The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process
People systematically overestimate the role of personal disposition in explaining others' behavior
This seminal paper coined the term 'fundamental attribution error' - the systematic tendency to overweight dispositional (personality-based) explanations for behavior while underweighting situational explanations. For the book's thesis, this is crucial: it explains why we attribute company success to founder characteristics rather than market timing, luck, or circumstance.
The fundamental attribution error is why business case studies and founder narratives are unreliable guides to strategy. We hear that a company succeeded because of its visionary leader's specific decisions, when the real causes may have been environmental factors entirely beyond anyone's control. Ross's research provides the psychological mechanism for why 'business has maxims while biology has mechanisms.'
Key Findings from Ross (1977)
- People systematically overestimate the role of personal disposition in explaining others' behavior
- Situational factors are consistently underweighted in causal attribution
- This bias is fundamental to social cognition and extremely difficult to overcome
- Success narratives are particularly prone to dispositional over-attribution