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.
