Definition
Attribution is the cognitive act of assigning a cause to an observed outcome — answering the question "why did that happen?"
Attribution is subject to two well-documented biases that distort the answer in opposite directions depending on who the actor is. When other people behave badly, we tend to attribute the behavior to their character. When we behave the same way, we tend to attribute it to the situation. The asymmetry is so robust that social psychologists named it the "fundamental attribution error."
Why it matters
How it works
The fundamental attribution error has a simple structure. When watching someone else, you see their behavior clearly and their situation only dimly — you do not know what pressures, deadlines, or constraints they were operating under. The visible element wins the explanation: their behavior gets blamed on their character. When you act, the situation is fully present to you — you know exactly which deadline you missed and why — so you attribute your own behavior to circumstance.
This asymmetry is not malicious; it is informational. You have more situational data about yourself than about anyone else. But it produces predictable distortions at scale. Political out-groups look stupid or malicious; in-groups look principled even when doing similar things. Failed entrepreneurs are blamed for bad judgment; successful ones are credited for character even when both faced similar markets.
Both scapegoating and great-man theory are downstream of attribution biases. Scapegoating over-credits one bad actor's character for a systemic failure; great-man theory over-credits one good actor's character for a systemic success. The same cognitive machinery produces both. Rosling's prescription is symmetric: when you reach for a person-based explanation, list the situational factors that were also present. The list is almost always longer than the urge suggests.