Essay: Discuss two errors in attributions (for example, fundamental
attribution error, illusory correlation, self‑ serving bias).
All humans have errors of attribution. This statement can be supported by
two extremely common errors found in individuals: the fundamental attribution
error and the illusory correlation. These two errors although known by many they
still continue to behave this way. This essay is going is talk about how the these
errors in attribution is correlates to everyday life.
The first error that the essay is going to talk about is “The fundamental
attribution error” which is an explanation to why people tend to blame certain
things or their situation based on their surroundings factors. An experiment that can
be used to describe the error is: “How and why do de lie to ourselves?” by Festinger
and Carlsmith (1959). This is an experiment conducted at Stanford University and
like the title said, the experiment is about how and why we lie to ourselves. The
experiment is very simple; knowing that they are going to be performing in an
experiment by someone who has done the experiment prior to them first hypes the
student. They then proceeds to a very long, boring and time consuming task which
included things like dish washing or moving things from box to box. They are then
interviewed at the end of the experiment on how they felt about the experiment.
The people experimented were then offered to tell the next patch of people who are
about to get experimented about how the task is very enjoyable. After a while they
have the 2 groups of people who were experimented on interviewed. The first patch
found it not boring at all because probably of their influence by telling the lie, while
the other patch found it boring. This error correlates to a very essential thing in life
which is lying, telling why people lie, in this case it is to soothe themselves and make
themselves feel better or in other words protect themselves.
Another error that the essay is going to talk about is “The Illusory
Correlation”, which is when a person connects 2 or more things usually behavior or
events to form a relationship between the 2 things. An experiment that can be used
to prove this error is: Hamilton and Gifford’s experiment on illusions. First,
Hamilton and Gifford introduced their participants to two groups, Group A a large
Group of 26 and a Group which consists of 13 people. They were told information
about each individual from each group. The behaviors that the group members
performed were either positive or negative behaviors. The information about the
group members was created so that the ratio of everything in the research was 2:1.
The researchers hypothesized that participants would see a relation between the 2
things, they predicted that because members of group B performing the less
negative behaviors and since it was rare to see them do hurtful things, they expected
these behaviors to be memorable. After the experiment was done, and the
participants were interviewed the results shows that their group may be viewed in a
negative light like hypothesized even if they’re not because of the noticeable feature.
This relates to daily life because it shows that people usually connect noticeable
things with others and makes assumptions of only the things that stand out even
though it may or may not be true.
In conclusion, there are many attributions of errors and all of them can be
applied to daily life and logic such as the fundamental attribution error of seeing
someone having a good degree or position as an outstanding person, or typical
things as classifying stereotypes from what people see or notice.