LO: Discuss two errors in attributions (for example, fundamental attribution error, illusory correlation, self‐serving bias).
Command Term: Discuss
Notes for today’s lesson in this document
Two errors in attribution:
- SSB: Self-serving bias
- FAE – Fundamental attribution error
Class activity:
The goal of the skit is to portray two or three friends sitting together and having a conversion. In the conversion they have to commit an attribution error. The rest of the class watches the skit and guesses which error was being represented.
Situations
University admissions and SSB (Self-serving bias)
University admissions and modesty bias
School shooting and FAE
Unemployment and defensive attribution In this case, defensive attribution becomes “blaming the victim.” This usually is the case with homelessness where people assume that it is dispositional characteristics of the individual that have led to their plight, rather than situational factors.
Sports and FAE
Sports and defensive attribution Interestingly, when our sports team loses, we tend to attribute their failure to situational factors. This is a self-serving bias. However, when our team loses horribly – for example, when a team gets creamed in football 10-0 – then we tend to blame the team itself: the worthless coach, their cocky attitude, their failure to work as a team. However, if the same team wins the next game, we are back to praising their dispositions.
New Year’s Resolutions and SSB
Business and modesty bias Modesty bias is not just a “collectivist trait.” It may also be a gender related phenomenon in some individualistic cultures as well. In this case, a business proposal is successful but the individual says: I was just in the right place at the right time.
Dating Relationships and SSB
Natural catastrophe and defensive attribution We saw this in the press conferences that took place during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Reporters asked, “Don’t you think that people have to recognize that if they build their homes by the water that they have to expect that this is going to happen?” Thankfully, Mayor Bloomberg responded with a good old New York smack-down.
Chronic illness and FAE This is a good example of the “Just World Hypothesis.” The reason that he has chronic fatigue is his poor lifestyle, his inability to deal with stress and his poor diet. By the way, this may be true. Attribution errors are made with little to no information with regard to the behaviour. But thinking this way helps us to believe that since I have a positive lifestyle, meditate and eat a healthy diet, I am immune from chronic fatigue.
Election win and FAE
KIS Psychology 