
Fundamental attribution error - j_baker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
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dalton
I took a class taught by Lee Ross.

The main real-world topic used in that class to illustrate a lot of this stuff
was "peace in the middle east." For example, no matter what was printed in the
NY Times it was perceived as obviously skewed as being either wildly pro-
israel or wildly pro-palestinian... depending on the affiliations of the
people reading it. Literally the same article.

The idea that everyone deeply believes that media (or other
people/organizations etc) are deeply skewed/biased, yet the nature of the
perceived bias varies in _opposite_ ways depending on their personal beliefs,
is kind of depressing.

The meta-theme I sort of got from that class was that social psychologists
like Dr. Ross genuinely got into the field wanting to change the world and
help people to end wars etc. through applied social science. However, the more
research they did, and the more they really understood the deep, deep
psychological factors driving things like conflict in the middle east, the
more they realized that this is a lot harder than they could have ever
imagined. (fwiw, that is purely my personal take on the class, but there was
definitely a tone underlying the whole thing.)

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lmkg
The part about everyone reading bias into a statement immediately reminded me
of the recent thread on language advocacy, discussed at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1105087> . Being objective is hard!

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Alex3917
Corporations and the government take advantage of this all the time by
claiming that anything that goes wrong is the result of "a few bad apples,"
when in reality the causes of the problems are mostly systemic.

Of all the cognitive biases that are used to maintain the status quo and allow
those with power to exploit those without, this is probably the most
effective.

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nazgulnarsil
again: the skeptics bible. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases>

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j_baker
You missed one: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memory_biases>

~~~
nazgulnarsil
oooh, that's a great one. does the hindsight bias article link to it? it
should.

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pfedor
I believe the opposite error is also often made. I suspect many a time
governments or large corporations act in ways which people interpret in
situational terms, as a reflection of some underlying plans and strategic
goals, while in reality it's just a decision made by some person at power
based on their individual beliefs and personality traits.

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Dilpil
One interesting point a proffessor of mine once made on the topic: _The phrase
"If I were them, I would.." is meaningless. If you were them, if you had an
identical upbringing and identical genetic material, you would behave exactly
as they do._

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ugh
I think your professor misinterpreted the phrase, I always assumed its usage
meaning something like this: If you blasted that stupid forward to pieces and
teleported me on the soccer field ten seconds ago I would have passed to a
different player.

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jrp
Yes. It may be funny to observe that a phrase literally means the opposite, or
is meaningless, etc., but generally there is a real meaning which everyone
understands.

~~~
ugh
There is a point, though, to the professor’s criticism, and it’s a subtle one.

The teleported soccer fan probably wouldn’t be able to pass the ball to any
player at all. No problem, he says, I will just imagine myself in the same
physical condition as the scolded player. But would that be enough?

If you want to be good at playing soccer you need to know about tactics and
strategy, you need the experience of hundreds of games. Can the soccer fan
just imagine himself having all that and still be sure whether he would have
passed to a different player? Probably not. Why would all those changes to his
brain keep the part intact with which he just decided which would have been
the best pass?

I might be committing a fundamental attribution error by concentrating too
much on the brain side of things, though. Situation can be the other and maybe
even more straightforward reason why the teleported soccer fan would probably
fare not much better than the player. The fan has a bird eye’s view, multiple
camera angles and instant replay, the player doesn’t. The fan is sitting in
the pub, the player is running around. And so on.

You might want to be careful when using this phrase, then. Maybe yell
something like: “The optimal pass which maximally increases the chance of
scoring a goal would have been to pass to that other player, you idiot!”

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est
note: this is culture-specific phenomenon

[http://journal.psych.ac.cn/jinzhan/qikan/Cpaper/zhaiyao.asp?...](http://journal.psych.ac.cn/jinzhan/qikan/Cpaper/zhaiyao.asp?bsid=11426)

