Attributional biases are cognitive biases which affect attribution -- the way we determine who or what was responsible for an event or action.
Such biases typically rely on actor/observer differences, which is the way people involved in an action and those outside of it view things differently.
Often they are caused by asymmetry in availability (frequently called "salience" in this context). The behavior of actors is easier to remember than the background settings; or, our own inner turmoil is more available to ourselves than it is to others. As a result, our judgments of attribution are often distorted along those lines.
In some experiments, for example, subjects were shown only one side of a conversation or were able to see one of the faces of the conversational participants. Whomever the subjects had a better view of were judged by them as being more important, influential, and having a greater role in the conversation.
The most well-known and representative example of an attributional bias is the fundamental attribution error.
Attributional biases include:
- egocentric bias
- the false consensus effect
- The fundamental attribution error
- The group attribution error
- group-serving bias
- negativity effect
- positivity effect
- positive outcome bias
- self-serving bias
- trait ascription bias
See also: attribution theory, causal oversimplification, causality, list of cognitive biases