I just thought about it the other day and my brain went into a startling direction.
The fundamental attribution error says that it’s self-contradictory to explain other people’s actions by their internal traits while explaining your own actions by external circumstances. It goes on to say that the second explanation (circumstances) is uniformly more correct. What if that’s an error, and the first explanation actually works better in many cases? For example, the set point of happiness does appear to exist, so there’s some truth in labeling someone “an unhappy person” if you see them unhappy at the moment.
For some changes their effects on happiness (either positive or negative) fade somewhat with time, but I’m not convinced at all that it’s true for all changes, or that it’s typical for the effect to fade down to anywhere near 0%.
Maybe other changes never fade. Maybe it’s even typical for changes not to fade. Setpoint theory sounds too much like generalizing from one example.
(not that any of this is related to lack of good name for “preference for situational attributions” or whatever we want to call it)
Indeed, virtue theory in ethics suggests that people usually act according to habits of behavior. Of course, there’s some empirical psychology that suggests this may be incorrect.
I just thought about it the other day and my brain went into a startling direction.
The fundamental attribution error says that it’s self-contradictory to explain other people’s actions by their internal traits while explaining your own actions by external circumstances. It goes on to say that the second explanation (circumstances) is uniformly more correct. What if that’s an error, and the first explanation actually works better in many cases? For example, the set point of happiness does appear to exist, so there’s some truth in labeling someone “an unhappy person” if you see them unhappy at the moment.
I’m agnostic about setpoint theory.
For some changes their effects on happiness (either positive or negative) fade somewhat with time, but I’m not convinced at all that it’s true for all changes, or that it’s typical for the effect to fade down to anywhere near 0%.
Maybe other changes never fade. Maybe it’s even typical for changes not to fade. Setpoint theory sounds too much like generalizing from one example.
(not that any of this is related to lack of good name for “preference for situational attributions” or whatever we want to call it)
Indeed, virtue theory in ethics suggests that people usually act according to habits of behavior. Of course, there’s some empirical psychology that suggests this may be incorrect.