The Ultimate Attribution Error at Work

Attribution is what we humans do when we explain others' behavior. How we do it, and how accurately we do it, affect how we treat others. In the workplace, at the organizational scale, attributions affect strategy, practices, policy, and behavior. As Fritz Heider writes, "Of great importance for our picture of the social environment is the attribution of events to causal sources. … Attribution in terms of impersonal and personal causes, and with the latter, in terms of intent, are everyday occurrences that determine much of our understanding of and reaction to our surroundings." [Heider 1958]

Much depends on what we believe of others' motivations — so much that it's important to appreciate how common attribution errors are. For example, as individuals, we commit the Fundamental Attribution Error when we attribute another's behavior too much to character and personality, and too little to circumstances. See "The Fundamental Attribution Error," Point Lookout for May 5, 2004, for more.

The Ultimate Attribution Error (UAE), first identified by Thomas Pettigrew [Pettigrew 1979], is another error, made with respect to entire groups. By contributing to social prejudices, it significantly compromises workplace decision making. Ethnic, gender, and age prejudices come to mind, but there are also some surprising effects.

Let's consider an example. The standard term for the attributor's group is ingroup. The group whose behavior is being attributed to some cause is the outgroup. Suppose Inez belongs to the ingroup and Oscar belongs to the outgroup. Inez commits the UAE when she over-attributes Oscar's (or the outgroup's) successes to circumstances, and his (or the outgroup's) failures to lack of talent, diligence, or foresight. She also commits the UAE when she over-attributes her own (or the ingroup's) successes to her own (or the ingroup's) talent, diligence, or foresight, and her own (or the ingroup's) failures to circumstances.

Inez's Our attributions are sometimes
correct, because the Ultimate
Attribution Error isn't
determinative. It acts
only to skew attributions.attributions are sometimes correct, because the UAE acts only to skew attributions in favor of circumstances for the ingroup's failures or for the outgroup's successes, and in favor of degree of talent, diligence, or foresight for the ingroup's successes or for the outgroup's failures.

Failure to mitigate UAE risk can produce expensive mistakes. For example, some project sponsors dispute project managers' schedule estimates, because they believe that project managers "pad" their estimates. Project managers who supply honest estimates suffer most, but some others do pad their estimates, because they anticipate that their sponsors will reject them. The result is that many schedule discussions are based on false data and prejudice. Schedule performance becomes unreliable, and the organization cannot plan its resource needs with confidence.

To mitigate UAE risk in this situation an organization could take five steps.

• Acknowledge that UAE is a risk, and educate all at-risk parties about the UAE
• Require that project risk plans explain how they address UAE risk for project scheduling
• Prevent schedule padding by subjecting all schedule estimates to peer review
• Require that project sponsors who have schedule objections provide detailed, peer-reviewed analyses that support their objections
• Document schedule objections by project sponsors, and track historical data comparing final approved schedules to actual results to assess whether the objections were appropriate

This is only an example. UAE risk affects many other processes as well. Homework: find three more processes in your organization that are vulnerable to UAE risk, and devise mitigations.  Top    Next Issue

Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info

Footnotes

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Cognitive Biases at Work:

Perfectionism and Avoidance

Avoiding tasks we regard as unpleasant, boring, or intimidating is a pattern known as procrastination. Perfectionism is another pattern. The interplay between the two makes intervention a bit tricky.

Motivated Reasoning

When we prefer a certain outcome of a decision process, we risk falling into a pattern of motivated reasoning. That can cause us to gather data and construct arguments that erroneously lead to the outcome we prefer, often outside our awareness. And it can happen even when the outcome we prefer is known to threaten our safety and security.

The Risk of Astonishing Success

When we experience success, we're more likely to develop overconfidence. And when the success is so extreme as to induce astonishment, we become even more vulnerable to overconfidence. It's a real risk of success that must be managed.

The Illusion of Explanatory Depth

The illusion of explanatory depth is the tendency of humans to believe they understand something better than they actually do. Discovering the illusion when you're explaining something is worse than embarrassing. It can be career ending.

Downscoping Under Pressure: II

We sometimes "downscope" projects to bring them back on budget and schedule when they're headed for overruns. Downscoping doesn't always work. Cognitive biases like the sunk cost effect and confirmation bias can distort decisions about how to downscope.

See also Cognitive Biases at Work and Project Management for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming July 3: Additive bias…or Not: II

Additive bias is a cognitive bias that many believe contributes to bloat of commercial products. When we change products to make them more capable, additive bias might not play a role, because economic considerations sometimes favor additive approaches. Available here and by RSS on July 3.

And on July 10: On Delegating Accountability: I

As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info