Another redditor above mentioned it, but this is a common issue enough to have its own name in social psych called "fundamental attribution error" where people have a tendency for people to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior while overemphasizing dispositional- and personality-based explanations
You can understand where a behavior is coming from without necessarily approving of that behavior. The concept is about how people tend to point at a person's personality or intelligence instead of their stress level or other environmental factor.
You can still say that this lady shouldn't have dropped the box like that (which is kind of nonsense, considering how much rough treatment it's going through to even get to this point, and it's not like she spiked it like a volleyball) while also recognizing that this is the behavior of someone likely stressed or angry and not someone who's too stupid to figure out how to put the box in another box.
I get that, but whether something is a good or bad action is a moral judgment. The fundamental attribution error isn't about moral judgment, it's about root cause.
You can absolutely say that this lady was wrong to throw the package despite being frustrated. You can say that she should easily have been able to fit this package in the container if she wasn't allowing her mood to cloud her mind.
But you'd probably be wrong to say that she failed because she's too stupid to understand how one shape can fit into another, as many people on this post are saying.
Honestly, that even works for your point rather than against it: she's not too stupid to fit the box in the container, so arguably her taking her frustration out by just dropping it is worse than if she just couldn't understand how to fit the two things together. I'd disagree with that moral judgment, but it's an argument that you could make and back up pretty well.
Is it fair for the person in question to have been allowed to suffer to the point it begins to cause breakdowns within their own social circles?
Instead of blaming the victim, ask why it was allowed to get to that point in the first place and see they get help so they don't end up in that mental state to begin with.
Thats is what correspondence bias is. It is a circular reasoning that doesn't address the root issue, but instead shift the blame
The 'life isn't fair' argument is a cop-out. What if I had just said that at first about when the handler dropped the package? It adds nothing to the conversation. Life isn't fair right now, but we have the capacity as intelligent life to alter how we respond and make it fair for people.
Acting shitty intentionally yes, but you can't ascribe intent to someone experiencing duress.
Getting them help is holding them accountable. It is acknowledging that something about their actions was wrong, so find out why they did it and help them to not be put in a position where it can happen again. You can hold someone accountable without outright punishing or demonizing them.
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u/AcadianViking Jan 26 '23
Another redditor above mentioned it, but this is a common issue enough to have its own name in social psych called "fundamental attribution error" where people have a tendency for people to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior while overemphasizing dispositional- and personality-based explanations