Bias In Causal Attribution Research Articles

Symptom-related attributional biases in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Biases in causal attributions and evidence integration have been implicated in delusions, but have not been investigated simultaneously to examine additive or multiplicative effects. It was hypothesised that paranoid delusions would correlate with self-serving and personalising biases (“defence” model of paranoia), particularly when these biases were disconfirmed.Methods: Constrained principal component analysis was used to investigate differences between schizophrenia patients (paranoid vs. non-paranoid), bipolar disorder patients, and healthy controls, as well as to examine the extent to which psychotic symptoms could predict patterns of responding on a novel attributional bias task (Attributional Style BADE, or ASB) that requires integrating contextual information.Results: Although no group differences were found, disorganisation and manic symptoms correlated with situation attributions and self-blame when such attributions were unsupported by the available evidence, and depression and anxiety correlated with other-person and self attributions (not situation attributions) when confirmed by the available evidence, regardless of diagnosis.Conclusions: While group differences accounted for little variance in responses on the ASB task, a transdiagnostic association between symptoms of psychosis and the ASB task was observed. This highlights the importance of considering symptom profiles rather than diagnostic groupings when investigating cognitive biases and related non-pharmacological treatments.

Intergenerational objective and subjective mobility and attitudes towards income differences: evidence from transition societies

This article explores the association between intergenerational social mobility and attitudes towards income differences in post-socialist societies. I hypothesise that based on the psychological mechanism of self-serving bias in causal attribution, those who experience upward social mobility are more likely to support greater income differences, and that subjective intergenerational mobility has stronger association with attitudes towards income differences than objective mobility because individuals filter their objective environment in order to derive their subjective perceptions of the world and their own experiences. The described hypotheses are tested with two cross-national data sets – European Values Studies and Life in Transition Survey. The derived findings are robust to alternative statistical specifications and indicate that individuals who perceive themselves as subjectively mobile have significantly different attitudes towards income differences in comparison to non-mobile groups, but that this effect does not manifest among objectively mobile individuals.

Age-Related Attribution Biases in Errors Involving Instrumental Activities of Daily Living

Previous research has demonstrated biases, such as the correspondence bias and an age-based double standard, related to causal attributions throughout adulthood. Much of this research has focused on memory errors, and little attention has been paid to instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) errors. Due to the social context of IADL tasks combined with the importance of these tasks in maintaining independence, the current study attempts to establish the extent that causal attribution biases occur in this domain. The current study used vignettes describing both memory and IADL errors to assess the types of attributions participants (young, middle-aged, and older adults) made when explaining the cause of these errors. This between-subjects design manipulated the age (young, middle-aged, and old) and gender of the targets committing the errors. Similar to the memory domain, participants exhibited an age-based double standard when describing the cause of IADL errors. Specifically, older targets were thought to commit errors due to ‘mental difficulty.’ This study revealed initial evidence that age-related biases in causal attributions may extend to IADL domains. The findings do suggest, however, that these biases may be less pronounced compared to memory domains, as support for age-related increases in the correspondence bias was found in the memory but not the IADL domain.

Social class differences in N400 indicate differences in spontaneous trait inference.

An emerging literature indicates that dispositional bias in causal attribution of social behavior is weaker for people with working-class (vs. middle-class) backgrounds. However, it is unknown whether this difference is also present in spontaneous forms of trait inference. In the current work, American undergraduates were asked to merely memorize many pairings of a target face and a trait-implying behavior. In a subsequent lexical judgment task, after each face was presented as a fixation, either an implied trait or its antonym was given as a target. As expected, participants with college-educated parents (middle class) showed a strong N400 event-related potential component to the antonym (vs. the implied trait), suggesting spontaneous trait inference during the memorization phase. In contrast, those with high-school-educated parents (working class) showed no such effect. It is important to note that the N400 spontaneous trait inference effect was associated with perceived significance of dispositions in accounting for social behaviors.

Overestimated relationships with subjective well-being.

This article is about relationships between subjective well-being (SWB) and variables such as demographics, intentional activities, personality traits, and personal characteristics. Causal interpretation of these relationships is usually asymmetric from the variable to SWB, although the literature also contains interpretations of reverse or bidirectional causality. Evidence reviewed here suggests that heritable personality traits may underlie some of these relationships. A consequence is that covariance may be lower than lower than indicated by phenotypic (within individual) correlations. The article discusses some implications for positive psychology. Keywords: subjective well-being, happiness, satisfaction, heritability, general factor of personality This article discusses models of probabilistic causation that encompass well-being measures and their correlates. Causal models contain a set of variables overlaid by two mathematical structures: a graph indicating causal direction in relationships between variables, and probabilistic estimates related to such relationships. Received opinion influences the former while methodological considerations overall confidence in a model (e.g., type of data, statistical power). Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener (2005) comment on an established bias in causal attribution even with data from one-time assessment: associations between desirable outcomes and happiness have led most investigators to assume that success makes people happy. (p. 803). A focus of the article is on comparison this assumption with alternative propositions. The article begins with a brief discussion of definitions and well-being measures used in positive psychology, followed by a description of causal assumptions that may pertain to relationships involving these measures. The next two sections respectively discuss correlates of well-being and the relevance of higher-order dispositions to these relationships. The final section considers some implications for positive psychology. Throughout the article, we highlight contributions by Canadian researchers. Definitions and Measures Definitions of well-being include the following. Subjective wellbeing (SWB) is an evaluation of in terms of satisfaction and the balance between positive and negative affect (Keyes, Shmotkin, & Ryff, 2002, p. 1007). Psychological well-being (PWB) refers to perception of engagement with existential challenges of life (p. 1007). Eudaimonic well-being (EWB) includes feelings of personal expressiveness associated with the pursuit of excellence, virtue, and self-realisation (p. 42; Waterman et al., 2010). Canadian proponents of existential and eudaimonic conceptions of wellbeing include O'Brien (2008), Ryan, Huta, and Deci (2008), and Wong (1998). The most common names of SWB measures are satisfaction and happiness scales, with comparable measures known as affect, morale, or self-reported depression scales (Kozma, Stones, & McNeil, 1991). A Canadian measure used frequently in North America, Europe, and Asia is the Memorial University of Newfoundland Scale of Happiness (MUNSH; Kozma, Stone, Stones, Hannah, & McNeil, 1990; Kozma & Stones, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1988; Kozma, Stones, & Kazarian, 1985; Kozma et al., 1991; Stones & Kozma, 1986a). Along with widely cited measures of satisfaction, such as the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), evidence for psychometric adequacy is convincing. Measures that fall under Keyes et al.' s (2002) existential challenge rubric include Canadian scales addressing attitudes (Reker & Peacock, 1981), perceived well-being (Reker & Wong, 1984), and personal meaning (Wong, 1998). A widely used battery by Ryff (1989) measures independence and self-determination, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. …

Overcoming Confirmation Bias in Causal Attribution: A Case Study of Antibiotic Resistance Risks

When they do not use formal quantitative risk assessment methods, many scientists (like other people) make mistakes and exhibit biases in reasoning about causation, if-then relations, and evidence. Decision-related conclusions or causal explanations are reached prematurely based on narrative plausibility rather than adequate factual evidence. Then, confirming evidence is sought and emphasized, but disconfirming evidence is ignored or discounted. This tendency has serious implications for health-related public policy discussions and decisions. We provide examples occurring in antimicrobial health risk assessments, including a case study of a recently reported positive relation between virginiamycin (VM) use in poultry and risk of resistance to VM-like (streptogramin) antibiotics in humans. This finding has been used to argue that poultry consumption causes increased resistance risks, that serious health impacts may result, and therefore use of VM in poultry should be restricted. However, the original study compared healthy vegetarians to hospitalized poultry consumers. Our examination of the same data using conditional independence tests for potential causality reveals that poultry consumption acted as a surrogate for hospitalization in this study. After accounting for current hospitalization status, no evidence remains supporting a causal relationship between poultry consumption and increased streptogramin resistance. This example emphasizes both the importance and the practical possibility of analyzing and presenting quantitative risk information using data analysis techniques (such as Bayesian model averaging (BMA) and conditional independence tests) that are as free as possible from potential selection, confirmation, and modeling biases.

Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan's "northern frontier."

The authors hypothesized that economically motivated voluntary settlement in the frontier fosters independent agency. While illuminating the historical origin of American individualism, this hypothesis can be most powerfully tested in a region that is embedded in a broader culture of interdependence and yet has undergone a recent history of such settlement. The authors therefore examined residents of Japan's northern island (Hokkaido). Hokkaido was extensively settled by ethnic Japanese beginning in the 1870s and for several decades thereafter. Many of the current residents of Hokkaido are the descendents of the original settlers from this period. As predicted, Japanese socialized and/or immersed in Hokkaido were nearly as likely as European Americans in North America to associate happiness with personal achievement (Study 1), to show a personal dissonance effect wherein self-justification is motivated by a threat to personal self-images (Study 2), and to commit a dispositional bias in causal attribution (Study 3). In contrast, these marker effects of independent agency were largely absent for non-Hokkaido residents in Japan. Implications for theories of cultural change and persistence are discussed.

Self-serving biases in causal attributions as a function of altered activation asymmetry.

The method of induced lateral orientation of attention was selectively used to alter the balance of activation of the brain toward one cerebral hemisphere or the other. The goal was to extend earlier research which showed greater personal optimism for future events during left hemisphere activation to the related phenomenon of causal attributions. As predicted, there was significantly greater self-serving bias (attribution of internal, stable, and global causes for positive events and external, unstable, and specific causes for negative events) during left hemisphere than during right hemisphere relative activation. This was true for achievement but not for affiliation events. These effects were explained in terms of the increased positive affect which correlates with greater left hemisphere activation. Selective activation of the left hemisphere as a means temporarily to alter attributional style was discussed as a possible tool in the treatment of learned helplessness and depression.

Obstacles to Understanding and Using Statistical Process Control as a Productivity Improvement Approach

Statistical process control (SPC) enables workers to detect variability in work processes and outputs. To improve productivity, workers must understand and respond appropriately to such variability. In this paper, we describe some psychological obstacles that prevent individuals from fully understanding and using SPC effectively. Specifically, we discuss obstacles that result from general tendencies in human judgment and from biases in causal attributions.

Motivational biases in causal attributions of arousal.

Snyder's attribute-ambiguity theory proposes that people sometimes seek ambiguity rather than clarity as to their behavior and the motives behind it. They do this to avoid learning something about themselves that they may not wish to i know, in other words, because of ego-defensiveness. Consistent with this reasoning, in the current research it was hypothesized that the desire to seek ambiguity as to the cause of a particular state of arousal will increase if either that arousal state or its source is potentially threatening to self-esteem. To test this hypothesis, two studies were run. In the first experiment, high- and low-sex-guilt male subjects were shown either an arousing erotic movie or a nonarousing movie; in the second experiment high- and low-guilt females were led to believe that they were very aroused by pictures of nude men. Ambiguity was introduced into both situations by means of a bogus, nonthreatening, alternative arousal source (a placebo). Results indicated that high-guilt subjects were actively involved in the process of determining which source was arousing them. More importantly, this involvement appeared to be motivated by ego-defensiveness. In both experiments, when high-guilt subjects were confronted by an erotic stimulus, they chose to attribute arousal to the bogus source—and thus create ambiguity as to the actual cause and nature of their arousal—more than did the low-guilt subjects.

Motivational biases in causal attributions of arousal.

Motivational biases in causal attributions of arousal.

Field-Study Evidence of an Ego-Defensive Bias in Attribution among Two Categories of Observers

Data from a field stud)' originally' conducted for a different purpose were reanalyzed for evidence of attributional bias. Coaches rated players' abilities and efforts at preseason and midway through a losing season. Results were consistent with predictions derived from an analysis of differential role demands: The head coach perceived players as having greater abilities but poorer efforts at midseason than preseason; assistant coaches perceived less ability but greater efforts at midseason than preseason. The findings are seen as consistent with the notion of a self-esteem-protecting bias in causal attribution.

Social anxiety, self-presentation, and the self-serving bias in causal attribution.

Two experiments were conducted to provide evidence concerning the contribution of self-presentation concerns to the self-serving bias in causal attribution (individuals' tendency to assume more personal responsibility for a success than for a failure outcome) and its occasional, but systematic, reversal. In Experiment 1 high- but not low-social-anxiety participants presented themselves in a far more modest light when a committee of high prestige others was to join the experimenter in evaluating their behavior than when the committee evaluation was canceled. In Experiment 2 this reversal of the self-serving bias among high-social-anxiety subjects (in the evaluative context) was replicated, and it was also found that both high- and low-social-anxiety participants portrayed the causes of their behavior in a more modest fashion when they responded via the "bogus pipeline," a measurement technique designed to reduce distortion and dissimulation in verbal responses, than when they responded in the traditional paper-and-pencil format (although the influence of the bogus pipeline above and beyond the committee evaluation in eliciting "honest" responses from subjects only reached significance for low-social-anxiety subjects). These findings are discussed in terms of the varying self-presentation strategies and differing self-concepts of individuals high and low in social anxiety, as well as the self-presentation component to apparently self-enhancing and self-effacing causal attributions for performance.

Social anxiety, self-presentation, and the self-serving bias in causal attribution.

Social anxiety, self-presentation, and the self-serving bias in causal attribution.

Self-Presentation, Self-Monitoring, and the Self-Serving Bias in Causal Attribution

Research has shown that individuals' causal attributions are affected by the degree of public scrutiny of their behavior (Bradley, 1978). An experiment was conducted to test a self-presentational explanation of this finding. High and low self-monitors were or were not closely scrutinized (videotaped) during their performance of a task at which they either succeeded or failed. Low self-monitors were expected to provide an attributional baseline (little or no self-presentation) against which the self-presentational tendencies of high self-monitors could be assessed. It was found that high self-monitors assumed significantly greater responsibility for success than for failure when videotaped, but assumed only somewhat more responsibility for success than for failure when not taped. Surprisingly, low self-monitors' attributions were affected by the manipulation of evaluation intensity. Low self-monitors assumed more responsibility for success than for failure when they were not taped, but assumed no more responsibility for success than for failure when they were taped.