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Fritz Heider discovered Attribution theory during a time when psychologists were furthering research on personality, social psychology, and human motivation. [5] Heider worked alone in his research, but stated that he wished for Attribution theory not to be attributed to him because many different ideas and people were involved in the process. [5]
For example, when a driver cuts someone off, the person who has been cut off is often more likely to attribute blame to the reckless driver's inherent personality traits (e.g., "That driver is rude and incompetent") rather than situational circumstances (e.g., "That driver may have been late to work and was not paying attention").
A 2006 meta-analysis found little support for a related bias, the actor–observer asymmetry, in which people attribute their own behavior more to the environment, but others' behavior to individual attributes. [9] The implications for the fundamental attribution error, the author explained, were mixed.
The tendency for someone to act when faced with a problem even when inaction would be more effective, or to act when no evident problem exists. [88] [89] Additive bias: The tendency to solve problems through addition, even when subtraction is a better approach. [90] [91] Attribute substitution
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. It is a philosophical razor that suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. It is probably named after Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted the statement to Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!
Attribution (psychology), concept in psychology whereby people attribute traits and causes to things they observe; Extreme event attribution, estimation of how climate change affects recent extreme weather events; Performance attribution, technique in quantitative finance for explaining the active performance of a portfolio
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There is a low distinctiveness if an individual behaves similarly in all situations, and there exists a high distinctiveness when the person only shows the behaviour in particular situations. If the distinctiveness is high, one will attribute this behaviour more to the circumstance instead of person (Gilovich et al., 2005).