Intergroup Attribution Research Articles

Bearing the burden of peace: Intergroup attribution bias and public support for peace provisions

AbstractWhat drives public support for peace provisions? Based on intergroup attribution theory, we argue that public support for peace provisions depends on “who bears the burden of peace,” with people wanting to protect their ingroup while holding the outgroup accountable. To examine this claim, we conducted a series of question‐wording experiments with more than 1650 Azerbaijani participants shortly after a deadly resurgence of the Nagorno‐Karabakh war. Our initial findings confirm that support for war crime punishments and monetary reparations decreases when the ingroup stands trial or must pay. Conversely, support increases when these same burdens fall on the outgroup. A follow‐up study shows that these patterns persist for at least 6 months but also reveals a more nuanced perspective. Public support for peace provisions does not automatically decrease when the ingroup bears the cost or increase when the outgroup bears it; rather, it depends on the group‐based implications of the provision under consideration. Taken together, our results underscore the importance of crafting and communicating peace provisions in a tailored manner and the potential of emphasizing burden sharing as an effective strategy for addressing intergroup hostilities and fostering sustainable peace.

Political Trust and the Ultimate Attribution Error in Explaining Successful and Failed Policy Initiatives

This study examines how the ultimate attribution error (group attribution bias) plays out in the interaction between trust/distrust in a political actor and the success or failure of the actor’s proposed policy initiative. We conducted an experiment where student participants ( n = 222) from Latvian universities evaluated reasons for the success versus failure of a policy initiative proposed by a trusted versus untrusted political party in terms of the perceived benevolence, competence, and integrity of the political party as dispositional factors contributing to the initiative’s outcome, or external circumstances not under the political party’s control. The results showed evidence of the ultimate attribution error in the participants’ answers. The success of a policy initiative was explained more in terms of positive dispositions of the authoring party when the initiative came from a trusted political party than when it came from a distrusted party, and an initiative’s failure was explained more in terms of a lack of these positive dispositions when the initiative came from a distrusted party. There were no indications of the ultimate attribution error when explaining an initiative’s success or failure by external factors not controlled by the party authoring the initiative. The results provide additional insight into how the mechanisms of intergroup attribution play out in the context of political trust and may influence both overall trust in political actors and the evaluation of specific policy initiatives authored by these actors.

Correction to: Is Ultimate Attribution Error Universal? Inter-group Attribution for Success and Failure among University Students in Delhi

In the abstract, the sixth line should read as “Results indicated that both General Caste category and Scheduled Caste category participants showed no inter-group attribution bias.

Is Ultimate Attribution Error Universal? Inter-group Attribution for Success and Failure among University Students in Delhi

Research on inter-group attribution and ultimate attribution error has mostly focused on religious and ethnic groups. However, in view of the distinct nature of Indian social structure, this study examined inter-group attributions in caste context. The study was conducted with university students belonging to two caste groups. A total of 95 students participated in the study: 51 from General Caste category and 44 from Scheduled Caste category. Hypothetical situations were used to record attributions made for the success and failure of both in-group and out-group along the dimensions of locus of causality, stability, and controllability. Results indicated that General Caste category participants showed no inter-group attribution bias. Moreover, Scheduled Caste category participants showed a pattern of in-group derogation. These results are explained in terms of role of education and ideology in influencing the inter-group attribution process, suggesting that ultimate attribution error is not universal.

A Sociocognitive View of Repeated Interfirm Exchanges: How the Coevolution of Trust and Learning Impacts Subsequent Contracts

I augment the study of repeated interfirm exchanges with social cognition to expand the understanding of trust development and learning and how these combined forces shape subsequent contracts. Although scholars have extensively examined the independent effects of trust and learning on contracts in repeated exchanges, their coevolution and combined impact have received much less attention. I argue this omission occurs largely because social cognition is not typically considered in these literatures, even though both trust development and learning are sociocognitive processes influenced by each other, as well as by heuristics (contract frames) and cognitive biases (intergroup attribution bias). When these processes are examined in a positive exchange, the contract frame (prevention or promotion) influences initial reputation-based trust or prior development of knowledge-based trust (competence or integrity), which biases what is learned. This biased learning further impacts knowledge-based trust development, and together these factors shape adjustments to subsequent contracts. In a negative exchange, the contract frame, prior reputation-based trust, and partner explanation (internal versus external) impact what is learned from partner violations (competence or integrity). This biased learning influences knowledge-based trust development, and together they shape how subsequent contracts are adjusted. I also propose that biased learning influences when contracts act as complements or substitutes for different types of trust, addressing existing debates and critiques in these literatures. Finally, I discuss the dark side of integrity trust and trust repair under promotion contracts in repeated exchanges.

Too Old to Train or Reprimand: The Role of Intergroup Attribution Bias in Evaluating Older Workers

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the role rater and target age play in the evaluations of poorly performing workers. Intergroup attribution theory suggests that rater age predicts the attributions made for the poor performance of older workers.

INTERGROUP BIAS AMONG JAKARTA'S ROAD USERS

The goal of this study is to examine intergroup bias among people who use roads in Jakarta. Intergroup bias refers to the tendency to prioritize, treat and perceive in-group members more favorable than out-groups. Three different groups of road users participated in this study: private drivers, motor riders, and public transportation drivers. Intergroup bias is measured as perception bias and attribution bias. The findings show that both forms of bias occur among the road users. Intergroup attribution bias that is found among the three groups are more in-group than out-group attribution bias. The private car drivers, motor riders, and public transportation drivers tend to attribute positive behavior of in-group to internal factor and negative behavior of in-group to external factors. Index of effect size in perception bias indicates substantive levels and represents large effect in the population.

Explanations for positive and negative behavior: the intergroup attribution bias in achieved groups

Previous research into intergroup attribution has addressed mainly the behavior of groups to which members are ascribed (e.g. gender, race). The attribution processes of groups of which membership is achieved (e.g. friendship groups) is less well understood, and the current study sought to address this. Fifty-five undergraduate participants were asked to explain the positive and negative behavior of a member of the in-group and a member of the out-group. As predicted, the participants attributed an in-group member's positive behavior more, and their negative behavior less, to internal, global, and specific causes than they did the corresponding behavior of an out-group member. There was also evidence that the participants employed a strategy of out-group derogation in their attributions: they made a higher intemality rating for an out-group member's negative behavior than they did for that person's positive behavior. It is proposed that the current study's use of achieved groups maximized participants' levels of group identification, and that this in turn motivated behavioral strategies aimed at protecting that identity.

Attributions for the negative historical actions of a group

AbstractTwo field studies examined the attributions made for the historically negative behaviour of a group as a whole, depending on whether the actions were committed by the ingroup or an outgroup. In the first study, Jewish people assigned more internal responsibility to Germans for their treatment of Jewish people during the Second World War than Germans assigned to their own group. In the second study, people attributed the negative historical actions of another nation more internally (and less externally) than similar negative historical actions committed by their own nation. This pattern of intergroup attributional bias was more pronounced among people who highly identified with their national ingroup. Outgroup homogeneity and perceptions of differences between the groups were also significantly predicted by ingroup identification. Links between social identity theory and the intergroup attribution bias are considered. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Children's Intergroup Attribution Bias for Liked and Disliked Peers

To find an intergroup bias with nonethnic peer social groups, the author asked 30 children from New Zealand to make attributions about both positive and negative behaviors performed by both someone they liked and by someone they disliked. In line with predictions, the children produced (a) more dispositional attributions for friends performing positive behaviors and for someone disliked performing negative behaviors and (b) more situational attributions for friends performing negative behaviors and for someone disliked performing positive behaviors. The results show that the intergroup attribution bias generalizes to the important domain of peer relations and that children's narrative accounts can be biased depending upon group membership.

Attributions for unemployment in Northern Ireland: Does it make a difference what your name is?

Two studies are described which provide evidence forintergroup attribution bias in Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants. In the first study, 209 Northern Irish university students completed a questionnaire designed to assess intergroup attribution bias along the dimensions of internality, stability and globality. It was found that outgroup attributions for unemployment tended towards more internal, stable and global causes than for the Ingroup. Similar results were found in the second study which investigated intergroup attribution bias in 294 Northern Irish school age students.

Effects of Confirmatory and Contradictory Stimuli and Development on Children's Intergroup Attribution

Intergroup attributional differences were investigated among Canadian children at three developmental levels who received confirmatory and contradictory stimuli about ingroup and outgroup individuals. Participants were 83 public school students divided into three levels of social attribution development. An intergroup attribution questionnaire assessed the degree of internality of participants' explanations of the success and failure of ingroup and outgroup members. Results indicated that the participants responded differently to stimuli that confirmed ethnocentric assumptions than they responded to stimuli that contradicted these assumptions. The precise nature of the responses, however, depended on the developmental level of the participant: Whereas younger children tended to use attributions that favored the ethnic ingroup, older children actually used attributions that favored the outgroup.

The Effects of Prevalent Social Stereotypes on Intergroup Attribution

The study tested there alternative hypotheses regarding intergroup attribution patterns derived from the ethnocentric, the asymmetrical, and the stereotype-based models of intergroup attribution. Junior high school pupils (284 males and 298 females) from majority and minority groups in Israel were asked to make internal-external attributions regarding three different competencies awarded to an ingroup or outgroup member. The results largely supported the streotype-based model: Members of both groups made internal attributions for stereotype-consistent positive behavior and external attibutions for stereotype-inconsistent positive behavior, for both the ingroup and the outgroup.

Interracial Contact in South Africa Within the Nursing Context1

Previous research on the effect of intergroup contact has highlighted the necessity for the contact to be of equal‐status within a supportive environment. The South African apartheid system, with its active discouragement of such contact, presents an interesting context in which the effect of inter‐racial contact may be examined. One hundred and thirteen nurses from four private hospitals took part in the study. Two of the hospitals had racially integrated training programs, and two trained one race group alone. A number of questionnaires were administered to the nurses in individual interviews. The responses indicated that nurses from the contact hospitals viewed the integration of nursing significantly more positively than did the nurses from the noncontact hospitals. However, trait evaluations of the nurses own and corresponding race group on the dimensions, personality and work ability suggested that negative intergroup attribution had not been eliminated by the contact.

Inferring Personality Characteristics of Ethiopian Societies From Intergroup Perceptions

Abstract On the basis of the concepts of projection and assumed similarity in trait attribution, two specific hypotheses were made concerning the Amhara, the Tigre, and the Oromo ethnic groups of Ethiopia: (a) each group describes the other two groups in much the same way as it describes itself, and (b) each group is described by the other two groups in much the same way as it describes itself. University students (N = 131) belonging to the three ethnic groups were asked to describe each group by using a modified 3-point Likert-type scale employing proverbs as questionnaire items. Both hypotheses were confirmed for each group. Actual group personality might be inferred from the resulting convergence in intergroup trait attribution. Significant differences were also observed in the extent to which traits were attributed to the three groups. The Amhara and the Tigre were more favorable to themselves in trait attribution than the Oromo were. In their self-enhancement, however, the Tigre derogated others, and...

Intergroup attribution: The role of social categories in causal attribution for behaviour

Abstract The present study was designed to investigate the effects of group membership on observers' attributional processes. It was hypothesized that an observer's pattern of attribution for success and failure will be a function of the outgroup's relative status, and that more severe rules for the attribution of responsibility would be applied to high prestige actors. One hundred and twenty female undergraduate students, classified as either internal or external on Rotter's (1966) I-E scale, made causal attributions for success and failure within the study's 2(I-E) × 3(ingroup/high esteem outgroup/low esteem outgroup) × 2(success/failure) experimental design. The results offered partial support for the study's hypotheses. Primarily the results suggest that similar rules of accountability may operate for both the high esteem outgroup and the ingroup. As for the low esteem outgroup, the pattern of attribution reflects the ambivalence predicted for the subjects in their explanation of the low esteem outgro...