It’s Them, Not Me: Why We Misjudge Others So Quickly

The Fundamental Attribution Error is a psychological concept that describes our tendency to pin someone’s behavior—or failure—on who they are rather than considering how their environment shaped what they did. It’s one of the easiest traps to fall into, especially as adults who are quick to spot what’s wrong with everyone else long before we ever look at ourselves.

Picture this: a 4-year-old is screaming and throwing items off a grocery store shelf until his dad hands him the toy he wanted, and suddenly the chaos stops. The fast explanation is that the kid is a brat. And most of us stop right there, because blaming the person feels simple and tidy.

It keeps us from having to examine our own assumptions, or the situation that produced the behavior in the first place. But the moment we decide “the kid is the problem,” we’ve also decided the problem belongs entirely to him—and we don’t have to question our own reactions or biases.

That’s the real snag: when we default to judging others, we close off the possibility of understanding them. And more importantly, we close off the possibility of understanding ourselves.