In order to judge people accurately, we need to know why they did it and not just what they did. Inferences that are made about the causes of peoples behaviors is called attributions. Attribution can be classified as internal, or situational, and external, or dispositional. In an situational attributions, people concludes a person's behavior was caused by some temporary aspect of the situation in which it happened. In an dispositional attributions, a person's behavior is caused by his or her personal factors, such as how they think, feel, or act in a particular way.
Correspondence bias is the tendency to make a dispositional attribution even when a person's behavior was caused by the situation. This bias is one for the most common mind-bugs observed and is called the fundamental attributions error by Lee Ross. For example, if you had to get into group of threes to do a group project from a class of 30 students, you would try to find people that looks like they are hardworking or knows the subject instead of people that aren't. But if you just pick people that you think are hardworking and knows the subject and not pick people that don't look like they are hardworking, you could be wrong. If someone looks like they are hardworking, they could not be what they seems like they would be. They could very well be really lazy and not participate in the project.
People are more prone to correspondence bias when judging other people compared to judging themselves. The actor-observer effect is the tendency to make situational attributions for our own behaviors while making dispositional attributions for the identical behavior of others. This effect occurs because people typically have more information about the situations that caused their own behavior than about the situations that caused other people's behavior.
Attributions and Correspondence Bias
Correspondence bias is the tendency to make a dispositional attribution even when a person's behavior was caused by the situation. This bias is one for the most common mind-bugs observed and is called the fundamental attributions error by Lee Ross. For example, if you had to get into group of threes to do a group project from a class of 30 students, you would try to find people that looks like they are hardworking or knows the subject instead of people that aren't. But if you just pick people that you think are hardworking and knows the subject and not pick people that don't look like they are hardworking, you could be wrong. If someone looks like they are hardworking, they could not be what they seems like they would be. They could very well be really lazy and not participate in the project.
People are more prone to correspondence bias when judging other people compared to judging themselves. The actor-observer effect is the tendency to make situational attributions for our own behaviors while making dispositional attributions for the identical behavior of others. This effect occurs because people typically have more information about the situations that caused their own behavior than about the situations that caused other people's behavior.
Attributions and Correspondence Bias
References:
Schacter, Gilbert, & Wegner (2011) Introducing Psychology: First edition. Social Psychology. New York: 41 Madison Avenue.
Nataly, B. (2003-2015) Attributions and the Correspondence Bias in Psychology: Definition & Dispositions vs. Situational Behavior. Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/attributions-and-the-correspondence-bias-in-psychology-definition-dispositions-vs-situational-behavior.html
Schacter, Gilbert, & Wegner (2011) Introducing Psychology: First edition. Social Psychology. New York: 41 Madison Avenue.
Nataly, B. (2003-2015) Attributions and the Correspondence Bias in Psychology: Definition & Dispositions vs. Situational Behavior. Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/attributions-and-the-correspondence-bias-in-psychology-definition-dispositions-vs-situational-behavior.html