Premium
The effect of subject's race and other's race on judgments of causality for success and failure
Author(s) -
Whitehead George I.,
Smith Stephanie H.,
Eichhorn Julia A.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1982.tb01023.x
Subject(s) - attribution , psychology , stereotype (uml) , social psychology , race (biology) , causality (physics) , group (periodic table) , developmental psychology , chemistry , botany , physics , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , biology
This study examined the proposition that blacks and whites make dispositional attributions for an in‐group's positive behaviors and an out‐group's negative behaviors. The study also examined whether this positive in‐group bias was caused by dislike of the out‐group or belief in a stereotype. Thus, blacks and whites made attributions to black and white others who succeeded or failed on tasks for which there was either no stereotype or a more negative stereotype of whites than of blacks. An out‐group other's failure on both tasks was attributed to lack of ability more than was an in‐group other's failure. This finding suggests that the in‐group bias is caused by dislike of the out‐group. Furthermore, in success conditions subjects' attributions to the in‐group or out‐group other did not differ. It was suggested that these attributions may result from a combination of an in‐group bias and a polarized appraisal.