The group attribution error is a group-serving, attributional bias identical to the fundamental attribution error except that it occurs between different groups rather than different individuals.
Group members are more likely to attribute the decisions of their own group to its decision rules, while they tend to attribute the decisions of another group to its members' attitude.
The group attribution error was first reported by Scott Allison and David Messick.
Compare to the outgroup homogeneity bias.
Famous quotes containing the words group, attribution and/or error:
“If the Russians have gone too far in subjecting the child and his peer group to conformity to a single set of values imposed by the adult society, perhaps we have reached the point of diminishing returns in allowing excessive autonomy and in failing to utilize the constructive potential of the peer group in developing social responsibility and consideration for others.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (18831964)
“We call contrary to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything but according to nature, whatever it may be, Let this universal and natural reason drive out of us the error and astonishment that novelty brings us.”
—Michel de Montaigne (15331592)