Attribution II : Biases

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Attribution II Biases

• Dr Elizabeth Sheppard

C81IND Individual in Society
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Primary questions

• When do we make attributions?
• Do peoples attributions show any systematic
  biases?

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When do we make attributions?

• Weiner (1985) reviewed evidence for spontaneous
  causal thinking.
• Two key factors which elicit attributions
• 1.) Unexpected events
• 2.) Non-attainment of a goal
• Kanazawa (1992) found expectancy only an effect
  on causal thinking
• Loss of control ( Liu Steele, 1986)
• Emotions such as sadness and anger (Keltner,
  Ellsworth, Edwards, 1993)

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Attributional biases

• A number of studies have suggested that in
  comparison to scientists or statisticians,
  laypeople are inaccurate in their attributions
• A bias occurs if the perceiver systematically
  distorts some otherwise correct procedure
• 2 classes of explanation for attribution biases
• 1.)   Motivational (need)
• 2.) Cognitive (informational)

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Why are biases in attribution interesting?

• 1.) They tell us about how people really do make
  attributions, rather than how they should
• 2.) Understanding bias can help us to promote
  social justice

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Fundamental attribution error/ Correspondence bias

• A tendency to underestimate the impact of
• situational factors and to overestimate the role
  of
• personal dispositional factors in controlling
  behaviour

• Ross, Amabile, Steinmetz (1977)
• randomly assigned participants
• in quiz game to roles of contestant
• and quiz master
• Quiz master was asked to set
• difficult questions

• Both contestant quiz master rated the
  questioner
• as much more knowledgeable, overlooking
• advantages conferred by being questioner

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• Issues surrounding the fundamental attribution
  error

• Not universal to all cultures (Miller,1984).
• No criteria for accuracy, thus referred to as
• correspondence bias.

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Explanations of correspondence bias

• Motivational Dispositional attribution gives us
  a sense of control
• - just world hypothesis
• Cognitive emphasise knowledge base of
  attributions and social information processing.
• Salience explanation (Rholes Prior, 1982)
• Differential rates of forgetting (Peterson, 1980)
  (counter evidence Burger, 1991)

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Actor-observer differences (divergence)

• Actors (self) attribute their actions to
  situational factors whereas the observer (other)
  tends to attribute the same actions to stable
  personal dispositions.
• e.g. Shyness in tutorial group

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Explanations of Actor-observer differences

• Cognitive explanations
• 1.) A greater amount of information available to
  the actors or self-raters
• 2.) Focus of attention (perceptual explanation)

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Perceptual explanation of the actor- observer
effect

• Storms (1973) found actors became less
  situational, and observers more situational when
  shown new orientation of the situation.

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Actor-Observer differences Motivational component

• Buehler, Griffin Ross (1995)- extended the
  actor-observer differences to other kinds of
  judgement and found motivational component
• Found individuals tend to underestimate how long
  it would take them to complete a task, whereas
  they would predict others would take longer to
  do the task

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Self-serving bias

• Tendency to attribute ones success to internal
  causes, but attribute failures to external causes
  
• E.g. Kingdon (1967) interviewed successful
  unsuccessful American politicians about major
  factors in successes failures. Tended to
  attribute wins to internal factors (hard work,
  reputation) but failures to external (lack of
  money, national trends)
• Actually involves 2 two biases
• 1.)   self-enhancing bias (taking credit for
  success)
• 2.) Self-protecting bias (denying
  responsibility for failure)
• Self-handicapping bias more subtle form of
  self-serving bias

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Explanations of self-serving bias

• Cognitive explanation - Miller Ross (1975) If
  people intend to succeed, then behaviour can be
  seen to be due to their efforts, then it seems
  reasonable to accept more credit for success than
  failure
• Motivational explanation Zuckerman (1979)
  argues the need to maintain self-esteem directly
  affects the attribution of task outcomes

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The False Consensus Effect

• Tendency for people to see own behaviour as
  typical assume that others would do same under
  similar circumstances

• Ross et al. (1977) asked
• students if they would agree to
• walk around campus for 30 mins
• wearing sandwich board saying
• Eat at Joes
• Those who agreed estimated
• 62 of peers would agree
• Those who refused estimated
• 67 of peers would refuse

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Explaining the false consensus effect

• Cognitive
• Our own opinions are more salient to us
  displace consideration of alternatives
• We seek out company of similar others so
  encounter more people with similar beliefs,
  interests etc. experience inflated consensus
• Motivational
• We subjectively justify the correctness of our
  opinions by grounding them in exaggerated
  consensus may enable stable perception of
  reality

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Group-serving biases (Ultimate attribution error)

• Tendency to attribute bad outgroup good ingroup
  behaviour internally, to attribute good
  outgroup bad ingroup behaviour externally
• Hewstone Ward (1985) study of majority malay
  minority chinese ethnic groups in Malaysia
• Participants read stories that were either
  positive or negative involving either ingroup or
  outgroup actor
• Malay group made internal attributions for
  positive ingroup behaviour external for
  negative ingroup behaviour, reverse for outgroup
• However, chinese group made same pattern of
  responses i.e. favoured the outgroup
• Hewstone Ward explain this in terms of the
  particular nature of intergroup relations at this
  time

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Explanations for group-serving bias

• Cognitive -
• Social categorisation generates
  category-congruent expectations (schemas,
  stereotypes)
• Behaviour that is consistent with stereotypes is
  attributed to internal causes (e.g. Bell et al.,
  1976)
• If behaviour confirms expectation may rely on
  dispositions implied by stereotype without
  considering other factors
• Motivational
• Need to obtain self-esteem from group membership
  by comparing with other groups (social identity
  theory)
• Vested interest in maintaining ingroup profile
  that is more positive than relevant outgroups

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Explaining bias motivation or cognition?

• Early research apparently favoured ego-based
  explanations for bias
• However, by manipulating info available, can
  modify biases implying information processing
  errors
• But is social cognition really affect-free?
• Cognitive motivational explanations are linked,
  making it difficult to choose between the two
• Cognitive explanations actually contain
  motivational aspects (Zuckerman, 1979)
• Motivational factors can have an effect on
  information processing (cognition)

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Effects of biases

• Controversy over effects of biases
• Some argue our judgements are highly erroneous
  more errors in real life than the lab (Nisbett
  Ross, 1980)
• Others say we are generally accurate in
  judgements but lab set up to generate error (e.g.
  Funder, 1987)
• Cognitive misers people use least demanding
  cognitions to produce behaviour generally
  adaptive (Taylor, 1981)

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Summary

• Various biases affect social judgements/attributio
  ns
• Fundamental attribution error
• Actor-observer differences
• Self-serving bias
• False consensus
• Biases are probably the result of an interplay
  between cognitive and motivational factors

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References

• Hewstone Stroebe (2001) Introduction to Social
  Psychology, Chapter 7.
• Fraser Burchell (2001) Introducing Social
  Psychology, Chapter 11.