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social psychology
You mistake others' circumstances for their personality traits.
The fundamental attribution error describes your tendency to blame others' actions on character rather than the environment.
If you fail, you see the situation. If someone else fails, you see their internal flaw. This creates a structural blind spot in how you judge the behavior of people around you.
You judge others by their actions, but judge yourself by your intentions.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Lee Ross, 1977, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
- What the check found
- The definition is accurate and the attribution to Ross (1977) is correct.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.