Question

What is the relationship between stereotypes, self-fulfilling prophecy, fundamental attribution error, the actor-observer effect, and self-serving bias?

Answer 1

A general overview of all these terms will lead to understanding of the relationship shared by them.

• Stereotypes - refers to the over-generalized expectations and beliefs from a particular group of people, due to some past negative event specifically associated with that group or due to the archaic carried notions for a particular community. Such expectations aren't ubiquitous in the particularly category of people, and also do not often exist in reality. The stereotype held with a group can be either positive or negative. So a positive stereotype could be all actresses are born beauties, while a negative stereotype would be women are weak in mathematics and logic.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy - it is associated with the predictive aspect of a person, regarding a future phenomenon. This involves the engagement of person in a particular course of actions or behavior, only to make his/her preconceived notions, come true. Eg: Anxiety due to the thought of failing in an upcoming competitive exam, eventually disables the person from being able to concentrate on his/her studies, this ultimately results in actual failure in the examination.

• Fundamental attribution error- it is the inclination of an individual to attribute the behavior of another individual to his/her personality or disposition, while ignoring the simultaneous interplay of external, environmental or situational sources. Eg:Attributing the conditions of a beggar to his/her laziness, lack of motivation to earn rather than making attempts to find out what causes actually pushed him/her into begging.

• The actor-observer effect- represents the shift of locus of control for oneself and others depending upon the consequences, like attributing one's behavior to be affected by the external circumstances while attributing the same behavior in others to be caused by internal factors. Eg: Failing in an examination for oneself is due to the constant conflicts in the family but for a friend it is due to her incompetence or lack of hard work.

• The Self-Serving Bias- indulgence in the distortions in the perception by an individual, only so as to maintain one's self-esteem. One tends to observe himself/ herself in a over positive manner. Eg: Getting good grades in a test makes a person believe that he/she is intelligent, but scoring badly on another test, makes him believe that the teacher scores him/her strictly otherwise it was an easy task for an intelligent student like him/her.

A strong example for the interplay of these negative lens could be-

The individuals from the poorer strata of the society being labelled as delinquents (stereotype), pinpointing at all the news coverage or instances where a member from this section is caught red-handed (self-fulfilling prophecy), calling them names and holding all of them responsible for their worse situation (fundamental attribution error due to ignorance of societal conditions), taking a leave from professional space and attributing it to health issues while associating the leave of a maidservant to sheer excuse in order to avoid work (actor-observer effect) and lastly attributing every misplaced objects' disappearance to the tendency of maidservant's son, rather than focusing on one's own careless behavior (self-serving bias, as one considers himself/herself to be very organized).