Social Psychology Essay on Correspondence Bias or the Fundamental Attribution Error

I realized a concept in class when I was driving home a few day ago. I was on the interstate and a car cut in front of me. I had to slam on the brakes as to not hit the person and to slow down. I said some crude things I won't put in this paper then turned to my friend and said, "That guy is a jerk." My friend agreed automatically then I looked over and saw that the car that had cut me off was pushed over by another car. This all happened in an instant and it took a minute to process, but the entire ride home something was eating at me.

When I arrived home I finally realized what it was: I still thought the person who cut me off was a jerk, and a few other choice things, even though I had seen him get pushed over and made that connection. This driver would not have cut me off had they not been pushed over and forced into my lane. I still made a connection as to the type of person they were just because that had cut me off. I did so even in light of the fact this person probably had no choice.

I was operating off the correspondence bias also known as the fundamental attribution error. Defined as a tendency to explain the actions of others as stemming form their behavior and not from the situation. The idea would have never occurred to me had I not been in this class. I would have no reason to question the fact that this man is a jerk, he cut me off, that's reason enough.

I assumed that this man was in full control and went out of his way to cut me off without connecting the fact he was pushed over. I focused on the action more than the context. If he was not pushed over I would have reacted in the same manner yet they are two totally different situations. I still didn't give enough value to the situation and placed all the weight on the man who cut me off.

Reasons for this are still in debate one idea is that we focus more on the behavior and the situation fades into the background. This makes sense because which am I going to notice more; something bad happening to me, getting cut off, or the events that led to it. I will just notice the action not why it happened, just that it did. We notice internal causes faster and more often than we do anything else.

Another idea is that we do notice situational causes, but don not give them enough value. Like I did with the car pushing him over. I saw it, but still blamed the man who cut me off for the transaction that took place. This is in no way fair, but we also assume that actions define underlying characteristics. So even if it wasn't his fault he probably is still a jerk a nicer person would have acted differently.

We try to correct our judgments, like I did when I noticed that he was pushed over, but it doesn't seem to be enough. We still don't place enough weight on situational causes. Which is odd to me because so many things are controlled by outside causes nature, the weather, etc. Maybe we as people don't consider them important enough, a kind of human ego bias. We consider ourselves in complete control at all times so for something like this to happen it is that persons fault, not other drivers.

We as Americans place a lot of bias on the individual because we consider all of our actions free. This may or may not be the case a lot of the time, but we don't take that into account. I blamed the guy who cut me off. I'm sure he blamed the guy who pushed him over. The guy who pushed him over could have been blaming the guy who cut me off for not getting over fast enough. Yet each of us concentrated on the fault of someone else. I doubt any of us said, "These things happen, this guy must be in a hurry, etc." The situation didn't even register with me until after the fact.

The correspondence bias or fundamental attribution error happens all the time and we often don't even think about it. Each time you judge a person for one action without taking into account the context it takes place you are illustrating this point. It was easy to see myself doing it once I learned that such a thing existed. Had I not know this that guy would still be a jerk, a label which is totally his fault. He isn't really I'm just bias.