A basic theme we develop throughout this book is that although we generally do a good job of thinking about the social world, we are far from perfect in this respect. In fact, our efforts to understand other people—and ourselves—are subject to several types of errors that can lead us to false conclusions about why others have acted as they have and how they will act in the future. We now describe several of these errors.
THE CORRESPONDENCE BIAS: OVERESTIMATING THE ROLE OF DISPOSITIONAL
CAUSES Imagine that you witness the following scene. A man arrives at a meeting
1 hour late. Upon entering, he drops his notes on the floor. While trying to pick them up, his glasses fall off and break. Later, he spills coffee all over his tie. How would you explain these events? The chances are good that you would reach conclusions such as “This per- son is disorganized and clumsy.” Are such attributions accurate? Perhaps, but it is also
action identification
The level of interpretation we place on an action; low-level interpretations focus on the action itself, while higher-level interpretations focus on its ultimate goals.
FIGURE 3.9 Are Improbable Events “Meant to Be”—Caused by Fate—or By Our Own Actions?
Research findings indicate that improbable but important events are often attributed to fate rather than to personal actions. Recently, it has been found that religious persons who have strong beliefs in God and persons from cultures with strong beliefs in causal complexity (i.e., many factors combine to produce unlikely events) are more likely to make such attributions than other persons. (Source: Based on data from Norenzayan & Lee, 2010).
0.24 0.17 0.44 0.37 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 Religious Nonreligious Mean
Proportion of Fate Response
s
Participants' Cultural Heritage Religious persons attribute improbable
events to fate more than nonreligious persons; this was true for both
Europeans and East Asians
Europeans East Asians
possible that the man was late because of unavoidable delays at the airport, he dropped his notes because they were printed on slick paper, and he spilled his coffee because the cup was too hot to hold. The fact that you would be less likely to consider such poten- tial external causes of his behavior illustrates what Jones (1979) labeled correspondence bias—the tendency to explain others’ actions as stemming from (corresponding to) dispositions even in the presence of clear situational causes (e.g., Gilbert & Malone, 1995). This bias seems to be so general in scope that many social psychologists refer to it as the fundamental attribution error. In short, we tend to perceive others as acting as they do because they are “that kind of person,” rather than because of the many external factors that may influence their behavior. This tendency occurs in a wide range of contexts but appears to be strongest in situations where both consensus and distinctiveness are low, as predicted by Kelley’s theory, and when we are trying to pre- dict others’ behavior in the far-off future rather than the immediate future (Nussbaum, Trope, & Liberman, 2003; Van Overwalle, 1997). Why? Because when we think of the far-off future we tend to do so in abstract terms and this leads us to think about oth- ers in terms of global traits; as a result, we tend to overlook potential external causes of their behavior. While this fundamental attribution error has been demonstrated in many studies, it was first reported by Jones and Harris (1967) and then, a few years later, by Nisbett, Caputo, Legbant, and Marecek (1973). This research had such a strong effect on subsequent efforts to understand attribution that we now describe it in some detail.
THE CORRESPONDENCE BIAS: STRONGER THAN YOU MIGHT GUESS! Suppose that
you read a short essay written by another person—an essay dealing with an important topic. On the basis of this essay, you would get an idea of where the writer stands with respect to this issue—is she “pro” or “anti”? So far, so good. But now assume that before reading the essay, you learned that the author had been instructed to write it so as to support a particular position—again, “pro” or “anti.” From a purely rational perspective, you should realize that in this case, the essay tells you nothing about the writer’s true views; after all, she (or he) is merely following instructions. But two social psychologists—Jones and Harris (1967)—reasoned that in fact, the fundamental attri- bution error is so strong that even in the second case, we would assume that we can determine the writer’s views from the essay—even though this person was told to write it in a particular way.
To test this reasoning, they asked research participants to read a short essay that either supported or opposed Fidel Castro’s rule in Cuba (remember, the research was conducted in 1967). In one condition, participants were told that the essay-writer had free choice as to what position to take. In another, they were told that he or she was instructed to write the essay in a pro-Castro or anti-Castro manner. After reading the essay, participants were asked to estimate the essay-writer’s true beliefs. Results were clear: even in the condition where the writer had been instructed to take one position or the other, research participants assumed that they could tell the writer’s real views from the essay. In other words, they attributed the essay-writer’s actions to internal factors (his or her true beliefs), even though they knew that this was not the case! Clearly, this was a dramatic demonstration of the fundamental attribution error in action.
Subsequent research that can also be viewed as “classic” in the field reached the same conclusions. For instance, in a revealing study by Nisbett et al. (1973), participants were shown a series of 20 paired traits (e.g., quiet–talkative, lenient–firm) and were asked to decide which of these traits were true of themselves, their best friend, their father, a casual acquaintance—or Walter Cronkite (a famous newscaster at the time). The participants were also offered a third choice: They could choose “depends on the situation.” Results again offered strong evidence for the fundamental attribution error: the participants in the study chose “depends on the situation” much more often for
correspondence bias
(fundamental attribution error)
The tendency to explain others’ actions as stemming from dispositions even in the presence of clear situational causes.
fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias)
The tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional cues on others’ behavior.
themselves than for the other people. In other words, they reported that their own behavior varied from situation to situ- ation, whereas that of other people (their best friend, father, or even a famous news anchor) reflected primarily personal traits (see Figure 3.10).
Together, early studies like these provided powerful evidence for the fact that our efforts to understand others’ behavior—and our own actions—are not totally rational. On the contrary, they are influenced by a number of “tilts” or biases; and among these, the fundamental attribution error is one of the strongest.
THE CORRESPONDENCE BIAS AND GENDER: “SHE’S
EMOTIONAL, BUT HE’S JUST HAVING A BAD DAY” Be
honest: do you believe, in your heart of hearts, that women are more emotional than men—that they are more likely to have strong emotions and to let these feelings influence their judgments and behavior? If so, you have a lot of company because even today, after truly major changes in beliefs about women and men, many people still hold the view that women are more emotional than men. In fact, research designed to find out if this idea is correct has generally yielded nega- tive findings (e.g., Feldman Barrett, Robin, Pietromonaco, & Russell, 1998). But the belief persists anyway. Why? The correspondence bias offers one explanation: Perhaps when people behave emotionally, we are more likely to attribute this to stable characteristics for women than for men. In other words, when both a man and a woman demonstrate equal levels of emotionality, we attribute the woman’s reactions to her personality but the man’s reactions to external factors in the situation. In short, the correspondence bias operates more strongly with respect to attributions about women than men, at least in this context.
Clear evidence for this reasoning has been reported by
Barrett and Bliss-Moreau (2009). They showed photos of males and females exhibiting specific emotions on their faces: anger, fear, sadness, disgust. Each photo was accompa- nied by a sentence explaining the emotion shown (see Figure 3.11 for photos similar to the ones used in the research). For instance, a sad face was accompanied by the follow- ing words: “Was disappointed by a lover.” An angry face was linked to “Was cut off by another driver.” In short, participants were given clear situational explanations for why the people shown were experiencing their emotions.
After viewing the faces and sentences, participants saw the same faces once again, but this time they were told to make a “snap decision” about whether each person shown was emotional or having a bad day; they did this by pressing two different keys on a keyboard. It was predicted that despite the situational explanations offered for the target person’s emotional expressions, participants would be more likely to label the women as emotional and the men as simply having a bad day. That’s precisely what happened, and these findings suggest that one reason for persistence of beliefs that women are more emotional than men involves the fact that the correspondence bias operates more strongly for women.
WHY DOES THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR OCCUR? Social psycholo-
gists have conducted many studies in order to find out why this bias occurs (e.g., Robins, Spranca, & Mendelsohn, 1996), but the issue is still somewhat in doubt. One possibility is
FIGURE 3.10 The Fundamental Attribution Error in Action: Classic Evidence
Participants in the study shown here were asked to indicate which of the traits in 20 pairs of traits were true of themselves and several other people (their best friend, fathers, etc.). They also had the option of choosing another response: “Depends on the situation.” They were much more likely to do this with respect to their own behavior than that of other persons. In other words, they recognized that their own actions were strongly influenced by external causes, but assumed that the actions of other persons stem primarily from internal causes, such as their own traits. (Source: Based on data from Nisbett et al., 1973).
Per
cent ”Depends on Situation“
Choices
Self Best Friend
Father Acquaintance Walter Cronkite 20 25 35 40 45 30 Target of Attributions 40 30 32 31 24 Participants report their own behavior; varies (depends on the situation) to a greater
that when we observe another per- son’s behavior, we tend to focus on his or her actions and the context in which the person behaves; hence potential situational causes of his or her behavior often fade into the background. As a result, dis- positional causes (internal causes) are easier to notice (they are more salient) than situational ones. In other words, from our perspec- tive, the person we are observ- ing is high in perceptual salience and is the focus of our attention, whereas situational factors that might also have influenced this person’s behavior are less salient and so seem less important to us. Another explanation is that we notice such situational causes but give them insufficient weight in our attributions. Still another explanation is when we focus on others’ behavior, we tend to begin by assuming that their actions reflect their underlying character- istics. Then, we attempt to correct for any possible effects of the external world—the cur- rent situation—by taking these into account. (This involves the mental shortcut known as anchoring and adjustment, which we discussed in Chapter 2.) This correction, however, is often insufficient—we don’t make enough allowance for the impact of external factors. We don’t give enough weight to the possibility of delays at the airport or a slippery floor when reaching our conclusions (Gilbert & Malone, 1995).
Evidence for this two-step process—a quick, automatic reaction followed by a slower, more controlled corrections—has been obtained in many studies (e.g., Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Gilbert, 2002), so it seems to offer a compelling explanation for the correspondence bias (i.e., fundamental attribution error). In fact, it appears that most people are aware of this process, or at least aware of the fact they start by assuming that other people behave as they do because of internal causes (e.g., their personality, their true beliefs), but then correct this assumption, at least to a degree, by taking account of situational constraints. Perhaps even more interesting, we tend to assume that we adjust our attributions to take account of situational constraints more than other people do. In other words, we perceive that we are less likely to fall victim to the correspon- dence bias than others.
THE ACTOR–OBSERVER EFFECT: “YOU FELL; I WAS PUSHED” The fundamental
attribution error, powerful as it is, applies mainly to attributions we make about others—we don’t tend to “overattribute” our own actions to external causes. This fact helps explain another and closely related type of attributional bias known as the actor–observer effect
(Jones & Nisbett, 1971), the tendency to attribute our own behavior to situational (external) causes but that of others to dispositional (internal) ones. Thus, when we see another person trip and fall, we tend to attribute this event to his or her clumsiness. If we trip, however, we are more likely to attribute this event to situational causes, such as ice on the sidewalk.
Why does the actor–observer effect occur? In part because we are quite aware of the many external factors affecting our own actions but are less aware of such factors when we turn our attention to the actions of other people. Thus, we tend to perceive our own
actor-observer effect
The tendency to attribute our own behavior mainly to situational causes but the behavior of others mainly to internal (dispositional) causes.
FIGURE 3.11 The Correspondence Bias and Gender
When shown photos of persons experiencing strong emotions, along with explanations for why they were having these emotions, research participants still attributed women’s emotional reactions to dispositional characteristics (they are “emotional”), but men’s reactions to situational (external) causes (they are just having a “bad day”).
behavior as arising largely from situational causes, but that of others as deriving mainly from their traits or dispositions.
THE SELF-SERVING BIAS: “I’M GOOD; YOU ARE LUCKY” Suppose that you write a
paper and when you get it back, you find the following comment on the first page: “An outstanding paper—one of the best I’ve seen in years. A.” To what will you attribute this success? Probably, you will explain it in terms of internal causes—your high level of talent, the effort you invested in writing the paper, and so on.
Now, in contrast, imagine that when you get the paper back, these comments are writ- ten on it. “Unsatisfactory paper—one of the worst I’ve seen in years. D.” How will you interpret this outcome? The chances are good that you will be tempted to focus mainly on external (situational factors)—the difficulty of the task, your professor’s unfairly harsh grading standards, the fact that you didn’t have enough time to do a good job, and so on.
This tendency to attribute our own positive outcomes to internal causes but nega- tive ones to external factors is known as the self-serving bias, and it appears to be both general in scope and powerful in its effects (Brown & Rogers, 1991; Miller & Ross, 1975).
Why does this tilt in our attributions occur? Several possibilities have been suggested, but most of these fall into two categories: cognitive and motivational explanations. The cognitive model suggests that the self-serving bias stems mainly from certain tendencies in the way we process social information (Ross, 1977; see also Chapter 2). Specifically, it suggests that we attribute positive outcomes to internal causes, but negative ones to external causes because we expect to succeed and have a tendency to attribute expected outcomes to internal causes more than to external causes. In contrast, the motivational explanation suggests that the self-serving bias stems from our need to protect and enhance our self-esteem or the related desire to look good to others (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986). While both cognitive and motivational factors may well play a role in this kind of attributional error, research evidence seems to offer more support for the motivational view (e.g., Brown & Rogers, 1991).
Regardless of the origins of the self-serving bias, it can be the cause of much inter- personal friction. It often leads people working with others on a joint task to perceive that they, not their partners, have made the major contributions, and to blame others in the group for negative outcomes.
Interestingly, the results of several studies indicate that the strength of the self- serving bias varies across cultures (e.g., Oettingen, 1995; Oettingen & Seligman, 1990). In particular, it is weaker in cultures, such as those in Asia, that place a greater emphasis on group outcomes and group harmony, than it is in Western cultures, where individual accomplishments are emphasized and it is considered appropriate for winners to gloat (at least a little!) over their victories. For example, Lee and Seligman (1997) found that Americans of European descent showed a larger self-serving bias than either Chinese Americans or mainland Chinese. Once again, therefore, we see that cultural factors often play an important role even in very basic aspects of social behavior and social thought.
THE SELF-SERVING BIAS AND EXPLANATIONS FOR UNEXPECTED, NEGATIVE
EVENTS Everyone experiences unexpected negative events: your computer “eats”
important files that can no longer be found; your school’s team loses even though it was strongly favored to win. How do we explain such events? Often, it appears, we attri- bute them to external agencies: our computer was “out to get us,” our school’s team was robbed by biased referees, and so on. But when positive events occur—we find the missing files, our team wins—we tend to attribute these events to internal causes—our competence in handling our computer, our team’s skills and talents. In other words, we tend to attribute negative events to external causes, but positive ones to internal causes just as the self-serving bias suggests. In a sense, though, this is an extension of the self- serving bias because it focuses on agents—intentional agents that initiate and cause the negative events (our computer, evil referees). That we do tend to show this negativity
self-serving bias
The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to internal causes (e.g., one’s own traits or characteristics) but negative outcomes or events to external causes (e.g., chance, task difficulty).
bias in explaining unfavorable outcomes is illustrated by research conducted by Morewedge (2009).
Participants in the study conducted by Morewedge (2009) played an “ultimatum game” in which a partner was given $3.00 and could divide it in any way the part- ner wished. Participants could then decide to accept or decline these divisions. In one condition, the partner offered very favorable divisions: $2.25 to the partici- pant, only $0.75 to the partner. In another the partner