2 - Errors and Biases Flashcards
Ross (1977) on FAE
- founded Fundamental Attribution Error
- ‘a general tendency to overestimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors relative to environmental influences’
Actor-Observer effect
- actors attribute causality to situational influences
- observers attribute causality to actor’s dispositions
Reconciling the FAE in light of the Actor-Observer effect
‘a general tendency of OBSERVERS to overestimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors relative to environmental influences’
- because attribution depends on where we focus our attention
FAE across cultures (Miller, 1984)
Individualistic Culture
- self is defined by internal attributes
- encourages separation of self from context
Collectivist Culture
- self is defined by social relationships
- encourages integration of self into social context
Miller Study 1
- Indian vs American participants of various ages
Results
- adult US participants are more likely to attribute causality to general disposition
- adult Indian participants are more likely to attribute causality to context
- no significant difference in children below 11y
> so these differences are learned
Rethinking the FAE definition in light of Actor-Observer effect and cultural effect
‘a general tendency, ACQUIRED THROUGH SOCIALISATION INTO WESTERN CULTURE, FOR OBSERVERS to overestimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors relative to environmental influences’
Harvey, Town & Yarkin (1981)
- is FAE an ‘error’?
- since it’s an isolated observation, there is no way to determine causality, so FAE is a BIAS
- Correspondence Bias
Rethinking the FAE definition in light of Actor-Observer effect, cultural effect, and is it really and ‘error’?
NOT FAE
in fact it is actually Correspondence Bias:
- ‘a general tendency, ACQUIRED THROUGH SOCIALISATION INTO WESTERN CULTURE, FOR OBSERVERS to overestimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors relative to environmental influences’
Logical Coherence (Sabini, Siepmann & Stein, 2001)
- it’s impossible to determine which factors are dispositional and which are contextual
- behaviour is due to a combination of internal and external cues
A model of Correspondence bias (Gilbert, Pelham & Krull, 1988)
Attribution involves 3 sequential processes:
- Categorisation (what is the actor doing)
- Characterisation (what does that action imply about the actor)
- Correction (what situational constraints are in force?)
- Categorisation and Characterisation occur automatically, which leads to Correspondence Bias
- Correction requires conscious cognitive effort
So they tested the effects of cognitive load
- found it to cause increased correspondence bias
Cognitive load
- limiting the availability of cognitive resources
- limiting the capacity for conscious cognitive effort
- revealing automaticity and bias
Overall definition of correspondence bias including:
- cultural influence
- actor-observer effect
- automaticity and lack of correction
Correspondence Bias:
‘a general tendency, ACQUIRED THROUGH SOCIALISATION INTO WESTERN CULTURE, for OBSERVERS to AUTOMATICALLY attribute causality to the ACTOR, and due to a LACK OF EFFORT or HIGH COGNITIVE LOAD, FAIL TO CORRECT for situational factors
Bounded Rationality
(economics) - individuals are as rational as they can be but are limited by 3 factors: > not all information is available > limited time is available > limited mental capacity available
Heuristics and Biases (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974)
(psychological version of bounded rationality)
- mechanisms to speed up decision making
Heuristics
- cognitive short-cuts (rules of thumb)
- simplifying decision making
- generally useful but can lead to errors
Confirmation bias
- seeking information that is confirmatory rather than disproving
(biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norms or rational judgement)
Possible explanations for Confirmation Bias (Nickerson, 1998)
- educational basis
- pragmatism
- information-processing bias (schemas draw attention to schema-consistent information)
