Post by mikey117 on Nov 28, 2017 6:28:23 GMT
now that I have your attention
It isn't only USEFUL to separate personal variables and situational variables, its essential!
If I ONLY looked toward one or the other, I can have a VERY incomplete picture of the whole situation and come to some rather erroneous if not silly conclusions.
Lets take a real life example to make this clear, say I go to a party, and I typically like dancing and talk to everyone like a social butterfly and you met me at one party where I am doing the previously mentioned behaviors. You may reasonably conclude that I love the party life. However consider if you met me at a party while I was having a stomach ache, or a huge headache and thus I am just nursing some mint tea to try to sooth me and was very irritable thus when you try to interact with me I might not be my pleasant self that I typically might be, you COULD conclude that I am just a jerk, as opposed to the situational variable of me being ill was the critical factor that turned me from social butterfly to buzzkill.
However you had no way of knowing that until I explained said circumstance, in this case you would have ONLY looked at personal variables, or more accurately you would have focused so much on the personal variables(weather I am nice, do I like you, how do i look maybe, etc) that there was no room for any situational variables to possibly defend or excuse my jerk behavior as one grouchy response equals I am a grouchy person therefore stay away from this mint drinking buzzkill.
IF HOWEVER you already knew me for the happy go lucky party goer I am, you would find it strange to find me grouchy, in that instance, since you would know the personal variable of me being nice, good looking and all other such obvious traits(i can give myself a compliment, even if its fictional right?
) you would most likely look for some situational variable(pretty much external to the individual) to explain my rather sudden sour mood. Of course there is a possibility that I'm a different person during the day and put a facade of the happy go lucky party goer as a break from my life, so that sour mood could actually be more my true self leaking to my nightly persona of disco fever champ(i can dream okay?), so a personal variable was ignored(although forgiven cause in the example, person showed X trait consistently sooo yeahh)
It isn't only USEFUL to separate personal variables and situational variables, its essential!
If I ONLY looked toward one or the other, I can have a VERY incomplete picture of the whole situation and come to some rather erroneous if not silly conclusions.
Lets take a real life example to make this clear, say I go to a party, and I typically like dancing and talk to everyone like a social butterfly and you met me at one party where I am doing the previously mentioned behaviors. You may reasonably conclude that I love the party life. However consider if you met me at a party while I was having a stomach ache, or a huge headache and thus I am just nursing some mint tea to try to sooth me and was very irritable thus when you try to interact with me I might not be my pleasant self that I typically might be, you COULD conclude that I am just a jerk, as opposed to the situational variable of me being ill was the critical factor that turned me from social butterfly to buzzkill.
However you had no way of knowing that until I explained said circumstance, in this case you would have ONLY looked at personal variables, or more accurately you would have focused so much on the personal variables(weather I am nice, do I like you, how do i look maybe, etc) that there was no room for any situational variables to possibly defend or excuse my jerk behavior as one grouchy response equals I am a grouchy person therefore stay away from this mint drinking buzzkill.
IF HOWEVER you already knew me for the happy go lucky party goer I am, you would find it strange to find me grouchy, in that instance, since you would know the personal variable of me being nice, good looking and all other such obvious traits(i can give myself a compliment, even if its fictional right?
) you would most likely look for some situational variable(pretty much external to the individual) to explain my rather sudden sour mood. Of course there is a possibility that I'm a different person during the day and put a facade of the happy go lucky party goer as a break from my life, so that sour mood could actually be more my true self leaking to my nightly persona of disco fever champ(i can dream okay?), so a personal variable was ignored(although forgiven cause in the example, person showed X trait consistently sooo yeahh)