The fundamental attribution error is a concept in psychology that denotes a characteristic attribution error, that is, a person’s tendency to explain the actions and behavior of other people by their personal characteristics, and their own behavior by external circumstances.
In other words, it is our tendency to judge other people differently than ourselves. For example, when our friend gets a high position, we think that this is a favorable combination of circumstances, or he was just lucky - he was at the right time in the right place. When we ourselves are promoted, we are firmly convinced that this is the result of long, hard and painstaking work, but not by chance. To put it even more simply, the fundamental attribution error is expressed by the following reasoning: “I am angry because the circumstances are so, and my neighbor is angry because he is an angry person.” Let's consider one more example. When our classmate passed the exam brilliantly, we explain this by saying that “he stayed up all night and crammed the material” or “he just got lucky with the exam ticket.” If we ourselves passed the exam with excellent marks, then we are sure that this happened due to good knowledge of the subject, and in general - high mental abilities.
Interestingly, in experiments to reduce the fundamental attribution error, when monetary incentives were used and participants were warned that they would be held accountable for their estimates, there was a significant increase in attribution accuracy. From this follows the conclusion that this cognitive distortion can and should be fought.
It is also worth noting that cognitive bias more often harms us than helps us. After all, we can get into big trouble because of our emotions provoked by a mistake. Therefore, it is better to prevent negative consequences than to deal with them later.