Fundamental attribution error, a synonym for Republican thinking:

[raccoon]

Fundamental attribution error

In attribution theory, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or overattribution effect) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based, explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations. In other words, people have an unjustified tendency to assume that a person's actions depend on what "kind" of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces influencing the person. Overattribution is less likely, perhaps even inverted, when people explain their own behavior; this discrepancy is called the actor-observer bias.

Why the fundamental attribution error occurs

There is no universally-accepted explanation for the fundamental attribution error. One hypothesis is that the error results largely from perspective. When we observe other people, the person is the primary reference point. When we observe ourselves, we are more aware of the forces acting upon us. So, attributions for others' behavior are more likely to focus on the person we see, not the situational forces acting upon that person that we may not be aware of. In the parlance of psychology research, this is called salience: the more salient a factor is, the more likely it is for a behavior to be attributed to it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error




A post in this thread inspired me to post this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3189108&mesg_id=3190225