Trait Ascription Bias - Evidence - Kammer Et. Al.

Kammer Et. Al.

In a 1982 study involving fifty-six undergraduate psychology students from the University of Bielefeld Kammer et al. demonstrated that subjects rated their own variability on each of 20 trait terms to be considerably higher than their peers. Building on the earlier work of Jones and Nisbett, which suggests people describe the behaviour of others in terms of fixed dispositions while viewing their own behaviour as the dynamic product of complex situational factors, Kammer hypothesized that one's own behaviours are judged to be less consistent (i.e. not as predictable) but of higher intensities (with regard to particular traits) than the behaviour of others. The experiment had each student describe themselves as well as a same-sex friend using two identical lists of trait-descriptive terms. For example, for the trait of dominance the student was first asked “In general, how dominant are you?” and then “How much do you vary from one situation to another in how dominant you are?” Kammer's results strongly supported his hypothesis.

Read more about this topic:  Trait Ascription Bias, Evidence