Attribution Essay

Alexandra Kaye
5/3/14
LAQ 2
IB Psychology SL

Q: Discuss two errors in attribution.

Within the social-cultural level of analysis researchers study the social context in which behavior occurs. Humans have the natural need to understand why things happen. In order to explain why things happen humans use attribution. Attribution is defined as how people interpret and explain causal relationships in the social world. The origin of the attribution theory is traced back to the writings of Fritz Heider. When people attribute things they attribute them to either situational or dispositional factors. A situational factor is something to do with external factors, where dispositional factors have something to do with personal (internal factors). Two theories that aim to explain errors in attribution are the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias.
The first theory is the fundamental attribution error. This theory argues that people tend over estimate the role of dispositional factors and underestimate the situational factors. Psychologists argue that this is such a common error because humans tend to think of themselves as flexible, and ever changing. People do not like to think of themselves as a “type” of person. When a person does not have enough information to make a balanced decision they attribute behavior to disposition. In Western culture placing the blame on the individual is a common practice. An important study to investigate fundamental attribution is Lee et al. (1977). The aim of his experiment was to see if students would make the fundamental attribution error even when they knew that all the actors were just playing a role. In the study, Lee assigned students a role. They were assigned as either a game s...

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...ures in terms of lack of ability. What Kashima and Triandis found is known as the modesty bias. The strength of this study is that it was cross-cultural, but at the same time the study also lacks ecological validity because the situation the students were put in would not occur in everyday life.
In conclusion, humans use attribution to explain causal relationships in the world and to explain these relationships situational or dispositional factors are used. The two errors in attribution that are most commonly made are the fundamental attribution which involves overestimating the role of dispositional factors and underestimating the role situational factors and self- serving bias which is when people take credit for their successes by attributing them to dispositional factors, and dissociate themselves from their failures by associating them situational factors.