![]() ![]() Surprisingly enough, researchers found that even when participants were told the writer hadn’t chosen which side they would be on, they still believed that the writer’s attitude corresponded with the one presented in the essay. After reading the essay, they were asked to infer the personal attitude of the fictitious “writer.” Some participants were told the writer had chosen to write for or against the topic in question, while others were told the writer was assigned a position. Example: Correspondence bias and awareness of external causesIn one experimental study, participants read short essays either in favor of, or against, a controversial topic like abortion, drug use, or a particular political leader. People tend to infer personality traits based on the behavior or actions of others, even when they are aware that external factors or constraints are at play. If this doesn’t happen, we draw negative conclusions about their personality (i.e., “they’re flaky” or “they don’t care about their friends”). Due to this, we expect others to behave as we (think we) would in that situation (e.g., “if I lost my phone, I would log on to my computer to answer my messages”). Because of our tendency to see things from our perspective (i.e., egocentric bias) we wrongly assume that others experience a situation exactly as we do. ![]() It is important to remember that correspondence bias happens even when we are aware of the situation a person is in. Because we can only observe some aspects of a situation (e.g., we are trying to reach our friend all day) and can’t observe others (e.g., that our friend has lost their phone), this leads to correspondence bias. When it comes to other people’s behavior, we tend to downplay the role of the situation and attribute static personality characteristics from what we observe. Some of these causes do lie within the individual (like their personality) but many lie outside (situational factors). What causes correspondence bias?Ĭorrespondence bias emerges from the way we explain the behavior of others, which has many possible causes. ![]() For example, if a friend doesn’t return our call, correspondence bias may cause us to think that our friend is (always!) an inconsiderate person, even if they forgot or are traveling for work. In other words, we assume other people’s actions correspond to their character, regardless of whether we are aware of the external causes of this behavior.Ĭorrespondence bias plays a role in the impressions we form of others, and can lead to erroneous assumptions about their character. According to correspondence bias, we tend to blame someone’s character for a particular behavior they are displaying, even when this behavior is influenced by situational factors.
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