As Twin Peaks Day approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about pie, specifically a Seinfeld episode that left a lasting impression on me.
In class, we discussed distinctiveness, and we watched a clip where Jerry couldn’t understand why his girlfriend, Audrey, refused to eat a slice of pie. His immediate assumption is that something is wrong with her – an internal attribution. But by the end of the episode, we see that Jerry behaves the exact same way in a different scenario, suggesting that the real reason may have been external all along.
This made me think about how we often struggle to figure out whether our actions come from something about us or if anyone else would have acted the same way. We review what we did, judge ourselves, and try to understand our behavior. I think this connects to two important ideas about self-concept:
- Self-Perception – When we don’t know exactly how we feel, we look at our own behavior to figure it out.
- Social Comparison – When we aren’t sure about our abilities or opinions, we compare ourselves to others.
For example, imagine having a big argument with a close friend. You get so caught up in proving your point that you don’t think about anything else. Let’s say you “win” the argument and your friend was actually wrong. Afterward, you start thinking: Would anyone else have argued as aggressively as I did? You might compare your reaction to how you’ve argued in the past or how others would handle it. You might even feel bad for being harsher than usual.
Now, back to the pie. How does this connect? The Seinfeld episode shows that relying only on internal attribution – thinking behavior is just about personal traits – is misleading. But at the same time, we can’t compare ourselves to others or only look at our past behavior. The truth is always somewhere in between.
To really understand our behavior, we need to compare it to how we’ve acted before and compare it to what is normal or expected.
Looking at it this way, you might realize that while you were more intense than usual, you also had a fair reason to defend your stance. It’s never just one explanation or the other – it’s always a mix of both.