People over-attribute others’ behavior to personality and underweight situational constraints

Evidence

A study by Gilbert and Jones (1986) provided a compelling demonstration of this attributional bias. In general, when people are asked to figure out the causes of another person’s behavior, they do not pay enough attention to the situation that person is in. Instead, people seem to be drawn to internal or personality attributions for behavior. Known as the “fundamental attribution error” or “correspondence bias” (Gilbert & Malone, 1995; Jones, 1990; Ross, 1977), this is one of social psychology’s most well known and robust find­ ings. In some of the classic studies, for example, people see someone literally ordered to express an opinion. When they are asked afterward to report what they think that person’s true beliefs were, they typically conclude that he or she really held the opinion expressed (e.g., Jones & Harris, 1967). The corre­ spondence bias occurs in such cases even though it is quite clear that an opinion was expressed only under duress. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 356

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines fundamental attribution error / correspondence bias with its classic experimental demonstration.
• XREF: connects to: People and situations mutually influence each other rather than situations acting one-way on people — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 354; Attributing Holocaust perpetration to authoritarian personality may itself be a fundamental attribution error. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 461; People over-attribute behavior to character rather than situational pressures. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 152 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• People over-attribute behavior to character rather than situational pressures. #corroborates (1.00) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 152
• Moral dispositions resist contrary incentives yet people overestimate their behavioral role #qualifies (0.78) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 216
• Ambiguous environments let personality shape behavior while structured ones constrain it. #qualifies (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1141
• People judge others based on behavior they themselves have constrained #corroborates (0.72) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 358