Unpacking Attribution Biases: Understanding Coworker Tardiness

Abstract

Social PSYC Respond to the below discussion posts Then, respond to the posts of at least 2 of your classmate’s posts by explaining whether the attribution they observed and described is an internal or external attribution, and why. Finally, take the scenario they have provided and examine by discussing how this affects how we perceive and explain our social world. #1 Post I recall an instance at work where one of my coworkers was regularly late for team meetings. Many of us in the team originally utilized an internal attribution to justify his actions. We considered he lacked discipline or regard for the team's time, thinking it was a character defect. However, after a few weeks, I had a one-on-one talk with him and discovered that he had lately become the principal carer for his ailing mother, which necessitated him to balance his professional commitments with unanticipated personal needs. Upon discovering this, my perception transformed from an internal to an external attribution. The reason for his tardiness wasn't his lack of commitment or discipline but external factors that were beyond his control. In retrospect, my original judgment was erroneous. The attribution made on his character was based on inadequate facts, leading to a biased belief about his professional ethics. Had I not taken the effort to connect and understand his circumstances, I might have continued to retain a potentially detrimental and erroneous perception about a fellow team member. In my perspective, this event underlines the significance of acquiring a full understanding before adopting beliefs or judgments. Attributions can be significant influencers of our views, but they can also lead us astray if we're not attentive. #2 Post Attribution theory analyzes how we explain people’s behavior and what we infer from it. We often infer that other people’s actions are indicative of their intentions and dispositions. One example that I can think of that I used attribution styles is with a coworker from my first job when I was a teen. My coworker no matter the day was always late to start her shift and it was super annoying because I couldn’t clock out until my coworker turned up to replace me. I never liked to work the same shift or even the same days because I knew she would be late. After a few months, I confronted my coworker on why she was always late, and she told me that she has another job, and her manager tends to keep her a little over when she is scheduled to clock out. The type of attribution style implemented is situational attribution which is the process of assigning the cause of behavior to some situation or event outside a person’s control rather than to some internal characteristic. I judged a book by its cover and considered that my coworker was lazy and unresponsible, but I should have just asked instead, and I would have understood that my coworker doesn’t mean to be late. When explaining someone’s behavior, we often underestimate the extent to which it reflects the individual’s traits and attitudes.  Cultural PSYC Response 100 words min #1 Post “From Racial Awakening to Collective Action: Asian Americans’ Pathways to Activism and Benevolent Support During COVID-19” by Doris F. Chang , Nari Yoo1 , Christina Seowoo Lee , Aakriti Prasai , and Sumie Okazaki Type of Research Explained Research goal: This study looked at the paths from discriminating experiences to own-group collective action in a varied sample of 689 Asian Americans as a response to rising anti-Asian prejudice and violence during the COVID-19 outbreak. Type of Research Explained These cross-cultural comparisons, investigate the relationships between discrimination, psychological distress, critical awareness and motivation to resist racism, and two types of own-group collective action: political activism and benevolent support. •           Research Design Elements The Evidence in this article states “The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an era of virulent anti-Asian racism and xenophobia, manifesting as anti-Asian speech online, hostile public confrontations” Research elements involved, Political activity, and charitable assistance are two forms of own-group collective action, as well as critical awareness and motivation (CAM) to combat racism. Multigroup invariance tests also looked at whether these correlations varied by age, immigrant generation, and ethnic minority. Key Findings and Usefulness They employed this specific technique to support our integrated model, which said that distress served as a mediator for both discrimination and community action (CAM), as well as for both actions. Although age did affect the route coefficients for the impact of discrimination on distress (p.01), there were generally no variations in the structural pathways from discrimination to own-group collective action by ethnic grouping and immigrant generation. South and Southeast Asians also didn't seem to experience the same catalytic effect of discrimination on CAM as East Asians did. •           Research Design or Analysis Errors The only mistake I could think of is some form of graph. Gather information about how openly racist other races are. Others, I'm sure, won't be as willing to say this. I can understand why it would have been challenging to get in the first place to collect this data. Personal Insights  South Asians and Southeast Asians, did not significantly benefit from the mediation effect. The findings cast doubt on the notion that the pandemic was a catalyst for a global racial awakening because they imply that COVID-19 prejudice and misery may have had less of an impact on the emergence of racial consciousness in South and Southeast Asians than in East Asians. These results emphasize the unique characteristics and background of racism and violence against these communities. For instance, there was a 17-fold spike in hate crimes against Arab and Muslim Americans and those thought to be, including Sikh and South Asian Americans, after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. #2 Post Research Purpose The purpose of this research project was to compare cultures generally viewed as collectivist (which this study represented as strong-tie societies) and individualistic cultures to determine if these variables affected how holistic of a view "cultural insiders" held about given culturally relevant statements.  Type of Research Explained This study is an example of a cross-cultural comparison, as it was observing the affect of two (or in this case more) cultures and how their beliefs/values affected their worldview. This is evidenced by the prescence of multiple cultures with different cultural/societal profiles: Taiwanese, Yi Chinese (both representative of ST), non-Asian Americans (a WT representation), and a sort of middle ground with Asian-Americans. These cultural differences were studying in regards to their affect on holism from an insider's perspective.  Research Design Elements Independent variables included the prescence of strong or weak ties based the type of society being studied, and it seemed to be that the dependent variable being measured was "holistic rationality". Testing was done via a likert scale and providing a questionnaire to each group regarding some statements about COVID-19. I am also a bit tempted to call this study a cross-cultural validation study, simply because much of the discussion centered around the validity of the scale produced (STWTRS) which hit some snags in understanding with a number of the participants.  Research Design or Analysis Errors Upon observation, I found that the operationalization of the dependent variable to fairly vague, possible because of...