THIS MONTH’S CONCEPTS & TOOLS
Fundamental Attribution Error.
Primary Emotions: What is underneath surface emotions that people show.
In light of celebrating one year of marriage this month (🎉), I wanted to share two concepts from my studies in clinical counselling that have genuinely changed how I understand every relationship in my life — not just my marriage, but with family, friends, and everyone in between.
Fundamental Attribution Error: You Tend to Justify Your Own Mistakes — But Judge Everyone for Theirs
Think about the last time someone hurt your feelings. Now think about the last time you hurt someone else's. Chances are you remember the first one much more clearly — and you have a very good explanation for the second one.
This is not a coincidence. Psychologists call it the fundamental attribution error (coined by Lee Ross in 1977) — our tendency to explain our own behavior using circumstances, but to judge other people's behavior as a direct reflection of who they are as a person. In other words, when we do something hurtful, inconsiderate, or wrong — we were stressed, overwhelmed, or having a bad day. But when someone else does the exact same thing — suddenly they are irresponsible and rude.
Awareness of this error does not excuse hurtful behavior — but it does remind us that behavior rarely happens in a vacuum. Context shapes how people show up: an unspoken fear, an old wound, a moment of being overwhelmed. What looks like a character flaw from the outside is often a circumstance we simply cannot see from where we are standing. Research suggests that consciously pausing to consider what someone else might be carrying in a given moment is enough to significantly reduce the harsh judgments we make about them (Hooper et al., 2015).
Primary Emotions: Arguments Are Rarely About What They Appear to Be About
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) recognizes that our emotions can be categorized into two types: primary and secondary emotions. Primary or core emotions are the deeper ones that are not usually directly expressed — such as fear, shame, sadness, loneliness, and feeling unloved. Secondary emotions are the ones on the surface that are visibly expressed, such as anger, frustration, criticism, and withdrawal. In relationships, it is almost always the secondary emotions that show up in conflict — but underneath them, a primary emotion is almost always driving the response.
What does this look like?
Picture this: someone walks in the door after work and goes straight to their phone, barely giving a greeting or eye contact to the other person who had just finished cooking dinner for them both. The other person feels a flash of irritation and anger — and by the time dinner is on the table, the tension is thick enough to cut through. Eventually one of them says something sharp. The other gets defensive. Now they are arguing about the phone — or the tone of voice — or the fact that this always happens.
But beneath that initial feeling of irritation toward the person who did not offer a greeting or make eye contact, something else was actually happening: a quiet question lingering beneath the surface—"Am I a priority to you?"
The irritation was real — but it was not the original feeling. It was a cover. A secondary emotion sitting on top of something far more vulnerable — the fear of not mattering to the other person.
What we argue about and what we are actually upset about are rarely the same thing. Underneath most conflict is a simpler, more vulnerable need — to feel safe, seen, and connected.
Putting These Concepts to Work in Your Relationships
Here is the honest truth about both of these concepts: they are simple to understand and genuinely difficult to practice (I can genuinely testify to that in my own life). Not because they are complicated — but because the moments that call for them are usually the moments we are least calm. However, these concepts are an invitation to slow down in the moment.
Before you reach a verdict about someone's behavior — pause and ask one question: what might be going on for them right now that I cannot see? That one pause is enough to interrupt the automatic judgment.
When you feel reactive in a relationship — irritated, withdrawn, critical — ask yourself what is underneath it. What is the quieter feeling driving the loud one? And if you can — communicate that driving emotion directly rather than expressing the secondary reactive emotion: "I felt unimportant" lands differently than "you never listen."
It is important to remember that being aware of these concepts will not eliminate conflict, but they will change what you do with it. And that shift — from reaction to curiosity, from verdict to understanding — impacts every relationship in your life; when you extend grace instead of judgment and listen for what is underneath instead of reacting to what is on the surface, you show up differently — and the people around you feel that difference. These concepts do not just improve one relationship. They quietly transform all of them.
References: 1) Hooper, N., Erdogan, A., Keen, G., Lawton, K., & McHugh, L. (2015). Perspective taking reduces the fundamental attribution error. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 4(2), 69–72. 2) Johnson, S. M. (2020). The practice of emotionally focused couple therapy : creating connection (Third edition). Routledge. 3)McKinnon, J. M., & Greenberg, L. S. (2017). Vulnerable Emotional Expression In Emotion Focused Couples Therapy: Relating Interactional Processes To Outcome. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 43(2), 198–212. 4) Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173–220). Academic Press. 5) Featured photograph by @thisisalexander.j
“You will keep them in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because they trust in You.”
Isaiah 26:3