Which statement best expresses the main idea?

We explain others by their character and ourselves by our situation, and that asymmetry shapes larger judgments. (The passage names the asymmetry, explains what keeps it alive, and extends it to judgments about poverty, failure, and crime.)

What two things does the passage say keep the error going?

Visibility and information. (The second paragraph labels them first, visibility, and second, information.)

Why do we grant ourselves situational explanations more easily?

Because we hold a long record of our own behavior, so a single act looks like an exception. (The information point says a stranger's single act is the whole file, while our own act sits inside a long record.)

In this passage, vivid means:

easy to notice and strongly present (Vivid stands against invisible in the same sentence, so it means standing out clearly to the observer.)

Blaming The Person: Level 4 Reading Comprehension Questions

When a stranger cuts in front of you in traffic, the explanation arrives before the thought does: that driver is selfish. When you do the same thing, the explanation is different. You were late, the lane was closing, the sun was in your eyes. Psychologists call this asymmetry the fundamental attribution error, the habit of explaining other people by their character and ourselves by our circumstances.

Two things sustain it. The first is visibility. You can see the other driver, but you cannot see the meeting he is late for; the person is vivid and the situation is invisible. The second is information. About yourself you hold a long record of behavior across many situations, which makes any single act look like an exception. About a stranger, one act is the whole file.

The error is not a small social slip. Judgments about poverty, failure, and crime all rest on how much weight we give to character over circumstance. Correcting it does not require believing that character is a fiction. It requires only the discipline of asking, before you decide, what you cannot see from where you stand.

Comprehension questions