Fundamental Attribution Error blames others and exonerates me
Summary: The tendency to ignore situational factors and attribute outcomes too much to individual personality, intentions, and skill.
Application: When others fail, it is because they are losers. When I fail, it is because of adverse circumstances.
From Switch – Heath and Heath (2010):
In a famous article, Stanford psychologist Lee Ross surveyed dozens of studies in psychology and noted that people have a systematic tendency to ignore the situational forces that shape other people’s behavior. He called this deep-rooted tendency the “Fundamental Attribution Error.” The error lies in our inclination to attribute people’s behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.
From The Tyranny of Experts – Easterly (2014):
An even more potent bias in favor of stories of benevolent autocrats is called the “fundamental attribution error.” Demonstrated in many experiments, this error refers to the tendency of people to attribute an outcome too much to individual personality, intentions, and skill and not enough to external factors.
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