In psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and cognitive science

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

, hedonistic relevance is an observer's tendency to attribute a behavior

Behavior

Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...

 to a person's disposition

Disposition

A disposition is a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way.The terms dispositional belief and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind but not currently being considered, and in the latter case, to a belief that is...

 (rather than to their situation) when the behavior negatively affects the observer, their property, or those close to them. The effect of hedonistic relevance is to hold a person responsible for an event that might well have been outside their control; for example, if John trips and spills red wine on Jack's new white carpet, Jack will likely hold him personally responsible, even if Jack's uneven floor was the reason John tripped.

Hedonistic relevance is an example of an attributional bias

Attributional bias

In psychology, an attributional bias is a cognitive bias that affects the way we determine who or what was responsible for an event or action...

.