“I have reasons. Others have flaws.”
This way of analysing events has a name in psychology: the “fundamental attribution error”, described by Lee Ross in 1977 following his research at Stanford on how people interpret the behaviour of others.
The theory is simple but devastating in the context of legal disputes:
When I breach a contract, I attribute it to “external” factors — the market changed, circumstances prevented it, there was force majeure. In other words, I have “reasons”. When the other party breaches it, we assume the breach was due to “internal” factors: their character, their dishonesty, their bad faith from the outset. The other party has “flaws”.
What matters is not just my interpretation, but that in a conflict situation both parties apply exactly the same explanatory mechanism — but, obviously, in opposite directions. Both are convinced that their version is the objective one and the other’s is subjective.
The result of this psychological phenomenon is what Fritz Heider, father of attribution theory, called “attributional asymmetry”: two narratives explaining the same facts in completely different ways. Neither narrative is entirely wrong… although, in all likelihood, neither is entirely complete either.
If this asymmetric view of the conflict escalates to the courts, a judge must choose one of the versions, one of the positions, one of the attributions. Whoever loses will come away convinced the system is unjust.
This is where mediation does something the judicial process cannot: a mediator does not choose between the two narratives. A mediator creates the space for each party to understand how the other sees the situation — a space in which the parties can explore the idea that perhaps the attributions they make can also be external, particular and variable, and that both attributions can coexist.
If the logic of attribution takes hold in the parties, something changes. Positions soften and agreement becomes possible — not because one party yields, but because both broaden their perspective.
Have you ever been in a negotiation where the logic said there was a deal but something was preventing it?