Why is it a mistake to guess people’s personalities from a single action?
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed rather than looking at situational explanations.
The last time someone cut you off in the car, what did you assume about the person? Were they a jerk? Idiot? Unhappy person?
We all have a habit of explaining what someone did by assuming their action is representative of their behavior. Maybe the driver was in a BMW, and we know that ‘all BMW drivers are crazy.’ When an employee is late to a meeting, what conclusion do you draw? Are they poor time managers or maybe just "lazy”?
While these connections are generally harmless, they can lead us astray.
What this example shows is the Fundamental Attribution Error at work. This error or bias means when making judgments about people’s behavior, we often over-emphasize dispositional factors and downplay situational ones. Put another way; we see people do something and make sweeping commentary on their whole personality from that one action. The FAE at work is kin to believing you can analyze their character from a single action.
Looking out for FAE
When we are under the thumb of the FAE, we tend to believe that a person's personality traits have more influence on their actions than the other factors over which they don't have control. When they drive poorly, they do so because of a personal flaw. When they are rude in an elevator, they are rude people.
Let's go back to that employee that was late. Since they are late to an important meeting, we judge her character based on this one action alone. It's possible, however, that their behavior is due to several external, rather than internal, factors. For instance, any number of situational factors could have caused her to run behind schedule, such as a family emergency or traffic jam, which have nothing to do with the quality of her character.
These jumps to explaining why people do something are easy to understand. In a System 1 and System 2 world (see here), we can see that it is easier to let System 1 give us an answer that someone else's behavior is the way it is than have to power up System 2 to think it through. Over time we have learned these shortcuts help us through the day. They may not provide accurate answers, but you are probably not going to cross paths with the menace in the BMW, so it doesn't matter. We tell ourselves a story that fits our view of the world and move on.
Context and intent
The challenges for our twitter-driven society become more apparent when we begin to 'hard-code' these short-cuts into our worldview. That's how we get to 'all BMW drivers are crazy.' The issue here is the 'all' and the 'every' while we know that's not true, it makes us comfortable and leads us astray. ‘All’ and ‘every’ almost always make you wrong.
The approach also doesn't allow for understanding, empathy, or even, in some cases, being a decent human being. The late person, the rudeness on the elevator, the bad driving, all lack the context of what's going on in their lives. While I would not suggest we each need to know everyone else's context, it is worth remembering they probably have one.
This approach of understanding that people have a context and being sensitive to it is all part of building your emotional intelligence. While this has become a buzzword over the last few years, the underlying principle is around practicing self-awareness, empathy, and generally thinking about the needs of others before yourself. All these techniques take time and energy to master but learning to listen authentically is the most powerful tool you can use.
Another helpful approach, driven by a desire to optimize your empathy, is to make a practice of thinking better of people. When someone did something that seemed strange or wrong, I had a colleague who would always start from the principle that they had done what they did with good intentions. That approach always dissipated the negative and starts us out listening for intent and context.
We all are guilty of FAE, and some of that is probably OK. Life moves too fast to stop and understand everyone’s motivations. The trick is not to make up reasons because the story makes you feel better and then take actions based on that illusion.