The often-overlooked cognitive bias that hurts both personal and professional relationships creeps in everywhere, and learning how to avoid it is crucial to your development
Cognitive biases are all the rage these days. Writers all over the internet are abuzz with explanations of these flawed ways of reasoning that trip up our ability to be smart about various things. And for good reason — overcoming cognitive biases is key to getting smarter, making better decisions, and advancing in your chosen field.
But there’s one cognitive bias in particular that’s not only intellectually problematic, it’s also morally problematic — as well as completely harmful to our own self-interest. It’s a veritable triple-threat in the world of cognitive biases.
I’m talking about the fundamental attribution error. Here I’ll discuss what it is, the 3 different ways that it’s problematic, and a way to prevent yourself from making the error. At the very least, you’ll find yourself committing the error a lot less, which is still progress worth pursuing.
What It Is
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for peoples’ behavior, while under-emphasizing situational explanations. It also includes the tendency to draw conclusions about peoples’ character based on limited examples of their behavior.
In order to understand the error, let’s look at an example.
Suppose you just started a new job. You’re really excited about, and want to make a good impression on your boss and your team. However, on your first day at the job, your car — which has been extremely reliable for years — failed to start. As a result, you were late for a team meeting at the beginning of the workday. Your team was disappointed and your boss advised you that you can’t be late, period.
While your car is in the shop, you decide to take the bus. It takes about 10 minutes longer, but seems the most reliable option. Your first day taking the bus, a fight breaks out between a few people. The bus driver stops the bus, and it takes a while to get the brawling riders off the bus. As a result, you’re late — for the second day in a row.
Your team and your boss attribute this to you being careless and disorganized. You begin your tenure at the company not getting important work, and thus having to disprove everyone’s perception of you just to get back to square one.
Everyone has assumed that it’s something about you that made you late, rather than the situations you fell into. What’s more, if they were in the same situation, it’s highly likely that they would feel the same way as you — that it’s not your character to be late — the situations were mostly to blame.
Why It’s a Problem
The fundamental attribution error is problematic for three kinds of reasons. First, the reasoning behind the judgments aren’t logically sound. Second, engaging in fundamental attribution reasoning isn’t fair to others. Lastly, it’s highly impractical to attribute actions to people’s character. It can result in disastrous consequences, even from a purely self-interested point of view.
Logical reasons
From a purely logical point of view, the fundamental attribution error is problematic. Depending on the thought process involved, it can either be logically unsound (which is bad) or logically invalid (which is worse). In either case, it’s not the kind of reasoning that anyone would recommend.
Consider what we’re doing when we’re attributing a person’s behavior to their character — as opposed to the circumstances they’re in. One way of constructing the reasoning is this way:
- Wayne lied to his wife about why he was late coming home.
- The only reason a person would lie to their wife is because they are just a liar at their core.
- Therefore, Wayne is a liar at his core.
This is a valid argument — meaning that if the two premises are true, the conclusion (#3) must be true. But this argument isn’t sound — meaning that one of the premises (#1 & #2) isn’t true. There are many reasons people might lie in certain situations — even if their character is not that of a liar. So to use this kind of reasoning to judge people’s behavior is unsound.
There’s also a way to look at the reasoning behind the fundamental attribution error in which it’s logically invalid. Consider this example:
- Character is something that person displays through consistent behavior over time.
- I observed a few instances of Guarav’s behavior recently.
- Therefore, I can make an accurate judgment of Guarav’s character.
This argument is more than unsound; it’s invalid — meaning even if both the premises are true, they don’t guarantee that the conclusion is true. We’re reasoning from a few particular instances to a general and absolute judgment — which is a logical fallacy.
Reasons of fairness
Engaging in fundamental attribution thinking is also unfair. On a very simple definition of that term, it’s unfair to apply reasoning to judge others that you wouldn’t agree to for people to judge you. And yet, that’s exactly what we find in most cases of this cognitive bias.
Most of us who don’t suffer from personality disorders will admit that we make mistakes. We’ll admit that one of our actions was wrong — that we should have done otherwise.
But most of us wouldn’t agree that one of those mistakes is reflective of something deeply wrong with us as a person. So when we judge others by criteria we wouldn’t see a fair for us — it’s a clear-cut example of being fundamentally unfair.
Another issue around fairness centers around the concept of character itself. The concept of character is usually seen as deterministic — meaning we tend to think that it’s not subject to change. So the fundamental attribution way of judging people basically says that not only does a particular behavior reflect how the person is at a deeper level, but it’s also how they’ll be forever. That’s a deeply unfair way to judge people.
Practical reasons
Aside from the logical and moral issues around fundamental attribution, it’s also a highly impractical way to operate. Resorting to the concept of character for judging others will tend to impair your own future judgments — which can be detrimental to you.
For one thing, there are two human tendencies at work here worth thinking about. First, people don’t tend to appreciate character indictments — regardless of how accurate they might be. Secondly, humans tend to reciprocate to others what they get from them — especially in the cases of poor treatment. So when your M.O. is to judge others’ characters, rather than merely assess their actions, you’ll get the same kind of judgments leveled back at you. And since we all make mistakes, this will only come back to haunt you.
Another impractical aspect of the fundamental attribution error is that it can set you up for highly ineffective reasoning in the future. Attributing actions to someone’s character (especially a foolish error or misstep) can lead to underestimating people — including those who it’s not strategic for you to underestimate.
It’s often said that there’s no greater danger than underestimating your opponent. So judging someone you’re competing against to be incompetent or weak, based on one experience with them could give you a false sense of security and superiority — which could come back to bite you. As for peers and allies, judging them to be undesirable because of a single action or situation could make you exclude people from your life who could have been of great benefit to you.
How to Avoid the Error
Avoiding the fundamental attribution error is as simple as changing your mindset. Shift your judgment process away from the person, and toward the action and the situation. You can do this in two simple steps:
- Make statements about the behavior itself, and take the person out of the equation.
- Avoid trying to make a judgment based on the action, but if you feel compelled to do so, ask a question instead. Ask what situation could have pushed you into engaging in a similar behavior, if you found yourself in it. Then ask if it’s likely that such a situation is the cause of this person’s behavior.
So rather than saying Keisha’s error in that presentation proves she’s careless and incompetent, you can simply say that particular error seems easily avoidable to me. You don’t need to go any further than that. But if you feel compelled to take an extra step, rather than trying to judge the person’s character as the cause for the action — look at the situation.
Instead of a judgment, ask a question. Specifically, ask yourself what’s the most likely situation (not something about them in particular) that could have pushed the person to make that error. Then ask yourself if in that same situation, it’s possible that you’d behave in a similar way. This should help you get outside of your very restricted way of assessing both the situation and the person. It’s a much more logically, morally, and practically sound way to judge behavior in general.