Concepedia

When Is Believing “Seeing”? Hostile Attribution Bias as a Function of Self‐Reported Aggression<sup>1</sup>

Journal of Applied Social Psychology · 2002 · 260 citations · 43 references

TL;DR

Repeated exposure to adverse events such as risky driving is believed to heighten expectations that such events will recur. The study presented 263 community drivers with road‑event scenarios varying in provocation and measured their attributions of intent, hostility, and anger across gender, ethnicity, age, aggressiveness, and provocation levels. Results indicated that drivers generally perceived provocation accurately, hostile attribution bias emerged only among more aggressive drivers and under higher provocation, and that young, aggressive drivers who experienced more aggression were more likely to take risks, with no gender differences after controlling for miles driven.

Abstract

Repeated exposure to adverse advents (e.g., risky driving) was thought to increase expectations for the recurrence of the event. Community‐based drivers (130 men, 133 women) were given scenarios depicting everyday road events that could be construed as benign, ambiguous, or malign by the degree of perceived provocation. Differences between levels of gender, ethnicity, age, aggressiveness, and provocation were measured by attributions of intent, hostility, and anger. Results showed that, overall, drivers accurately perceived provocation conditions. Hostile attributional biases were not evident among the sample as a whole, but were dependent on level of aggressiveness and provocation. Analysis of self‐reported driving behavior showed that young, aggressive majority group drivers who experience greater aggression on the road also were more likely to take more risks while driving. Controlling for miles driven, gender differences were not found.