Errors of Attribution

1. What is the difference between dispositional factors and situational factors?
2. Explain and give an example of the fundamental error of attribution.
3. Explain and give an example of the self-serving-bias error of attribution.
4. Explain two possible explanations for these errors.
5. What does the study by Miyamoto and Kitayama tell us about cultural differences in attribution errors?
 
The roles that situational and dispositional play in explaining behavior differ. When people show their own behavior, they tend to attribute it to external factors (Crane 104). This is known as situational factor. In other words, situational factor is the attribution of of certain behaviors to factors that are related to a situation (environment) Situational factors are caused by external factors, so it is not the individuals cause. Dispositional factors on the other hand is the opposite. The attributions are based off an individuals behavior which is caused by factors which are internal, which can be a persons personality.
One error in attribution is the fundamental attribution error which is where individuals oversize the role of dispositional over situational factors. This error was presented in a study by Lee at. al in 1977. Lee wanted to see whether student participants would make the fundamental attribution error even when they knew that actors were playing a specific role. From this study, it shows that students have used dispositional factors (where the students base their intelligence) as opposed to situational factors (supposedly correct) (Crane 104). The college students failed to attribute the person’s role to the correct situation because they believed that since the game show host was one of the options, that he/she would be the most intelligent.
Another example of situational and dispositional factors in the role of explaining behavior is the self-serving bias. Self-serving bias is “when people take credit for their successes, attributing them to dispositional factors, and dissociate themselves from their failures, attributing them to situational factors” (Crane 105). A study carried out by Lau and Russel in 1980 realized that American football players and coaches tend to associate their wins towards internal factors– such as being in shape, hard work put forth, natural talents from the team. They would then relate their failures to external factors such as the weather, injuries, and fouls committed by the other team. Here, we attribute internal factors with positive things which can lead to success and external factors to negative things which are failures.

Excuses, Excuses, and Excuses: Why people lie, cheat, and procrastinate
Even if they are grown-ups they tend to show the habit of cheating, lying, and procrastinating. Therefore, these actions cause people to go into a wrong direction. In the process of these acts, there are four reasons to do these.
Reinforcement, which is the desperation that causes one to lie. Memory distortion, when lies and cheating build up and cause bad results.Also called as the source memory, false memory. Then the protection of positive sense of identity, which is the act of making people believe in one mentally. Finally, the  self-serving biases is when someone blames others for their acts. These reasons are similar to the attribution errors, which will make one very bad.