Fundamental Attribution Error

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,

Here, participants were shown essays either favoring or opposing Fidel Castro without knowing if the writer had chosen her/his position about Castro or had it assigned. Even when the participants were told that the writer had no choice concerning her/his opinion, they were still prone to commit the fundamental attribution error. For example, reading a forced pro-Castro essay, the participants still concluded that the writer’s opinion had to genuinely be pro-Castro, thus disregarding situational factors and giving excessive weight to dispositional ones. Therefore, it is easy to understand why the error is known as “fundamental” since it is so common and frequently colors ours every judgment. Even my own experience can confirm it since, in the span of a few days, I can recall a least two occurrences of the fundamental attribution

Since it was raining and the umbrella was soaked, I decided not to bring it to me to class but rather put it near the other umbrellas in the hall of Guarini Campus. Once the class ended, I came to retrieve it but somebody else had taken it. Of course, I began to blame the person that took my umbrella: they were surely a selfish individual, a thief with no respect for other people’s belongings and property who had stolen my umbrella intentionally. I ignored attributed the act only to the “thief”’s despicable personality, without thinking that the situation could have forced the person to take my umbrella: maybe it was raining a lot and they really needed something to cover themselves with, but planned to return my umbrella as soon as possible, or maybe they had mistakenly taken the wrong umbrella, believing it was theirs. Similarly, I assisted to another example of fundamental attribution error when during the weekend, when I was forced to leave a group that I had been part of for a long time. It was a difficult but obliged decision, prompted entirely by situational factors: one of my ballet classes had been moved to the exact time of the group’s usual meetings, so I could not come to them anymore. Yet, one of the members believed that I was leaving only out of laziness, attributing my behavior to dispositional causes