Attribution failure

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Attribution (also correspondence distortion , according to the eng . Correspondence bias ) is a concept of social psychology . It describes the tendency to systematically overestimate the influence of dispositional factors , such as personality traits, attitudes and opinions, on the behavior of others and to underestimate external factors (situational influences). It is so dominant that Lee Ross even described it in 1977 as a "fundamental attribution error" . When assigning the cause , the behavior corresponds to a presumed characteristic of the actor . The first attribution theory to describe this heuristic of judgment comes from Fritz Heider (1958).

If the behavior of a person is explained by the fact that he is a member of a social group , one speaks of the “ultimate attribution error” since Pettigrew (1979) . Often this dispositional attribution of the cause serves to maintain prejudices ("He acts like this because he is a foreigner").

Investigations

  • Jones & Harris (1967) carried out the following experiment with US test subjects: The test subjects were listeners to a speaker who read out a speech that spoke either for or against Fidel Castro . The audience was randomly divided into two groups: One of them received the information that the speaker had been assigned the speech regardless of his or her personal views. The others were informed that the speaker had chosen the speech (pro / contra Castro) himself. Both groups were asked how strongly the speech reflected the speaker's attitude. Those who believed that the speaker had chosen the text themselves were overwhelmingly of the opinion that the speech reflected the speaker's opinion. However, this was also the case, albeit to a lesser extent, in the other group. So even though the subjects knew the speech had been assigned, they still attributed internally.
  • Ditto and colleagues conducted an investigation with American men in the 1970s. The subjects had a conversation with a woman who was secretly an ally of the investigator. They were then told that the woman was writing a brief report of the impression the subject had made on her. After the subjects were allowed to read this alleged report, they were asked to assess how sympathetic they were to the woman. Before that, they were randomly divided into two groups: for some, the report contained only negative impressions, for others only positive impressions.
The experimental group with the negative reports paid little attention to this criticism after it was revealed to them that the woman was a Confident . Her assessment of how likeable the woman would find her was not significantly more negative than that of a control group with balanced reports. They therefore attributed more externally, i.e. to the situation.
Those test persons about whom the report contained only positive impressions, however, said, despite the information that the report had been manipulated, that they were very sympathetic to the woman. In spite of the information, they attributed more internally.
These results are evidence for the fundamental attribution error and at the same time reflect the self- serving bias : The test subjects attribute failure (negative criticism) more externally and success (positive criticism) more internally (“because I am sympathetic to the woman”).
  • Ross and colleagues conducted an investigation in the United States in 1977, in which a quiz show was staged. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three roles: Quizmaster, Interviewed Candidate, or Spectator. The quiz master was then given the task of devising tasks that “show his own wealth of knowledge as comprehensively as possible”. He should then ask the candidate these questions. After the quiz, all three participants should assess the knowledge of the quiz master and the respondent. All three were informed that the quiz master had been allowed to think of the tasks himself. Nevertheless, both viewers and candidates valued the quiz master's wealth of knowledge higher than that of the candidate, although the quiz master had a clear advantage and was allowed to invent questions accordingly. Although the impression of the quiz master's greater knowledge can be traced back to situational influences, the test subjects attributed more internally and thus committed the fundamental attribution error.

causes

attention

Attention is a limited resource. When trying to understand the cause of a person's behavior, we pay most of our attention to that person. That is why there is a tendency to overestimate dispositional , internal causes. Furthermore, at the time of the behavior the external causes are often no longer present or not visible, or their effect on the actor is difficult to assess.

Perceptual salience

Taylor and Fiske (1975) showed that salient , i.e. conspicuous objects have a major influence on the causal attributions we make. They placed observers around two discussing actors in such a way that they could either look only one, only the other or both in the face equally well. Those who could only see one actor then described him as the one who determined the topics of conversation and dominated the discussion.

Two-step process

As a judgment heuristic , the attribution error is committed quickly, unconsciously and automatically. Only those who are motivated and have free resources (time, concentration) switch to conscious, controlled thinking and question internal attribution . But even then we are subject to a further distortion of judgment, namely the anchor heuristic , which leads to the fact that we do not judge objectively now, but merely shift the first misjudgment a little in the direction of external influences - but usually not far enough.

Culture influence

People in more collectivistic cultures, such as those found in Asia, make the attribution error less often if situational factors are clearly recognizable. If people from collectivist cultures do not receive situational information, they too tend to internal attribution, i.e. a distortion of correspondence.

Actor-observer difference

While situational factors are often not recognizable to observers, they are very well known to the actor. Attention is also usually directed outwards, towards the situation. Hence, the attribution error is only made when explaining the behavior of others.

Self-worthy attributions

People are strongly motivated to defend their self-esteem against threats, so they tend to attribute their own successes internally and failures externally, especially when there is no hope of improving performance. This type of attribution error is also called self-serving bias . People want to make a good impression on other people. When asked about the causes of success or failure, they respond as if they were self-serving attributions.

conspiracy theories

According to the American philosopher Steven Clarke, the fundamental attribution error is the reason why supporters of conspiracy theories do not give up their conviction that behind a certain event lies the malicious, secret action of a group of conspirators , even if this thesis is only too high social or intellectual Keeps costs up. They would then have to admit that situational factors are more important than dispositional ones: that for example the persistence with which American authorities refused to discuss the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico , cannot be attributed to their propensity for conspiratorial, paternalistic behavior is, but on the situational factor that no UFO crashed there.

See also

literature

  • Gilbert, DT, Malone, PS (1995). The correspondence bias . Psychological Bulletin, 117, pp. 21-38
  • Jones, EE & Harris, VA (1967). The attribution of attitudes . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3, pp. 1-24
  • Ross, Lee (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process . Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, L. Berkowitz (Ed.). New York: Academic Press

Individual evidence

  1. ^ E. Aronson, TD Wilson, RM Akert: Social Psychology . Pearson study. 6th edition 2008. ISBN 978-3-8273-7359-5 , p. 108
  2. ↑ Thomas Pettigrew (1979): The ultimate attribution error: Extending Allport's cognitive analysis of prejudice . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 5, pp. 461-476
  3. ^ E. Aronson, TD Wilson, RM Akert: Sozialpsychologie , p. 109
  4. ^ SE Taylor, ST Fiske: Point of view and perceptions of causality . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, pp. 439-445
  5. ^ E. Aronson, T. D. Wilson, R. M. Akert: Sozialpsychologie , p. 111
  6. ^ I. Choi, RE Nesbitt (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and in the actor-observer bias . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, pp. 949-960
  7. ↑ DS Krull et al. (1999). The fundamental correspondence bias in individualist and collectivist cultures . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, pp. 1208-1219
  8. ↑ EE Jones, RE Nisbett (1972). The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior . In: EE Jones et al. (Ed.): Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior . Morristown, New Jersey: General Learning Press
  9. ↑ CS Carver et al. (1980). Ego-defensive attribution among two categories of observers . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 6, pp. 4-50
  10. ^ E. Goffman (1959). Presentation of self in everyday life . Garden City, New Jersey: Anchor / Doubleday
  11. ↑ J. Greenberg et al. (1982). The self-serving attributional bias: Beyond self-presentation . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18, pp. 56-67
  12. ^ Steve Clarke: Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theorizing . In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences 32/2 (2002), pp. 144-147.