Attribution bias

In psychology, an attribution bias or attributional bias is a cognitive bias that refers to the systematic errors made when people evaluate or try to find reasons for their own and others' behaviors. People constantly make attributions regarding the cause of their own and others' behaviors; however, attributions do not always accurately mirror reality. Rather than operating as objective perceivers, people are prone to perceptual errors that lead to biased interpretations of their social world.

Attribution biases were first discussed in the 1950s and 60s by psychologists such as Fritz Heider, who studied attribution theory. Other psychologists, such as Harold Kelley and Ed Jones expanded Heider's early work by identifying conditions under which people are more or less likely to make different types of attributions.

Attribution biases are present in everyday life, and therefore are an important and relevant topic to study. For example, when a driver cuts us off, we are more likely to attribute blame to the reckless driver (e.g., "What a jerk!"), rather than situational circumstances (e.g., "Maybe they were in a rush and didn't notice me"). Additionally, there are many different types of attribution biases, such as the ultimate attribution error, fundamental attribution error, actor-observer bias, and hostile attribution bias. Each of these biases describes a specific tendency that people exhibit when reasoning about the cause of different behaviors.

Since the early work, researchers have continued to examine how and why people exhibit biased interpretations of social information. Many different types of attribution biases have been identified, and more recent psychological research on these biases has examined how attribution biases can subsequently affect emotions and behavior.

Research on attribution biases is founded in attribution theory, which was proposed to explain why and how we create meaning about others' and our own behavior. This theory focuses on identifying how an observer uses information in his/her social environment in order to create a causal explanation for events. Attribution theory also provides explanations for why different people can interpret the same event in different ways and what factors contribute to attribution biases.

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