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Formation of Attribution Biases

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Attribution Bias/Attribution is a cognitive process in which all individuals engage in an attempt to understand causality or why things happen (Iatridis & Fousiani, 2009). In the attempts to assess causality, humans are far less than perfect and often make mistakes. Social psychologists have long studied the attribution process and have identified several such mistakes or biases that appear consistently over time, including correspondence bias (fundamental attribution error), actor-observer effect, self-serving attribution bias, and self-centered bias to name a few. Think about attribution biases in which you have engaged and what information, if available, might have prevented the biases.

Reference: Iatridis, T., & Fousiani, K. (2009). Effects of status and outcome on attributions and just-world beliefs: How the social distribution of success and failure may be rationalized. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(2), 415-420.

A description of three attribution biases and explain one way you engaged in each.

Select two of the attribution biases and explain what information could have been present to prevent the use of this attribution bias.

Explain whether or not attribution biases can be positive and why.

Be specific and use the current literature to support your response.

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Solution Summary

The solution provides information, assistance and advice on tackling the task (see above) of discussing the topic of attribution bias, its 3 main types and how we as individuals engage in them. Resources are listed for further exploration of the topic.

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