Fundamental Attribution Error: Basic Explanation with Some Examples

Simply put, the fundamental attribution error occurs when people observe and then judge the negative actions of others. In doing so, the observer often underestimates the social pressures that cause the other person to act in that way.

A good and simple example of the fundamental attribution error can occur like this:

On a specific day, a waitress is speaking rudely to her customers. The customers now think that she is a really bad person. What the customers don’t realize is that most people usually find the waitress friendly, but today the waitress is going through one of the hardest days of her life. Her husband left her for another woman and she just lost her son in a car accident. If the customers were aware of the problems the waitress just had, they actually wouldn’t care so much about her negative attitude considering her current state.

So the mistake was that the customers assumed the waitress is a much worse person than she really is. Or that she’s always a rude waitress.

Another example is about young people picking up bad habits like smoking. It’s often easy to underestimate the pressure young people are under just to be accepted by their peers. I have seen adults call young teenagers stupid for smoking at age 15. The fundamental attribution error here is this: these teenagers are not stupid, many of them are quite smart and get good grades in school. The reason they started smoking at such a young age was simply to be accepted by their peers who also smoke. This does not mean that smoking is good for them, it simply means that there is a misperception when an outsider judges the teen’s actions. The outsider does this without regard to the pressures that are causing the teen to act in this way.

I often thought that money and power make people more arrogant, selfish, and proud than others. I thought it was part of his character. I often forget to think about the pressures society puts on these people to be perfect. This pressure and demand influences the behavior of these people that I perceive as negative for what I think is part of their character. I also thought that the more money people start making, the harder it is to give away a certain percentage. After all, it’s harder to give away $50,000 instead of $500. From a percentage point of view, the two amounts are equal if the guy who gives the higher amount wins a hundred times as much. I am sure that for most people it is even more difficult to give away the largest amount, regardless of income. You could do a lot more with $50,000. Therefore, I always thought that the more money people make, the more greedy they can become. But with the fundamental attribution error, this way of thinking is wrong.

The fundamental attribution error is a good point when looking at the big picture. I began to see the social pressure that today’s culture puts on a millionaire or a powerful leader. The idea is that if you have tons of money and/or are powerful, you are smarter and therefore have fewer weaknesses, closer to perfection. A guy making $30 million a year is a human being with strengths and weaknesses. Most people who make that much money realize that people look up to them. Therefore, they cannot show any weakness. This can alter your actions to show pride and ignore a certain class of people. They will try to hide any weaknesses they have because they probably get the idea that it is what society requires of them. The reality is that many millionaires and powerful political leaders are successful financially or in leadership, but have many flaws in other areas of their lives. This means that everyone has problems and weaknesses just like everyone else. The only difference is that these leaders are under pressure to be perfect because of their position.

Here is another example of the fundamental attribution error personally in my life.

In my first two years of college there was a student, he had long hair, wore a black trench coat all the time, and never took off his sunglasses, even indoors. Very few people would socialize with him. Although I first saw him as weird, I thought the people in the class were idiots for not socializing with him. He was driving him home because he didn’t have a car. We became schoolmates and after I met him, in my opinion, he was the coolest guy in the class. Looking at the Fundamental Attribution, I don’t think the other people in the class were jerks. I see that social influence pressured them not to associate with people who didn’t look like them, who weren’t part of their “norm.” It wasn’t right for them to associate themselves with someone who looked like they’d stepped out of a Jerry Springer show.

Things are not what they seem, and the fundamental attribution error points that out in a very scientific way if you do more research on it.