The fundamental attribution theory states that especially in group settings, people are generally biased to contributing other people's failure to negative personal characteristics, such as laziness, rather than to situational causes, such as illness or overwork. This matches (C).
Expert Approach:
What is the definition of the fundamental attribution error? I know this is the name for the tendency to overattribute other people's actions to their character or personality (dispositional factors) instead of their environment or events (situational factors). Looking through the options, (C) fits this prediction perfectly.If I hadn't known this terminology, I could have still narrowed things down significantly. The word "attribution" appears in the stem, and it also appears in both (A) and (C), which makes them very likely candidates. Moreover, the term "attribution" itself suggests assigning a cause to behavior, which is what is described in those two answer choices, unlike (B), which refers to taking credit for something, or (D), which involves group conformity. Finally, neither (B) or (D) point to any particular "error." Based on all of that circumstantial evidence, I'd zero in on options (A) and (C), both of which link "attributions" to actions, and involve a bias, or "error." Choosing between them definitely requires specific content knowledge (in fact, I happen to recall that the "fundamental" attribution error is actually only observed in some societies and cultures, while others display the reverse tendency—to overattribute behavior to situational factors), but a 50% chance of getting a question right is a lot better that a 25% chance!
Content Review:
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