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Fritz Heider: The Fundamental Attribution Error

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Fritz Heider formulated the attribution theory, which states that we tend to credit someone’s behavior to either external forces (the situation) or the person’s internal disposition (personality). The fundamental attribution error is the overestimation of the effect of internal dispositions on a person’s behavior, and the underestimation of the situation they may be in. Since Western cultures are more individualistic, people that we have autonomy when it comes to our behavior, which is why the fundamental attribution error is more prevalent in these societies. The foot-in-the-door phenomenon is the tendency for people to comply with a large request after having complied to a smaller request. For instance, people who are prompted to put a small …show more content…

The regular German officers served the interests of the Nazi leaders, killing thousands of innocent people. The belief that these Nazi officers had more power and that the officers themselves were powerless caused the officers to succumb to submission and …show more content…

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Fundamental Attribution Error Behavior is something that changes depending on the situations that you are exposed to. This supports the fact that your behavior is also determined by different social factors that you that you could be in. In this essay I will describe the different research/case studies that’s supports the idea that our behavior changes when we are in the presence of others such as, the presence of an authority figure, the presence of a group on bystanders observing the same emergency as us, pressure from a group to change your belief even though you are wrong, social expectation to live up to a role and lastly a good or bad leader.

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Dispostional attritbution is when you overlook a situation that people are in, and judge their behavior based of their personality. An example of this is when people tell you don't judge a book by it's cover. The girl that you may see that is always quiet and stays to herself can be at home getting abused. Situational attribution is when you analyze a person's actions according to the situation that they are in. An example of situatuional attribution would be realizing that because the quiet girl is always wearing hoodies in the summer time she maybe trying to hind her bruises.

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No one knows for sure why we commit the fundamental attribution error, but one likely culprit is the fact that we’re rarely aware of all of the situational factors impinging on others’ behavior at a given moment. Contrarily, we’re less likely to commit the fundamental attribution error if we’ve been in the same situation ourselves or been encouraged to feel empathic toward those we’re

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The fundamental attribution error refers to tendency of an observer to attribute other people’s behavior to internal and dispositional causes— personality, traits, and abilities— while disregarding the influence of external and situational causes— the environment and the overall situational context. Even if the precise causes of the error remain yet to be understood, it is plausible to assume that people resort to it in order to explain someone’s behavior in the easiest and quickest way possible, since, on the other hand, taking into consideration the great variety of situational determinants requires more effort. Another cause is that when we watch another person act we tend to focus our attention on her/his behavior rather than on the environment,

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