Giving the Benefit of the Doubt

<p>One of the reasons I LOVED being a psychology major is I got to study my favorite question: <strong>Why do us crazy humans do what we do?</strong> Exploring this question was thrilling and enlightening. I could easily obsess over it.</p><p> </p><p>We can have lots of judgments about people and why they do what they do.</p><p> </p><p>Why some are clingy while others need lots of space. Why some people felt safer wearing masks during the pandemic and others rebelled against it. Why your fave songwriter chose to pull from Spotify while others stayed. Why some people get involved in crime and others don’t.</p><p> </p><p>We think, they are so immature; close-minded; stupid; irresponsible; such a narcissist. We can insert any judgmental word here.</p><p> </p><p>In the field of psychology, it's been shown that we tend to apply the Fundamental Attribution Error, which – in part - is when we attribute someone’s actions to their personality, a fundamental part of their being, and <strong>not </strong>due to their circumstance.</p><p> </p><p>But then the question becomes: If we choose to believe that people do things due to a fundamental part of their character, what <strong>forms </strong>that personality in the first place? </p><p> </p><p>The answer to this is more complex, and involves the timeless debate of nature vs nurture.</p><p> </p><p>I find that what gets me through most days without closing my heart and what helps me hold compassion and love instead of hate is my belief that every single human is just doing the best they can with the resources they have – and that we all have different resources.</p><p> </p><p>It depends on things like the biology we were born with, the environment we were raised in, the socioeconomic status we had, and the karma that came to fruition in this lifetime.</p><p> </p><p>You may look at all this and say, “Well, I grew up in the same environment as so-and-so, but I didn’t make <strong>those </strong>choices.”</p><p> </p><p>But why? Did we have a caring teacher? A more attentive care