Final answer:
Actor-observer bias is a social cognitive phenomenon where individuals attribute their own behaviors to situational factors but the behaviors of others to dispositional traits, often due to having more contextual information about their own actions compared to those of others.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding Actor-Observer Bias
The actor-observer bias refers to a phenomenon in social cognition where people tend to attribute their own actions to external or situational factors while attributing the actions of others to their internal or dispositional traits. For example, if someone is late to a meeting, they may blame external factors like traffic for their own lateness but assume others who are late are inherently disorganized or careless. When we are the 'actors', we are privy to the situational factors influencing our behavior but as 'observers', we tend to overlook these situational influences on others, due to having less information about the context of their actions. This can lead to an overestimation of the role of stable personality traits in others' behaviors. Social psychology research, such as the work of Jones & Nisbett (1971), has shown that this bias can affect how we perceive and judge others in various social contexts.