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social psychology
You assume people are consistent even when they are not.
The 'Correspondence Bias' leads you to attribute behavior to personality rather than the situation.
A 1967 study found that even when participants knew a speaker was assigned a specific viewpoint, they still rated the speaker as genuinely believing that view. You are hardwired to look for internal traits in others. You ignore the situational pressures that are plainly visible to you.
You think people are their actions, but they are just reacting to the moment.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Jones and Harris (1967) on attribution
- What the check found
- The study (Jones & Harris, 1967) is a foundational experiment in social psychology that accurately demonstrates the correspondence bias, though 'hardwired' is an overstatement of a cognitive tendency.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.