In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect) describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. The fundamental attribution error is most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior—where situational factors are often taken into consideration. This discrepancy is called the actor–observer bias.
As a simple example, if Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be clumsy or careless (dispositional). If Alice tripped over the same rock herself, she would be more likely to blame the placement of the rock (situational).
The term was coined by Lee Ross some years after a now-classic experiment by Edward E. Jones and Victor Harris (1967). 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 term "overly provocative and somewhat misleading", and also joked, "Furthermore, I'm angry that I didn't think of it first." More recently some psychologists, including Daniel Gilbert, have begun using the term "correspondence bias" for the fundamental attribution error.
Read more about Fundamental Attribution Error: Classic Demonstration Study: Jones and Harris (1967), Explanations, Reducing The Error's Effects, Cultural Differences in The Error, "Fundamental Attribution Error" Vs. "Correspondence Bias"
Famous quotes containing the words fundamental, attribution and/or error:
“There can be a fundamental gulf of gracelessness in a human heart which neither our love nor our courage can bridge.”
—Patrick, Mrs. Campbell (1865–1940)
“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (1883–1964)
“Knowledge, like matter, [my father] would affirm, was divisible in infinitum;Mthat the grains and scruples were as much a part of it, as the gravitation of the whole world.—In a word, he would say, error was error,—no matter where it fell,—whether in a fraction,—or a pound,—’twas alike fatal to truth.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)