Errors of Attribution

Attribution errors

It's a psychological term for describing a process of inferring the cause of events or behavior without being aware of the underlying processes and biases that lead to those inferences.

Self-Serving Bias

It's an attribution error in which you attribute your success to your internal abilities like talent and your failure to external forces (outside variables). For example: when you win a basketball game, you attribute the win to your physical abilities or talent. However, when you lose  you put blame on the referrers. Psychologists and researchers believe that by doing this people just try to protect their self-esteem.

 Self-Serving Bias in Children

a) This study was conducted by Elizabeth Posey and Randolph A. Smith from Ouachita Baptist University

b) Its aim was to investigate self-serving bias in children (the study provides evidence of self-serving bias). Twenty male and 16 female second graders were participating in this experiment. These children were paired with with a partner of same gender and were asked to complete 3 minutes math worksheet as a group. However, one half of the participants was paired up with a friend while the other one was not. At the end all of them received feedback that indicated their success or failure.

c) The results showed that the people in non-friend groups were blaming the failure or the bad performance to their partners. When they were asked who did better job they tended to give a credit for themselves. On the contrary children who were paired up with a friend were less likely to blame others or external/situational factors for their failure.

d) Participants who were blaming others for the failure clearly demonstrated self-serving bias. By putting the blame on their partners children wanted to protect their ego or self-esteem.

Cultural Differences in Relation To The Self-Serving Bias 

a) This study was conducted in 1986 by Kashima and Triandis

b) 34 Japanese graduate students and 202 American undergraduate students participated in this experiment. The participants were shown and then asked to remember 15 slides pertaining to life in Israel, Greece and Iran. Then they were given 5-minute recognition test that was based on those slides. After the test the participants were shown 5 slides pertaining to life in India. Then they were given 3-minute test based on those 5 slides about India. Participants were randomly assigned to either success or failure group. People in the success group were told they scored 12/15 while the people in the failure group were told they scored only 5/15. Then all of the participants were given an attribution questionnaire.

c)American students tended to attribute their success to their talent or abilities. (Self-serving bias; individualistic country)

  Japanese students tended to attribute their failure to lack of their abilities. (Modesty bias; collectivist culture)

  Both Americans and Japanese students responded similarly when they were given situational information