Project Sherlock

Essay

1977

The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process

Lee Ross

Names the fundamental attribution error - the pervasive tendency to explain others' behaviour by their disposition while overlooking the situation that constrained it - and argues it distorts everyday social judgement more than any single classic bias.

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If this is the wrong level

Too hard? Start herePrinciples of Social PsychologyCharles Stangor, Rajiv Jhangiani & Hammond Tarry, 2014An open introductory textbook surveying the field's core method - controlled experiment - and its central finding that situational forces shape behaviour more powerfully than most people expect or acknowledge.

Filed under Social Psychology in Psychology.