Power Of Situations: Fundamental Attribution Error

Trevor’s actions led his peers to label him as a constant threat, as well as the school “weirdo.” Everyone, even his parents, cautioned himself or herself around him. Trevor’s own actions categorized him as a threat to all. His peers would wonder about the causes for his actions. This led them to believe in false causes. A theory in this particular case, which is widely used in this concept, is the attribution theory. This explains and states the different types of processes we use to judge behaviors

Fundamental attribution error is a basic belief that whatever the problems befall us personally are the result of difficult circumstances, while the same problems in other people are the result of their bad choices. This is significant for understanding negative attitudes toward oversight people because when we personally cannot make it to the gym or eat a healthy snack we don’t blame ourselves. We wither didn’t have time of didn’t have the necessary materials. On the other hand if we someone obese eating unhealthy or who doesn’t go to the gym we make assumptions saying that they don’t have any self control and they are lazy.

Notably, the fundamental attribution error is a personal bias that is problematic in society. To emphasize, the fundamental attribution error is when individuals have the tendency to attribute people’s behavior to components of their character or personality, even when situational influences are producing the behavior (Textbook, page 171). An example of the fundamental attribution error operating in daily life is when a driver avoids hitting a pedestrian and causes an accident. In this

In the ways of the world it is easier to make assessments about people or objects based on a quick observation. For instance, almost everyone has heard the clique saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is a perfect scenario where looking at just what is holding the book together a decision is made on whether the book will be picked to read. In the same ways individuals tend to judge each other. Unfortunately, when quick judgments are snapped about a person or object the observer is missing out a bigger picture. This is defined as the fundamental attribution error. For example, a person kicking a vending machine over and over may not have an anger management problem. Although, the observer may make this assumption as they walk by not

The Fundamental Attribution Error occurs when a person’s personality is determined based on how they act in a certain situation, but not including the situation and outside influences when making that determination. The individual could be acting a certain way based on the particular situation or social circumstances, but in all actuality be completely different in another situation. Studies show that in most cases socially we want to fit in with a group, don’t want to be different, don’t want to be wrong, and in many instances act different than what our typical personality and values are based on influencing social factors. One of the main factors that often contributes to how we act in certain situations is to obey those in authority positions. The studies provided below are examples of the show how behaviors can change based on social factors.

The fundamental attribution error intrigued me while reading the book because I came across the example about Hurricane Katrina. I lived through this experience so I felt it was only right that I talk about my take. The definition of the fundamental attribution error is assuming someone’s personality based on their actions, even when there are powerful outside forces that can be influencing them. Hurricane Katrina was a horrible natural disaster that no one could have predicted would happen but none the less it happened. I remember my family and I watching the news together and coming to the crippling conclusion that we had to leave everything we had behind. Of course, we were used to this because we lived in what they call “the soup bowl” and we were used to emergency evacuations for hurricanes. There was no

Attribution theory: an attempt when individuals observe behavior to determine whether it is internally or externally caused

Bias is something every person has; It is the inclination to feel prejudice towards a certain person, subject, or thing. On a personal level, bias affects just about everything a person could encounter, or has yet to encounter in their lifetime. There are two main types of biases people can have; Cognitive bias involves topics such as social attribution or memory errors, that are quite common and have a wide range of effects on how humans perceive things. The other type of bias is called social biases, or sometimes referred to as attributional bias. Attributional biases affect our everyday social interactions, and has a strong impact on people when trying to assess their own and others behaviors.

Fritz Heider (1958) focuses on the internal and external attribution, which suggests why people behave a certain way according to their character or attitudes (external attribution) or the implication as to why an individual behaves a certain way due to the situation there in. “When we explain our own behavior, we are sensitive to how behavior changes with the situation” (Idson & Mischel, 2001). The significances of making a conclusion, gives direction and probability, which may help determine why a person may or may not act a certain way based on what the evidence shows. The implication of a certain behavior depends on the source to which it is attributed. For example: If Pat assumes that growing up isolated from her surroundings is normal, she won’t perceive it as non-normal. “The way we explain others’ actions, attributing them to the person or the situation, can have important real-life effects” (Fincham & Bradbury, 1993; Fletcher et., 1990). “A person must decide whether to attribute another’s friendliness to romantic interest “ (Myers, D. G.

Whereas "internal" or "dispositional" attribution assigns causality to factors within the person, such as their own level of intelligence or other variables that make the individual responsible for the event.

The authors explain that “fundamental attribution error” is when people focus too much on individual traits rather than the “situational factors in affecting behavior.” What seems to be the case is that “fundamental attribution error” is main problem with Ross and Nisbett’s piece. They tried to focus too much on the logical side of things while entirely disregarding the human factor in their

Understanding how our brain works can help us understand why all individuals have unconscious biases. Blair (2007) gave an example of the elephant and the blind man story where six blind people, who have never seen an elephant, had different description of an elephant (pillar, rope, thick branch of a tree, big hand fan, huge wall, solid pipe) based on what they touched. On the one hand, they were all right but, on the other, they were all wrong as they just had the chunks of the bigger picture. This gives us an insight of what humans are like and how they see the world based on the lens of their experience.

According to College for America (2015) confirmation bias make people tend to read information that confirms what they believe to be true. While cognitive dissonance is described as the human inability to tolerate evidence which shows the opposite of what they believe to be true.

4.How much objective according to your thoughts, most of the recruiters are in the selection and recruitment process? Please rate your selection from 1 to 10, with 1 indicating ‘Not at all’, and 10 indicating ‘Totally’.

Social psychology, the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to another, can be used to explain many situations and phenomena that happen in the world. For instance, it can be used to explain why and how people react the way they do when they perform poorly in an act that they’re usually good at, also known as self-serving bias. It is blaming external factors when bad things happen, but contributing internal factors to the reason why good things happen.