Actor/Observer

One day, while walking down the street, you trip on the sidewalk and fall. 

As you get off the ground, you tell yourself the slippery pavement was the reason for the fall. It wasn’t you; it was an external issue, something outside of your control caused the fall. 

Later, you notice another person on the other side of the street slip and fall and immediately you believe that person was clumsy or inattentive. In this case, you believe the fall occurred due to an internal issue. 

When we are involved, we are the actor. When another person is involved, we are the observer. 

And because we categorized the same event differently, we fall into the Actor-Observer Asymmetry, which occurs when we judge others based solely on their actions. Meanwhile, when judging ourselves, we have an internal dialogue that justifies our mistakes and bad decisions.

This same bias becomes one of the main reasons we often fail miserably at our New Year’s Resolutions. When we try to explain our behavior as actors, we have much more information available to us. We know how we behaved in the past, our emotional state and our intentions. Those reasons justify our lack of commitment. 

The opposite is true from the observer’s standpoint. The only information we have is what is observable to us. Due to this lack of information, we tend to assume the behavior is due to an internal characteristic or flaw. When we hear a person failed at his/her resolution, we believe he lacked self-discipline. 

Before we take the pen in hand, jotting down our resolutions for the year, we first need to shift our perspective from actor to observer. We need to start with self-reflection, being cognizant of our viewpoints and prejudices. This will help us from rushing to conclusions.

We need to consider the long-term implications of our actions along with their interpretations. By taking a wider view, we can avoid making decisions that are based on past actions.

Fixing our mindset as we begin the new year is the first and most effective way to having our resolutions become a part of our life. 

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