Glaucon

In social psychology, the fundamental attribution errort is people's tendency to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics to explain someone else's behavior in a given situation, rather than considering external factors. Example: If we don’t know any better, we think of those who receive food stamps as lazy freeloaders and not people who have immediate, difficult circumstances.

The Poor and The Fundamental Attribution Error
Posted on 3.11.2013

One of the most important findings in social psychology is what is known as the fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error is how we tend to revert to characterological, trait-based, personality-driven, and dispositional factors in explaining behavior. For example, I might look at your work ethic and conclude that you are lazy. The problem is intrinsic to your character. Your personality is flawed and is to blame. You're a bad apple.

Another way of describing the fundamental attribution error is to say that we tend to downplay or ignore the power of situations. When we see bad behavior we don't tend to look at the environmental context, the situational causes and pressures. We tend to go looking for bad apples.

Why do we do this? Because it's easier, quicker and cleaner. It's easier to locate, blame and punish a lone perpetrator than to rethink environments, systems and organizations that produce the "bad" apples. Reimagining and reconfiguring those environments might implicate me, as both cause and solution. I might have to make some changes. And that's no fun. So it's easier to allow the fundamental attribution error to do its work, allowing me to blame people rather than broken environments or toxic systems.

And yet, social psychology has long known that the fundamental attribution error is, well, an error. Time and time again social psychologists have pointed to the power of situational pressures in explaining behavior. One only needs to think of some of the most iconic studies in social psychology--like the Milgram Obedience Studies and the Stanford Prison Study--to see this.

I bring up the fundamental attribution error to make an observation about how people talk about the poor in capitalistic economies. Specifically, the poor are often blamed for their lot. They are lazy, undisciplined, and lacking in work ethic. "Work ethic" here is a dispositional and characterological trait. A thing intrinsic to the person.

But if social psychology is to be believed things like work ethic, thrift, self-control and motivation might be better viewed as environmentally driven. And if that is so then attending to environments, rather than blaming people, is critical in effecting change in the world.

It's too easy to blame individuals. In fact, it's a mistake that psychologists have a name for: the fundamental attribution error.
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W8_4_It

It isn't.

wuzblynd Loc: thomson georgia

Their are plenty of individuals that are to blame. Having lived in,with and around project folks, for the past 35 years, I have seen first have that 70% of people on assistants, are s**mming. That's not what I heard, its what I have seen. We have people that we support from the cradle to the grave.

Glaucon

One person's s**m is another person's extreme hardship. We see what we want to see and disregard the rest.

Glaucon

WTF are "project folks?" Would they be fellow humans if they didn't try to get into your trailer?

KHH1

Cognitive Dissonance 101-how people who were doing the same things during Katrina were decribed as "l**ting" versus "collecting"...and both groups were procuring the same types of items...necessities and no luxury items...who in the hell could carry TV's and furniture through flood waters and where would they store them........

Glaucon

Glad to hear from you. It is good to know that there are sane people on this site.

Glaucon

And the earth is the center of the universe? The world is flat according to the Bible. Believe what you are told to believe. That keeps you from having to think. However, thinking is probably not something you have considered.

Ox

Baloney , KHH1:
I saw the l**ters carrying out just about everything they could carry. Even so, stealing food is stealing. They were not "collecting", they broke into stores and l**ted.

Cognitive Dissonance my behind; it is liberal mush-headedness run amuck.

Glaucon

You really h**e those pooor folks. They need to get off their asses and inherit some big money and buy their fuckin television sets. Its the American way. If they have enough interitance, they can buy the governorship of Texas or president of the United States. All you need to succeed is to have the intelligence and strength to get your self born into a rich and powerful family. Is that too much to ask?

Glaucon

Hungry and homeless people can end up doing terrible things. I am sure you wouldn't do that if your family was hungry and homeless. Fox news got pictures of the one guy who was l**ting and all we have to do is assume ALL of the people in the disaster are l**ting televisions. Now that should not be so hard for authoritarian followers to do if that is want we wanted to believe from the beginnng.

Glaucon

Human extinct: If you and your family are starving, get food wherever you can find it.

KHH1

Likewise....oh what a relief it is...'sigh'......... :roll: :thumbup:

KHH1

The people referred to (shown on two front page newspapers) were walking through flood waters....why do you people think someone who teaches students in higher ed does not know how to know what the phuck they are talking about. Read for your edification please....damn


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/black-people-l**t-food-wh_b_6614.html

KHH1

Black People "L**t" Food … White People "Find" Food.


This is the kind of shameful bias that keeps the country divided, even during awful tragedies like this.