Why You Think Everyone Else Is a Jerk (But You’re Just Having a Bad Day)

Picture this: You’re driving to work, running late. Someone cuts you off without signaling. What’s your immediate thought?

If you’re like most humans: “What an inconsiderate jerk. They probably drive like this all the time because they’re a selfish idiot who doesn’t care about anyone else.”

Now picture the reverse. You cut someone off. What’s your internal narrative?

“I never do this, but I’m late for an important meeting and I didn’t see them and this lane is confusing and I’ve had a really stressful morning.”

Notice the difference? When someone else does something wrong, it’s because of who they are. When you do something wrong, it’s because of your circumstances.

Congratulations—you’ve just experienced the Fundamental Attribution Error, one of the most pervasive quirks of human psychology. It’s poisoning your relationships, warping your political views, and making you far less understanding than you think you are.

What Exactly Is the Fundamental Attribution Error?

The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) is our tendency to overemphasize personality-based explanations for other people’s behavior while underemphasizing situational factors. When explaining our own behavior, we flip the script—emphasizing circumstances while downplaying character.

Here’s the mental shortcut at work: When we watch someone act, the person is the most visible element. Their situation—their stress, their history, the pressures they face—is invisible. So we attribute their behavior to them. They did it because of who they are.

But when we act, we have full access to our inner world. We know we’re stressed, didn’t sleep well, got a rattling text message before the meeting. Our situation is vivid, so naturally our behavior is a response to circumstances—not a reflection of character.

Same behavior. Completely different explanations. And we rarely notice the double standard.

A Humorous Example: The Case of the Unreturned Shopping Cart

Let’s talk about people who don’t return shopping carts to the corral.

You’ve seen them. You’ve judged them. Someone unloads their groceries, glances at the cart return 30 feet away, and simply… leaves the cart in the parking spot.

What kind of person does this? A lazy, entitled, inconsiderate person. Someone who thinks rules don’t apply to them. This is a character test, and they failed it. You would never.

Except… have you ever not returned a cart?

Maybe it was raining sideways with a screaming toddler in the car. Maybe your back was killing you. Maybe you were parked far away and running late.

When you didn’t return the cart, there was context. It was a situational lapse, not a reflection of your fundamental character.

But that stranger? Just a bad person.

This is the Fundamental Attribution Error in its natural habitat: a parking lot, surrounded by shopping carts and moral judgments.

Where This Really Hurts: Relationships

The shopping cart example is funny, but the FAE does serious damage where it actually matters—especially in close relationships.

Your partner snaps at you after work. Your instinct is to attribute it to personality. They’re irritable. Inconsiderate. This is who they are.

But if you snap at your partner? You had a brutal day. Your boss was impossible. You didn’t mean it.

Over time, this asymmetry creates a toxic pattern. You build a mental case file of your partner’s character flaws based on situational behaviors while giving yourself a permanent pass. You’re keeping score with different rules for each team.

The pattern applies everywhere: Your colleague missed a deadline because they’re disorganized. You missed one because three projects exploded simultaneously. Your friend forgot your birthday because they’re self-centered. You forgot theirs because life has been overwhelming.

Their behavior reveals character; your behavior reflects circumstances.

The Political Dimension: How FAE Fuels Contempt

The Fundamental Attribution Error scales up dangerously when thinking about groups.

Consider how people explain poverty. Those inclined toward character attribution see it as laziness or poor decisions. Those who’ve experienced poverty emphasize situational factors: lack of opportunity, systemic barriers, bad luck.

The same pattern fuels polarization. When the “other side” does something objectionable, we attribute it to their fundamental nature—they’re hateful, stupid, evil. When “our side” does something objectionable, we contextualize—they were provoked, taken out of context, the situation was complicated.

We afford our own tribe the understanding we deny to others.

This makes productive conversation nearly impossible. If opponents do what they do because they’re fundamentally bad, there’s nothing to discuss. But if you could see their behavior as a response to experiences, fears, and information environments—the way you see your own—dialogue becomes possible.

The FAE transforms policy disagreements into character judgments. Once you’ve decided someone’s character is rotten, persuasion is off the table. Only defeat remains.

The Justice System Problem

The FAE has profound implications for crime and punishment.

When someone commits a crime, our instinct is dispositional: they’re a criminal, a bad person, fundamentally different from us. We rarely consider situational factors—poverty, trauma, addiction, mental illness, desperation.

This doesn’t mean circumstances excuse all behavior. But research shows we dramatically underweight situations when judging others while overweighting them for our own moral failures.

The result is a justice philosophy heavy on punishment and light on rehabilitation—because if crime is about bad character, removing bad people is the only solution. If crime is also about circumstances, changing circumstances becomes part of the solution too.

Fighting Back: How to Catch Yourself

The FAE is automatic, but not unbeatable.

Practice the “flip test.” When making a character judgment about someone, ask: “How would I explain this if I did it?” Generate situational explanations for others with the same creativity you’d use for yourself.

Assume invisible context. When someone does something frustrating, assume there’s a situational factor you can’t see. Maybe they got terrible news. You’re probably right more often than you’d guess.

Get curious instead of judgmental. Replace “What’s wrong with this person?” with “What might be going on for this person?” Curiosity opens doors that judgment slams shut.

Remember your own worst moments. You had reasons—stress, exhaustion, fear. Extend that understanding to others.

Zoom out on groups. When making sweeping judgments about political opponents or any group, pause. These are millions of individuals responding to their own circumstances. The FAE gets worse at scale.

The Empathy Upgrade

Correcting for the FAE isn’t just about accuracy—it’s about being more humane.

When you attribute others’ behavior to circumstances rather than character, something shifts. Frustration softens into curiosity. Contempt fades into compassion. You stop seeing a world full of bad people and start seeing people responding to situations you don’t fully understand.

This doesn’t mean abandoning judgment. Some behaviors really do reflect character. But the FAE pushes us toward too much judgment, too fast, based on too little information.

The correction isn’t to stop judging. It’s to judge others with the same generosity we instinctively grant ourselves.

You’re not a jerk. You’re just having a bad day.

Maybe they are too.