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Notes -
Is hypoagency vs hyperagency the same phenomenon as what the fundamental attribution error describes?
The fundamental attribution error shows up in the ingroup/outgroup dichotomy in ways like:
Something bad happens --> (Ingroup: situational - something outside the person caused it) vs. (outgroup: dispositional - something inside the person caused it)
Something good happens --> (Ingroup: dispositional - something inside the person caused it) vs. (outgroup: situational - something outside the person caused it).
Something very similar seems to be at play when people are discussing hypoagency (the woman wasn't at fault for killing her own children) vs hyperagency (the husband should have done more).
Yeah, more or less the same idea. A similar concept is internal vs. external locus of control. "Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan".
Similar sounding, but actually different:
Internal vs external locus of control is about whether you perceive yourself to be in control of your own fate or outcomes. Do you self-perceive as a capable chooser or as driftwood (learned helplessness).
The other concepts are about perceiving, judging others.
I think they're closely related.
When they (or a member of their in-group) do something they shouldn't have, hypoagentic people perceive themselves as at the mercy of fate. They apply the same framing when a member of their out-group does something impressive or admirable ("well, I could've founded Amazon if I'd been born into a rich family like Bezos's").
Where it gets messy is that these people tend to flip the valence: if a member of their in-group does something admirable they want full credit for it, but any mistakes they made were due to factors outside of their control. Conversely, members of their out-group are blamed entirely for mistakes they made, while admirable things they do are minimised as accidents of circumstance or attributed to factors beyond their control.
Most "hypoagentic" people are selectively so, using the framing to avoid their in-group receiving condemnation for mistakes (while still demanding full credit for impressive achievements). The Last Psychiatrist notes that this is a fundamentally unstable worldview.
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