Sibling Rivalry

My sister and I are polar opposites. We were born in completely different worlds being 20 years separated; my sister a child of the 60s and me a child of the 80s. One area we definitely disagree in is in the area of politics. I am a far left liberal and, because of her newfound association with a small country southern baptist church, she is a far right conservative. Normally we are able to put our differences aside, but when she makes attributions to people about being poor and under-insured when it applies to her own family it is hard not to point it out.

For years she and her husband have been harping about the lazy poor and how the government shouldn't step in. Similarly they have been talking about how terrible it would be if there were universal health care, because then (obviously) we would be a socialist country. I see things differently, and know that most poor people aren't lazy but are consistently screwed over by their situations, they get sick and miss work but can't pay to get better to get back to work nor can they afford to wait it out. There are thousands of other reasons those without much get left with absolutely nothing. I know that for most of our country's poor, their poverty is due to their situation, not their personality. Our differences in perspectives are due to the fact that my sister committed the Fundamental Attribution Error. Even though I knew the situations had a strong impact on behavior, my sister overlooked this and focused on the peoples behaviors (Ross, 1977).

Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. Advances in Experimental Psychology, 10, 174-221.