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The Actor–Observer Asymmetry in Attribution: a (Surprising) Meta-Analysis

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The Actor–Observer Asymmetry in Attribution: a (Surprising) Meta-Analysis Psychological Bulletin Copyright 2006 by the American Psychological Association 2006, Vol. 132, No. 6, 895–919 0033-2909/06/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.895 The Actor–Observer Asymmetry in Attribution: A (Surprising) Meta-Analysis Bertram F. Malle University of Oregon The actor–observer hypothesis (E. E. Jones & R. E. Nisbett, 1971) states that people tend to explain their own behavior with situation causes and other people’s behavior with person causes. Widely known in psychology, this asymmetry has been described as robust, firmly established, and pervasive. However, a meta-analysis on 173 published studies revealed average effect sizes from d ϭ Ϫ0.016 to d ϭ 0.095. A moderator analysis showed that the asymmetry held only when the actor was portrayed as highly idiosyncratic, when hypothetical events were explained, when actor and observer were intimates, or when free-response explanations were coded. In addition, the asymmetry held for negative events, but a reverse asymmetry held for positive events. This valence effect may indicate a self-serving pattern in attribution, but across valence, no actor–observer asymmetry exists. Keywords: self–other, behavior explanations, social psychology, social perception, social cognition Supplemental data: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.895.supp Self and other are the two chief targets of social cognition, and few metry is featured in textbooks of social psychology and general assumptions are as compelling as the one that cognition about the self psychology alike (e.g., Fiske, 2004; Franzoi, 2006; Gray, 2002; differs in important ways from cognition about others. Many self– Griggs, 2006; Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2005; Myers, 2004; other differences have been documented—for attention (Malle & Rathus, 2004; Taylor, Peplau, & Sears, 2006). Pearce, 2001; Sheldon & Johnson, 1993), memory (Rogers, Kuiper, One would therefore expect that the robust claims made about the & Kirker, 1977), personality description (Locke, 2002; Sande, actor–observer asymmetry are backed by an equally robust evidence Goethals, & Radloff, 1988), and evaluative judgment (Greenwald, base. Surprisingly, however, there is no systematic review available of 1980; Locke, 2002; Taylor & Brown, 1988). However, no difference research testing the actor–observer hypothesis. One review, published is better known than the actor–observer asymmetry in attribution. In more than 20 years ago (Watson, 1982), has often been cited as a famous paper, Jones and Nisbett (1971)1 formulated the hypothesis documenting clear support for the hypothesis, but the article covered that “actors tend to attribute the causes of their behavior to stimuli only a small portion of studies already published at the time, and inherent in the situation, while observers tend to attribute behavior to many additional studies have since become available. It is unknown stable dispositions of the actor” (p. 93). In the research literature on how many studies have been conducted to date on the actor–observer attribution, the classic actor–observer asymmetry has been described hypothesis, how many have confirmed or disconfirmed it, what its as “robust and quite general” (Jones, 1976, p. 304), “firmly estab- precise effect size is, and what factors moderate the effect. lished” (Watson, 1982, p. 698), and “an entrenched part of scientific The present article reports the results of a meta-analysis on psychology” (Robins, Spranca, & Mendelsohn, 1996, p. 376). Fur- actor–observer studies published between 1971 and 2004. I begin thermore, “evidence for the actor–observer effect is plentiful” (Fiske with a brief review of the original hypothesis. I then describe the & Taylor, 1991, p. 73), and “the actor–observer bias is pervasive” parameters of the meta-analysis and report its results, including (Aronson, 2002, p. 168). With over 1,500 references to the original attempts to identify moderator variables. Finally, I draw theoretical Jones and Nisbett paper, there can be little doubt that the actor– implications from the results and consider a revised treatment of observer asymmetry in attribution is central to the cumulative knowl- actor–observer differences in attribution. edge base of social and cognitive psychology. As a result, the asym- The Actor–Observer Hypothesis The actor–observer hypothesis tries to capture the powerful Bertram F. Malle, Department of Psychology and Institute of Cognitive intuition that actors2 explain their own behavior differently from and Decision Sciences, University of Oregon. Thanks to Mark Alicke, David Dunning, and Joachim Krueger for the way an observer would explain that behavior. For example, encouraging me to advance this meta-analysis and many thanks to Megan senators might explain their votes against going to war by saying, Campbell, Nathan Dieckmann, Jess Holbrook, and Courtney Powal for “This war is unjustified,” whereas political observers might ex- their coding help. Thanks also to all the authors who succeeded in pub- lishing results that did not fit the classic hypothesis; without them, I would have never found out. 1 This paper is also frequently cited as having been published as a Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bertram chapter in Jones et al. (1972, pp. 79–94). F. Malle, Department of Psychology, 1227 University of Oregon, Eugene, 2 Actors explain a behavior that they have performed; observers explain OR 97403. E-mail: [email protected] a behavior that another person has performed. 895 896 MALLE plain the senators’ votes by saying, “They are soft-hearted liber- as a statistical interaction between perspective (actor–observer) als.” The actor–observer asymmetry, so Jones and Nisbett (1971) and outcome valence (positive–negative), then the classic actor– argued, consists of actors preferring situational explanations for observer asymmetry is a main effect of perspective. The focus of their behaviors and observers preferring personal or dispositional the present investigation was on this main effect, but the results— explanations for the actors’ behaviors. No generally accepted when broken down by attributions for positive and negative definitions of situational and personal/dispositional explanations events—also speak to the self-serving bias. are available, but two widely used measurement methods illustrate Third, the relationship between internal and external attributions what appears to be meant by these constructs. Storms (1973, p. has been frequently debated. Originally, the two types of attribu- 168) asked his participants to rate the importance of two classes of tions were presumed to be polar opposites. Soon, however, em- causes for their behavior in a getting-acquainted interaction (and, pirical and theoretical doubts arose (Kelley & Michela, 1980; with appropriate reformulation, for the other person’s behavior): McArthur & Post, 1977; F. D. Miller, Smith, & Uleman, 1981; M. A. Personal characteristics: How important were your personality, Ross & Fletcher, 1985; Solomon, 1978; Taylor & Koivumaki, traits, character, personal style, attitudes, mood, and so on in causing 1976). Researchers adopted a more cautious approach by measur- you to behave the way you did? ing the two types of attribution (internal, external) separately and examining which of them showed a particular effect of interest. B. Characteristics of the situation: How important were such factors as being in an experiment, the getting-acquainted situation, the topic of Watson (1982) specifically concluded from his review that actors conversation, the way the other participant behaved, and so on in and observers differ only in their external attributions, not in their causing you to behave the way you did? internal attributions. Even so, the internal–external difference score (I-E) is far more commonly used to test the actor–observer Another widely used method, especially in explanations of hypothesis than the component scores. The present meta-analysis achievement outcomes, is to ask participants about the importance examined all three scores (I, E, I-E) and thus tested three variants of four causal factors in causing the outcome: ability, effort, task of the actor–observer hypothesis. characteristics, and luck (Heider, 1958; Weiner et al., 1972). A final caveat is that the actor–observer hypothesis should be Ability and effort are then averaged to yield an internal cause score distinguished from the so-called correspondence bias (Gilbert & (I); task characteristics and luck are averaged to yield an external Malone, 1995; Jones, 1976), also labeled the fundamental attribu- cause score (E). tion error (FAE; L. Ross, 1977). The latter normally refers to the Over the years, studies have differed in their specific measure- claim that people are prone to infer stable traits from behaviors, ment methods, but all seem to have conceptualized situational even from single behaviors and even when external pressures or explanations as representing or explicitly referring to causes that incentives operating on the behavior are made clear. Many text- reside in the environment (e.g., test difficulty, chance, the weather, books have described the FAE as the observer’s side of the a stimulus, another person with whom the actor interacts) and actor–observer asymmetry (e.g., Deaux & Wrightsman, 1988; personal explanations as representing or explicitly referring to Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2006; Kowalski & Westen, 2005), but causes that reside in the actor (e.g., effort, ability, attitudes, per- this may be misleading
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