife eventually got her to come out and participate in the day again, but it was not something soon forgotten. 

So, being able to love people regardless of their believes or opinions is a Christ like attribute. I believe He knows the best way to treat people as He said we should Love one Another. I hope that as you go through your lives and meet different people you can approach them with this mindset instead of your own.