Group- Cat September 14, 2016

Fundamental Attribution Error

Every day people make causal explanations for their own and
others behavior, as well as for events in general. These explanations, or
attributions, are a crucial form of information processing that help explain
the situations and behavior occurring in the world around us (Kazdin,
2000). According to research, humans actively engage in attribution
methods because they have an innate desire to understand, predict, and
control whats going on around them (Forgas, 1998). In doing so, peoples
ability to know, and, in some ways, control the social world around them is
enhanced.
When determining what caused a particular event, the observer
focuses on either the internal or external factors that are present. The
personality, abilities, and traits of the person involved are all classified as
internal while environmental constraints, other peoples actions, and
properties of the situation are external (Reeder, 1982). Most of the time,
when trying to explain what happens in social settings, people tend to view
the behavior of the actor, or person involved in the situation, as an
extremely significant factor. As a result, observers tend to explain behavior
in terms of the actors internal disposition rather than the external
situational factors (Kazdin, 2000).
This inclination to over exaggerate the influence of behavior,
personality traits, motives, etc. and underestimate the power of external
factors in a given situation is known as the fundamental attribution error or
FAE (Amabile, Ross, and Steinmetz, 1977).
The fundamental attribution error, also called the correspondence
bias, describes the tendency for observers to attribute other peoples
behavior to internal or dispositional factors and to downplay situational
causes (Gilbert & Malone, 1995). It occurs when we overestimate how
much another persons behaviour can be explained by dispositional
factors (Bell, n.d.). It reflects failing to adequately consider the role of
some situational factors that may affect a persons behaviour (Bell, n.d.).
In simple terms, you put the blame on the persons personality
involved in a certain situation/scenario (whether positive or negative) when
in fact the factors surrounding the person have the real error.
Fundamental attribution error examples:
1. Every Sunday after the church service, I always went to Porta Vaga
mall and simply have a walk. One Sunday, after the service all I
want to do was to go home already. So from the cathedral, I went to
the uppermost floor of the mall and rode down to the ground floor
through an elevator. As we go down, in the lower ground floor, a fat
lady entered the elevator and she told the elevator girl, "To the
ground floor, please." Then I thought, "Well of course you're from
the lower ground floor and the next stop of the elevator would of
course the ground floor already. And I thought that, well, she's
kinda fat and perhaps she was just lazy to walk down the stairs
that's why she simply rode in the elevator. I made this judgement
without considering the other possibilities that she might have
something to do on a particular time or perhaps there was an
emergency.
2. For an instance, you are in a grocery store and when you are at the
counter, you smiled at the older lady packing your groceries.
However, she just snobs you. You begin to feel unpleasant towards
her and makes a snarky comment about her being rude and
disrespectful. You begin to contemplate things the way you think
and then conclude answers through your own perspectives without
looking for other factors as to why the lady did not respond to your
friendly actions. What you do not know is that shes been having a
very tiring and bad day because she stood up for hours and was
scolded by her boss this morning. Another factor may also be that
she just did not see what you did. Maybe she thought you smiled at
somebody else and not towards her. The blame was given to her
when in fact it was because her environment was already in a foul
mood in the first place.
3. Another is when you see someone walking along the road wriggling
and seemingly-dancing. You begin to think what is this person
doing? or he must be crazy. But the reality is that the road where
he was walking was really slippery and that he tried to regain his
balance after having slipped along the road. Other factors include
having a ticklish organism inside his shoe or maybe he stepped on
something (feces or dirt) upon walking along the road.
4. There was a time when I'm in a line waiting for my turn to use the
automated teller machine (ATM), there was this man in front of me.
When it was already his turn, I was annoyed because he was
standing there in front of the machine for like ten minutes. And I
thought of maybe he is already old and he doesn't know how to use
an ATM? I got pissed off so I looked for another ATM. What I
thought about that man might be wrong. What if there's something
wrong with the machine? What if he can't see it clearly? I
overestimated the effect of personality and underestimated the
situation.
 5. In one of my major classes, the teacher was too focused on telling
the informations needed without knowing that some of his students
didnt catch up what hes saying about. So, I asked my
classmate/seatmate what the biological term the instructor just said
earlier. In return, she did not answer me and gave a sigh response
and a look that was annoyed. What she did was unexpected
because I asked her nicely. At the back of my mind I concluded that
shes unfriendly, impolite and rude without even realizing or thinking
the situations that she was suffering that time. What if she had a
fight with her mother, she lost her wallet and phone, she did not
pass the exams, and she lost her scholarship and what if one of her
relatives died that was why she acted rude that time? See? Thats
fundamental attribution error. I overestimated her traits or
personality and underestimated or failed to recognize her situation
in making a decision or judgement.
Often, attributional errors are a result of the cognitive strategies used
to simplify and easily process the information of the complex world
(Forgas, 1998). People are cognitive misers and when assessing the
causal factors of a situation they frequently prefer quick and easy answers
rather than exerting more mental effort.
The fundamental attribution error may also occur because the
perceiver lacks adequate background information pertaining to the
situation (Gilbert & Malone, 1995). An observer may know very little about
the context of the situation and possible environmental or social
constraints. As a result the person will rely more on dispositional factors in
order to explain and understand the particular event.

References:
Bell, B. (n.d.). Psychology and Society. Retrieved September 13, 2016 from
http://www.psychologyandsociety.com/attributionerr r.html
Grinnell, R. (2016). Fundamental Attribution Error. Psych Central. Retrieved on
September 13, 2016 from http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/fundamental attribution-eror/