Abstract: the fundamental attribution error (FAE) was regarded as a universal attributional bias for all human beings, but researches of cultural psychology find that people living in different cultures show different attributional tendencies; the attribution tendencies are affected by cultures, thus FAE is not universal across cultures. The researches of cultural psychology make it dubious that the cognitive processes and style are universal, which was regarded as true by the discipline. Instead, people’s recognition is shaped by culture, therefore, psychological researches should be conducted in a social and cultural context to get more understanding of human

Key words: the fundamental attribution error (FAE), discrepancies between east and west, cultural psychology