One time at band camp

I've had some people tell me they don't know what a flute looks like, so here is a pic just in case.

Every summer before the school year started we had band camp to learn our new marching show and music.  One day there was a big commotion amongst some of the band members.  This type of behavior was typical; however this time our director was involved, which of course meant something bad (or good if you like drama) happened.  During the commotion I was only able to hear the director asking one of our flutists if he had washed his mouth out.  A few moments later I found out that one of my fellow flutists (Mr. K) played a prank on another flutist (Mr. G).  Can you guess the prank? In turned out that, Mr. K had peed on and in the head joint (see above image) of Mr. G’s flute, but that was not where the prank stopped.  Mr. K and some other band mates then decided to let Mr. G play his flute.  As soon as he began playing, Mr. G noticed something was off, which is when Mr. K decided to tell him that he had urinated on the head joint. Thus, concluding the prank.

Up until this point, I had not really interacted with Mr. K to know anything substantial about him. But after hearing about this ‘prank’, I was appalled and immediately wrote him of as a jerk (among other negative adjectives), especially since Mr. G was a friend of his.  After today’s lecture about attributions theories, I learned that by making this personal attribution of Mr. K being a jerk I was using the theory of correspondent inferences.

According to Jones and Davis’ (1965) theory of correspondent inferences, people try to determine if other’s behavior corresponds to a stable characteristic of their personality.  Because people are attempting to link observed behavior to a person’s personality, they are essentially making a personal attribution.  There are three factors that allow people to make such personal attributions (Jones & Davis, 1965).  The first factor focuses on the extent to which the person had a choice because freely chosen behavior is more informative in determining a person’s personality than is assigned behavior or not freely chosen behavior.  The second factor is the expectedness of the behavior.  Specifically, behavior that is unexpected is more informative than behavior that is expected.  The last factor is the consequences of the behavior. That is, acts that have more positive consequences tells us less about a person’s personality than do acts that have one positive consequence. 

During my attribution of Mr. K, I relied on the first and second factor.  First, Mr. K willing chose this route as his prank when there were tons of other routes that he could have taken.  According to the first factor, his free choice in urinating on the flute should be informative to me.  Secondly, not taking sexual fetishes into consideration, it is typically not socially acceptable for people to urinate on other people’s private property, especially property that will be going near a person’s mouth.  Furthermore, we were expected to behave like respectable young adults while in band.  Therefore, because Mr. K’s behavior deviated from what one would expected, his behavior should be informative to me as I attempt to make an attribution.  Taken together, Mr. K’s choice in pulling this prank and his breaking of norms lead me to make the attribution that he was a jerk and disgusting, an attribution that did not really diminish with time.

(n = 572)       

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Jones, E.E., & Davis, K. E. (1965). From acts to dispositions: The attribution process in person perception. Advances in Experimental Psychology, 2, 219-266.