This is the tendency for spectators that are observing and analyzing another’s behavior to overestimate the effects of disposition, a habit or state of readiness, and underestimate the situation and its effect. The fundamental attribution error plays a heavy role when it comes to looking at poverty as an outsider. Many observers of poverty are quick to conclude that the majority of people in poverty are impoverished because they are habitually lazy. While this may be the case for a minority of people it is not always the case. The observers tend to look at the dispositional attributions rather than the possible situational ones when looking at poverty and do not reach the conclusion that people are in poverty because of cyclical unemployment brought about by poor economic times.
image source: http://blogs.longwood.edu/sbanschenbach/2011/07/21/quick-to-jump-to-conclusions/
Applied Psych 2 Poverty 