Talk:Fundamental attribution error
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Portal |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, which collaborates on Psychology and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project.
|
||||||||
 |
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details. | ||||||||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. | ||||||||
| Mid | This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale. | ||||||||
|
|||||||||
[edit] Were Jones and Harris telling their subjects the truth?
I take it that in the Jones and Harris study, speakers were in fact told which stance to take on the basis of a coin flip (otherwise the result would be unremarkable). I think this needs to be made clearer. Josh Cherry 14:54, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Even if this were the case, the premise of the study is deeply flawed. It could simply be that the subjects didn't believe that someone could make a decent pro-Castro speech without being sympathetic to Castro. It's all well and good to tell a subject something but that doesn't mean they're going to believe you. Human beings aren't robots, despite claims to the contrary.
- Also, social situationism (the position which the fundamental attribution error principle was invented to support) may explain phenomena like propaganda, mass murder and torture, but it has limits. People who have an innate sense of responsibility or question authority or other such simply can't become propagandists, mass murderers and torturers. The way it plays out in practice is that they will "just happen" to never find themselves in those situations, because they consciously and unconsciously steer clear of them and everyone they meet collaborates with them on this (especially the governments who would hire them). What that means is that there is a background to the fundamental attribution error which shapes the ways it operates.
- Finally, depression is known to play a key role in attribution. When someone is depressed, they will correctly attribute the result of random choices to random forces. They will also attribute the result of ordered choices to random forces, especially their own .... 24.200.176.92 07:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Everyday example
Isn't it noticing other people even when you are under pressure that makes the difference between a jerk and a gentleman? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shakespearesfool (talk • contribs).
- I thought the same thing when I read that. If the person cuts in front of you because he's too busy paying attention to his children, that still makes him a jerk, just as much as cutting in front of you intentionally. Tkircher
-
- Absolutely. Your observation demonstrates why material in the "social sciences" is just so much nonsense. These people take ordinary common observations and give them a hi-falutin pseudo-scientific name and presto--we have a scientific phenomenon about which we can do research, discuss, quantify, and apply for government grants. Really. 66.108.4.183 07:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
-
-
- Um, no. First, the difference between social science results and 'common observations' is that the first are testable, and tested, hypotheses. Second, the 'everyday example' above isn't an example of FAE: as clearly explained here and in the article, FAE occurs when we misattribute things people do to innate characteristics rather than to external forces (chance, social pressure, etc.). This doesn't have anything to do with tendentious definitions of 'jerk'. Sam Clark 08:45, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
-
[edit] Confusion with actor-observer bias
The first paragraph states that it is "frequently confused with the actor-observer bias", but the link to "actor-observer bias" redirects back to this page! The confusion obviously also appears on Wikipedia...
Also, the "Layman's terms" section seems to me (a layman) that it might be making the same error. The examples given seem to illustrate different perceptions depending on whether one is the actor or the observer, rather than any difference between individuals in the attribution of causes. Mswake 11:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
- I was quite dumbfounded by this myself. The sorting out here needs some help badly. Either both pages should redirect to a new page named 'Attribution errors,' or AOE should have it's own page. I'll give the definitions for both out of the two texts I have open at the moment, which will hopefully help in getting everyone clear which is which.
-
- FAE, source 1
- The tendency to make internal attributions for people's behavior, even when an observer sees evidence for an external influence.
- FAE, source 2
- The tendency to attribute other people's behavior to dispositional (internal) cues rather than situational (external) causes.
- AOE, source 1
- The tendency to attribute internal causes more ofter for other people's behavior and external attributions more often for one's own behavior.
- AOE, source 2
- The tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal (dispositional) causes but to attribute one's own behavior to situational causes.
- Hopefully the difference here is clear. Most notably, AOE deals with the difference in frequency of internal/external attributions for first vs. third person views of the same behavior. For anyone steping up to better define things in the article, the primary source for FAE seems to be: Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions int he attribution process. In Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol 10, pp 173-220. Good luck. (My excuse for not doing it? Studying). --JMD (talk • contribs) 03:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
- I've added a {{disputed}} tag to the "Layman's terms" section, as it seems completely wrong. It's not even an accurate description of the actor-observer bias; it seems to be a blend of the actor-observer bias, the positivity effect, and the negativity effect. —RuakhTALK 01:36, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Discussion moved here from article
I've reverted this edit: User:151.197.225.236 may well have a point but the discussion does not belong in the article.
Please discuss the removed content on the talk page:
-
- I think that these examples may be of the actor-observer discrepancy, I'll provide another example that may be better suited:
- You see two men lifting a file cabinet. When they tip it over the drawers all slide out and the contents of the cabinet come crashing to the floor. You immediately arrive at the conclusion that these two men must not be too bright. You come to that conclusion as a result of the fundamental attribution error; after all, it's possible that the lock on the drawers broke, or there may be some other explanation for their mishap.
AvB ÷ talk 12:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
- An actor-observer bias page has been added distinguishing its effects from those of the fundamental attribution error. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Peace01234 (talk • contribs).
[edit] Why I removed "When people think of themselves, they attribute successes to personal strengths ...."
I took out the "Informal explanation" beginning "When people think of themselves, they attribute successes to personal strengths ...."
Because yes, as other discussers said, those paragraphs are about the actor-observer discrepancy, not FAE. They discuss the differenece in FAE as applied the self and as applied to the other.
Incidentally, the two paragraphs ignored all the people who think in contrary fashion to the self-flattery described in the two paragraphs. These people are often called humble or neurotic. Consider Woody Allen, Warren Buffett, etc.
The FAE article is really about the behavior of others; most of the FAE and AOB articles are nonjudgmental about the behavior being analyzed. If we want to introduce a new issue -- value judgments about the behaviors -- we need to do so more clearly than the two paragraphs did.
Does FAE generally become inverted when the topic changes to unpleasant aspects of the self? Under the influence of AOB, I attribute unpleasant aspects of others to their dispositions and I attribute unpleasant aspects of myself to my situation?
TH 08:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Doesn't occur in China
As mentioned in Asian Psychology Coming of Age, FAE doesn't occur in China: Culture and Cause: American and Chinese Attributions for Social and Physical Events —Preceding unsigned comment added by TRS-80 (talk • contribs) 13:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
