What I have proposed is a research question whose implications are profound. I would hypothesize that the answer is no, psychiatry and clinical psychology cannot account for the fundamental attribution error. I would go further and suggest that "psychiatric illness" is akin to lactose intolerance (which is normal after about 2 years of age in African-descended people and older in European-descended people). In lactose intolerance, bloating and gas is caused by the inability to breakdown the sugar in milk, lactose, because we typically produce less lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) as we get older. In other words, perhaps what we have characterized as pychiatric illnesses are actually "normal" sensitivity and intolerance to a constant element of our society, such as milk is to gas and bloating in lactose intolerance. I would further propose that some in our society are more or less sensitive to or have more or less tolerance for this constant element. What might this contant element be? Well, we live in a capitalistic/materialistic society. We do NOT live in a humanistic society, a society that honors humans above all else. We live in a society that honors materials above all else. I would argue that we have an innate sense of our own free will and agency as human beings that is not honored by our society. Instead, there are those within society that would ignore the free will of others to their material benefit. Those whose free will is ignored, those who are oppressed, will likely have varying degrees of reaction to this oppression based on their sensitivity or tolerance for oppression and the extent to which they are oppressed. If my hypothesis is correct, this has grave implications for how we practice psychiatry and clinical psychology. The biggest is that we are doing individuals within our society a grave disservice and not addressing the true underlying problem. In the wake of incidences like Newtown and the pervasive prescription of psychotropic medication and "mental illness" in our society with the problem getting worse instead of better, it is disappointing that no one bothered to give a sophisticated response or comment to an extremely important question.

Your research question indeed has profound implications for all: professionals , citizens, social policy, etc.

Since the 1950s there has been a anti-isolated mind paradigm shift with the emergence of Systems Theories and Therapies (Family Systems developed by North Americans and Psychoanalytic Systems theories and practice developed by the British Object Relations Theorists). In contemporary clinical psychology (despite the American bias toward to Cognitive Behavioral Therapies and Evidence-Based Treatments) there are models for understanding the social etiology of and the role of anti-humanistic and oppressive social practices on psychopathology. My own qualitative research is currently focused on Social Dreaming, which is a model for understanding the unconscious traumatizing social forces which the social group is struggling to manage by the psychological process of dissociation. In the last two years I have focused on Xenophobia, Racism, and White Supremacy.

In addition, my teaching, clinical practice, and research has focused on understanding the multiple systems that impact individuals and families and the role of those systems in generating problems in living and in the solution of those problems, particularly the most powerless (the poor, children, immigrants, women, etc.).

Please let me know if you would like some references or more information. You can also visit my profile at Antioch University Los Angeles--where you find a summary of my experience, and theoretical and practice orientation.

look up Jerome Wakefield's 2007 in World Psychiatry article on DSM5 / ICD11 and the harmful dysfunction analysis of disorder.

I am fully with you Nicole... if you are prepared to do some reading here is a list of authors... Carl Jung, Bertram Karon, Abraham Hoffer, Linus Pauling, S. Groff, Thomas Szasz, Peter Breggin, Richard Benattal, Robert Whitaker, David Healy, John Read, Pete Sanders, David Pilgrim, Luckoff, Simon Yu, ISPS movement and nutritionist Patrick Holford.

I have found many causes of distress which are largely ignored by medicine. I laughed when my psychopathology class listed no pathology. Here is my list:

Childhood trauma, grief and loss, accident, abuse; both physical and sexual, hormonal turmoil of adolescence, relationship distress, overwhelm, depression, loss of meaning, substance abuse, addictions, gambling, dramatic change, seasonal, childbirth, financial worries, over work or shift work, jet lag, loss of child/job/home/parents/family/friend, illness, cancer, chronic pain, tooth infection, natural disaster, war, hormone imbalance, menopause, loneliness, self-neglect and dementia. Dramatic life changes, infatuation, sudden large financial gain, spiritual crisis, sudden fame, near death experiences and even too much sunshine.

Rabies, Toxoplasmosis (very common and caught from cat excrement), Lymes disease, Pyroluria, Porphyria, parasites, heavy metal exposure (mercury, lead and others). Head injury, fetal alcohol syndrome, autisms, epilepsy and vaccine damage, high fever, dehydration, sleep deprivation, nutritional deficiency, mineral deficiency, abreaction to recreational and prescription drugs and stimulants. Side/direct effects from mental health drugs, other medical drugs. Incorrect use of nicotine patches, post-operative psychosis and post traumatic shock. Blood sugar imbalance, over or underactive thyroid, faulty methylation and B vitamin deficiency, essential fats deficiencies, histamine excess, serotonin deficiency, adrenal imbalance, acetylcholine imbalance, toxic poisoning overload and gut inflammation, bladder infection, metallothionein deficiency, direct food allergies, extreme physical and emotion exhaustion and extreme hypothermia.

Thank you for your thoughtful responses. Simply put, we are a society that does not exercise unconditional love. It is a part of our evolution as a species (I know, it sounds a bit deep) to evolve beyond our identification with mind and simply be humans: spirits in a sensory apparatus, the body, having an experience on earth. You can learn more about my perspective at www.pleasant-immanuel.com where my essay, Awaken to Life, is published. As spirits in a body, we ARE love. However, when the brain becomes a "mind" and that mind creates an "ego", the loving beings we are in essence are occluded--and this is the root of the problem. Consistent ego-identification is eventually destructive toward self and others. Curing psychological ills (among other things) is about heightening awareness of Being-ness vs Ego-identification with the goal being to acheive consistent Being-ness. For any one person at any one moment he or she is one or the other, Being or ego-identified. Being allows for unconditional love and ego-identification does not. As greater numbers of individuals in society evolve beyond ego, society will fundamentally, sustainably change. It is a personal journey that few of us are on but this is the inevitable direction we as individuals in society must make. The labeling of humans as disordered because society does not honor their humanity is one of many symptoms caused by a preponderance of ego-identification in that society. Love IS the cure. We will be able to love with no condition and create a very different society when we evolve beyond mind and simply be spirits who have taken on a form we call human so we can experience earth. This is what beings on earth have been doing for millions of years: evolving to maximize survival and continue the earthly experience. I can elaborate if there is interest.

I would reject the premise which underlies your question which is essence that behaviour is either biologically or socially determined. The emergent literature suggests that the opposite is the case with neglect abuse and trauma having marked and sometimes intergenerational consequences. I would also reject the notion that there is a singular entity which can usefully be called psychiatry or psychology as opposed to a whole series of discourses around mental health. Psychiatry contains a wide range of viepoints beyond those in hock to pharmacology particularly those who would describe themselves as social psychiatrists. Within psychology there are those that argue that community psychology must engage not just in ameliorative interventions but to seek to transform the social conditions that caused them.

In explanation of the frequency of the attribution error I would however begin by considering heuristics, in particular the actor observer bias / situational dispositional biases that underlie victim blaming.

Dr Brodie Paterson

Neglect, abuse and trauma ARE socially determined. We in the United States in particular operate in a system where humans are labeled as disordered when they are trying to negotiate deplorable, cruel, abusive...oppressive circumstances. The root cause of their symptomatology is never addressed and so the problem is never fixed. As long as this continues, we are not doing what I thought the mission of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists were supposed to be doing for individuals and society. Namely, to ameliorate "disease" and relieve people of their suffering, not to perpetuate the problem. Who cares what you call it or what the premise is? You know what I'm talking about. Academics can get in the way of seeking real solutions to real problems.