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Fundamental Attribution Error
The fundamental attribution error is blaming
an agent rather than the system. The agent is usually a person,
but it can also be a corporation, a government, and so on. It is
the most common error of them all when trying to determine the
cause of a complex social system problem. An attribution is
an explanation for the cause of something. People make attributions
in order to understand why the world works the way it does and
to learn from their experiences.
Let's examine some examples of the fundamental attribution error.
Conventional wisdom may conclude that if we can just get rid of
a certain bad politician, or a bad administration, or a bad political
party, then everything will be okay. This is false, because
it is the structure of the social system that causes “bad
agents” to appear and occupy their places in the system. Eliminate
a bad agent, and another one will appear in his place. Due to the
random variation in the behavior of independent agents, on the
average the replacement agent will be different. If the “bad
agent” was worse than usual, which happens frequently when
random fluctuations are considered, then on the average the replacement
agent will be “better,” which really means less bad.
This will seem to have solved the problem, until the next time
another “bad agent” appears. The only way to reduce
the “badness” of the average agent is to change the
structure of the system.
Here’s what John Sterman has to say about the fundamental
attribution error:
“A fundamental principle of system dynamics states that
the structure of the system gives rise to its behavior. However,
people have a strong tendency to attribute the behavior of others
to dispositional rather than situational factors, that is, to
character and especially character flaws rather than the system
in which these people are acting. The tendency to blame the
person rather than the system is so strong psychologists call
it the ‘fundamental attribution error.’
“In complex systems different people placed in the same
structure tend to behave in similar ways. When we attribute behavior
to personality we lose sight of how the structure of the system
shaped our choices. The attribution of behavior to individuals
and special circumstances rather than system structure diverts
our attention from the high leverage
points where redesigning the system or governing policy can
have significant, sustained, beneficial effects on performance.
When we attribute behavior to people rather than system structure,
the focus of management becomes scapegoating and blame rather
than design of organizations in which ordinary people can achieve
extraordinary results.” (1)
Sometimes the problem really is the person, such as when a firm
discovers it has hired the wrong person. However, even in that
case, the first question should be “What caused us to hire
such a person?” That should lead to the defect in the system
that allowed the wrong person to be hired.
If you catch yourself thinking how bad a certain politician is,
stop yourself and think instead, why is it the system attracts
and elects such people? Is there a better system, or is the present
system about the best, on the average, that’s possible?
For more see cognitive
bias and the wikipedia entries on attribution
theory and the fundamental
attribution error.
(1) Source: Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling
for a Complex World, by John Sterman, 2000, page 28. The
author uses the fundamental attribution error to make the even
more telling point that people tend to have “flawed cognitive
maps” or mental models of complex system problems, and
so they find it difficult to solve such problems.
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