week 22

attribution
2 March 2016
Attribution Errors
This is a fascinating part of social psychology, but one that many students struggle with.
Remember the key definitions:
Attribution: the process by which individuals explain the causes of behaviour and events.
These explanations can be situational (because of the situation or environment that a
person is in), or dispositional (because of the nature of a person, e.g. personality).
Fundamental Attribution Error: When we judge the behaviours of other people, and we
ignore the role of situation and explain their behaviour based on dispositional factors, e.g.
Ben is late because he is lazy. We ignore any possible situational reasons for his lateness,
for example bad traffic.
It is called the FUNDAMENTAL error because we ALL do itwe cannot help ourselves!
There are too many people and too many situations to fully understand, so we make snap
processing decisions.
Self Serving Bias: When we judge the behaviour of ourselves. If we do something great,
we explain it via our disposition, e.g. My essay gained 20/22 because I am a really hard
worker, but when we do something negative, we explain it via our situation, e.g. My essay
gained 3/22 because the teacher did not explain the topic well enough.
We do this to protect our self esteem we serve ourselves!

22.01 Attribution Theory

Read pp. 103-106 of the Crane and Hannibal textbook, Section 4.1:
Sociocultural level of analysis: sociocultural cognition.
Read pp. 11-15 of the Pamoja Supplementary eText, The Sociocultural Level of
Analysis: Section 2, Sociocultural Cognition: A. The role of situational and
dispositional factors in explaining behaviour & B. Errors in attribution.

This reading focuses on the following Learning Outcomes:

Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior

Discuss two errors in attribution

pg. 103-106 (section 4.1)

SCLOA: sociocultural cognition
attribution theory
o Fritz Heider in The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations 1958
o attribution: how people interpret and explain causal
relationships in the social world
o ex. the Azande of southwestern Sudan studied by E.E. Evans
Pritchard in 1937

actor-observer effect: making an attribution about behavior

depending on if theyre performing or observing somebody else
doing it
situational factors: something to do with external
factors when observing their own behavior
termites eating doorframe
disposition factors: something to do with personal
(internal) factors when observing someone else
the individuals killed were unforgiving or out of
line with their ancestors
errors in attributions
more likely to attribute others behavior with dispositional
factors
fundamental attribution error: when people
overestimate the role of dispositional factors and
underestimate situational factors
dispositional - personality
situational - circumstantial
attribute others behavior to disposition
western culture - people are accountable for their actions
Ross et al. (1977)
aim: to see if student participants would make the
fundamental attribution error even when they knew
that all the actors were simply playing a role
procedure:
three roles: game show host, contestant,
audience member
hosts designed questions, audienced watch
series of questions
audience was asked to rank intelligence of
game show participants
results:
ranked host as most intelligent
despite knowing the situational factor
that they were assigned the host role

didnt attribute situational

factor
attribute dispositional factors intelligence

evaluation
university students associate professor with
authority
attribution error of associating
authority with the person who asks
questions and answers questions
cant be generalized
knowledge of a particular topic is perceived
as intelligent
intelligence is associated with
authority
self-serving bias (SSB)
taking credit for success, attributing it to
dispositional factors
dissociate themselves from failure, attributing them
to situational factors
Lau and Russel 1980
American football coaches associate
wins to internal factors and losses to
external factors
good shapes, hard work, talent
injuries, weather, fouls
committed by other team
factors beyond control
Greenberg et al. 1982
SSB protects self-esteem
o impacted by cognitive
factors
Miller and Ross 1975
expect to succeed
attribute to skills and ability
bad luck, external factors
depressed people make dispositional
attributions
o cultural differences
Kashima and Triandis 1986
US and Japanese students
remember details of slides of scenes
from unfamiliar countries
Americans attributed success to ability
Japanese associated failures with lack
of ability
modesty bias
Bond, Leung, and Wan 1982

Chinese students who showed SSB

instead of modesty, were more
popular
Kashima and Triandis say thats
because of culture of Asian societies
if people derive their self-esteem not
from individual accomplishment but
from group identity, they are less
likely to use the SSB.

pg. 11-15
SCLOA
2. Sociocultural cognition
A. The role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior
a. attribution theory: used to understand others actions based on
experience of similar situations
b. situational (external) vs. dispositional (internal) factors
c. actor-observer effect: explaining personal behavior differently than
others because we know less about other people
d. Heider and Simmel 1944
i.
describe movement of abstract geometric shapes
ii.
described movement in terms of human intentions
1. anthropomorphism
b. Zimbardo
i.
situational factor outweigh dispositional ones
ii.
role of prisoner or guard
iii.
behavior conformed to situational expectations of the role
iv.
8 prisoners developed acute emotional disturbance
b. Stanley Milgram
i.
investigated the power of the inclination to obey authority
ii.
obedient to authority figure
iii.
capability of acting in an inhumane way when instructed
iv.
situation is more powerful than disposition
b. Reijntjes et al. 2013
i.
interaction between situational and dispositional factors in
influencing displaced aggression
ii.
engaging in direct aggression increases or decreases displaced
aggression
iii.
investigated how situational factors (the nearness and intensity of
the provoking person) and dispositional factors (*callousness, trait
aggressiveness) jointly influence displaced and direct aggression
in male adolescents
iv.
175 participants, average 13.1 years
v.
completed a personal profile to be evaluated by peers
vi.
aggression against these peer judges (direct aggression) and
against other innocent peers (displaced aggression)
vii.
displaced aggression when received negative feedback
viii.
Higher levels of callousness (dispositional factor) specifically
predicted more displaced (but not direct) aggression
1. Callousness = having no concern for the feelings of others.

B. Errors in Attribution
a. fundamental attribution theory: tendency to overestimate the effect of
disposition or personality and underestimate the effect of the situation in
explaining social behaviour
b. personal failures- situational factors, success- dispositional
c. Vignovic and Thompson 2010
i.
absence of situational information causes participants to commit
the fundamental attribution error
ii.
dispositional explanations are formed
iii.
effects of technical and etiquette language violations
iv.
participants formed negative perceptions of the sender of an email containing technical language violations.
1. reduced when having situational information
b. self-serving bias
i.
equate our successes with dispositional and failures with
situational attributes (Miller and Ross, 1975)
ii.
common in individualistic societies
iii.
method of protecting our self-esteem
iv.
Duval and Silvia 2002
1. argued that evidence for the self-serving bias (attributing
success internally to dispositional factors and failure
externally to situational factors) is inconsistent
2. failure is attributed internally when people perceive that
they can improve

22.02 Errors in Attribution

This week you read about the Fundamental Attribution Error, (FAE) Self-serving Bias (SSB) and
the modesty bias. These concepts can help you analyze behavior in terms of the errors people
make in attribution.
After completing this activity, you should be able to discuss two errors of attribution.

http://blogs.pamojaeducation.com/psychology/2012/03/20/presentation-on-attributionerros/

IB Psychology
Learning Outcomes
Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behaviour
Discuss two errors of attribution.

Activity
Read each scenario and identify the error that is being made in attribution. In addition,
indicate if you see evidence of SSB or a modesty bias. Explain your thinking.
Scenario

Attribution/Bias

1. Paul thinks that Janet was in a car accident because

FAE

she is a bad driver.

2. Lindsey sees a homeless woman on the street corner

and wonders what events in her life resulted in the
womans position.

Not FAE, no disposition, but is

making attributions as to what
lead to the womans situation

3. Steven just received his test back from his teacher and

Modesty bias

sees that he received the highest marks possible. He

thinks, Wow! I have a great teacher who really instructs
well, and my study group worked with me especially well
this unit.

4. Emma watches as a freshman is walking down the hall

FAE

of school, trips, and drops all of his books. She turns to

her friends and says, What a loser!

5. Keith made a cake for his friends birthday. When he

took the cake out of the oven it was burnt and smelled
salty. Keith thought to himself, The recipe must have
been wrong!

6. When Johns mother came home from the office she

was smiling and laughing. John thought to himself, My
mom is nice!

Self-serving bias, protecting

self-esteem, failure based on
situational factors
FAE, attributing dispositional
situation

7. Paula played very well in an important game of soccer

and she thought to herself: My team was so supportive
and they really helped me do well.

Modesty bias

22.03 Summative SAQ: Errors of Attribution

Outline two errors of attribution.

Give a brief account or summary.

Connection of study to question

This study reflects and demonstrates that the FAE occurs because participants attributed the
behaviour of hosts and contestants to dispositional factors (intelligence), rather than situational
factors (role)
They argued that the observers and contestants had ignored the fact that the questioners had an
unfair situational advantage (compiled the questions) and had overestimated dispositional
factors in making their judgements.

Name: Natalie Cassello

Teacher: Helen Loughran

8 March 2016
IB Psychology
Learning Outcomes
Discuss two errors of attribution.

Activity
Review pp. 104-106 Course Companion eText and pp. 14-15 of Pamoja
Supplementary eText.
Complete the tables
Level of Analysis

Investigator/s

Date

SCLOA

Ross et al.

1977

Description (Aim, Type of study, Participants, Procedures, Findings, Conclusions):

The aim of this laboratory study was to see if student participants would make the
fundamental attribution error even when they knew that all the actors were simply
playing a role. The participants were university students. The procedure included
dividing the participants between three roles: game show hosts, contestants, and
audience members. The hosts designed questions, and then the audience watched
the series of questions and answers. Finally, the audience was asked to rank
intelligence of game show participants. Results showed that the members ranked the
hosts as most intelligent despite knowing the situational factor that they were assigned
the host role, so they didnt attribute situational factor to the dispositional factor of
intelligence. The conclusions supports the fundamental attribution theory, which is
tendency to overestimate the effect of the disposition and underestimate the effect of
the situation in explaining social behavior.
Evaluation
Methodology Considerations

Ethical
Considerations

Gender/Cultural Considerations

As all participants were university

students, they associated the host
with intelligence, similarly to their
professors, or someone who states
and answers questions, with
authority.
Results cant be generalized
because participants are students.

No ethical
issues.

Both genders were involved,

however, only social settings of
being a student in one
university were used, meaning
this study is not cross-cultural.

Errors of Attributions
Type of
Bias
SelfServing
Bias

Modesty
Bias

Explanation

Brief description of Research Study

when people take

credit for their
successes,
attributing them to
dispositional
factors, and
dissociate
themselves from
their failures,
attributing them to
situational factors.
Method of
protecting selfesteem

Miller & Ross (1975): if we expect to succeed, and

we do, then we associate success with dispositional
factors, but if we attribute failure to situational
factors. If failure is expected, then failure is
associated with dispositional factors and success if
attributed to situational factors.

Explaining failure
to lack of
dispositional
factors

Kashima & Triandis (1986): say thats

because of culture of Asian societies and
if people derive their self-esteem not
from individual accomplishment but from
group identity, they are less likely to use
the SSB.

Duval & Silvia (2002): argued that

evidence for the self-serving bias
(attributing success internally to
dispositional factors and failure externally
to situational factors) is inconsistent and
failure is attributed internally when people perceive
that they can improve.

Attribution is the act of associate behavior with some form of justification, which is
either dispositional factors, explained by internal factors, such as personality, or
situational factors, explained by external factors, such as the circumstances of the
environment.
One error of attribution is the fundamental attribution error (FAE), which is the
tendency to associate success with dispositional (internal) factors, and attribute
failures with situational (external) factors. This error of attribution was studied by
Ross in 1977, with an aim of investigating whether participants would make the
fundamental attribution error, even knowing the situational circumstance of
participants acting. The procedure included splitting the group of participants into
roles of game show hosts, who would ask and answer questions, contestants, and
audience members, who were asked to rank the intelligence of the game show
participants. Results showed that the audience tended to associate intelligence more
with the hosts, rather than the contestants, even though they were aware that they

were acting. This supports the FAE, as the participants only attributed the
dispositional factors of the actors and not the actual situational factor of role playing.
This is a fundamental error, as it is a basis that ever human uses inevitably because
there are so many different possible situations which can be associated to any event,
so we only look at the dispositional factors as an explanation.
A second error of attribution is the self-serving bias (SSB), in which is when people
associate their own success with dispositional factors but attribute any failure to
situational factors. This is a method of protecting one's self-esteem seen in many
western cultures. This error of attribution was studied by Miller and Ross in 1995, who
found that if one expects to succeed, then they associate that success with
dispositional factors, such as their own intelligence, but if they unexpectedly fail,
then they'll attribute that failure to situational factors, such as the poor job done by
their teacher. The opposite is true, in which one who expects to fail will attribute that
failure to dispositional factors and associate unexpected success with situational
factors, such as luck. The SSB allows for people to take credit of positive actions, but
disassociate from any negative connotations of their actions.

22.04 SCLOA Empirical Studies Checklist

due week 29

22.05 Psych Terms Wiki: Attribution