From the Archives: Judging and the Fundamental Attribution Error

As we approach the end of the Gregorian year, and near the one year anniversary of Anxiously Concerned, I thought I'd resurrect a post or two from the archives. Below is a post that originally appeared in March, with an additional account of 'Abdu'l-Baha's response to a related question.

Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, describes an interesting phenomenon of human nature--our common tendency to attribute the actions of others to some general quality of character. Gladwell writes:

Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context.

He goes on to give an example of an experiment in which people were asked to observe two similarly skilled basketball players, one playing in a well-lighted gym, and the other playing in a darkened gym and consequently missing many shots. When asked to judge the abilities of the players, the observers judged the player in the well-lighted gym to be superior, thereby ignoring the important role of situation and context--namely, the fact that one player was performing in a environment more conducive to excellence than the other.

It is interesting in this light to think of the protective role played by Bahá'u'lláh's admonition not to judge others. Even when the differing contexts are obvious, such as in the above example, there is a tendency to make rather sweeping--and inaccurate--character judgments; how much more problematic given that the contextual factors are usually even more subtle and nuanced than in the above example and that we can never really know the full context of the actions of others. From Bahá'u'lláh's Hidden Words we learn that the person for whom we have the most information about context and situation--and thus are in the best position to bring to account--is ourself:

The tongue I have designed for the mention of Me, defile it not with detraction. If the fire of self overcome you, remember your own faults and not the faults of My creatures, inasmuch as every one of you knoweth his own self better than he knoweth others.

'Abdu'l-Baha provides the following very practical guidance on how to overcome seeing faults in others:

In "Star of the West" . . . there is a record of a reply given by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in a private interview in Paris in 1913. He was asked "How shall I overcome seeing the faults of others -- recognizing the wrong in others?", and He replied: "I will tell you. Whenever you recognize the fault of another, think of yourself! What are my imperfections? -- and try to remove them. Do this whenever you are tried through the words or deeds of others. Thus you will grow, become more perfect. You will overcome self, you will not even have time to think of the faults of others . . . "