A common cognitive error that many people make is called a fundamental attribution error. This type of error in thinking occurs when people focus on personal causes for an individual’s behavior and not take into account the situational factors (Gruman, Schneider, Coutts, 2017, pp 437-439).
It’s pretty easy to attribute any behavior to the person themselves, such as their personality or character, but a big piece of information is missing, the situational factors. This would include things that are not apparent to the observer unless they are taking the extra cognitive steps to figure out that perhaps the individual had car problems and came in late to work. Or perhaps their child is sick and they had been up all night with them, attributing to their behavior.
We tend to look at the person’s individual characteristics or personality to explain their behaviors, but without the full picture, we may fall into the fundamental attribution error trap. Allow me give another example. In high school there was a girl who would always sleep in her first class of the day. The teacher also had just let her sleep. Why would the teacher allow this in her class? The teacher was made aware that the student’s behavior was due to the fact that the girl was in many extracurricular activities causing her to stay up late to complete assignments and was still passing her classes while also submitting homework on time. The bigger picture matters.
In this sense, those who are not “in the know” about the situation the person is in, they may make errors in judgement. So how do we make ourselves more aware of this issue and hopefully prevent future errors? Perhaps putting more weight on situational factors instead of the most of the weight on the person themselves may be one step, but it will take more mental work to do so.
Gruman et al. points out that it has been hypothesized that this type of error happens automatically, which means people will have to put in even more effort to understand the behavior. This can be done by gathering more information, or having an open mind to the possible situational factors that may be important to understand their behavior (Gruman et al., 2017, p. 439)
Everyone has some rough days in their lives, and with a little extra cognitive effort we can understand that it is not just the person’s characteristics, but that sometimes situations can be a catalyst of sorts of the behavior exhibited.
Reference:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
You did a fine job explaining the fundamental attribution error. Your example was easy to understand and relate to. I think as a society, people don’t put enough effort into thinking about external causes of others’ behaviors. It is much easier to assume the girl in class sleeps through the whole period because she’s up late playing video games or some other unimportant reason. I have to wonder if the teacher was never made aware of her student’s extracurricular activities and late nights completing coursework, would she have forced the girl to stay awake or even punish her in some way? Or would she have taken it upon herself to ask the girl why she’s so sleepy? I also think it is important for teachers (especially high school teachers) to know that students are experiencing levels of anxiety that are higher than anxiety levels that child psychologists reported in the 1950s (American Psychological Association, 2000). Additionally, childhood depression levels are predicted to continue to rise in the coming decades (American Psychological Association, 2000). If a child is suffering from depression, they may not have the energy to go to class, stay awake in class, or participate in class. If teachers are not aware of these studies, they will be more likely to fall victim to the fundamental attribution error and assume that a child’s lack of participation in class is due to an internal factor. I think every K-12 teacher should be educated on childhood/adolescent/teenage psychology to help them better understand students and prevent unnecessary added anxieties on the student.
References:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
American Psychological Association. (2000). Studies Show Normal Children Today Report More Anxiety than Child Psychiatric Patients in the 1950’s. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/12/anxiety