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A causal explanation using evidence from a person's personality. "Matt won the prize because he is so smart."

Dispositional attribution (internal)

Humans tend to overestimate the influence of personality (dispositional) compared to situational factors when making explanations for why people do what they do. 

The Fundamental Attribution Error

The just-world hypothesis is the belief that people get the outcomes they deserve. This worldview helps individuals maintain a sense of fairness, predictability, and control over their lives by reinforcing the idea that positive outcomes happen to good people and negative outcomes happen to bad people. A significant consequence of this belief is the tendency to blame victims for their own misfortune, as it preserves the idea that the world is just.

Just-World Hypothesis

The fundamental attribution error is a cognitive bias describing the common tendency to overemphasize internal, dispositional factors as explanations for someone else's behavior while underestimating the impact of external, situational factors. People committing this error often overlook even obvious situational influences, incorrectly assuming that a person's actions directly reflect their personality rather than their circumstances. This tendency is particularly prevalent in cultures that favor a dispositional view of human behavior, such as in the United States.

Fundamental Attribution Error

A student in your class, Sam, fails an important exam. Based on your understanding of how people explain behavior, which of the following statements is the best example of an explanation that focuses on internal, personal factors?

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