A person emphasizes personality-based explanations for others' behavior while ignoring situational factors. This demonstrates which bias?

• A. Availability heuristic
• B. Fundamental attribution error
• C. Self-serving bias
• D. Hindsight bias

Answer: (B)

People tend to explain others’ actions by their character rather than by the circumstances surrounding them. This tendency is the fundamental attribution error. It happens when we overemphasize internal personality traits and underestimate external factors like situation, context, or pressure that could influence behavior. For example, if a colleague is quiet in a meeting, we might label them as unfriendly instead of considering they might be tired, overwhelmed, or unsure about the topic. This bias shapes how we judge others in everyday interactions and professional settings, including real estate and fair housing contexts, where misattributing behavior to personality can lead to unfair assessments.

The other biases don’t fit because the availability heuristic relies on how readily we recall information to judge frequency or likelihood, not on whether behavior is explained by personality versus the situation. Self-serving bias concerns how we explain our own outcomes, typically praising ourselves for successes and blaming external factors for failures. Hindsight bias is the sense that an outcome was predictable after it already happened.