Before mark had even heard the details of how allison's car accident had happened, he commented, "allison is so absent minded, i'm sure it happened because she was probably talking on her cell phone and not paying attention." mark's response illustrates an attributional pattern called:

What Mark's response to what happened to Allison illustrates is an attribution bias. Attribution is giving cognitive inferences why an event happened. However, errors in the attribution process are also conceived. One of these is the attribution bias. Attribution bias is our tendency to attribute the behavior of other people to something personal rather than to their situation. It is a systemic error where we tend to overlook the impact of situations. Just like what Mark perceived of the car accident. He attributed blame to Allison being absent-minded.