The fundamental attribution error

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the social psychology term. For the legal term, see Fundamental error.

In social psychology, fundamental attribution error (FAE), also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is a cognitive attribution bias where observers under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for the behavior of an actor while overemphasizing dispositional- and personality-based explanations. This effect has been described as «the tendency to believe that what people do reflects who they are»,^[1] that is, to overattribute their behaviors (what they do or say) to their personality and underattribute them to the situation or context. The error is in seeing someone’s actions as solely reflective of their personality rather than somewhat reflective of it and also largely prompted by circumstances. It involves a type of circular reasoning in which the answer to the question «why would they do that» is only «because they would do that.» Although things like personality differences and predispositions are in fact real, the fundamental attribution error is an error because it misinterprets their effects.

As an example of the behavior which attribution error theory seeks to explain, consider the situation where Alice, a driver, is cut off in traffic by Bob. Alice attributes Bob’s behavior to his fundamental personality; e.g., He thinks only of himself, he is selfish, he is an unskilled driver. She does not think it is situational; e.g., He is going to miss his flight, his wife is giving birth at the hospital, his daughter is convulsing at school. Alice might well make the opposite mistake and excuse herself by saying she was influenced by situational causes; e.g., I am late for my job interview, I must pick up my son for his dental appointment, rather than thinking she has a character flaw.^[2]

Origin[edit]

Etymology[edit]

The phrase was coined by Lee Ross^[3] 10 years after an experiment by Edward E. Jones and Victor Harris in 1967.^[4] Ross argued in a popular paper that the fundamental attribution error forms the conceptual bedrock for the field of social psychology. Jones wrote that he found Ross’s phrase «overly provocative and somewhat misleading», and also joked: «Furthermore, I’m angry that I didn’t think of it first.»^[5] Some psychologists, including Daniel Gilbert, have used the phrase «correspondence bias» for the fundamental attribution error.^[5] Other psychologists have argued that the fundamental attribution error and correspondence bias are related but independent phenomena, with the former being a common explanation for the latter.^[6]

1967 demonstration study[edit]

Jones and Harris hypothesized, based on the correspondent inference theory, that people would attribute apparently freely chosen behaviors to disposition and apparently chance-directed behaviors to situation. The hypothesis was confounded by the fundamental attribution error.^[4]

Subjects in an experiment read essays for and against Fidel Castro. Then they were asked to rate the pro-Castro attitudes of the writers. When the subjects believed that the writers freely chose positions for or against Castro, they would normally rate the people who liked Castro as having a more positive attitude towards Castro. However, contradicting Jones and Harris’ initial hypothesis, when the subjects were told that the writers’ positions were determined by a coin toss, they still rated writers who spoke in favor of Castro as having, on average, a more positive attitude towards Castro than those who spoke against him. In other words, the subjects were unable to properly see the influence of the situational constraints placed upon the writers; they could not refrain from attributing sincere belief to the writers. The experimental group provided more internal attributions towards the writer.

Criticism[edit]

The hypothesis that people systematically overattribute behavior to traits (at least for other people’s behavior) is contested. A 1986 study tested whether subjects over-, under-, or correctly estimated the empirical correlation among behaviors. (ie traits, see trait theory)^[7] They found that estimates of correlations among behaviors correlated strongly with empirically-observed correlations among these behaviors. Subjects were sensitive to even very small correlations, and their confidence in the association tracked how far they were discrepant (i.e., if they knew when they did not know), and was higher for the strongest relations. Subjects also showed awareness of the effect of aggregation over occasions and used reasonable strategies to arrive at decisions. Epstein concluded that «Far from being inveterate trait believers, as has been previously suggested, [subjects’] intuitions paralleled psychometric principles in several important respects when assessing relations between real-life behaviors.»^[7]

A 2006 meta-analysis found little support for a related bias, the actor-observer asymmetry, in which people attribute their own behavior more to the environment, but others’ behavior to individual attributes.^[8] The implications for the fundamental attribution error, the author explained, were mixed. He explained that the fundamental attribution error has two versions:

1. Observers make person-focused attributions more than environmental attributions for actor behavior;
2. Observers will mistakenly overestimate the influence of personal factors on actor behavior.

The meta-analysis concluded that existing weight of evidence does not support the first form of the fundamental attribution error, but does support the second.

Explanations[edit]

Several theories predict the fundamental attribution error, and thus both compete to explain it, and can be falsified if it does not occur. Some examples include:

1. Just-world fallacy. The belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, the concept of which was first theorized by Melvin J. Lerner in 1977.^[9] Attributing failures to dispositional causes rather than situational causes—which are unchangeable and uncontrollable—satisfies our need to believe that the world is fair and that we have control over our lives. We are motivated to see a just world because this reduces our perceived threats,^[10][11] gives us a sense of security, helps us find meaning in difficult and unsettling circumstances, and benefits us psychologically.^[12] However, the just-world hypothesis also results in a tendency for people to blame and disparage victims of an accident or a tragedy, such as rape^[13][14] and domestic abuse,^[15] to reassure themselves of their insusceptibility to such events. People may even blame the victim’s faults in a «past life» to pursue justification for their bad outcome.^{[16][page needed]}
2. Salience of the actor. We tend to attribute an observed effect to potential causes that capture our attention. When we observe other people, the person is the primary reference point while the situation is overlooked as if it is nothing but mere background. As such, attributions for others’ behavior are more likely to focus on the person we see, not the situational forces acting upon that person that we may not be aware of.^[17][18][19] (When we observe ourselves, we are more aware of the forces acting upon us. Such a differential inward versus outward orientation^[20] accounts for the actor–observer bias.)
3. Lack of effortful adjustment. Sometimes, even though we are aware that the person’s behavior is constrained by situational factors, we still commit the fundamental attribution error.^[4] This is because we do not take into account behavioral and situational information simultaneously to characterize the dispositions of the actor.^[21] Initially, we use the observed behavior to characterize the person by automaticity.^{[22][23][24][25][26]} We need to make deliberate and conscious effort to adjust our inference by considering the situational constraints. Therefore, when situational information is not sufficiently taken into account for adjustment, the uncorrected dispositional inference creates the fundamental attribution error. This would also explain why people commit the fundamental attribution error to a greater degree when they’re under cognitive load; i.e. when they have less motivation or energy for processing the situational information.^[27]
4. Culture. It has been suggested cultural differences occur in attribution error:^[28] people from individualistic (Western) cultures are reportedly more prone to the error while people from collectivistic cultures are less prone.^[29] Based on cartoon-figure presentations to Japanese and American subjects, it has been suggested that collectivist subjects may be more influenced by information from context (for instance being influenced more by surrounding faces in judging facial expressions^[30]). Alternatively, individualist subjects may favor processing of focal objects, rather than contexts.^[31] Others suggest Western individualism is associated with viewing both oneself and others as independent agents, therefore focusing more on individuals rather than contextual details.^[32]

Versus correspondence bias[edit]

The fundamental attribution error is commonly used interchangeably with «correspondence bias» (sometimes called «correspondence inference»), although this phrase refers to a judgment which does not necessarily constitute a bias, which arises when the inference drawn is incorrect, e.g. dispositional inference when the actual cause is situational). However, there has been debate about whether the two terms should be distinguished from each other. Three main differences between these two judgmental processes have been argued:

1. They seem to be elicited under different circumstances, as both correspondent dispositional inferences and situational inferences can be elicited spontaneously.^[33] Attributional processing, however, seems to only occur when the event is unexpected or conflicting with prior expectations. This notion is supported by a 1994 study, which found that different types of verbs invited different inferences and attributions.^[34] Correspondence inferences were invited to a greater degree by interpretative action verbs (such as «to help») than state action or state verbs, thus suggesting that the two are produced under different circumstances.
2. Correspondence inferences and causal attributions also differ in automaticity. Inferences can occur spontaneously if the behavior implies a situational or dispositional inference, while causal attributions occur much more slowly.^[35]
3. It has also been suggested that correspondence inferences and causal attributions are elicited by different mechanisms. It is generally agreed that correspondence inferences are formed by going through several stages. Firstly, the person must interpret the behavior, and then, if there is enough information to do so, add situational information and revise their inference. They may then further adjust their inferences by taking into account dispositional information as well.^[27][36] Causal attributions however seem to be formed either by processing visual information using perceptual mechanisms, or by activating knowledge structures (e.g. schemas) or by systematic data analysis and processing.^[37] Hence, due to the difference in theoretical structures, correspondence inferences are more strongly related to behavioral interpretation than causal attributions.

Based on the preceding differences between causal attribution and correspondence inference, some researchers argue that the fundamental attribution error should be considered as the tendency to make dispositional rather than situational explanations for behavior, whereas the correspondence bias should be considered as the tendency to draw correspondent dispositional inferences from behavior.^[38][39] With such distinct definitions between the two, some cross-cultural studies also found that cultural differences of correspondence bias are not equivalent to those of fundamental attribution error. While the latter has been found to be more prevalent in individualistic cultures than collectivistic cultures, correspondence bias occurs across cultures,^[40][41][42] suggesting differences between the two phrases. Further, disposition correspondent inferences made to explain the behavior of nonhuman actors (e.g., robots) do not necessarily constitute an attributional error because there is little meaningful distinction between the interior dispositions and observable actions of machine agents.^[43]

See also[edit]

Cognitive biases[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

• Detailed explanations by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett

Susan has an interview with Company ABC at 1pm. She catches the train and when she is getting off, she gets pushed by another passenger who is running for another train. In the process, Susan twists and sprains her ankle. Filled with pain but desire, she hops along as best as she can to get to the interview on time.

When she arrives, she is over 15 minutes late. Fred and Louise who are the interviewees say to each other, ‘she’s late and not very punctual. I don’t know if we can trust her to come to work every day on time’. ‘It must be something in her character’.

Despite having a good interview, Susan doesn’t get the job. Fred and Louise blame the poor punctuality on her character. In other words, they think it’s a distributional attribution. Perhaps she is just a disorganised person, but that wouldn’t fit well into the role.

Yet, the real reason was a situational attribution. She sprained her ankle. A situation she could not have foreseen. In turn, there is a fundamental attribution error.

Actors and actresses who play a character on the screen can often be confused with their on-screen character. For instance, Jennifer Aniston may be seen to have the same characteristics as Rachel from Friends.

This can lead to a fundamental attribution error. We may consider Jennifer Aniston and Rachel as one of the same. Her actions may replicate what Rachel would do. However, they are not the same. Jennifer Aniston is merely portraying Rachael in a situational attribution. Those characteristics are part of acting and are limited to that situation.

Many actors and actresses face such issues in real life. They get confused between the human and the character. We may expect an actor or actress who portrays an evil villain to be evil and devious in real life. However, we are attributing that to the actor or actress’s situation by which they are performing, not their dispositional attributes.

Let’s say your friend Jake takes you to a party. He introduces you to his other friend Aaron. He seems disinterested and unwilling to talk to you. Aaron is rude, abrupt, and generally unpleasant to be around.

It would be fair to conclude that Aaron is simply not a nice person. You may not see why he is friends with Jake in the first place. ‘Why are you friends with this guy’? You might say.

On the surface, it may seem like Aaron isn’t a nice person. However, what we haven’t seen is the fact that his mother passed away last week and he had just been fired from his job.

What we see is a fundamental attribution error. We may assign his bad behaviour towards his personality, or, dispositional attributes. Yet his behaviour is better explained by his situation instead.

We tend to attribute behaviour to dispositional attributes. In other words, an individual’s character. The reason is simple. We don’t have an idea of the other persons situation and what they are going through. So, what may be a situational attribute, we often blame as that of the persons disposition.

At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that the opposite can also occur. In other words, a situational attribute can be mistaken for a distortional attribute.

In order to avoid either of these, it is first important to acknowledge that we make such errors. Once we understand that we are prone to them, we can be pro-active when they occur.

When we get angry at the shopper cutting in, or our boss reprimanding us, it’s important for us to first consider the circumstances by which the situation unfolded. We don’t know what might be going on in their home life, so there may be more to the situation that it seems.

Sometimes it is impossible to understand others’ situation. We cannot know that the driver who just cut you up is in a rush to see their dying father, or the guy who barged past you were in a state after losing his job.

By trying to understand that it is not necessarily the individual’s disposition, we can not only calm ourselves down but also rationalise the situation.

We can get annoyed at a person’s actions and therefore take the anger out on them. This can be counter-productive, especially when there is a fundamental attribution error.

There’s been a lot written about cognitive biases in the last decade. If you walk into the Psychology section of Barnes of Noble today or browse Amazon for «decision-making,» you’re sure to see a library of books about how irrational humans can be.

Many cognitive biases affect humans and their everyday actions, like confirmation bias and overconfidence. But the most important, and troubling, error that professionals tend to make in their thinking may be the fundamental attribution error.

Cognitive biases such as these often shape how an individual interacts with the world around them. In the world of business, understanding these biases and becoming aware of the ways that they influence your behavior is vital to becoming a better manager.

What Is the Fundamental Attribution Error?

The fundamental attribution error refers to an individual’s tendency to attribute another’s actions to their character or personality, while attributing their behavior to external situational factors outside of their control. In other words, you tend to cut yourself a break while holding others 100 percent accountable for their actions.

For instance, if you’ve ever chastised a «lazy employee» for being late to a meeting and then proceeded to make an excuse for being late yourself that same day, you’ve made the fundamental attribution error. 

The fundamental attribution error exists because of how people perceive the world. While you have at least some idea of your character, motivations, and situational factors that affect your day-to-day, you rarely know everything that’s going on with someone else. Similar to confirmation and overconfidence biases, its impact on business and life can be reduced by taking several measures.

Fundamental Attribution Error Examples

It’s clear to see how the fundamental attribution error (FAE) can impact your personal life, but it’s important to recognize the influence it can have on your work, as well. Whether you’re an employee or manager, cognitive biases, like the FAE, can play a role in how you interact with others in the workplace and how you make key business decisions.

In working with your colleagues, for example, you probably form a general impression of their character based on pieces of a situation, but never see the whole picture. While it would be nice to give them the benefit of the doubt, your brain tends to use limited information to make judgments.

Within organizations, FAE can cause everything from arguments to firings and ruptures in organizational culture. In fact, it’s at the root of any misunderstanding in which human motivations have the potential to be misinterpreted.

For example, think back to the «lazy employee.» Since she was late to an important meeting, you might be inclined to form a judgment of her character based on this one action alone. It’s possible, however, that her behavior is due to several external, rather than internal, factors. For instance, any number of situational factors could have caused her to run behind schedule, such as a family emergency or traffic jam, which have nothing to do with the quality of her character.

In action, forming impressions of a person’s character based on limited information can have long-lasting effects. Now that you perceive this person as «lazy,» your opinions of her may begin to shift over time. Unless the opportunity arises for you to get to know your employee better, you may always view her in a negative light.

How to Avoid the Fundamental Attribution Error

Think of the last time you thought a co-worker should be fired or a customer service representative was incompetent. How often have you really tried to understand the situational factors that could be affecting this person’s work? Probably not often.

The fundamental attribution error is so prevalent because it’s rooted in psychology, so completely overcoming it can be difficult. One tool that can be helpful in combating FAE is gratitude. When you become resentful at someone for a bad «quality» they demonstrate, try to make a list of five positive qualities the person also exhibits. This will help balance out your perspective and can help you view your co-worker as a whole person instead of through the lens of a single negative quality.

Another method is to practice becoming more emotionally intelligent. Emotional intelligence has become a buzzword in the business world over the past 20 to 30 years, but it involves practicing self-awareness, empathy, self-regulation, and other methods of becoming more objective in the service of one’s long-term interests and the interests of others. Practicing empathy, in particular, such as having discussions with co-workers about their opinions on projects and life out of the office, is a good first step.

FAE is impossible to overcome completely. But with a combination of awareness and a few small tools and tactics, you can be more gracious and empathic with your co-workers. In fact, being able to acknowledge cognitive biases like FAE and make the conscious effort to limit their effects is an essential component of becoming a better manager.

Are you interested in improving your managerial skills? Explore our eight-week online course Management Essentials and gain the skills and strategies to excel in decision-making, implementation, organizational learning, and change management.

This post was updated on February 14, 2020. It was originally published on June 8, 2017.

The fundamental attribution error is a cognitive bias that causes people to underestimate the influence of environment-based situational factors on people’s behavior, and to overestimate the influence of personality-based dispositional factors.

Essentially, this means that the fundamental attribution error causes people to assume that other people’s actions are less affected by their environment than they actually are, and to assume that those actions are more affected by their personality than they actually are.

For example, the fundamental attribution error can cause someone to assume that if some stranger looks angry, then they must be an angry person in general, even though this person might have been driven to temporary anger by something, such as someone else being rude to them.

The fundamental attribution error can significantly influence how people, including yourself, judge others, so it’s important to understand it. As such, in the following article you will learn more about the fundamental attribution error, and see what you can do to account for it properly.

Examples of the fundamental attribution error

One notable example of the fundamental attribution error appears in the first study that focused on this phenomenon, published in 1967 by Edward Jones and Victor Harris, two researchers at Duke University.

In the first and best-known of the experiments in the study, participants were given what they thought was an essay written by a student for a political science exam on a controversial topic—Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Some participants received a Pro-Castro essay and others an Anti-Castro one, and they were all asked to judge the true attitude of the essay writer toward the topic.

The experiment provided evidence of the fundamental attribution error, since participants who read the Pro-Castro essay were significantly more likely to assume that the student who wrote it was himself Pro-Castro, compared to those who read the Anti-Castro essay, even when they were told that the student who wrote the essay had no choice with regard to its topic. These findings were replicated in a follow-up experiment, where participants read what they thought was an initial draft of an opening statement for a college debate on the topic.

Since then, other research has found evidence of the fundamental attribution error in various domains. For instance, additional examples of the fundamental attribution error include the following:

• People watching TV shows often display the fundamental attribution error, when they attribute the behavior of actors on the show to their personality, rather than to the script. Essentially, this means that people sometimes assume that an actor’s behavior while in-character reflects their true personality, rather than what is dictated for them by the script. Furthermore, this effect has been shown to remain consistent even when the person who displays the fundamental attribution error watches the same actor playing two different roles; in such cases, the last scene that people view is generally the one that determines their evaluation of the actor.
• Students often display the fundamental attribution error, when they overestimate internal causes for their teachers’ expression of anger. Essentially, this means that students assume that the main reason why their teachers are angry is that they’re angry people, rather than that their environment has caused the teachers to become angry. This remains the case even when students recognize that their own actions, such as misbehavior, intentional provoking, or lack of effort, are what caused the teacher to become angry in the first place.

Note: the term ‘fundamental attribution error’ was coined by Stanford professor Lee Ross in a 1977 paper titled “The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: distortions in the attribution process”, where Ross discusses this phenomenon based on findings from earlier studies. This term is often abbreviated as ‘FAE’.

Why people display the fundamental attribution error

The main reason why people display the fundamental attribution error is that it serves as a type of heuristic, which is a mental shortcut that people intuitively use in order to make judgments and decisions quickly.

Specifically, the fundamental attribution error can be viewed as a heuristic, since it’s easier and faster to assume that people’s behavior is based only on their relatively stable internal traits, than it is to account for the various situational factors that could affect it, and to try and disentangle people’s actions from their intentions. Accordingly, this bias is more likely to occur when people lack the cognitive resources or motivation needed to fully consider the influence of situational factors on people’s behavior.

Furthermore, besides speeding up people’s evaluation process and reducing their cognitive load during this process, there are also other potential benefits to using this kind of heuristic.

For example, a potential benefit of the fundamental attribution error is that the cost of erroneously assuming that someone’s actions are determined primarily by their disposition, rather than by situational factors, is sometimes lower than assuming the opposite. Essentially, this means that when judging someone’s actions, it is often preferable to assume that their behavior is more affected by their personality than it actually is, than it is to assume the opposite.

In addition, other reasons can also prompt people to display the fundamental attribution error. For example, a neuroscientific study showed that one potential reason why people display this bias is that, when they try to understand other people’s intentions, they engage in mentalizing, by spontaneously processing the other person’s mental state.

Finally, note that various factors have been shown to influence the likelihood that people will display the fundamental attribution error, as well as the degree to which they display it. This includes both factors that have to do with the person making the judgment, such as their nationality or mood, as well as factors that have to do with the person who is being judged, such as whether their actions are perceived in a positive or negative manner. This is in line with research on the general attribution process, which shows that this process can be biased in various ways and for various reasons, and can be affected by various situational and personal factors.

Overall, people display the fundamental attribution error primarily because this form of thinking serves as a mental shortcut, that allows them to render judgments faster and more easily. Furthermore, other factors can also lead people to display the fundamental attribution errors; this includes, for example, the fact that it is often preferable to overestimate, rather than underestimate, the impact of personality-based factors on people’s behavior.

Accounting for the fundamental attribution error

How to avoid the fundamental attribution error

There are several things that you can do to avoid the fundamental attribution error.

First, simply learning about this phenomenon and keeping it in mind can help reduce it to some degree.

Second, in situations where you notice yourself displaying this phenomenon while judging someone, you can further reduce it by actively thinking of similar situations where it was clear that people were strongly influenced by situational factors. When doing this, you can also ask yourself if you have ever acted in a similar manner under similar circumstances, and then examine the reasons that you had for acting the way you did.

Third, you can also try to come up with a number of possible explanations—including situational ones—for the behavior of the person that you’re judging.

In addition, actively explaining the rationale behind your judgment of someone can further help you reduce the likelihood that you’ll display the fundamental attribution error. This works both by making you feel more accountable for your reasoning, and by helping you identify and avoid the mental shortcuts that lead you to display this bias in the first place.

Finally, you can also benefit from using general debiasing techniques, such as slowing down your reasoning process. In particular, you will often benefit from using debiasing techniques that are effective against similar types of cognitive biases, such as the egocentric bias and the empathy gap. This includes, for example, trying to consider the situation from the other person’s perspective.

Overall, to avoid the fundamental attribution error, you should keep this cognitive bias in mind when judging others, and use techniques such as considering relevant past situations, coming up with multiple explanations for people’s behavior, and explaining the rationale behind your judgment; you can also use general debiasing techniques, such as slowing down your reasoning process.

Note: to avoid the fundamental attribution error, a useful principle to keep in mind is Hanlon’s razor, which suggests that when someone does something that leads to a negative outcome, you should avoid assuming that they acted out of an intentional desire to cause harm, as long as there is a plausible alternative explanation for their behavior.

How to respond to the fundamental attribution error

If you notice that someone else is displaying the fundamental attribution error, you can attempt to debias their thinking, by using similar techniques that you would use to avoid this bias yourself.

For example, you can encourage the person who’s displaying this bias to think of similar situations where they’ve acted like the person that they’re judging, because of situational factors. Similarly, you can ask the person displaying this bias to think of environment-based reasons why the person in question might be engaging in the behavior that’s being judged.

It’s important to note that such methods are intended to work primarily on people who are displaying the fundamental attribution error unintentionally, as a cognitive bias. However, some people intentionally use fallacious patterns of reasoning that are similar to this bias, for various reasons.

For example, someone might argue that a certain person who did something negative must have done so simply because they’re a bad person, rather than because they were pushed to do it by their environment, in order to promote the fundamental attribution error in others.

To handle cases where this happens, it is often best to demonstrate the logical issues with the argument in question. You can achieve this by demonstrating the issues associated with such logic using various approaches, such as explaining that people’s actions aren’t necessarily driven just by their personality, and by providing examples that support this claim.

A potential exception to this are cases where there’s an audience to the discussion where this kind of fallacious argument is being used, and you care primarily about the opinion of the audience, rather than about the opinion of the person who’s intentionally using this argument. In such cases, you might choose to focus on debiasing the audience members using the previously mentioned debiasing techniques, instead of—or in addition to—demonstrating the logical issues with such arguments.

Caveats regarding the fundamental attribution error

As with similar psychological phenomena, there are some important caveats that should be taken into account with regard to the fundamental attribution error.

First, it’s important to note that some research on the topic has called into question the degree to which people display the fundamental attribution error and related phenomena, such as the actor-observer asymmetry in attribution. Furthermore, such research has also called into question the reasons why people display these phenomena in the first place.

Second, it’s important to keep in mind that this is a complex phenomenon, that can be affected by various factors. As such, you should expect there to be significant variability with regard to the exact manner in which people display this phenomenon, in terms of factors such as how strongly they underestimate the influence of situational factors.

Related concepts

There are several psychological phenomena that are often mentioned in relation to the fundamental attribution error. These include, most notably:

• The correspondence bias. The correspondence bias is a cognitive bias that causes people to draw conclusions about a person’s disposition, based on behaviors that can be explained by situational factors. Some people use the terms ‘fundamental attribution error’ and ‘correspondence bias’ interchangeably, but the two terms refer to two separate—though closely related—phenomena.
• The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution. The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution is a cognitive bias that causes people to attribute their own behavior to situational causes and other people’s behavior to dispositional factors.
• Self-serving bias. The self-serving bias is a cognitive bias that causes people to take credit for their successes and positive behaviors by attributing them to dispositional factors, and to deny responsibility for failures and negative behaviors by attributing them to situational factors. In addition, the term ‘self-serving bias’ is sometimes used to refer to any type of cognitive bias that is prompted by a person’s desire to enhance their self-esteem.
• The ultimate attribution error. The ultimate attribution error is a cognitive bias that makes people more likely to attribute positive acts to situational factors when they’re performed by someone from an outgroup than by someone from their ingroup, and also makes people more likely to attribute negative acts to dispositional factors when they’re performed by someone from an outgroup than by someone from their ingroup.
• The just-world bias. The just-world bias is a cognitive bias that causes people to assume that people’s actions always lead to fair consequences, meaning that those who do good are eventually rewarded, while those who do evil are eventually punished. For example, the just-world hypothesis can cause someone to assume that if someone else experienced a tragic misfortune, then they must have done something to deserve it.

In addition, there are three frameworks that are often mentioned in relation to the fundamental attribution error:

• Situationism, which involves heavily favoring situational factors when it comes to explaining human behavior.
• Dispositionalism, which involves heavily favoring dispositional factors when it comes to explaining human behavior.
• Interactionism, which suggests that when it comes to explaining human behavior, both situational and dispositional factors strongly matter.

Most researchers show support for interactionism, rather than to the other frameworks, under the belief that both situational and dispositional factors play a major role in guiding human behavior.

Summary and conclusions

• The fundamental attribution error is a cognitive bias that causes people to underestimate the influence of environment-based situational factors on people’s behavior, and to overestimate the influence of personality-based dispositional factors.
• For example, the fundamental attribution error can cause someone to assume that if some stranger looks angry, then they must be an angry person in general, even though this person might have been driven to temporary anger by something, such as someone else being rude to them.
• The main reason why people display the fundamental attribution error is that it’s easier and faster to assume that people’s behavior is driven only by their personality, than to try and account for the various situational factors that could affect it.
• To avoid the fundamental attribution error, you should keep this bias in mind when judging others, and use techniques such as considering relevant past situations, coming up with multiple explanations for people’s behavior, and explaining the rationale behind your judgment; you can also use general debiasing techniques, such as slowing down your reasoning process.
• To help others avoid the fundamental attribution error, you can debias their thinking using similar techniques that you would use to debias yourself; however, if they’re using similar patterns of reasoning intentionally for some reason, it might be preferable to focus on explaining the logical issues with their argument instead.