Errors in Attributions: Fundamental Attribution Error & Self Serving Bias

Discuss two errors in attributions

Intro:

Attribution = “Correspondence inference theory” = tendency to take someone’s immediate behaviour as a general statement about who that person is

(consider situational as a person's disposition)

Choose 2 to discuss:

1.Fundamental attribution error

- tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person's behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors + underestimate the role of situational factors

2.Self serving bias

- explanations for one's own successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one's failures that blame external, situational factors

3.Defensive attribution

- Tendency to blame the victim for their misfortunes

Ross et al. → FAE

• Aim: To see if student participants would make the FAE even when they knew all the actors were playing a role

• Method:

  • Participants (P's) randomly assigned tne of three roles:

    • Game show host - asked to design their own questions

    • Contestant - tried to answer questions

    • Audience member - watched the game show

  • After the game show, audience members were asked to rank the intelligence of the hosts and contestants

• Results:

  • P's consistently ranked the host as the most intelligent, even though they knew they were randomly assigned this role and that they had written the questions

• Conclusion:

  • They failed to attribute the host's behaviour to situational factors of the role they had been randomly assigned

    • instead attributed his performance to dispositional factors – intelligence

• Evaluation:

  Limitations

• Participants were all university students

  • They often listen to professors who ask questions and provide answers (like the game show host) and are seen as authority figures

  • The belief that authority figures who ask questions are intelligent could be a learned response, rather than attribution error

• Sample is not representative; small sample, part of specific school

  • Findings cannot be generalised to a wider population

Kashima and Triandis → SSB

• Aim: Cultural factors affecting attribution (Self Serving Bias and Modesty Bias)

  - Method:

  • • Participants were students from Japan and America.

    • They were given pictures of unfamiliar countries and were asked to remember details.

    • Participants then performed a recall of the details.

  • Results:

    • American students tend to attribute success to dispositional factors more. (Self serving bias).

    • Japanese students tend to attribute failure to dispositional factors more (Modesty bias)

  • Conclusion:

    • Biases in attribution can be affected by our cultural background.

  • Evaluation:

    • Ecological validity: High, naturalistic observation.

    • Culture bias: only one superstitious group were studied locally.