What phenomenon is illustrated when primary care physicians attribute their own lack of exercise to being too busy but attribute their patients' lack of exercise to laziness?

The phenomenon illustrated in this scenario is best explained by actor-observer bias. This bias refers to the tendency for individuals to attribute their own actions to external factors while attributing the actions of others to internal characteristics.

In this situation, primary care physicians recognize their own lack of exercise as a result of external circumstances (being too busy), which reflects their viewpoint as the "actor" in their own lives. Conversely, when they evaluate their patients' lack of exercise, they attribute it to an internal characteristic (laziness), demonstrating their perspective as an "observer" of others' behaviors. This bias highlights the difference in how people perceive their own situations versus those of others.

The other options do not accurately describe this scenario: experimenter bias relates to researchers' expectations influencing outcomes in studies; fundamental attribution error concerns attributing others' behaviors more to their personality than to situational factors; and self-serving bias involves attributing successes to internal factors and failures to external ones, which does not fit the context of attributing others' behavior differently than one's own.