Ultimate attribution error
The fundamental attribution error stretched across group lines.
What it means
A group-level extension of the fundamental attribution error in which people attribute the negative behavior of out-group members to their stable dispositions while explaining identical behavior by in-group members situationally, and vice versa for positive behavior. Positive acts by the out-group are explained away as luck, special advantage, exceptions, or the situation, protecting the negative stereotype. The pattern preserves prejudiced beliefs against disconfirming evidence by routing each new observation through a self-serving attributional filter. It is strongest among the prejudiced and toward disliked groups. It is a core engine of stereotype persistence, discrimination, and the durability of intergroup hostility.
Examples
When an out-group member succeeds it's 'luck or a handout'; when one fails it's 'typical of them' — the reverse of how the in-group is judged.
When our striker goes down in the box he lost his footing; when theirs does it is diving, and that is exactly the sort of club they have always been.
Sales explains engineering's missed deadline as 'how that lot operate,' but when sales misses target it was a brutal quarter. The same slip earns two explanations depending on the badge.
First described in Thomas Pettigrew (1979).