Discuss Two Errors in
Attributions
By Mr Daniel Hansson
Questions for Discussion
1. Do humans have a need of finding
2.
causes of everything? Why or why
not?
How reliable are humans’ ability at
making judgments of causation?
Important definitions
• Attribution (psychology): How
individuals explain causes of events,
other’s behavior, and their own behavior
• Attribution error: When individuals
make faulty assumptions of the causes of
events, other’s behavior, and their own
behavior
Examples of Errors of attribution
• Fundamental
•
attribution error
Illusory correlation
Milgram’s experiment was
inspired by trial of Adolf
Eichmann. During World
War II, Eichmann was in
charge of all trains that
would carry Jews to the
death camps in Poland and
Hungary. As his defense,
Eichmann claimed that he
was merely following
orders. Why do you think he
acted like he did?
Fundamental Attribution Error
(FAE)
• To make internal, dispositional attributions for
others’ behavior rather than situational ones,
even when there may be equally convincing
evidence for both types of cause (e.g. thinking
that Jim Carrey is as crazy as the characters he
is playing)
• May be due to the tendency of western culture
to hold individuals accountable for their behavior
or because we have too little information about
the person’s situation
Research Supporting FAE
• Jones & Harris (1967): Subjects read pro and
anti- Fidel Castro essays. When the subjects
were told that the writers freely choose their
subject, they were more likely to rate the writer
as having a positive attitude to Castro. However,
if they were told that the writer’s opinion were
chosen at random they still rated the writer as
having a positive attitude to Castro.
Research Supporting FAE
• Lee et. al. (1977): University students were
randomly allocated to one of three roles: a game
show host, contestants of the game show or
members of the audience. The game show host
constructed the questions and the audience
watched the game show through the series of
questions. When the game show was over, the
audience were asked to rank the intelligence of
the people who had taken part. They
consistently ranked the game show host as the
most intelligent.
Illusory correlation
• When people tend to overestimate a link
between two variables or see a
relationship where no relationship exists
(e.g. handwriting and personality, the end
of the world and the year 2012, palm lines
and personality, astrology sign and
personality, stereotypes)
Illusory correlation
• Illusory correlation is thought to occur because
•
we are more likely to form connections between
factors that easily comes to our mind and are
easily imaginable (e.g. rare events)
Illusory correlation can also be explained by
confirmation bias. Individuals tend to favor
information that confirms their hypotheses and
disregard information that doesn’t
Research supporting the illusory
correlation phenomenon
• Chapman & Chapman (1967): Beginning
clinicians observed draw-a-person test drawing
randomly paired (unknowingly to participants)
with symptom statements of patients. Although
the relationship between symptoms and
drawings were absent, participants rated a high
associative strength between symptom and
drawing characteristics (e.g. paranoia and
drawing big eyes)
Research explaining illusory
correlation
Hamilton & Gifford (1976): Hamilton & Gifford
hypothesized that rare events are more likely to be linked
because they are more memorable. In order to test this
hypothesis, participants read a series of favorable (e.g.
visited a sick friend at the hospital) and unfavorable
statements (e.g cheated on an exam) of individuals from a
majority group or a minority group. The unfavorable
statements were more rare than the favorable
statements. In accordance with Hamilton and Gifford’s
hypothesis, participants were more likely to associate
unfavorable statements with the minority group when asked
about their first impression of the majority and minority
groups
Evaluation of concepts - Strengths
• Empirical support
• Can be supported by schema theory
• Usefulness (reliability of diagnosis,
formation of stereotypes)
Evaluation of concepts - Limitations
• Methodological problems of the studies
(e.g. generalisability, ecological validity)
• Cross-cultural studies in India (Miller
1984) and Japan (Weiss 1984) show that
the fundamental attribution error is less
common in collectivistic cultures
• Details of the processes underlying illusory
correlation are still largely unknown