Actor-observer effect: what is it and what are its causes?

Attributional biases are biases or distortions that cause us to make certain errors when explaining the origin of a behavior. One of these biases is the so-called actor-observer effect., widely studied in social psychology.

This effect has been supported by empirical evidence, and it maintains that we tend to attribute the causes of behaviors in different ways, depending on whether we are talking about our behaviors or those of others. We are going to see what this effect consists of, as well as its characteristics, explanations and limitations.

• Related article: "Cognitive biases: discovering an interesting psychological effect"

Actor-observer effect: what is it?

The actor-observer effect is a psychological phenomenon studied in social psychology, which consists of a general tendency of people to attribute their own actions to situational or external factors, and the actions of others to stable personal dispositions (ie, to internal factors). This effect was disclosed by two authors: Jones and Nisbett, in 1972.

In this case, when we speak of the "actor" we refer to "ourselves", and when we speak of the "observer" we refer to "others"; hence the name of the effect. This effect, as we have already mentioned at the beginning, has been highly supported and demonstrated by empirical evidence.

On the other hand, it is interesting to mention that the actor-observer effect appears especially when the behavior or the result of the behavior is negative (as we will see later in an example). That is, this effect would allude to the fact that we tend to "blame" others for their negative actions, and that we we “excuse” ours, looking for an external or situational factor that explains the negative result of our conduct. In other words, in a certain way it would be a way of "avoiding" responsibilities.

This effect could be thought of as a kind of defense mechanism or mechanism that aims to protect our self-esteem or self-concept. However, there are various explanations that have been proposed to explain this effect, as we will see throughout this article.

Example

An example to illustrate the actor-observer effect, it would be a failed exam by a student; in this case, while the teacher can attribute this failure to stable personal dispositions of the observer (for example "laziness" on the part of the student), the student himself (the “actor”) can attribute that same failure to situational or external factors (for example, family problems that have prevented him from study).

Hypotheses about its causes

Some hypotheses have been postulated to explain why the actor-observer effect occurs. Let's look at the five most important:

1. Information level hypothesis

According to this first hypothesis of the actor-observer effect, the level of information we have influences how we analyze the causes of behaviors.

Thus, this first hypothesis maintains that we usually have more information about our behavior and about our own situational variability, compared to that of others. This causes us to attribute the behaviors of others to internal factors, and ours to external or situational factors. This hypothesis, however, has little empirical support.

2. Perceptual focus hypothesis

The second hypothesis of the actor-observer effect refers to the perceptual focus (or point of view). According to this hypothesis, our point of view will be different depending on whether we analyze our own behavior or that of others. So, If our point of view changes, the attributions will also change. that we make of the behavior of the actor ("others") and that of the observer ("us").

Experiment

This hypothesis is also known as the "perceptual explanation of the actor-observer effect", and is based on an experiment carried out by Storms in 1973. In the experiment it was observed how the fact of perceiving a situation from angles or perspectives different from those initially shown, could change the attributions what people did to them.

Thus, in the experiment it was seen how the attributions of the actors (“of oneself”) became more external attributions (external factors), and the attributions of the observers (“of the others”) became more internal (explained by external factors). internal).

3. Behavior and Situation Hypothesis

On the other hand, there is a third hypothesis, similar to the first, which holds that when we observe a person, we usually have more information regarding the behavior that he executes than about the situation or history of the individual whom we observe (because many times we do not know him).

This causes a bias to be committed when attributing their behavior to some factors or others, that is, the actor-observer effect itself.

• You may be interested in: "Theories of causal attribution: definition and authors"

4. Motivation hypothesis (self-concept)

This hypothesis raises, as we already suggested at the beginning of the article, that people usually apply mechanisms that allow us to protect our self-concept, when we have to explain why we behave in a certain way or why we get "X" results with our Actions. In other words, it would be a way of maintaining a good image of ourselves.

On the other hand, the actor-observer effect would be also a way to "justify" our bad actions or our bad results (for example, by getting a bad grade on a test and justifying ourselves that we were not feeling well that day (external or situational factors).

On the other hand, when we talk about others, we don't care so much that their negative behavior is due to an internal cause, because many Sometimes we do not know the person, or it is simply someone other than us, this thought being certainly selfish or individualistic.

5. salience hypothesis

The fourth hypothesis focuses on the concept of salience (where do we fix our attention?). This hypothesis establishes that when we observe our own behavior (and focus our attention on it), we tend to focus on the situation, the context; and yet when we observe the behavior of other people, we focus more on their behavior. All this, obviously, will influence the attributions that we make of the actions.

When does this bias especially appear?

The actor-observer effect, considered as an attributional bias or error when explaining the causes of behaviors, it occurs especially not only before negative behaviors, as we have already seen, but also also appears more frequently with people we don't know or know little about. Consequently, the effect is weakened with known or close people.

This is explained logically, since in the case of unknown people, we have less access to their feelings or thoughts (we know them less) and that makes it easier for us to "judge" them when it comes to explaining their behavior as coming from internal factors and dispositional.

Limitations of this attributional bias

There are two limitations to the actor-observer effect. On the one hand, this effect does not occur in the same way (or with the same intensity) in all cultures; that is, cultural differences appear. On the other, the effect loses consistency when actions or behaviors involve positive and negative results instead of neutral ones.

Thus, we must understand this effect as something very common or frequent, which often occurs unconsciously; however, one must be cautious, since as in all psychological processes, there are always exceptions and not everything is black and white. In this way, many times we will have to go beyond the "general rule" and analyze the cases individually.

Bibliographic references:

• Blanchard, F. and Fredda (1996). Causal attributions across the adult life span: The influence of social schemas, life context, and domain specificity. Applied Cognitive Psychology; Vol 10 (Spec Issue) S137-S146.
• Hogg, M. (2010). Social psychology. Vaughan Graham M. Pan American. Publisher: Panamericana.
• Melià, J.L.; Chisvert, M. and Pardo, E. (2001). A Processual Model of Attributions and Attitudes before Work Accidents: Measurement and intervention strategies. Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 17 (1), 63 - 90.