The group attribution error refers to people's tendency to believe either
The group attribution error shares an attribution bias analogous to the fundamental attribution error. [2] Rather than focusing on individual's behavior, it relies on group outcomes and attitudes as its main basis for conclusions.
To demonstrate the first form of group attribution error, research participants are typically given case studies about individuals who are members of defined groups (such as members of a particular occupation, nationality, or ethnicity), and then take surveys to determine their views of the groups as a whole. Often the participants may be broken up into separate test groups, some of which are given statistics about the group that directly contradict what they were presented in the case study. Others may even be told directly that the individual in the case study was atypical for the group as a whole. Researchers use the surveys to determine to what extent the participants allowed their views of the individual in the case study to influence their views of the group as a whole and also take note of how effective the statistics were in deterring this group attribution error. Ruth Hamill, Richard E. Nisbett, and Timothy DeCamp Wilson were the first to study this form of group attribution error in detail in their 1980 paper Insensitivity to Sample Bias: Generalizing From Atypical Cases. In their study, the researchers provided participants with a case study about an individual welfare recipient. Half of the participants were given statistics showing that the individual was typical for a welfare recipient and had been on the program for the typical amount of time, while the other half of participants were given statistics showing that the welfare recipient had been on the program much longer than normal. The results of the study revealed that participants did indeed draw extremely negative opinions of all welfare recipients as a result of the case study. It was also found that the differences in statistics provided to the two groups had trivial to no effect on the level of group attribution error. [1]
The second form of group attribution error was first reported by Scott T. Allison and David Messick in 1985. This form describes people's tendency to assume incorrectly that group decisions reflect group members' attitudes. In their study the researchers did multiple experiments presenting participants with group decisions made on the national, state, and local levels. Participants were presented with situations in which a matter of public policy was determined by a single leader with no popular vote, a popular vote of over 90% of the population, and a popular vote which included approximately 50% of the population. If no group attribution error were present, the participants would be expected to conclude that in the 90% vote the views of the individuals were reflective of the group decision, in the 50% vote they may or may not be, and in the leader decision there is no evidence that the individual views reflect the group outcome. Allison and Messick discovered instead, however, that the participants associated the individual views with the group outcome in all three cases. [2]
Follow-up research by Leila Worth and Scott T. Allison attempted to identify the limits of the effect. These studies have shown that the error becomes stronger in perceptions of groups that are viewed as (a) more dissimilar to one's own group, (b) more monolithic, and (c) adversarial to one's own group. The error tends to disappear in perceptions of one's own group. Group members are more likely to attribute the decisions of their own group to structural constraints placed on the group, such as its decision rules, whereas members tend to attribute the decisions of another group to its members' attitudes. [2] [4]
In 2001, Corneille et al. conducted further studies that suggest that threatening groups are viewed as being both more extreme and more homogeneous. [5]
The group attribution error has been referred as a term since 1985 by Scott T. Allison and David M. Messick after evaluating numerous researches made between 1970-1985. These researches tie different attribution biases to an individual either 1) the individual's behavior or 2) the outcomes of the group that the individual belongs to. The first one is known as the fundamental attribution error, and the consequent one is known as the group attribution error. [1] [2] [6]
Infants develop the ability to categorize first by putting a gender label to other children. Then, the difference in color of the skin begins to play a role in their ability to distinguish different backgrounds. Consequently, group attribution biases towards members of different groups, either on race or gender, affect their ability to judge others. [7] For example, the conception of children believing that "all boys are abusive" illustrates the influence of categorization and generalization to members of this group (boys).
The fundamental attribution error is similar to the group attribution error in that it refers to the tendency to believe that an individual's actions are representative of the individual's preferences, even when available information suggests that the actions were caused by outside forces. [1] [8]
The group attribution error and the ultimate attribution error share the individual's tendency to draw different prejudiced conclusions between in-groups and out-groups. The individuals involved in an in-group would attribute positive conclusions about their group outcomes, yet they would attribute negative conclusions towards the out-group members. [9]
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions.
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias is insuperable for most people, but they can manage it, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.
In social psychology, fundamental attribution error, also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is a cognitive attribution bias where observers underemphasize situational and environmental factors for the behavior of an actor while overemphasizing dispositional or personality factors. In other words, observers tend to overattribute the behaviors of others to their personality and underattribute them to the situation or context. Although personality traits and predispositions are considered to be observable facts in psychology, the fundamental attribution error is an error because it misinterprets their effects.
Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they were.
In psychology, an attribution bias or attributional errors is a cognitive bias that refers to the systematic errors made when people evaluate or try to find reasons for their own and others' behaviors. It refers to the systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, often leading to perceptual distortions, inaccurate assessments, or illogical interpretations of events and behaviors.
A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner. It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and efforts, but ascribe failure to external factors. When individuals reject the validity of negative feedback, focus on their strengths and achievements but overlook their faults and failures, or take more credit for their group's work than they give to other members, they are protecting their self-esteem from threat and injury. These cognitive and perceptual tendencies perpetuate illusions and error, but they also serve the self's need for esteem. For example, a student who attributes earning a good grade on an exam to their own intelligence and preparation but attributes earning a poor grade to the teacher's poor teaching ability or unfair test questions might be exhibiting a self-serving bias. Studies have shown that similar attributions are made in various situations, such as the workplace, interpersonal relationships, sports, and consumer decisions.
The out-group homogeneity effect is the perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. "they are alike; we are diverse". Perceivers tend to have impressions about the diversity or variability of group members around those central tendencies or typical attributes of those group members. Thus, outgroup stereotypicality judgments are overestimated, supporting the view that out-group stereotypes are overgeneralizations. The term "outgroup homogeneity effect", "outgroup homogeneity bias" or "relative outgroup homogeneity" have been explicitly contrasted with "outgroup homogeneity" in general, the latter referring to perceived outgroup variability unrelated to perceptions of the ingroup.
In social psychology, group polarization refers to the tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members. These more extreme decisions are towards greater risk if individuals' initial tendencies are to be risky and towards greater caution if individuals' initial tendencies are to be cautious. The phenomenon also holds that a group's attitude toward a situation may change in the sense that the individuals' initial attitudes have strengthened and intensified after group discussion, a phenomenon known as attitude polarization.
In psychology, the false consensus effect, also known as consensus bias, is a pervasive cognitive bias that causes people to "see their own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively common and appropriate to existing circumstances". In other words, they assume that their personal qualities, characteristics, beliefs, and actions are relatively widespread through the general population.
In-group favoritism, sometimes known as in-group–out-group bias, in-group bias, intergroup bias, or in-group preference, is a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, in allocation of resources, and in many other ways.
Lee David Ross was a Canadian-American professor. He held the title of the Stanford Federal Credit Union Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University and was an influential social psychologist who studied attributional biases, shortcomings in judgment and decision making, and barriers to conflict resolution, often with longtime collaborator Mark Lepper. Ross was known for his identification and explication of the fundamental attribution error and for the demonstration and analysis of other phenomena and shortcomings that have become standard topics in textbooks and in some cases, even popular media. His interests included ongoing societal problems, in particular protracted inter-group conflicts, the individual and collective rationalization of evil, and the psychological processes that make it difficult to confront societal challenges. Ross went beyond the laboratory to involve himself in conflict resolution and public peace processes in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and other areas of the world.
Attribution is a term used in psychology which deals with how individuals perceive the causes of everyday experience, as being either external or internal. Models to explain this process are called Attribution theory. Psychological research into attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in the early 20th century, and the theory was further advanced by Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner. Heider first introduced the concept of perceived 'locus of causality' to define the perception of one's environment. For instance, an experience may be perceived as being caused by factors outside the person's control (external) or it may be perceived as the person's own doing (internal). These initial perceptions are called attributions. Psychologists use these attributions to better understand an individual's motivation and competence. The theory is of particular interest to employers who use it to increase worker motivation, goal orientation, and productivity.
In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities compared to other people. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.
Negative affectivity (NA), or negative affect, is a personality variable that involves the experience of negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness. Low negative affectivity is characterized by frequent states of calmness and serenity, along with states of confidence, activeness, and great enthusiasm.
The ultimate attribution error is a type of attribution error which describes how attributions of outgroup behavior are more negative than ingroup behavior. As a cognitive bias, the error results in negative outgroup behavior being more likely to be attributed to factors internal and specific to the actor, such as personality, and the attribution of negative ingroup behavior to external factors such as luck or circumstance. The bias reinforces negative stereotypes and prejudice about the outgroup and favouritism of the ingroup through positive stereotypes. The theory also extends to the bias that positive acts performed by ingroup members are more likely a result of their personality.
In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.
Puritanical bias refers to the tendency to attribute cause of an undesirable outcome or wrongdoing by an individual to a moral deficiency or lack of self control rather than taking into account the impact of broader societal determinants. An example might be, "These people sit around all day in their apartments on welfare watching TV, but won't take the time to get out and find a job!" In this case, a selection of persons might have existed for some time under dire economic and/or socially oppressive circumstances, but individuals from that selection have been cognitively dis-empowered by these circumstances to decide or act on decisions to obtain a given goal.
Attributions for poverty is a theory concerned with what people believe about the causes of poverty. These beliefs are defined in terms of attribution theory, which is a social psychological perspective on how people make causal explanations about events in the world. In forming attributions, people rely on the information that is available to them in the moment, and their heuristics, or mental shortcuts. When considering the causes of poverty, people form attributions using the same tools: the information they have and mental shortcuts that are based on their experiences. Consistent with the literature on heuristics, people often rely on shortcuts to make sense of the causes of their own behavior and that of others, which often results in biased attributions. This information leads to perceptions about the causes of poverty, and in turn, ideas about how to eradicate poverty.
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