Human Beings Use Self Serving Bias

Everyday people have the tendency to make inferences about the causes of behavior seen in society. Social psychologists have found that everyday people often commit personal attributional biases from inferences without considering the outcomes. The fundamental attribution error is a personal attribution bias everyday people commit in society. As everyday people commit the fundamental attribution error, they fail to acknowledge how harmful it is to those affected. Everyday people can become more aware of and plan to reduce the harmfulness the fundamental attribution error presents through message complexity and attention.

The ease of modern technology that lets people communicate globally, the access to extraordinary mobility, and the well roundedness of people today has produced the biggest population in history that prides itself in being egalitarian and fair-minded. Psychologists have found evidence in recent studies that, although people are not as outwardly racist and discriminatory as they were in the past centuries, there is an underlying bias that can lead people to act in ways opposing their beliefs. In their book Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good people, psychologists Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald explore the ideas of unconscious identity, the judgment and treatment of others based on stereotypes and the phenomenon of association, and our inability to simply stop being biased as opposed to outsmarting it.

Imagine living in a world where receiving acceptance from strangers all around the world would make you feel “normal” and beautiful. Well, it’s not that hard to imagine when we are living right through it. In Michael Lovelock’s article “The Makeover Trap”, published in 2017 on AEON, Lovelock asserts the urge to blend into society and to be accepted by others with open arms is exceeding by the days. Locklock begins by using rhetorical strategies, such as ethos, logos, tone,and appeal to authority to lay out his argument.

A person’s identity is influenced by how you view yourself and how society views you. In Jonathan Lykes poem This is a Siren, and the short story The Bear that Wasn’t by Frank Tashlin, both authors shine a light on how great of an impact society can have on an individual’s identity. Society has already established different stereotypes for each individual which causes everyone to perceive others in a certain way without truly getting to know them. This can cause an individual to change the way they perceive themselves in order to be accepted by society and to fit in it’s expectations of that individual. “This thing called perception, that gives people the opportunity for acceptation, or on the flip side, to be a circle of rejection…” (Lykes 2010) Here, Lykes talks about how we perceive each other can either make us accept one another or reject one another. However, in the end, it is up to the individual to decided if they are going

By criticizing one’s appearance, the community drives people to escape from common limitations. Social boundaries are set by the common flow of people within a community, usually, those who feel the need to break free, are those who have been condemned. “...but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more

As a person goes through their life, they encounter many choices and options. The most obvious ones are what they will wear, eat, or do for each day of their life. Everything that they do, even the most simple decisions, can and will impact them and who they are as a person. This will become a part of their identity. However, as the social beings humans are, their identities can be effected by those around them, virtually and physically. Most especially, every person’s identity is affected by the opinions and thoughts of others which can be expressed online, through verbal comments, and body language. This causes each person to question themselves and attempt to view themselves from the eyes of others. And when people question their identities

“An appreciation of the power of self-justification helps us understand, therefore, why people who have low self-esteem, or who simply believe that they are incompetent in some domain, are not totally overjoyed when they do something well.” (p..

Bias is something every person has; It is the inclination to feel prejudice towards a certain person, subject, or thing. On a personal level, bias affects just about everything a person could encounter, or has yet to encounter in their lifetime. There are two main types of biases people can have; Cognitive bias involves topics such as social attribution or memory errors, that are quite common and have a wide range of effects on how humans perceive things. The other type of bias is called social biases, or sometimes referred to as attributional bias. Attributional biases affect our everyday social interactions, and has a strong impact on people when trying to assess their own and others behaviors.

While people may struggle in life and find themselves in difficult situations, everyone has different ways to solve their problems. There are some decisions that turn out badly and lead to disappointments. Some people learn from their mistakes and try to avoid them in order to improve the relationships with their partners, friends, and coworkers. However, many people don’t like to admit their mistakes. They find that the easiest way to get rid of their mistakes is by putting the blame on the other side. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) talks in detail about these problems that we face in our in our daily lives. This inspirational book has convinced me that self-justification affects relationships between people. The authors, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, give answers for an important question of “why we justify foolish beliefs, bad

“You know, biases are the stories we make up about people before we know who they actually are. But how are we going to know who they are when we 've been told to avoid and be afraid of them? So I 'm going to tell you to walk toward your discomfort.” (Myers)

In our history and lives, humans tend to judge others. If they think they are not like themselves, they are weird and judge them of what they are. This problem is affecting our society today and was a bigger problem in our history. Our society’s achilles’ heel is judging others and not accepting who they are.

They point out that assumptions are based on our own feelings. For example, if we feel hurt, then the other person must have meant to hurt us. Furthermore, we should acknowledge the hurt feelings of the other, even if this was not our intent. The final component of the “what happened” conversation is the problem with the assignment of blame, which inhibits the ability to learn about the cause of the problem or to collaborate to fix it. The authors remind us that “…blame is about judging and contribution is about understanding (p. 59).” Attention should be focused on examining each person’s contribution to the problem with a goal of understanding cause and avoiding future problems. An effective “what happened” conversation illuminates the fact that the situation is more complex than either party’s original perception. Next, the authors discuss the importance of having a “feelings” conversation. Although emotions frequently drive difficult conversations, people often ignore them. However, unaddressed feelings generally re-emerge to impair understanding, hinder listening, and damage relationships. Although feelings do not always make sense, they still exist and require acceptance, so that both parties can feel understood. The third conversation is one that we have with ourselves about what this situation means about our personal identity. We may question our competence, goodness, or

country becoming profusely diverse. Before entering kindergarten, millions of children in the U.S. will attend some type of preschool, Head Start, or daycare program. Given the current negative climate of our country due to the beliefs and values that have been taught and reinforced regarding race, gender, ability, socioeconomic status, family structure, religion, and political affiliation to people throughout their lives, young children need a program that includes an anti-bias curriculum. “With the rise in the number of working parents and children participating in group programs from an early age, preschools have also become an influential socialization force” (Berthelsen & Karuppiah, 2011, p. 3). It is important to teach children to respect

Living in the world, we face different kinds of people every day, which means we need to communicate with others and make decisions upon others. Naturally, the attitude and method in dealing with diversity becomes a basic skill for people. It is important to know how to communicate and make decisions in a proper way. Facing diverse people and objects, people usually classify them. The advantage people gain from classification is organizing and making things easier to understand. However, when it comes to communication and decision-making, classification may cause some problems. As the name indicates, the topic of the book goes around stereotype, and it provides the readers a better

Social psychology, the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to another, can be used to explain many situations and phenomena that happen in the world. For instance, it can be used to explain why and how people react the way they do when they perform poorly in an act that they’re usually good at, also known as self-serving bias. It is blaming external factors when bad things happen, but contributing internal factors to the reason why good things happen.