From listening to his talk last Wednesday, it appears that Judge Scott Miller has a similar opinion on the word “criminal” that I have on the word “lazy.” Both of us believe that such a personality trait is so rare as to essentially not exist. Most people who commit crimes are not like the evil criminal masterminds that are portrayed in movies, always plotting their next crime, just as most people who fail to complete a task or try to find a shortcut are not completely devoid of a work ethic. Usually in both of these situations (and more), there is some sort of external factor at play, whether it be a life of poverty, mental illness, exhaustion, and more. However, these external factors that influence our behavior are often hidden from an outsider’s point of view. We might be aware of the external factors that affect our own lives, but we are unlikely to know about the ones that affect the lives of the people around us. This leads to what is referred to as the fundamental attribution error–the tendency to place blame on internal factors (such as a person’s personality) when explaining the behavior of others, while placing blame on external factors for our own behavior. For example, most people would agree that they get annoyed if someone cuts them off while driving. It seems like they’re a jerk, right? Yet who has not done something similar when running late for something important? Yes, you just cut someone off, but it was only because you were running late to that meeting. While it is fairly understandable how the fundamental attribution error results–we are unable to experience the lives of others–it is important, as Judge Miller alluded to with his discussion on the word “criminal,” that we try to refrain from making this error as much as possible. The vast majority of people who act in a negative way (criminality, laziness, cutting someone off, etc.) do not actually have a terrible personality, but are instead being influenced by factors that we are unaware of. So next time someone does something that upsets you in some way, try to consider that they might not be a bad person after all.