The substitute teacher
One episode wherein Lisa experienced an emotional devastation
is when she had a real special substitute teacher, Mr. Bergstrom. His teaching
method was spontaneous and authentic which tremendously excited Lisa. For
instance, Mr. Bergstrom arrived to class wearing a 1800s cowboy costume displaying
several anachronisms that the children had to notice. Lisa saw right away that
the belt that read “The State of Texas” was an anachronism because Texas was
not yet a state.
When Mr. Bergstrom left, Lisa was devastated. According to
the attribution theory, the cause of her devastation was uncontrollable because
it was not the result of doing nor could she do anything about it. Lisa could
not really take any action to reverse the course of events. Instead, she would do things like lashing out at her family who looked all the more unrefined as she compared her father,
for instance, with the sophisticated Mr. Bergstrom. Therefore, the locus of
control was external. The cause of her devastation was also a stable one
because it was imminent that Lisa’s teacher would come back to school and Mr. Bergstrom
would leave.
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