Session 3 Errors in Attribution

Principles of SCLOA?

Complete the following questionnaire. Results will be kept anonymous.

Discuss two errors in attributions

 Theory argues that people act like naïve scientists  Humans are very social and have a need to understand why things happen and how and why people behave in certain situations.  Heider (1958) proposed a theory in which he suggested that we tend to interpret and explain our own behaviour and the behaviour of others by assigning attributes to behaviour.  Heider suggested that attributions can be situational (external) or dispositional (internal)

Attribution: Attribution: how people interpret and explain causal relationships in the social world and society. Psychologists have discovered that when attributing behaviour, people can often make errors and biases. Attributional error (AE): Attributional error (AE): a false assumption or distortion in perception or judgement about the causes of our own or other people’s behaviour.

1. Fundamental Attribution Error 2. Self serving Bias

 Refers to when people overestimate the role of dispositional factors in an individual’s behaviour and underestimate situational factors  Since people gather information by observing others, this often leads to illogical conclusions  According to social psychologist Fiske (2004), people rely too much on personality in explaining behaviour and they underestimate the power of situations

 In Western societies it could be because of the ideology that people get what they deserve (Gilber, 1995)  It makes life more predictable if people’s behaviour is mainly caused by their personality. This gives the impression that people are understandable and easy to deal with  Explanations solely based on personality are often incomplete, it is wrong to ignore the power of the situation

Aim  to investigate whether knowledge of allocated social roles in a quiz show would affect participants’ judgement of people’s expertise

Procedure  18 pairs of students from an introductory psychology class  Participated in a simulated quiz game  Randomly assigned to roles of either quiz host or contestant  24 other participants assigned to role of live audience

Procedure  Quiz hosts asked to compose 10 questions based on their own knowledge and contestants were asked to answer these questions  Quiz hosts instructed to ask each question, wait around 30 seconds for a response  If contestants did not answer correctly the host gave the correct answer  After quiz all participants and observers were asked to rate the general knowledge of contestants and hosts

Results  Both contestants and observers consistently rated the intelligence of the host as superior despite being aware that each participant was randomly assigned to a condition.  Those assigned to quiz show host did not rate their intelligence as being superior

Conclusions  Clear demonstration of FAE.  Contestants and observers attributed the hosts ability to dispositional factors and failed to take into consideration the situational factors that gave the hosts an advantage (they got to write the questions)

 Experimental setup was ingenious. It clearly gave the opportunity to demonstrate attributional biases because the hosts made up their own questions and this was known by all participants  The participants were all university students. University students are accustomed to listening to authority figures who they deem to have superior knowledge. It could be that this is a learned response rather than an attribution error  A study that used a sample of university students is not necessarily generalisable to whole population  As this was an artificial task the ecological validity could also be questioned, people may not necessarily reflect the same behaviour in a real world context

Aim:  To see whether participants would demonstrate FAE when attributing behaviour (to disposition), even if they knew that a specific role was assigned, and chance-directed behaviours to situation.

Method:  Asked American students to read essays written by fellow students about Fidel Castro, who were told to write either pro- or anti- Castro and guess the attitude of the writers towards Castro.  Half the participants were told the writers were free to choose their view on Castro in the essay (choice condition).  Other half were told the writers had no choice; experimenters assigned them a view on Castro (no choice condition).

Results:  Participants assumed the viewpoint of Castro in speeches reflected attitudes (dispositions) of the writers in both choice and no choice condition. Conclusion: Conclusion:  Although participants knew that the view of the writers was constrained by situation, but still opted for dispositional attribution.

 Strengths  Strengths ◦ Laboratory experiment  Strict control over variables  Determined a cause-effect relationship  Findings support FAE  Limitations  Limitations ◦ Lacks ecological validity - cannot be generalised to the whole population  Participants (ethnocentric)  Thus, not representative sample, as all American P"s were used  Laboratory experiment  Artificial environment

 Investigated attributions made by Holocaust survivors  Researcher gave questionnaires to members of Holocaust survivor groups and age matched Jewish participants who had not personally experienced the Nazi persecution (control)  2 groups were asked for their views on possible factors in survival during the Holocaust

Results This indicates personal experiences during Holocaust influenced survivor’s attributions because they had witnessed that it was actually often luck or help from others that determined who survived. The survivors had a clear picture of the power of the situation during the Holocaust. Holocaust Survivors Jewish control Situational Factors 91%51% Dispositional Factors 34%71%

Things about you Things about me DispositionalSituationalDispositionalSituational Can we see any evidence of FAE here?

 Culture seems to be a determinant in attribution style:  In collectivist cultures the emphasis is on the primary social relationships of an individual (family, social role, cultural activities)  In individualistic cultures the emphasis is on the individual as the primary cause of action leads to dispositional factors. The individual is seen as the main cause of success and failure

Norenzayan et al (2002)  Tested whether information given to Korean and American participants would influence their attributions  When participants received information about individuals, both groups made dispositional attributions  When situational information was also provided, the Koreans tended to include this information in their explanations more than Americans did  This indicates there may be cultural differences in attribution errors

Strengths  Theory has promoted understanding of common errors in explanations of what happens around the world  The theory has proven very robust and has been supported by many empirical studies

Limitations  Theory is culturally biased with too much focus on individualism  Much research on theory has been conducted in laboratories and with student samples

 Think back to a time when you have: ◦ Done something you’re proud of ◦ Won something ◦ Been rude to someone ◦ Messed up

 Why do you think these things happened? ◦ Done something you’re proud of ◦ Won something ◦ Been rude to someone ◦ Messed up

 SSB is a self enhancing strategy  Refers to people’s tendency to evaluate themselves positively by taking credit for their success and attribute their failures to situational factors

 A special version of SSB is called “self handicapping”  When people expect to fail they may openly make situational attributions before their actions

Self-handicapping

 Greenberg et al (1982) argued SSB could be a way to uphold self esteem. If we can attribute our successes to dispositional factors and our failures as being beyond our control, it protects our self esteem. It is a means of self protection.

 Miller and Ross (1975) suggested that cognitive factors (what we expect to happen) play a role in SSB  We usually expect to succeed at a task  This is commonly observed in Western world Success= dispositional factors Failure= situational factors If we expect to succeed Success= Situational Factors Failure= dispositional factors If we expect to fail

 Found that American football coaches and players were more likely to attribute success to dispositional factors and failure to situational factors

 Performed an SSB experiment with children  Asked children to do math problems sitting either with a friend or non-friend  Although they sat in pairs the children had to do the math problems alone, but the total score of the pair was noted

 Children were asked who did the better job  Children who worked with friends and failed were less likely to show the SSB and more likely to give their friends credit when they succeeded.  Children who worked with a non-friend were more likely to show the SSB

 Culture specific attribution styles may be a natural part of enculturation and socialisation  Some argue that SSB is primarily linked to individualistic cultures but others believe it can be found in both individualistic and collectivist cultures

Kashima & Triandis (1986)  Showed slides of unfamiliar countries to American and Japanese students  Asked them to remember details  When students were asked to explain their performance, the Americans explained their own success with internal factors such as ability and failure with external factors  The Japanese tended to explain their failure with lack of ability.  Reasoned that due to more collective nature of Asian societies that if people derive self esteem not from individual accomplishment but instead from group identity then people are less likely to use SSB  This is called the modesty bias and is a cultural variation of the SSB

Bond, Leung & Wan (1982)  Found that Chinese students who exhibited the modesty bias instead of SSB were more popular with their peers  Argued that a possible explanation for the modest bias in collectivist cultures could be a cultural norm in Chinese societies to maintain harmonious personal relationships  A person who makes self-effacing attributions could be expected to be better liked

 The theory can explain why some people (mostly from individualistic cultures) explain their failures as being caused by situational factors

 The theory is culturally biased. It cannot explain why some cultures emphasise a self- effacing attribution (modesty bias)