Judgment Biases and Attributional Biases
Thought processes can greatly influence people's social interactions, and the way that they live their lives. Cognitions develop how people perceive themselves and others on a daily basis. It is important to investigate how people attribute actions and behaviors exhibited, not only by themselves, but also those around them. These attributions shape the way an observer feels and reacts to others, and how people feel about themselves due to their own actions. The correspondence bias (fundamental attribution error) and the self-serving bias are two errors made in attribution by virtually every human being (Baron & Byrne, 2000). Both of these biases can be shown not only in adults, but also children (Guern, 1999). Even sport spectators display these biases when watching their favorite teams (Wann & Schrader, 2000). When the self-serving bias is absent in people's cognitions, they will show the self-defeating attributions. It is important to study people that demonstrate self-defeating attributions, because these individuals also show symptoms of depression (Wall & Hayes, 2000). Clearly, attributions are an imperative aspect of social cognition. Attributional bias is discussed by Marie Beesley. It is also important to investigate the factors that affect people's judgment biases in decision making and reasoning skills, which is explored by Amanda Wheeler. Because these two processes are so vital to the way in which people perceive themselves and others, and to the way a person chooses to behave, it is important to understand the factors that can cause inaccurate judgments. Judgment biases affect the way people form conclusions and make attributions about others, as well as abou...
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Wann, D. L. & Schrader, M. P. (2000). Controllability and stability in the self-serving attributions of sport spectators. Journal of Social Psychology, 140, 160-169.
Sport fans, sometimes also called sport devotees, followers, or supporters, are persons who are enthusiastically devoted to a particular athlete, team or sport. They may show their enthusiasm by often attending sporting events or watch on television, being members of a fan club, follow sport news through newspapers, online websites, and creating fanzines. Their disposition is often such that they will experience a game or event by living through their favored players or teams. These behaviors manifest itself in different ways. To enable better understanding of these behavioral patterns, we have to classify these sports fans into groups based on their devotion to teams: fair-weather fans, bandwagon and the super-fans.
Implicit and explicit biases are related mental constructs. For many years, even dating back to our great’s ancestor, people always have automatic judge people, places, and things. We were all given five senses, knowing how the brain works, we choose to use our conscious actions to judge. Without awareness, we usually act on those judgments. There are two types of judgments consciously and unconsciously.
The brain is one of the most complex as well as one of the most vital organs of the human body. It's utter perplexity still causes the most astound thinkers to step back and contemplate the way it works. Every second the brain processes four-hundred billion bits of information, while only two-thousand of those bits people become aware of. One can also observe that with so much information to process, there is a plethora of information in the world that can be obtained than what is actually being perceived. Unknowingly, people criticize others and make judgments without even being aware of their perception. Although it is said that one can acquire the skills to make judgments that are unbiased and are constructed of a wide range or base of background knowledge, one simply does not have the time to think about thinking. People instinctively judge others constantly by their mere appearance despite the fact that it is considered immoral. It is so common that one does not even realize when they are doing it. In the grocery store, at work, at school; No matter where one may be, they are making snap judgments. The irony and truth of the matter is that a majority of the time, those subconscious decisions or judgments that one makes and are unbeknownst to them are strangely correct. (Hirshon)
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In a biological outlook on depression, abnormal genetic or biochemical processes incline some individuals to depression. Conversely, in a cognitive perspective, the way people understand events in their lives has a very important effect on their weakness to depression. One example of a cognitive perspective is the hopelessness theory in which people believe that negative events in their lives are stable and global in that it will last “forever” and will affect everything he or she does causing a maladaptive cognitive (Alloy, Abramson, Francis, 1999). This article proposes that negatively biased negative self description provides the foundation for a cognitive vulnerability to depression. That is, a person whose mind set is negatively biased when processing information about one’s self may be particularly vulnerable to depression. For instance, when confronted with an unfamiliar situation, a vuln...
The importance of fans is vital because in addition to skill talent and hardwork, fans greatly affect how a team performs in their games. They affect the way a player plays because fans have a way of getting into their players heads and the opponent's head, even the referees are affected by the fans and we rarely notice the importance. In 2001 a Sports Ethics article “ The Ideal Fan” by Myles Dichter he explains the importance of fans and connection between fans
The fundamental attribution error is an important concept in psychology. Social psychology studies people’s behaviors, believes and attitudes. In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error or what is known as the correspondence bias or attribution effect, means the tendency for people to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics of the person, rather than external factors, which could be in explaining the reasons behind that person 's behaviors. In other words, usually when you see somebody doing something, you usually tend to think it is more related to their personality instead of thinking about the situation the person might be in and they call that the first look. We all do that without being aware of it, sometimes you judge someone based of what he looks like, or where is he wearing and where is he standing without knowing what is the reason behind his attitude. We can be influenced by culture, books, films and other things that effect our way of seeing the others. From a general perspective, Fundamental Attribution Error explanations how the fundamental attribution error have focused on general worldviews for our behaviors, believes and attitudes.
Known as the world’s most popular sport, professional soccer has helped create and define different groups of people around the world for longer than a century. The hoopla surrounding teams, geographic areas fans dwell in, and political ideals associated with individual clubs have carved an identity for millions of supporters whose heart and soul becomes dedicated to their favorite players, stadiums, and coaches. Soccer teams and their fans can give us a window into how people can be divided and defined by their allegiances and ideals, and why those with similar views band together to create a familiar environment for themselves.
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...ent behavior in order to win the game. Whereas, “sports violence can be seen as either an example of laudable competitive drive present in worthy participates or an underhanded attempts at rule bending” (Raney & Depalma, 2006). Moreover, decades of media exposure may have led to an increase in the acceptance of violence. Is media coverage exploiting sports violence and aggression for ratings? It’s unclear if fans are becoming desensitized and/or imitating the violence witnessed through the medium of media. Regardless, it’s abundantly clear the changes need to be made in light of the negative effects. Identifying and examining media’s role in the public’s acceptance of aggressive behavior in sports may aid society in minimizing the violence and aggression as much as possible surrounding sporting events to make sporting events safer for both players and fans.
Cassano, P. Fava, M. (2002). Depression and public health: an overview. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 53, 849–857. Retrieved from http://www.psychology.com/resources/depression.php
In conclusion, humans use attribution to explain causal relationships in the world and to explain these relationships situational or dispositional factors are used. The two errors in attribution that are most commonly made are the fundamental attribution which involves overestimating the role of dispositional factors and underestimating the role situational factors and self- serving bias which is when people take credit for their successes by attributing them to dispositional factors, and dissociate themselves from their failures by associating them situational factors.
In this experiment, we see how the first group judged the behavior through internal attributions. The second group however, watched a video that influenced their decision in attributing the circumstances and the situation rather than the individual traits of the character in the excerpt. This experiment is an example of how the Attribution Theory and Covariation Model affect the behavioral judgment of people.