Most Common Attribute Error Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Most Common Attribute Error - Essay Example According to Huczynski & Buchanan, (2013), fundamental attribution error is a â€Å"tendency to attribute another’s behavior to dispositional qualities, rather than the situation itself.† (p. 34). For this type of error to occur, there must be a valid situational factor in that people end up overestimating the dispositional attributions. Psychologists have proved that humans have a tendency to judge others without having any prior knowledge of what actually happened and thus apply dispositional attributions. Since it is something impressed in a society, Brookwell (2013) proposed that this type of attribution error is purely a cultural bias because it focuses on personal responsibilities and not behavior. Self-serving bias is a tendency to stable, dispositional factors and failures to temporary, and its link to self-presentation and self-esteem (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2013). Therefore, if an outcome, either success or failure, contradicts expectations, people will be likely to make situational attributions. When taking exams, a good number of students have hopes of performing well. However, when the results are out and they realize they have failed or performed far below their expectations, they always justify their failure with external factors, which are not controllable in most cases. Therefore, when people fail in cases where they put in a lot of efforts, they always attribute their failure using situational factors. Considerations that affect self-serving bias include projection of self-esteem in future, emotional state, desire for positive self-esteem, and culture. When people perform well with lots of efforts, they attribute their success to dispositional factors. In most cases, talking about failure is something everyone tries to avoid because of the unexpected reactions from friends and family. In the context of failing an exam, it is very easy for people to know even if they are not told