Brown Bag Seminar: The Fundamental Attribution Error is not Fundamental

Individuals tend to underestimate situational influences on actions and outcomes. This tendency is considered so pervasive that it has been labeled the Fundamental Attribution Error. Even though the error is considered almost a truism the evidence is not always fully convincing. Often it is impossible to assess whether the Fundamental Attribution Error is in fact an error. In the current paper, we present an experiment that remedies this concern. Participants receive a noisy signal about the performance of an actor and determine whether this signal is informative about the actor's ability (the dispositional factor) or about the difficulty of the task (the situational factor). Our results provide no evidence for the Fundamental Attribution Error. Participants process information in an even-handed manner and do not display a tendency to underestimate the relative influence of the situational factor. This suggests that the Fundamental Attribution Error does not derive from a fundamental difference in the weighting of causal factors (dispositional versus situational). Joint work with Jan Potters (Tilburg University).