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Changing behaviors and attitudes in a short period of time is quite common. However, the reasons behind this vary from person to person. Personally, I have experienced this situation, which is explained much by my perception.
An example of my shift in behavior can be best explained by the attribution theory. According to Martinko, “attribution theory concerns people’s causal explanations for events” (as cited in Martinko 8). I believe this is exactly what I experienced. One day, I was very upset with the result of my exams in Math. I went home without any interest to talk to my parents nor my siblings. I thought that I did it again and perhaps I didn’t study enough or that I really wasn’t good in Math after all. In this case, I attributed my behavior or performance in Math to my internal characteristic. This is called internal attribution, the “process of assigning the cause of behaviour to some internal characteristic” (McLeod, 2010). However, I realized that I wasn’t the only who didn’t do well. Many of my classmates were also upset, and some of them were talking about how they had a hard time understanding some of the questions. As I looked back, I remember being confused as well with some of the items, so I thought that it probably wasn’t my Math skills but by how the exam was formed. At this point, I felt a lot better. I decided to stop being upset. Instead of staying in my room, I went to tell my parents how I did well in my other subjects. This is the case of external attribution where an event is blamed to an outside factor (Grinnell). According to Fatemi and Asghari, the success and failure of people are often attributed to “ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty” (182). Initially, I attributed my failure in Math to my ability and effort, but eventually, I attributed it to the level of difficulty of the exam, and this caused my shift in behavior and attitude.
My experience shows that an abrupt shift in behavior commonly happens when individuals also change their perspectives on the situation.
Works Cited
Fatemi, Azar, and Arezoo Asghari. “Attribution Theory, Personality Traits, and Gender Differences among EFL Learners.” International Journal or Education 4.2 (2012): 181-201. Print.
Grinnell, Renne. “External Attribution.” PsychCentral. PsychCentral, n.d. Web. 19 Mat 2016.
Martinko, Mark. Attribution Theory: an Organizational Perspective. Florida: St. Lucie Press, 1995. Print.
McLeod, Saul. “Attribution Theory.” Simply Psychology. Simply Psychology, 2010. Web. 19 Mat 2016.
