Attribution error for sure

Yes. What a whopper. In my last posting I described the story of a NYC taxi driver who has a huge readership and who has recently earned a publishing deal.

In putting that posting together and forming my own view, I made what psychologists call a Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). In brief I connected a couple of pieces of information together and arrived at a conclusion, a conclusion which was way off.

This taxi driver is a she and not a he, it's a lady who drives a taxi and likes to describe life in colourful language and a fair pile of swearing.

So, why did I trick myself into thinking this was a guy? First my brain made a connection between taxi drivers and males, I'm sure that connection was made in my head. Then there was the swearing. I mean swearing is something that is mostly connected with males. Now don't get me wrong, I know loads of women who swear like dockers, but for some reason my brain made that connection too. Going back to the blog in question tonight I'm guessing that my brain also made a connection between the site and the picture of the guy in the black hooded top.

I guess there's also the fact that I didn't go and check the profile of the blogger - it clearly says gender: female.. so I have only myself to blame for missing that.

Only that it was pointed out by Alan, I probably would never have noticed. This is really interesting to me that I did this, that I arrived at what I once heard described as "First conclusion bias". Alan knows more about this than many people I know because he is super-familiar with a famous case involving the Munich Philharmonic.

Many months ago I was discussing this implicit functional bias of our brains with some colleagues at work and found myself looking at the Harvard study on this. It's amazing what that particular study revealed, especially since most of us don't believe we have deep-rooted biases or unshakeable opinions about others we don't know when sadly it seems we do, whether we accept it or not. Worth checking out in my view, or maybe if you prefer a broader view of the idea you might want to get your hands on a copy of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

There's a blogging lesson for me.

Thanks to Alan for pointing it out, and to Cinthia for her comment and for the nice Easter wishes.