Reducing The Error's Effects
A number of "debiasing" techniques have been found effective in reducing the effect of the fundamental attribution error:
- Taking heed of "consensus" information. If most people behave the same way when put in the same situation, then the situation is more likely to be the cause of the behavior.
- Asking oneself how one would behave in the same situation.
- Looking for unseen causes; specifically, looking for less-salient factors.
However, even when participants were made aware ulterior motives existed to take a particular position, such as with the pro- and anti-Fidel Castro essays mentioned above, they were still prone to the fundamental attribution error.
Read more about this topic: Fundamental Attribution Error
Famous quotes containing the words reducing, error and/or effects:
“It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“You can hardly convince a man of an error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One of the effects of a safe and civilised life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)