- [Voiceover] How do we
understand someone's behavior?
Well, we can break down behavior into two parts.
One is we can look at behavior as coming
from a person's own internal attributes.
And secondly, we can look at behavior
as being fueled by situational or external factors,
such as the weather, housing, finances.
Ideally, when we're trying to analyze
somebody's behavior, we are a neutral judge
right in the middle.
Often times, behaviors are complex
and involve a combination of internal
and external factors.
We are not always as neutral as we want to be.
One of these biases happens when we judge
the behavior of others.
So, when we look at the behavior of others,
instead of being in the middle,
we actually find ourselves over here.
That means that when we look at the behavior
of others, we're more likely to attribute
their behavior to internal factors
about that person as opposed to considering
the complex situational external factors
that a person may face.
So in fact, we over-attribute behaviors
to these internal causes.
And this actually has a name.
We term this the "Fundamental Attribution Error".
Well, how could this be a problem?
It could be a problem in terms of
when we see complex patients,
for example, patients who can't exercise
who are obese, who are struggling with poverty,
and we really under-recognize the external
situational problems, the social problems,
the healthcare barriers they can have,
and almost blame them for the problems
that they face.
So, it's important to recognize
that this may occur.
Well, what happens when we consider
our own behavior?
Well, it turns out that we're not mutual,
even in that case.
When we consider our own behavior,
we actually often skew it in the other direction.
We're more likely to blame our behavior
on external factors.
We're more like to be victims of circumstance.
And while, this doesn't have a particular name,
the combination of the
"Fundamental Attribution Error",
along side our own tendency to blame
or attribute our own behaviors on external factors
combined together is actually termed the
"Actor-Observer Bias",
where we are victims of circumstance
but others when they perform a behavior,
they are willful actors.
There is also, however, a cultural component.
We know that "Fundamental Attribution Error"
tends to occur more commonly
in individualistic societies.
These cultures include those found in
North America and Europe, cultures who place
an emphasis on individual
achievement and independence.
Now that we've mentioned the cultural component,
let's spend a little bit more time
talking about culture.
Let's think about success and failure
because it appears cultures may have different ways
that they can attribute or explain success and failure.
So, let's split this up into
individualistic, so again,
that's Europe and North America,
and the second set of cultures is collectivist,
and these are cultures that put a value
on community and interdependence,
and these are typically found in Africa and Asia,
and remember these are generalizations.
So, one of the things that we find
is that in attempting to explain success,
individualistic cultures tend to over-attribute
success to internal factors,
while on the other hand,
failures are more likely to be attributed
to external or situational factors.
It's the complete opposite
with collectivist cultures, in fact,
when we look at success, they tend to attribute
success to external factors and failures are
more likely to attributed to internal factors.
I want you to be aware of one more bias.
This is called the "Self-serving bias"
and this bias is a way of protecting
and enhancing our own self-esteem,
and this bias is much more common
in individualistic cultures.
If we succeed, it's down to our
own internal personal qualities,
but if we fail, we don't have a hit
on our self-esteem because it's more likely
to do with things outside of our own control.
So, individualistic societies tend
to demonstate a great degree of this
self-serving bias and mechanism to protect
our own self-esteem which is particularly
important in individualistic societies
because of their emphasis on individual
achievement and success.