The Construals of Thirtysomething

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Imagine a world where we all saw everything in the same light. Now, doesn’t that sound boring? Well, thankfully we do not live in a world where everyone perceives the same stimuli in the same manner. Here on planet Earth, we all envision the social world in different ways. Everyone lives severely different lives; therefore, everyone has their own construal. A person’s construal is how they perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world. There are two basic motives, which help form a person’s construal: self-esteem and accuracy. People often construct their view of the world in a way that either makes them feel better about themselves (self-esteem) or in a way, which supports their previous beliefs about the world (accuracy). However, if these two motives were ever to pull in opposite directions, more often than not, we would change our view on the world in order to keep our self-esteem up. So, what type of properties help make up our construal? There are two main types of properties: objective and subjective. Objective properties are facts or concrete pieces of evidence that an event happened or an object is real. Subjective properties are opinions or ideas about an object or event, which do not hold true with everyone. For example, if Jack was walking up the stairs and he tripped, an objective property of the situation would be “Jack tripped,” and a subjective property would be “Jack is clumsy.”
In an episode of Thirtysomething, Elliot and Nancy get in a fight and it is obvious they do not have the same construals of the evening. When getting ready for dinner Elliot kisses Nancy’s neck, which is an objective property since it is displayed in both perceptions of the couple, but from then on, their perceptions...

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...steem and his motivation to be accurate. When Nancy called him a “little boy” and a “geek,” she caused his self-worth to decrease, and it did not help when she performed her twirling routine. When watching the show, you notice a common theme between everyone’s viewpoints. The owner of the construal portrayed in the show is always innocent. This supports the notion when being pulled in opposite directions, the motivation to protect your self-worth will always prevail.
The concept of construal helps us understand what motivates human behaviors, and it shows us the variation in comprehension of the social world. It also brings to light the importance of situational influence and subjective properties, which, in turn, helps us understand the fundamental attribution error, or the tendency to explain behaviors in terms of personality traits instead of situational.

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