KEY TERMS
Fundamental attribution error
“A pervasive tendency to underestimate the importance of external situational pressures and to overestimate
the importance of internal motives and dispositions in interpreting the behaviour of others.”
Oxford Dictionary of English
Fundamental attribution error is also known as correspondence bias, or attribution effect. It is essentially
the tendency for
someone to focus on personal characteristics,
or internal attributes, as opposed to situational or external circumstances that
may have influenced a person’s behaviour or choices. An example of this would be assuming that
someone caused an accident
by rushing, as it is in their nature to be rushing around.
This type of bias could be applied in a situation even where the investigator didn’t know the person under investigation, where
they could assume certain personal characteristics
about the person, without even considering the job or organisational factors.
It is vitally important that these assumptions are challenged by the investigation team to ensure the conclusions made are not
affected by any of these types of bias. Investigations affected by bias could lead to the wrong conclusions being drawn.
