As we get nearer to elections this Fall, political advertisements and commentaries frequently become focused on the character of the candidates. The political campaign process plays on our oversimplified "good guy/bad guy" perceptions.
There is something in our perceptions that make us instinctively want to explain the world around us in terms of a candidate's essential attributes or character: "he's a _____ _____."
The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. When it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context.
We do this because we are more attuned to personal cues than contextual cues.
Yet, character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context. The reason that most of us seem to have a consistent character is that we are really good or really lucky in controlling our living and working environment.
Imagine yourself in one of the hostile environments on planet earth for a sustained period of time and consider how your character might change. Create that image before you go to the polls this Fall to discover how important the situation is in affecting the character of the people living through periods of difficult and structural change.