Scenario: The Breakup

 

Jill and Bob, both students at Great Sands Community College, had known each other for about a year. They had been going out steadily for about six months and it looked as if things were getting serious. Then, it happened. One day, they decided to end the relationship. All of a sudden, they saw that they really weren't compatible, and they saw that they really didn't like each other.

 

It all started when Bob had gotten tickets to a major concert in town. He had spent about $200 for each ticket and had planned a great evening for both of them. Bob liked to spend money on Jill even though he really could not afford it and was running up huge debts on his credit card. He blamed the card company for charging so much interest and the economy, saying that he had to charge these things because he wasn't getting paid enough at work. Overall, though, he thought he was being really nice and thoughtful to Jill when he surprised her with the tickets and dinner out!

 

Jill really was surprised and thought that this was a little extravagant given that they had just gone to a large concert the previous month. Also, the concert was the night before the midterm exam in a history class that they were both taking. They had spent some time studying together, but Jill did not feel well prepared for the exam and did not want to risk getting a bad grade, which could hurt her A average in the class and her overall 3.9 GPA. She was up for academic honors and didn't want to even think about risking a bad grade. She had told Bob about this, but Bob said that studying that evening really would not do any good, at least for him, because he was convinced that the professor hated him. He claimed the professor always picked him to answer the questions he didn't know. Besides, the concert would help them both relax and reduce the anxiety they had about the exam. If they had less anxiety, they would probably get better grades. Bob said, "Jill you study too much anyway. You need to get out and have a little fun!"

 

That started the argument! Jill said that she had nothing against fun, but wanted to do well on the exam. Bob replied that Jill was self-centered and only cared about herself. She didn't care that he had taken the time to purchase these hard-to-get tickets and had a nice evening planned for both of them. He said, "I work hard to plan nice things for us and you're still ungrateful. All you want to do is study! All you care about are your stupid grades! You don't care about me!"

 

Jill, not to be outdone, said, "I do care about you. I want you to do well in school so that when you're finished you can get a great job and you don't have to use credit all the time. But, you don't seem to care about me because if you did, you would stop charging things and start studying so you could earn some real money at a real job! But all you are is lazy."

 

From there, the argument just degenerated into name calling and finally both Bob and Jill agreed not to see each other again. They even decided not to sit together in history class.

 

What went wrong? How do the dimensions of attributions explain why Bob and Jill broke up?