The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process

Why this matters here

Lee Ross’s 1977 chapter on the “intuitive psychologist” documents systematic attribution distortions—over-attributing behavior to disposition and under-attributing it to context. When Authority Outlives Accountability applies that finding to hero and villain narratives of leaders that spare examination of incentives, constraints, and authority under pressure. Ross establishes the attribution error; the book asks how character labels and outcome-only judgment erase the conditions under which decisions were made.