Factors Affecting Quality of Attribution

a. Fundamental Attribution Error: Fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias as it is called, is the tendency to overvalue dispositional factors and downplay situational factors when understanding others behavior. In simple words we always defend ourselves by blaming the situation but are quick to pick on other's shortcomings. In explaining others behavior one is likely to blame dispositions. Example: "She can't handle the worsening security situation because she is lacking in skills and experience hence incompetent. When asked to explain their own behavior, people will always blame the situation: for example: I could not stop the thugs because it was dark and rainy.
b. Self-Serving Bias: People have a tendency to attribute their own success to dispositional factors and

their failure to situational factors. Example: Matt wins the poetry writing competition in his school, but fails to get it published in a leading magazine. He attributes his success to his talent and his failure to his bad luck. The poem was not good enough for the magazine. But, due to the self-serving bias, he fails to view the situation objectively. It is believed that this is because people want to maintain the opinion or self-image that they have of themselves. In the long run the lack of objectivity in estimating one's worth doesn't help in improving ones situation.
c. Focus of Attention Bias: The focus of attention or spotlight effect bias is the tendency of people to overestimate the extent to which others are paying attention to their behavior and appearance. Example: When a person drops a fork in a restaurant, he gets very embarrassed because he believes everyone has seen it, when in reality hardly anyone would have even realized. The focus of attention bias changes the way people interpret the worth of their own behavior. They give undue importance to themselves and the assumption that others also give them that much importance may not be always true.
d. Actor-Observer Bias: People make different attributions depending on whether they are the actor or observer in a situation. This is because in the two positions people have different perspectives. Example: When a person gets low marks, it's because the questions asked were never taught in class. Whereas when others get bad marks it's because they are inattentive. As an actor, situational factors are focused on, whereas, as an observer dispositional factors are highlighted. People succumb to this bias less when the people involved are family and friends.
e. Culture Bias: Cultural values affect the way people make attributions; this can be particularly seen in the attributions made between people from individualist and collectivist cultures. People from collectivist cultures such as seen in Asia, Africa and Latin America believe in the importance of interdependence and define themselves in terms of their membership in a group and therefore attributions are more situational than dispositional. People from individualist cultures emphasize on independence and it is believed that they are more likely to make the fundamental attribution error. They are more likely to attribute behavior to dispositions than situations. It has been seen that people from collectivist culture are more likely to make situational attributions in comparison to individualists. This is because they are used to living and adjusting in large groups and have a better ability to empathize with people.

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Titany answered the question on December 7, 2021 at 08:05