How many times have you been in the car, minding your own business, trying like a safe driver, relaxing, listening to a favorite song when WHAM! Someone turns out of a side street right in front of you. You slam on your breaks, coffee goes flying, all the stuff neatly organized for that day lands on the floor - and the person who cut you off? They just keep going not even noticing how close they’d come to causing an accident, leaving you yelling and screaming.
A Personal Example
A similar experience happened to me this week during a rain storm. I’m convinced that whenever it rains and I have to get to work there is a conspiracy in operation carried out by the other drivers on the road. This time as usual I end up behind a car traveling at 10 miles an hour. My immediate response, “For God’s sake what is the matter with you? I have to be somewhere!”
I pass in a skid of water, annoyed at their thoughtlessness. Then, before I can get up much above 20 a car turns out in front of me – another 10 mile an hour driver.
“Move. Move,” I say loudly as if they can hear. I try to pass only to realize there’s a truck heading for me in the other lane so I’m stuck. “Would you move already?” I readdress the car in front of me. “Why can’t you just turn off? There’s a street right there. What’s the matter with you? It was a perfectly good street!” I fail to consider the possibility that the street doesn’t lead to where they are going.
Somehow I manage to pass that car also at some point only to find myself behind a car going 20. I clench my teeth, but I know I can pass right up ahead. Or so I think.
“No!” I scream as a car pulls out in front of the one going 20 miles an hour, only it’s doing 10 miles an hour so the car in front of me hits their brakes as do I, all the while shouting about the various defects each driver clearly possesses.
I won’t take you through the whole drive but just assume it was more of the same - me fuming and yelling insults at the drivers who won’t drive the way they should so I can get to work on time.
I enter in a whirlwind and all because I had been surrounded by a cast of the stupidest, most selfish, craziest idiots on the planet. If it hadn’t been for them, things would have gone just as I’d planned.
Coincidentally, when I get to the classroom, before the lecture starts a student asks if I can explain the Fundamental Attribution Error as he hadn’t understood it in the book. I just stare at him for a minute, then think, “Oh boy, can I ever explain it. With examples.”
Realizing that was exactly what I’d just been engaging in, I felt chagrined. But then I soothed myself by pointing out that it does have the word Fundamental at it’s beginning so it must be something we all do.
What is the Fundamental Attribution Error ?
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior. Of course when our own behavior is less than perfect we believe that’s because of the situation we’re in not anything having to do with us personally, (Druker, 2010). This bias is most likely to occur when the behavior in question can be viewed negatively.
In other words, people tend to have a default assumption that what another person does is based more on what "kind" of person he is, rather than the social and environmental forces influencing them. This default assumption often leads to erroneous explanations for behavior. This general bias to over-emphasizing dispositional explanations for behavior at the expense of situational explanations is much less likely to occur when people evaluate their own behavior.
A Classic Demonstration: Jones and Harris (1967)
In an early study which demonstrated this bias, subjects listened to pro- and anti-Fidel Castro speeches. Subjects were asked to rate the pro-Castro attitudes of both. Results showed that when the subjects believed that the speech makers freely chose which position to take (for or against Castro), they naturally rated the people who gave the pro-Castro speeches as having a more positive attitude toward Castro.
However, when the subjects were specifically told that the speech makers gave either a pro- or an anti-Castro speech based solely on the result of a random coin flip, the subjects still rated the people who gave the pro-Castro speeches as having a more positive attitude towards Castro than those giving anti-Castro speeches.
Thus, even when subjects were aware that the speeches given were assigned randomly not on personal opinion, they committed the fundamental attribution error when it came to judging the motivation behind pro or anti-Castro attitudes of the speech makers.
An Everyday Example
You are walking up to a cashier at the grocery store to check out. Before you can get there a harried looking older man with two children who are yelling for candy bars, tugging on his coat, then take off towards the gumball machines right by the store entrance, cuts directly in front of you, arriving to pay the cashier before you. What are your assumptions about the man?
You might respond by grumbling, thinking "What an incredible jerk!" You might give him a dirty look hoping he catches it and moves behind you. Depending on how fumed you are you might even say something directly to him like “Apparently you didn’t notice I was before you and perhaps no one told you it’s rude to cut in line.” Bottom line - your default assumption is likely that the person is ill-mannered and rude.
Yet could there be other less negative and more understandable reasons for his behavior? For example, what if you learn that the man never saw you. That he is a grandfather trusted with two unruly grandchildren for the day and his attention had been focused on keeping the two children with him fearing something could happen to them if they run from sight, while also keeping them under control and resist their demands and pleas for candy – a definite rule set down by his daughter all while attempting to reach the cashier. Thus, your dispositional attribution for his behavior was, in this instance, incorrect. The man simply did not see you as his attention was focused on keeping his grandchildren safe.
Why do These Biases Occur?
Jones & Nisbett, (1971), provided the initial theory to explain these biases. Termed the Actor-Observer Bias, they suggested that these errors are based on an individual’s perspective. When we focus on others behavior, the person is the primary reference point as we don’t have others and have no information about their situation. When we focus on our own behavior, we are more aware of what external forces may be influencing us. This is because we know the details of our own situation. So, our explanations for other people’s behavior are more likely to focus on the person we are observing instead of the any possible situational forces that may be influencing their behavior in ways we are unaware of. Instead when we are explaining our own behavior this is reversed.
How to Reduce These Errors
A number of "debiasing" techniques have been found effective in reducing the effect of these errors have been proposed by Lilienfeld, Ammirati & Landfield, (2009) as follows:
- Take heed of "consensus" information. If most people behave the same way when put in the same situation, then the situation is more likely to be the cause of the behavior.
- Ask yourself how you would behave in the same situation.
- Look for unseen causes focusing on factors you would not normally take notice of.
- Regarding your own behavior, reflect on whether it was truly just the situation or if something about you may have contributed to the problem
- Try reality testing. Run the situation by close friends or relatives and get their feedback. You may learn some important things about yourself you hadn’t or didn’t want to realize.
Sources
- Druker, M., (2010, March 15). The Fundamental Attribution Error in Transportation Choice. Psystenance.com. Retrieved October 13, 2011.
- Jones, E. E. and Harris, V. A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3, 1-24.
- Jones, E. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (1971). The actor and the observer: Divergent Perceptions of the Causes of Behavior. New York: General Learning Press.
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