ABSTRACT
The fundamental attribution error stems from the human tendency to overestimate the significance of personality and dispositional factors compared to the significance of situational or environmental influences when describing and explaining the causes of social behavior. It presents some of the most important attribution theories, whereby there is no particular attribution theory that presides over the others, there instead being a whole range of attribution theories that have been developed relatively independently from each other, which differentiate between various particular areas of enquiry. Environmental factors can also be divided into constant and inconstant groups of factors. The initial thesis of tracing back the action result to environmental or personality factors have led to the development of further approaches. The attribution process proceeds in exactly the opposite way when foreign behavior is observed and the consequences of that behavior attributed. The way in which people believe others have developed their structures of motivation, is explained in Jones and Davis's attribution theory.
