# The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process

*Ross · Measurement & Method · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · 1977 · Paywalled*

The paper that named the fundamental attribution error: the systematic tendency to overweight dispositional explanations (character, intent, ability) and underweight situational ones (context, constraint, system) when explaining others' behaviour. Ross showed this bias is not occasional but structural — the default of the intuitive psychologist. For PS and HOP, the implication is direct: blame is not just culturally convenient but cognitively automatic. Understanding why someone stayed silent, made an error, or failed to speak up requires deliberately overriding a near-universal attributional bias. One of the most cited papers in social psychology.

- **This page:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/ross-1977/
- **View the source paper:** https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs/pii/S0065260108603573
- **Interactive map:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/?mode=papers&node=ross-1977

## Connected concepts (12)

- [Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/edmondson-1999.md) (paper)
- [Human Error: Models and Management](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/reason-2000.md) (paper)
- [Leadership Behavior and Employee Voice: Is the Door Really Open?](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/detert-burris-2007.md) (paper)
- [Local Rationality](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/local-rationality.md)
- [Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/morrison-milliken-2000.md) (paper)
- [The Criminalization of Human Error in Aviation and Healthcare: A Review](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/dekker-2011-criminalisation.md) (paper)
- [Blametropism](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/blametropism.md)
- [HOP](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/hop-human-and-organisational-performance-training.md)
- [Just Culture](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/just-culture.md)
- [The OK Corral: The Grid for Get-on-With](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/ernst-1971.md) (paper)
- [The Unintended Consequences of No Blame Ideology for Incident Investigation in the US Construction Industry](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/sherratt-et-al-2023.md) (paper)
- [Human Error & PS](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-human-error.md)