What is Hostile Attribution Bias & How It Clouds Our Judgement?

Have you ever experienced in your daily life that you were trying to hurt someone, even with no such intentions? If so, you may have been a victim of hostile attribution bias. This bias makes people think that others have hostile intentions toward them.

When someone thinks that another person is a threat to them, no matter what good the other person does, they will always be cautious of that person. When people become careful and alert to someone’s intentions, they can’t honestly know about someone’s true nature. This significantly clouds their judgement.

Moreover, hostile attribution bias also significantly impacts the judgement of researchers when they feel that someone is threatening their security or privacy; this significantly leads to research bias. This blog comprehensively discusses what hostile attribution bias is and what are the essential steps to avoid it.

What is Hostile Attribution Bias?

Every human being has a basic survival instinct that causes them to be alert and sharp during harmful and life-endangered situations. When someone highly focuses on this issue, he/she commits hostile attribution bias.

Hostile Attribution Bias Definition

According to the hostile attribution bias psychology definition, people tend to interpret someone else’s behaviour as hostile or aggressive even when they don’t have a negative intention towards you. This bias is a type of cognitive bias.

When people commit hostile attribution bias, they always become suspicious about someone else’s intentions. Because of this, they can’t establish new relationships or maintain old ones.

Sometimes, hostile attribution also helps people detect actual threats they face and allows them to mitigate the risk on time before causing extensive loss.

Hostile Attribution Bias Example

Hostile Attribution Bias and Dodge & Crick’s Theory

Dodge and Crick’s model is a social information processing model, and it was presented in 1994. This model deals with how children behave in social scenarios. According to this model, children take five steps to process a social situation and make a decision. These steps are encoding, interpreting, generating responses, evaluating responses, and making decisions.

When these steps are taken efficiently, they significantly enhance the children’s cognitive and social skills. Negligence in these steps leads to confusion and aggression. Due to this, they cause hostile attribution bias later in life.

What Causes Hostile Attribution Bias?

People usually think positively about someone else’s intentions. But sometimes, during some particular situations, they become suspicious of others and see them as threats. So, what is the reason for this scrupulousness? The main causes of hostile attribution bias are given as follows:

• Environmental Impact

People usually learn from others at a young age. The environment and behaviour of others significantly impact people’s psyches. When they have been in hostile and aggressive environments, excessive survival instinct gets inculcated in their mind. This is how it causes hostile attribution bias in them.

• Behavioural Biases

People are born with some behavioural biases. These biases could be self-serving or egocentric bias. These biases help people interpret social situations according to their perspective. Furthermore, these biases can make people think that they’re special, which allows them to commit hostile attribution bias.

• Past Experiences

Past experiences also play a significant role in people’s developing defensive and over-protective behaviour. These past experiences could include being hated or physical targeting. Due to this, they become sensitive and develop hostile attribution bias later in life.

• Social Prejudice

In our society, some people are subjected to prejudice because of their religion, race, or ethnicity. This causes people to develop defensive and resistive behaviour towards them. This is how social prejudices play a significant role in causing hostile attribution bias.

• Emotional Vulnerability

Some people are over-sensitive and can easily be triggered by the particular behaviour of others. When they feel sad or depressed, they are more likely to consider the behaviour of others as hostile and aggressive. Hostile attribution bias compels them to take defensive action.

What are the Essential Steps to Avoid Hostile Attribution Bias?

Hostile attribution bias occurs during social information processing and is similar to self-serving bias to some extent. Various factors cause hostile attribution bias, and there are also essential steps to avoid it. By taking those steps efficiently, you can significantly prevent hostile attribution bias:

Step 1: Enhancing Communication Skills

The first step to avoid hostile attribution bias is to enhance communication skills. Good communication skills allow you to efficiently discuss misunderstandings and conflicts with others. You should precisely listen, understand, and clarify others’ intentions through proper communication.

Step 2: Increasing Self-Awareness

It is essential to increase self-awareness to avoid hostile attribution bias. When closely paying close attention to your thoughts, feelings, and reactions in different social scenarios, you can efficiently assume negativity or positivity in people. Challenge your assumptions to see what is right and wrong.

Step 3: Boosting Emotional Intelligence

It is also important to boost your emotional intelligence to avoid hostile attribution bias efficiently. Practice meditation and seek support to reduce stress and increase control over your emotional health. Good emotional management seldom clouds judgment.

Step 4: Focusing on Positive Experiences

It is essential to focus on positive experiences in life to balance out negative experiences. When you focus on the positive and welcoming behaviour of others, you may assume that other people are also positive and welcoming. This is how it helps to avoid hostile attribution bias.

Step 5: Seeking Out Different Perspectives

When dealing with cognitive biases, it is crucial to seek the perspectives of others. This helps to eliminate misconceptions and misinterpretations about the behaviour of others. When you seek out different perspectives and viewpoints, you can comprehensively know about the intentions of the people.

Hostile Attribution Bias Examples

The examples of hostile attribution bias are below. These will help you understand this better.

Frequently Asked Questions