The really fundamental attribution error in social psychological research

We review the classic studies on social influence and the fundamental attri bution error to determine (a) whether it is true that behavior of the sort observed in those studies is externally caused in the two senses of externa l causality used by attribution theorists, (b) whether laypeople have been shown to overestimate the extent to which behavior is internally caused in either of those two senses, and (c) whether there is a better way to charac terize the errors people make. We conclude that (a) ehavior in those studie s has not been shown to be externally caused in the two senses used by attr ibution theorists, (b) eople have not been shown to overestimate the extent to which behavior is internally caused in either of those two senses, (c) there is a different sense of internal versus external causality that bette r characterizes the errors people make, and (d) these literatures taken tog ether suggest that Americans are far more disposed to preserve face and avo id embarrassment than most people had suspected.