While casually perusing the center aisle of a grocery store, you are nearly side-swiped by another cart peeling out of the baking aisle, coxswained by an unapologetic, disheveled-looking woman. In this moment of utter shock, no words come to mind. But after a moment or two, you conclude, “What a rude and unsavory woman! I would never behave as she just did!” This thought and subsequent thoughts echoing these sentiments might be fundamental attribution errors. Perceptions of others’ actions are commonly distorted when making a fundamental attribution error. This error can be entirely innocuous. However, sometimes it can cause serious harm.
According to the covariation model, we judge other people’s behaviors based on internal or external factors. Internal factors are within the control of a person, while external factors are outside a person’s control. Distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency are the three pieces of information we assess to distinguish between internal and external causation. If we determine that people regularly behave in this way (low distinctiveness) then we might decide this is an internal attribution. If other people might also behave this way (high consensus) then we attribute the behavior to external factors. If this person behaves this way at other times (high consistency) then we might also attribute the behavior to external factors. However, when dealing with strangers, there often isn’t sufficient knowledge to determine distinctiveness, consensus, or consistency. Gruman et al. (2016) report that the simplest attribution to make is internal or dispositional (fundamental attribution error) because we cannot always comprehend the complexities surrounding the context of the situation, and we certainly are not omniscient beings!
The consequences of the fundamental attribution error are in many cases benign, such as those associated with our wild cart navigator. But sometimes, the consequences can be deadly. In recent news, another road rage incident led to someone’s untimely demise. In this incident, a man’s car broke down, blocking a road. Another man, evidently enraged by the car blocking the roadway, decided to confront the man in the disabled vehicle and ultimately murdered him (Dickerson, 2022).
In this instance, the man who came upon the disabled vehicle made a fundamental attribution error. Rather than recognize the external, situational factors causing the car to block the roadway, he misattributed the situation as being internal or within the control of the driver, which resulted in his egregious actions. Luckily, the fundamental misattribution error does not regularly result in acts of violence, but we can do our part to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Our speedy grocery shopper might have simply been running out of time while preparing for her child’s birthday party. She might have been quickly grabbing the ingredients to make a birthday cake. In her frenzied state, she may not have even seen your cart. Had she seen your cart in any other instance, she would have profusely apologized for nearly running you over. In this perspective, her distinctiveness is high because she typically does not run through the grocery store. The consensus might be high because, we too, might also hurriedly roll through the grocery store when late for something. Finally, the consistency might be high because she might always behave this way in a situation like this. All three things considered, we can be confident that her behavior was due to external factors. Of course, there is always the chance that she is rude and unsavory, but no one benefits from that assumption. I would much rather believe that people are good and that negative interactions are just a product of the situation. Moreover, I would also like to be given the benefit of the doubt if I nearly run someone over in the grocery store one day.
So, before proclaiming that you would never behave like the woman in the grocery store, ask yourself if you have ever been perceived unfairly. Yes – undoubtedly, and maybe unbeknownst to yourself, you were once the subject of someone else’s misattributions. In a society plagued by fundamental attribution errors that could potentially lead to tragedy, let us all do our part to be kind and understanding and consider the context of the situations in which we find ourselves.
Reference
Dickerson, B. (2022). Road rage on south side leads to city’s latest homicide. Oklahoma City Free Press. https://freepressokc.com/road-rage-on-south-side-leads-to-citys-latest-homicide/.
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
I thoroughly enjoyed your analysis of faulty attribution. I, too, succumb to internal attributions at times with unpleasant strangers. In general, as you touched on, I think that we, as a society, can lean too much on internal attributions and too little on external attributions. As the textbook says, it is “far easier to explain others’ actions in terms of their personal dispositions than to be aware of and recognize the complex pattern of situational factors that may have affected their actions” ( (Gruman, J. A., et. al (2017) page 260). This makes sense because we do not truly know the person and what goes on in their head. Interestingly, it is so easy to attribute people’s behaviors to internal factors that a research has found that spontaneous engagement and interaction may lead to dispositional attribution as opposed to later on when situational factors were considered (Moran, J. et. al., (2014)). This emphasizes the quick assumptions we have as opposed to what happens when we sit back and consider the other factors. Overall, I think that if we take a little extra time to assume the reason behind a behavior and put ourselves in their shoes, we may be less likely to judge someone’s personality so quickly.
References
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems
Moran, J. M., Jolly, E., & Mitchell, J. P. (2014). Spontaneous mentalizing predicts the fundamental attribution error. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(3), 569-576. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00513