What is the bias called when observers underestimate situational influences and overestimate personal dispositions?

The term for the bias where observers underestimate situational influences and overestimate personal dispositions is known as the fundamental attribution error. This cognitive bias illustrates a common tendency in social psychology where people attribute others' behaviors primarily to their personality traits or characteristics, instead of considering the external factors that might have influenced those behaviors.

For instance, if you see someone react angrily in a stressful situation, you might think they are just an angry person by nature (a personal disposition) without taking into account the specific stressful circumstances they were facing (situational influences). This bias highlights a fundamental mistake in how we assess the behavior of others, often leading to oversimplified understanding of complex human actions.

In contrast, the other options involve different cognitive biases that do not specifically pertain to the underestimation of situational factors relative to individual traits. Confirmation bias involves favoring information that confirms existing beliefs, actor-observer bias refers to a tendency to attribute one's own actions to situational factors while attributing others' actions to their character, and self-serving bias relates to the tendency to credit personal successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.