What is the ultimate attribution error and how does affect racial discrimination in the United States?
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: The ultimate attribution error is our tendency to use internal attributions to explain socially desirable actions by members of our own group, and socially undesirable actions by members of an opposing group. The same bias leads us to use external attributions to explain socially undesirable actions of our own group, and socially desirable actions of our other groups.
The text gives the example of “Our group supports charities out of love for humanity; others do it to look good.” Or, “Our soldiers fight because they have to” (external attribution), but “Our enemies fight because they are war-like” (internal attribution).
The ultimate attribution error can lead to discrimination (unjustified negative behavior toward a group of people and the individual persons in the group) when we expect that our own racial group’s motivations and actions are blameless and others are “angry,” “invalid,” “outdated,” etc. This is evidenced by the modern debate over #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter if both advocacy groups do not take the time to really understand the intentions of others
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