The more I look for the fundamental attribution error, the more I find it.
For example, recently I saw it in action with my father; we were driving to a lunch date in a hurry (at least, he thought he was late—I keep track of when I am late and am calibrated about this, and as I expected, we were early) and pulled in to a gas station. A white pickup truck was in the first position, and my father cursed the driver’s utter incompetence as he veered around the pickup truck to park in the second spot. Obviously the driver was an ‘idiot’ for not simply pulling through to the second further spot and making it easier on followers.
I thought to myself, this is an old pickup truck with commercial plates, so the driver is presumably quite experienced. How likely is it that in his decades of driving he has not learned to pull through to the furthest gas pump? Why would he do that at all, given that it saves him no time since he will have to pull out once the fill-up is done?
At which point I realized what had happened: so the pickup driver had pulled through as far as possible when he arrived; it was merely that the second gas pump had been occupied, and the occupant had finished and driven away before we arrived, and one cannot move up a gas pump in the middle of the fill-up. This scenario was not merely possible, it was in fact likely given everything I mentioned previously and how busy the gas station was.
The more I look for the fundamental attribution error, the more I find it.
For example, recently I saw it in action with my father; we were driving to a lunch date in a hurry (at least, he thought he was late—I keep track of when I am late and am calibrated about this, and as I expected, we were early) and pulled in to a gas station. A white pickup truck was in the first position, and my father cursed the driver’s utter incompetence as he veered around the pickup truck to park in the second spot. Obviously the driver was an ‘idiot’ for not simply pulling through to the second further spot and making it easier on followers.
I thought to myself, this is an old pickup truck with commercial plates, so the driver is presumably quite experienced. How likely is it that in his decades of driving he has not learned to pull through to the furthest gas pump? Why would he do that at all, given that it saves him no time since he will have to pull out once the fill-up is done?
At which point I realized what had happened: so the pickup driver had pulled through as far as possible when he arrived; it was merely that the second gas pump had been occupied, and the occupant had finished and driven away before we arrived, and one cannot move up a gas pump in the middle of the fill-up. This scenario was not merely possible, it was in fact likely given everything I mentioned previously and how busy the gas station was.
This never occurred to my father.