4PAHPSOP Psychology and Society Week 3
BSc Psychology Year 1 Attributes and Attitudes
3.1. DESCRIBE THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR (FAE)
AND THE ‘ACTOR-OBSERVER EFFECT’ AND THE CONDITIONS IN
WHICH THE FAE HOLDS
• In our interpretation of events, we similarly seek to pair effects with their causes to better predict
and improve outcomes in the future
Common Sense Psychology
• In the 1930s, psychoanalysis and behaviourism were the dominant approaches to behaviour;
however, they placed little emphasis on conscious thought
o Heider (1958) developed a common-sense model: an analysis of how ordinary people think
about people and events in our lives
CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS
• Heider proposed that people organise their perceptions in the social world in terms of causes and
effects, particularly with regard to causes
o They help people make sense of and find meaning in their social worlds
• There are two basic dimensions to causal attributions: locus of causality and stability
Locus of Causality
• Attributing an event to either an internal (dispositional) aspect of the person engaging in the action
or external (situational) to a factor in the person’s environment
Stability
• Attributing behaviour to either stable or unstable factors
o Stable attributions suggest that future outcomes in similar situations are likely to be similar,
as the causes are relatively unchangeable
o Unstable attributions suggest that future outcomes could be different
How Attributions Shape Perceptions and Expectations
• Causal attributions can significantly impact social judgements, affecting how we interact with and
make decisions about others in a variety of contexts
Impression Formation
• If someone does poorly or acts negatively, and we think it’s because of them (internal reason), it
makes them look bad
• If we believe it’s because of the situation (external reason), we tend to excuse them
Credit for Good Behaviour
• If someone does something positive and we think it’s because of them (internal reason), we see
them in a good light
• If we think the situation caused it (external reason), it doesn’t boost their reputation as much
Predicting Future Behaviour
• If we believe someone’s behaviour is due to something consistent about them (stable factor), we
expect them to act the same way in similar situations
• If we think the behaviour is a one-off thing (unstable factor), we don’t expect it to happen again
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,4PAHPSOP Psychology and Society Week 3
BSc Psychology Year 1 Attributes and Attitudes
Fixed (Entity) and Incremental Mindsets
• Dweck et al. (2012) proposed that intelligence and other attributes should not be viewed with a fixed
mindset as they should be viewed as attributes that can change over time
• Children and adults with fixed mindsets make more negative, stable attributions about themselves
in response to challenging tasks and, therefore, tend to perform worse
o Dweck (1975) found that boys tended to attribute their difficulties in maths to the unstable
internal factor of their lack of effort or to external factors such as a bad teacher, while girls
tended to attribute their challenges to a stable internal cause: lack of math ability
• Those with incremental mindsets were more likely to view challenging situations as opportunities
to improve
o However, it can also lead one to blame others for their shortcomings (Ryazanov &
Christenfeld, 2018)
Automatic Processes and Schemas
• People don’t tend to put much effort into thinking about causal attributions
o However, when an event occurs that is unexpected or important, people are more likely to
make an effort to arrive at an accurate causal attribution (Wong & Weiner, 1981)
• Kelley (1973) suggests that when an event fits a causal schema (a theory we hold about the likely
cause of that kind of event), we rely on it rather than engaging in conscious causal attribution
• The “top of the head phenomenon” occurs if there is an event that is expected or unimportant but
doesn’t fit into an existing causal schema
o We are more likely to base causal attributions on a plausible factor that is highly visually
salient (usually other people involved) or accessible from memory (Taylor & Fiske, 1975)
THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR (FAE)
• Underestimating the causal role of situational factors
• Heider (1958) proposed that people are more likely to attribute behaviour to internal qualities or
motives of a person
o This is because when someone engages in an action, they tend to be the observer’s salient
focus of attention so are the main focus rather than other situational factors that may have
influenced behaviour
Correspondent Inferences
• Jones and Davis (1965) suggested that when people observe an action, they tend to make a
correspondent inference, attributing a specific attitude, desire or trait to the person that
corresponds to the action
o This can be useful as it gives us quick information about a person (Moskowitz & Okten,
2016)
Three Conditions for Correspondent Inferences
• There are three conditions where correspondent inferences are thought to be most likely to occur
(Jones, 1990)
1. The individual seems to have a choice in taking an action
2. A person has a choice between two courses of action, and there is only one difference between
one choice and the other
3. Someone acts inconsistently with a particular social role
• We often jump to these inferences without sufficiently considering external situational factors that
may also have contributed to the behaviour witnessed (e.g., Jones & Harris, 1967)
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,4PAHPSOP Psychology and Society Week 3
BSc Psychology Year 1 Attributes and Attitudes
Research Evidence
• Research has shown that despite good reasons for attributing behaviour to situational factors,
people tend to make internal attributions instead
o Ross et al. (1977) found that people thought that those asking trivia questions in a quiz were
more knowledgeable than those answering them, even though it tends to be a lot easier to
come up with questions than answering them
• The FAE can affect how people judge others
o Skitka et al. (2002) found that conservatives judging wealthy people are led by the FAE
toward attributions to those people’s abilities and initiative rather than to their trust funds,
connections, or lucky breaks
The Actor-Observer Effect
• When we are observers, the other person is a salient part of our visual field, but when we are acting
in the world, we are usually focused on our surroundings rather than on ourselves (visual salience)
• We are likely to make internal attributions for the behaviour of others, focusing on them and not their
situation (self-serving bias)
o But for ourselves, we are usually reacting to something in our environment and, therefore,
tend to make external attributions for our own behaviour (Jones & Nisbett, 1971)
• By shifting an individual’s visual perspective, the effect can be reversed
o Storms (1973) found that in pairs of conversations, people were more likely to believe that
their partner was steering the direction of the conversation
o However, when watching a video of the conversations back, they then thought that they
were the ones steering the conversation
• The actor-observer bias is stronger for negative behaviours (Malle, 2006)
o We are much more likely to make internal attributions for our successes and external
attributions for our failures (Dorfman et al., 2019)
Cross-Cultural Differences
• Some suggest that the FAE is due to individualistic cultural worldviews, emphasising personality
traits and viewing individuals as being responsible for their own actions (Watson, 1982)
• Universally, when we judge a person, we judge people by their behaviour
o Krull et al. (1999) found that participants from China were just as susceptible to the FAE
when asked to judge a person based on their behaviour than those from the US
• However, when we are to judge the cause of a behaviour, there is cultural variation in how much the
behaviour is attributed to the person or the situation
o When asked to explain behaviour, people from collectivist cultures generally gave more
weight to external, situational factors than those from individualistic cultures (Choi &
Nisbett, 1998)
DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTION: THREE-STAGE MODEL
• Gilbert et al. (1988) proposed three stages in which the attribution process occurs if situational
factors are considered before an internal attribution
1. A behaviour is observed and labelled (“That was helpful behaviour”).
2. Observers automatically make a correspondent internal (dispositional) inference
3. If observers have sufficient accuracy, motivation, and cognitive resources available, they
modify their attributions to consider salient situational factors
• The model suggests that people will be especially likely to ignore situational factors and to make
the FAE when they have limited attention and energy to devote to attributional processing
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, 4PAHPSOP Psychology and Society Week 3
BSc Psychology Year 1 Attributes and Attitudes
• Gilbert et al., had participants watch a video of a very fidgety woman talking about relaxing topics
and anxiety-provoking topics and had to rate how anxious the person in the video was
o Under normal conditions, participants first assumed
she was naturally anxious but adjusted their judgment
when they realised that the fidgety behaviour was
because of the anxiety-provoking topics
o However, when distracted by a cognitive task,
participants lacked the resources to adjust and judged
her as equally anxious regardless of the topic
ELABORATE ATTRIBUTIONAL PROCESSES
• When people are sufficiently surprised or care enough, they put effort into gathering information and
thinking carefully before making a causal attribution
Causal Hypothesis Testing
• Putting conscious effort into making an attribution–like hypothesis testing (Trope & Liberman, 1996)
1. We generate a possible causal hypothesis (a possible explanation for the cause of the event)
o This may stem from many things, such as personal biases, existing causal schemas or
salient features of the event leading to an interpretation that could be the one we want to
make or the one we fear the most
o The covariation principle suggests that people are likely to see a causal link between an
event and an outcome when they co-occur (e.g. a sore throat after eating) (Kelley, 1973)
2. Then, we gather information to assess the plausibility of the initial causal hypothesis
o The amount of information that we gather depends on our need for closure versus accuracy
Three Kinds of Information
• There are three sources of information that we use to arrive at a causal attribution when there is a
greater need for accuracy (Kelley, 1967)
1. Consistency (across time)
2. Distinctiveness (across situations)
3. Consensus (across people)
• Research supports the model since Okten & Moskowitz (2018) confirmed that when distinctiveness
is low and consistency is high, observers tend to make trait attributions to the person
• The presence of other potential causes also influences the weight that we assign to a particular
causal factor
o When multiple possible explanations for someone’s behaviour are present, we give less
importance to any single explanation (discounting principle)
o The more noticeable other potential causes are, the more we downplay the original cause
(Kruglanski et al., 1978)
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