The traffic had slowed to a crawl this morning on his way to work. No Answer, declared the bumper sticker on the back of the car that cut in front of him suddenly. Idiot, he cursed at the driver, a skinny, bald-headed guy whose elbow poked out of his car’s window like a reddish nose, and immediately he smiled to himself and forgave. Here’s another example of the fundamental attribution error, he’ll say later in class: You’re waiting at the traffic light, perhaps, in a hurry to get somewhere; the light changes to green and the driver in front of you doesn’t move. Immediately you call that driver an idiot and attribute to him all manner of terminal stupidity and rottenness of character. The next day you’re at the light, first in line this time, but this time you’re in no hurry and therefore humming with the radio and deep in thought. The light changes, and the driver behind you honks his horn. You turn around and call that driver—Idiot! Well? It turns out that, usually, neither you nor he are idiots. Both of you are but kindly, decent folk. The context, the situation determines our actions. He who wants to figure out human behavior should examine the circumstances before plunging into personality dissections—risky operations that usually fail and kill the patient, if there is a patient, if such personality dissections are not themselves the disease.