By Gary Hayden

An acquaintance, Bob, recently spent some time as a patient in a National Health Service hospital here in Britain. He left with a low opinion of the nursing staff, whom he viewed as brusque, uncaring and insufficiently interested in patients' welfare.

At around the same time, I had a conversation with a friend of mine, Julie, a nurse. She complained that she and her colleagues are so overworked and so bogged down with paperwork that they feel unable to look after their patients properly.

I happen to know that Julie is a caring and considerate person.

I imagine she does the best she can under sometimes difficult circumstances. But I can see that patients like Bob, who merely see

nurses like her rushing from task to task, might assume that nurses are brusque, uncaring and insufficiently interested in their patients' welfare.

Perhaps Bob was unlucky, ending up in a hospital ward staffed largely by uncaring nurses. Or perhaps Bob's judgment was faulty, assuming that the nurses acted the way they did because of what they are (selfish, uncaring and unprofessional). But, in fact, their behaviour might have been due to the situation they found themselves in (short-on-time, stressed-out and exhausted).

Attribution error

In general, the way people act depends partly on character and disposition, and partly on circumstances. But when we judge the actions of others, we tend to make a fundamental error. We attribute too much to personality and character and too little to situation and context.

When it comes to judging our own actions, we make the opposite error and place too much emphasis on circumstances. In other words, we make personal attributions for the behaviour of others, while making situational attributions for our own. This tendency is so pervasive that psychologists have given it a label: the fundamental attribution error.

Dr Michael Picard, a psychology lecturer from the University of Victoria, Canada, gives a nice illustration of this tendency in his book, This Is Not A Book: Adventures In Popular Philosophy.

'We've all been there. You're late for work and in a hurry, but on the drive you get caught behind a slowpoke idiot who doesn't even know how to get out of the way.

'We've all been there. You're driving along sensibly, lawfully, when some maniac storms up behind you, impatient but unable to pass... Yet another dangerous jerk.

'We always find ourselves behind a moron and in front of a maniac. The driver ahead is a moron, we are never the maniac. The driver behind is a jerk, we are never the moron.'

We tend to judge others too harshly while putting the best possible slant on our own actions.

In my own case, I have noticed that I am very adept at viewing myself in the best possible light. I switch between personal and situational attributions for my behaviour, depending on what suits me best. If I win at squash, it is due to my fitness, skill and determination. If I lose, it is because I am under the weather, preoccupied with other matters - or playing against a cheat.

Redressing the balance

It is worth remembering all of this. Someone's apparent grumpiness may simply be the result of a poor night's sleep. If they appear unfriendly, it may just be that they are preoccupied with financial worries or family problems.

We should guard against making the default assumption that what someone does is based on the kind of person they are, rather than the situation they find themselves in.

This is not to say that we must always assume the best of people. There are some grumpy, selfish, dishonest and lazy people out there. But when we seek a better balance, we find ourselves adopting a more accepting view of those around us, which is surely no bad thing.

The old proverb sums it up nicely: Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. After that, you can say what you like, because you are a mile away and you have his shoes.