Constructed Reasoning

Week 06: Attribution Tendencies

We want to understand the world around us. Part of that quest for understanding is attribution. We’re always looking for reasons for things. It’s simply part of human nature to try and make sense of life.

I do this myself every day. I have properly diagnosed (and hereditary) chronic health problems but still look for reasons as to why I might be feeling particularly awful at a given moment.

In looking for causes for successes and failures, we look to internal and external factors. With my health, I look internally to my body’s permanent condition but also externally to foods I’ve eaten that might be making me hurt or sick. I can also look to the external cause of my family tree for giving me my debilitating genetic condition.

Creating a framework of attributions satisfies psychological needs and help give us direction for future action. When I look at foods as a cause, I can limit what I eat or make a journal of what makes me feel worse. Removing certain foods has been successful in bettering my condition.

Unfortunately, applying attributions can also result in stigmas and negative psychological patterns of thought, especially when we apply attribution to the conditions of others.

In many cultures, people and families with disabilities are often given negative attributions. In the New Testament in the Holy Bible, when seeing a blind man, Jesus Christ’s disciples ask him, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? (John 9:2)”. People all over the world face that same question. A woman I know from Taiwan with a son with severe disabilities tearfully talked about the social stigmas her whole family faced because of their son’s health conditions. They were shunned and seen as cursed or a bad family. People did not want to be friends with them and didn’t want any of their luck to rub off on them.

The same thing happens in the US, particularly around autism. A false and dishonest study attributing autism to vaccines has left lasting emotional effects on families with autism and has impaired our national health by steering people away from life-saving medicine. It hurts to be told that a child’s permanent condition is your fault, either as a doctor or as a parent.

We must be aware of our cultural and individual attributions. Seeking understanding is not a bad thing. That’s how we make social and scientific progress, after all. The troubles come when we jump to conclusions without proper evidence and make irrational attributions. As we teach about culture, we can help students see the ways we culturally construct understanding and how those constructs shape our lives.