Understanding Other People's Behavior

I've always been interested in how others act, and why people do the things they do. I often found myself wondering what makes someone choose to do the things that they do? This is considered an analytical type of thinking, meaning that you try to understand things from different aspects; understanding objects, identifying their underlying attributes, and trying to understand their inner qualities such as their personality traits (Heine, 2012). I always thought that the situation and environment influenced people's behavior greatly. Heine, 2012 states that this is in fact a holistic way of thinking. It makes sense to me that we view how people act based on their dispositional attributions as opposed to situational attributions, and this is likely because of the culture in which I was raised. I think it is interesting now that I have learned more about dispositional and situational attributions to look at how people act differently, and how not only the influences, and environmental factors, but the internal traits and feelings can also affect ones behavior.