Research suggests that a variety of educational interventions can be effective for reducing cognitive biases such as the fundamental attribution error (FAE). Specifically, comprehensive FAE education, such as social psychology instruction or targeted training interventions, can reduce the FAE. However, most non-experts in social psychology and members of the public are unlikely to receive such comprehensive FAE education. Instead, they would likely learn about the FAE through informal means outside of educational settings, such as through reading on the Internet. In the current study, we tested whether reading a short and accessible educational passage was effective in reducing the FAE in a between-subjects experiment. Two-hundred forty-four adults from the Reddit community r/SampleSize were randomly assigned to read an online educational passage describing the FAE (treatment) or a biology passage (control) before completing a writer attitude attribution task. Preregistered analyses indicated that participants who read the educational passage self-reported greater understanding of the FAE. However, participants committed the FAE, regardless of whether they read the educational passage. Exploratory analyses suggested that reading the educational passage did not increase perceived FAE understanding for participants with pre-existing FAE knowledge. Additionally, when compared to undergraduate students from previous FAE research, participants who read the educational passage reported lower perceived FAE understanding than undergraduate social psychology students but not general education students. We discuss recommendations for science communicators and future research, including designing enriching FAE materials and assessing FAE reductions in context of real-world behavioral changes.
