Question

When you are winning at poker and explain to others at the table that you are good at cards and tend to have good luck, what type of attribution error are you making?

Answer 1

The poker player is demonstrating a self-serving bias by attributing their success to internal factors such as skill and luck, which is a cognitive bias used to maintain self-esteem. This is connected to the fundamental attribution error, where people frequently emphasize personal traits over situational elements.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a poker player credits their winning to being good at cards and having good luck, they are exhibiting a self-serving bias. This cognitive bias involves making internal attributions for success, meaning the individual attributes positive outcomes to their own character or abilities. Conversely, if they were to lose and blamed it on bad luck or unfairness, that would also align with a self-serving bias because they would be attributing failure to external factors.

This tendency is related to the fundamental attribution error, which is a broader cognitive bias where people tend to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors when assessing others' behavior. In the context of a group activity like a game or a sport, this can manifest as a belief that one's success is due to inherent skills or effort (internal, stable, controllable factors), while a loss is attributed to external conditions beyond one's control (external, unstable, uncontrollable factors).

The self-serving bias serves to protect an individual's self-esteem by taking credit for positive events while deflecting blame for negative ones. This is a common psychological phenomenon across various scenarios, including sports, business, and personal achievements.

Answer 2

Attribution errors fall into four main classes i.e i. Fundamental attribution error where we explain the behavior of another person by emphasizing the role of dispositional factors and minimize the role of situational factors e.g. assuming that a football team loses a match because they are useless and not because they are jetlagged and tired from a long flight . ii) Actor-observor bias. Here we maximize the effect of dispositional factors in others' behavior whilst minimizing the effect of situational factors. We also go on to minimize the effect of dispositional factors on our own behavior while maximizing the effect of situational factors. e.g when one says a coworker fails to complete a task because they are lazy but when that same individual fails to complete an assingment they attrubute it to unrealistic deadlines. iii) Self-serving bias. Here a person tends to take responsibility for success and blames failure on external factors e.g you win at poker because you are a good player but when you lose it is because the deck is stacked. iv) Hostile attribution bias. When we interpret the actions of others as hostile even without evidence to dispute the benignity of the same. e.g. when you assume that two whispering strangers are talking ill about you ignoring the fact that in all likelihood they are simply having a private conversation. In the given example winning at poker and explaining that you are good at cards and have good luck is self-serving bias. The results of the success at the card game is attributed to the victor's playing prowess as well as possession of good fortune. When losing this individual would likely blame it on "bad luck" and not on the skills of the competitors.