Interpersonal Communication Everyday Encounters

During any moment in time our brain is taking in hundreds of different stimuli. If we were to actively focus on each of these, we would be in sensory overload and would probably go a little (or a lot) crazy. For this reason our brain selectively perceives information. We take in only a few stimuli at a time and focus on what we deem to be the most important. Once we have selected a specific stimuli to focus on, our brain must then interpret the meaning of this information. From this interpretation we can make assumptions and judgements about the stimuli or situation we are perceiving. In some cases this can lead to our brain making what is called a fundamental attribution error—a theory I will be discussing further. I examined an instance of
This conversation happened the day after a much anticipated home football game in my town. Amy had failed to show up for work the day of the game, saying she had fallen ill. Upon disclosing this to Kevin, my boss told Amy she was most likely making up the story and that she was probably not sick and had actually gone to the game instead of coming to work. In this scenario, I believe that my boss, Kevin, is making a fundamental attribution error. In the book Interpersonal Communication Everyday Encounters, the author, Wood, says that one part of the fundamental attribution error is when we “tend to overestimate the internal causes of others’ undesirable behaviors and underestimate the external causes” (Wood, 2014, pg. 83). This is saying that if someone performs a behavior that we deem ‘undesirable,’ we attribute the cause of this behavior to their personal traits and characteristics rather than possible outside
Attributing someone’s mistakes to their personal characteristics is not very empathetic to do. It also makes communication very one-sided. Instead taking time to share in another person’s point view, we make quick judgements in order to save ourselves the mental work. The reason our brain takes any mental shortcuts is to decrease the amount of stress on our brain. This was also a handy tool in more ancient times when we had to make split second judgements about stimuli in order to physically protect ourselves. Now-a-days this tool may save us time, but ultimately it causes more friction in communication and relationships than it does any