Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

self-serving bias 
The tendency to 
attribute personal success to personal 
factors (skill, ability, or effort) and to 
attribute failure to factors outside 
oneself.
fundamental attribution error 
A tendency to overattribute others’ 
behavior to dispositional causes and 
minimize of the importance of 
situational causes.
Exploring
D I V E R S I T Y
Attribution Biases in a Cultural 
Context: How Fundamental 
Is the Fundamental Attribution Error?
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588 Chapter 
17 
Social Psychology
Cultural differences in attributions affect subsequent behavior. For example, parents 
in Asia tend to attribute good academic performance to effort and hard work (situational 
factors). In contrast, parents in Western cultures tend to de-emphasize the role of effort 
and attribute school success to innate ability (a dispositional factor). As a result, Asian 
students in general may strive harder to achieve and ultimately outperform U.S. 
students in school (Stevenson, Lee, & Mu, 2000; Lien et al., 2006). 
The difference in thinking between people in Asian and Western cultures is a 
refl ection of a broader difference in the way the world is perceived. Asian societies 
generally have a collectivistic orientation, a worldview that promotes the notion of 
interdependence. People with a collectivistic orientation generally see themselves as 
parts of a larger, interconnected social network and as responsible to others. In contrast, 
people in Western cultures are more likely to hold an individualist orientation that 
emphasizes personal identity and the uniqueness of the individual. They focus more 
on what sets them apart from others and what makes them special (Markus & Kitayama, 
2003; Wang, 2004; Markus, 2007).