Overview
Attribution errors pertain to judgements made about others' character on the basis of their actions.
Types
| Name | Description | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Fund. Attribution Error | The tendency for people to under-emphasize situational explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations for their behavior. | [1] |
| Hostile Attribution Bias | The tendency to interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign. | [2] |
| Actor-Observer Asymmetry | When people judge their own behavior, and they are the actor, they are more likely to attribute their actions to the particular situation than to a generalization about their personality. However, when an observer is explaining the behavior of another person (the actor), they are more likely to attribute this behavior to the actors' overall disposition rather than to situational factors. | [3] |
Performance Perspectives
- Basis to motivate noticing then constructively second-guessing character attributions of others plausibly improving ones ability to maintain composure under pressure.
Key Research
Simplified from [1]:
- A meta-analysis of the 173 qualified studies of the actor-observer asymmetry identified what conditions were necessary to find that the effect holds [1,4]:
- the other person was portrayed as very unusual,
- when hypothetical events were explained,
- when people knew each-other well, or
- when researcher degrees of freedom were high [4]
- Two asymmetries were observed, supporting a self-serving bias rather than an actor–observer asymmetry [4]:
- negative events were asymmetrically attributed to traits in others
- the reverse for positive events,
References & Acknowledgements
[1] Wikipedia contributors. "Fundamental attribution error." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Jun. 2020. Web. 23 Jul. 2020.
[2] Wikipedia contributors. "Hostile attribution bias." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 May. 2020. Web. 23 Jul. 2020.
[3] Wikipedia contributors. "Actor–observer asymmetry." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Jul. 2020. Web. 23 Jul. 2020.
[4] Malle, Bertram F. (2006). "The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution: A (surprising) meta-analysis". Psychological Bulletin. 132 (6): 895–919. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.895. PMID 17073526. S2CID 12065432.
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