The fundamental attribution error roughly states that we humans tend to blame our own problems or jerky behavior on external causes: having a bad day, or being swamped with work, or whatever. Yet, when we see other people (especially people we don’t know) acting like twits, we tend to assume that, my God, how could that terrible person just do what they did? What a @#$% jerk!

We forget the environment plays a big role in how everybody acts. It’s totally possible, and quite likely, that the person acting like a jerk is a perfectly decent person having a bad moment. Just keeping this in mind can help when dealing with seemingly difficult people in a tough situation.

I know I talk about this a lot. I do it because it’s so important. I’m recalling it today because of another incident.

This happened to be a lot like the first incident that........

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