Psychology

The Fundamental Attribution Error: It’s All How You Look At It

Today I want to talk about a nifty concept called the Fundamental Attribution Error. This concept helps explain why we view the causes of certain situations differently, depending on whether the situation is happening to ourselves or to someone else. Before I dive into the nitty gritty of explaining the Fundamental Attribution Error, though, I’d like to tell two short stories.

Situation 1

Not too long ago, as I was heading to work, I was sitting at a stop sign and waiting to turn out of my neighborhood onto the main road. It was a dreary day in the Chicago metro area—gray skies, a misty drizzle, and very foggy. Car after car came speeding over the hill into my view. Only a few of them had their headlights on. “Morons!” I muttered to myself. “Why don’t any of these idiots have their headlights on? You’re supposed to turn on your headlights when there’s fog and visibility is low so other people can see you!”

As I traced my usual route to work, I had variations of this same thought each time I passed a vehicle whose headlights were dark. How could people be so stupid? Didn’t they realize how dangerous it was to be driving in such conditions without turning their lights on? I parked my car begrudgingly. Then I trudged across the wet sidewalk toward the building, all the while cursing humanity for its brainlessness.

Situation 2

Flash forward to later in the week. I was following behind Little Man during his umpteenth lap around the first floor of our house, still wearing my pajamas and stealing anxious glances at my watch. It was 12:05 pm. I needed to leave for work in 25 minutes. I had yet to get dressed, eat anything, or brush my teeth. It was snowing, so I knew the roads would be lousy and it would be slow going. Facing those slick roads and sluggish pace of traffic, the grandparent who would be entertaining Little Man while I was at work hadn’t arrived yet. I paced nervously by the front door as Little Man pressed his face and hands to the storm door’s frigid glass.

Grandma finally arrived at 12:15 p.m.. She herself was a victim of hazardous road conditions and overly cautious motorists. (Everyone forgets how to drive as soon as a crystalline white flake threatens to fall from the sky.) I scrambled to throw on some work-appropriate attire and hurriedly grabbed an apple as I rushed out the door. It was a solid ten minutes later than I needed to leave. On the road, I passed other vehicles that were plodding along at an excessively slow pace. Road conditions were bad, but they weren’t that bad.

My heart sank further as I turned a corner and found myself stuck behind a tandem formation of snow plows. They created a diagonally staggered roadblock and travelling at 15 mph in a 40 mph zone. My chances of arriving before the start of my shift were becoming infinitesimally small. I hurried along at the quickest speed I could manage that was still safe for the road conditions.

Of course, there were no close parking spots. Mountains of displaced snow blocked several spaces. The rest were filled by others, like myself, who wanted to spend as little time as possible walking outside in cruddy weather. I settled for the first spot I could find and rushed to traverse the un-shoveled, un-salted, deceptively slick, and somewhat treacherous walkway up to the building. After nearly falling multiple times, I finally arrived at work cold, wet, and out of breath. I apologized profusely for being fifteen minutes late. (If you know me in real life, you know that I abhor being late. Yes, abhor. I feel that strongly about it.)

Personality vs. Circumstances

Can you spot the key difference in my perspective between the two stories?

In my first anecdote about people driving on a foggy day, I automatically assumed other drivers failed to turn on their headlights due to a particular character trait: stupidity. Situational factors that also could’ve led those drivers to take to the road without turning on their headlights in the fog? Never even crossed my mind. Perhaps their cars had automatic lights that only come on when it is sufficiently dark outside. It might not have occurred to them to turn the lights on manually. Or, maybe they left home in a hurry. They forgot to turn on their headlights until the lights on an oncoming vehicle sparked their memory. This has certainly happened to me when my mind was elsewhere. Or, it simply might not have been foggy a mile or two up the road!

My second story was all about circumstances. After all, there wasn’t much I could do about the snow or being stuck behind two slow-moving plows. There was no option to bail onto a different road. I said nothing about my complete, utter inability to wake up and get ready in the morning before Hubby leaves for work. Getting dressed much earlier probably would’ve mitigated the ripple effect of grandma’s delayed arrival that day. But, nonetheless, I only included situational details in the text message I sent to my co-worker explaining why I would be late. In my mind, they were the only relevant factors.

My co-worker and I are friends outside of work, so she knows how hard I try to avoid being late. Otherwise, like most people, she probably would have assumed I was just irresponsible, inconsiderate, or flaky. (Being late makes me so anxious! In college, I would skip class entirely if I was running more than a minute or two behind. I desperately wanted to avoid everyone turning around to look at me when they heard the door open during a lecture that had already begun!) Good thing she knows me better than that!

This reminds me of times when you’re driving along on a sunny day, but then you notice all the oncoming traffic has their headlights on. This almost always suggests it’s about to get a lot less sunny. Or, worse yet, driving from Chicago to Indiana on a cloudless, sunny day. Then, all of the sudden, you spot a snow plow in the oncoming traffic. Sure enough, somewhere around Gary, Indiana, the clear blue sky gives way to gray clouds and light flurries. Then, five miles down the road, those flurries turn into a literal white-out. Yeesh!


The Fundamental Attribution Error

These different perspectives in two stories illustrate a bedrock concept in social psychology called the fundamental attribution error. (It is also sometimes referred to as correspondence bias or the attribution effect.) The fundamental attribution error has two parts:

  1. We tend to believe other people’s behaviors are a reflection of their personal traits. That means that when people act freely, they generally do so in accordance with who they are as a person. We expect someone who waves to us and says hello to be friendly and outgoing. We assume someone who puts their head down and avoids making eye contact will be shy or unfriendly. Often we give personality traits too much weight when explaining others’ behavior, but not enough weight when explaining our own.
  2. In contrast, we tend to believe our own behaviors are caused by circumstances. We give little consideration to personality traits when explaining why we were late to meet someone or why we forgot to do something our spouse asked us to do. Often we give circumstances too much weight when explaining our own behavior, but not enough weight when explaining others’.

The fundamental attribution error is a common mental bias (in the Western world at least) where we tend to overestimate the role personality plays and underestimate the influence of situational factors in producing others’ behavior. The flip side is that we also tend to exaggerate the effects of circumstance and downplay the impact of disposition when it comes to explaining our own actions.


*N.B. It is worth noting that the term fundamental attribution error actually means making the (mental) error of “fundamental attribution.” It does not mean an attribution error that is fundamental to humans. This distinction may seem largely semantic in nature, but it’s important for understanding the concept. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to parse out the nouns and modifiers in the term as it has been coined. In this case, fundamental means “belonging to one’s innate or ingrained characteristics.” Attribution refers to the cause of a behavior.* So, the error of fundamental attribution translates to mistakenly identifying innate characteristics as the cause of someone’s behavior. Make sense?


The Takeaway

The takeaway point is this: There’s often more to the story of someone’s behavior than we tend to think. We can’t help it; our minds are primed to jump to conclusions, and those conclusions rarely include situational factors the first time around. But, it’s worth delving deeper to find out more about the circumstances driving someone’s actions. This is especially true when we feel personally affronted by them. The friend who never responded to your text might have come home to an enormous mess. Or she might have had a phone-obsessed toddler inadvertently mute the conversation without realizing it. Say your partner forgot to pick up milk on the way home from work. Maybe it was because he got pulled into important meetings and therefore never wrote it on the list.

It takes conscious effort to remind ourselves to think about how circumstances could be affecting someone’s actions. I learned about the fundamental attribution error in one of the first psychology courses I took. So, I’ve known about it for quite some time. But, on a regular basis I still fail to consider situational factors as a driving force that influences behavior. Maybe those other motorists had legitimate reasons to be driving through dense fog without turning on their headlights. Maybe they were just jerks. I suppose we can never be sure, but the truth probably lies somewhere in-between.


Notes:

*Definition quoted from Merriam Webster’s online dictionary.

Sources

Jones, E. E.; Harris, V. A. (1967). “The attribution of attitudes”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 3 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(67)90034-0

Ross, L. (1977). “The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process”. In Berkowitz, L. (ed.). Advances in experimental social psychology. 10. New York: Academic Press. pp. 173–220.


Want to know more?

2 Comments

  • Emily

    How true! We never know what is really going on for any said individual. It is so hard to remember that. Especially while driving. Have I never forgot to put my lights on? Have I ever almost missed and exit and cut over like a crazy person in order to make it? Have I not seen the car next to me when I wanted to switch lanes? I always assume people are on their phones and not paying attention. Not that they might have the worst day ever and their mind is just elsewhere, like mine is when I make these mistakes. I have to remember that I am not perfect either. I do sometimes still think people are just being assholes. 🙂

  • Patty

    Great read, dear Lori. I can totally resonate with the thoughts of humanity being brainless, haha.
    And maybe such people aren’t stupid, however, mindlessness comes to mind.
    Assumptions can be dangerous, hence one of my favorite questions to ask ‘how do you know it’s true?’.
    Warm regards,
    Patty

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *