Errors in Judging Others: The Fundamental Attribution Error PSY 102 – Week 3 – Lecture 5

How Fair are You? Do you like to give people the “benefit of the doubt”? Do you gather as many facts as possible before you form your opinions of others? When people make instant and inaccurate judgments about you, how does that make you feel? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aW3 5dU_ZJg

Attribution Theory Attributions are the reasons we give for our own and others behaviors. People are motivated to understand the causes of behavior. Attribution theory seeks to explain how and why people make these causal attributions.

Why is this baby smiling?

Personal attributions Situational attributions Fritz Heider argued that there are two general types of attributions that people make: Personal attributions Situational attributions

Personal attributions Explanations in terms of personal characteristics. For example: “The baby must be a happy baby.” Other examples: “He scored well on the exam because he is smart.” “She tripped because she is clumsy.”

Situational attributions Explanations in terms of situational factors. For example: “Someone must have just played with the baby .” Other examples: “He scored well because it was an easy test.” “She tripped because a squirrel ran in front of her.”

Fundamental Attribution Error = tendency to attribute another person’s behavior to their own disposition rather than to the environment

The Fundamental Attribution Error is that we overestimate the power of the person and underestimate the power of the situation. (The availability heuristic partly explains why this error occurs.)

Why do people make the fundamental attribution error? The situation is not salient when people make attributions for the behavior of others, but the situation is salient when making attributions for one’s own behavior. Thus, people are more inclined to take the situation into account when explaining their own behavior.

Causal Attributions Internal External Stable Unstable Ability, Intelligence, Personality Traits Task difficulty Stable Luck, Transitory weather conditions Effort, Mood Unstable Also, there are 2 other dimensions: Global versus Specific

Fig 16. 4 - An view of the fundamental attribution error Fig 16.4 - An view of the fundamental attribution error. According to Gilbert (1989) and others, the nature of attribution processes favor the fundamental attribution error. Gilbert posits that people tend to automatically make internal attributions with little effort and then may expend additional effort to adjust for the influence of situational factors, which can lead to an external attribution. Thus, external attributions for others’ behavior require more thought and effort, which makes them less common than personal attributions.

Self-serving bias People do not make objective situational / personal attributions for their own behavior, though. They tend to attribute their successes to dispositional factors, and their failures to situational factors. For example: “I did well on the test because I am smart,” or “I did poor on the test because I didn’t get enough sleep.

How do people make attributions? Kelley argued that people take three factors into account when making a personal vs. situational attribution: Consistency: Is the baby always smiling? Distinctiveness: Are there occasions on which the baby doesn’t smile? Consensus: Do all babies smile?

If consistency is high, and distinctiveness / consensus are low, then a personal attribution is more likely: “The baby is always smiling, never displays other emotions (like crying), and this is not typical of babies in general. Therefore, this baby must have a happy disposition.” If consistency is high, and distinctiveness / consensus are also high, then a situational attribution is more likely. “The baby is always smiling when tickled, but displays different emotions in other circumstances. Smiling when tickled is typical of all babies. Therefore, this baby is smiling because it was tickled”

explained: Seymore makes Kelly’s Cube (Covariation) Model of Attribution The behavior to be explained: Seymore makes a pass at Lolita (Consistency) (Distinctiveness) In a classroom At a party At work Sister Mary Teresa Lolita At a bar Marcie Susie Seymore Tom Dick Harry (Consensus)

Research example A researcher assigned participants to read out loud either a pro-Castro essay or an anti-Castro essay. A group of listeners rated the extent to which the reader held pro-Castro or anti-Castro beliefs. Even though the listeners knew that the readers had no choice in which essay to read, the raters judged the pro-Castro readers as being more pro-Castro than the anti-Castro readers. The listeners failed to take into account the strong situational factor present (that the readers had no choice about which essay to read).

Does Culture Influence the Fundamental Attribution Error? Individualism Concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications Independent self Western cultures Collectivism Giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one’s identity accordingly Interdependent self Asian, African, and Central and South American cultures

Person Perception: Forming Impressions of Others Effects of physical appearance Cognitive schemas Stereotypes Prejudice and discrimination Subjectivity in person perception Evolutionary perspectives

Fig 16. 1 – Examples of social schemas Fig 16.1 – Examples of social schemas. Everyone has social schemas for various “types” of people, such as sophisticated professionals or working-class stiffs. Social schemas are clusters of beliefs that guide information processing.

CTQ #5 Everyone commits the fundamental attribution error every day. Everyone? Yes, everyone. Write about one (3 points) or two (5 points) FAEs you made – or made about you – in the recent past or over the next week.