Mastering Workplace and the User Experience Realities: Stakeholder Management in the Age of Naive Realism and Attribution Errors

.Luciana Zamprogne ?? is a UX Researcher and anthropologist with 12+ years of experience in Research.?

Imagine you decided to play soccer to exercise a bit more. You and your friends planned to play every week and this is your first game. You score a goal, and everyone cheers for you. Now, you might think, "I'm a great soccer player, the best in this team!" because you scored a goal.

On the other hand, if you miss a goal, you might think, "I'm the worst soccer player ever!"?

This might look like a big jump to some conclusion, but, how many times have we gotten ourselves thinking something similar because we delivered a project that went very well or had some horrible feedback from our stakeholders?

The thing is, there could be many reasons why you scored that goal, or missed it completely. Maybe one of your friends passed you the ball perfectly, or maybe the other team's goalie was having an off day. Maybe the field was wet, and the ball slipped, or you were feeling tired that day. Or your shoes were not laced properly.?

It's not just because you're a great soccer player that you scored a goal and the opposite is also true, there could be lots of reasons why you missed it.?

The?naive realism?occurs when individuals attribute the cause of a particular event or behaviour to a single factor while ignoring or downplaying other relevant factors. This bias can lead people to make overly simplistic or inaccurate judgments about the causes of events, often resulting in incorrect conclusions. It affects how people perceive the world surrounding them, with a tendency to believe that others will perceive the world the same way they do.?

There is another very common bias that we don't see people talking about often, named?Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) also called correspondence bias,?that is widespread among us humans, and can be strongly reinforced by naive realism.?

Imagine you and your friend are at work picking a coffee, and your friend spills some milk in the cafeteria. The Fundamental Attribution Error is when you think it happened because of something about your friend's personality or character.

For example, you might think, "Oh no, my friend is clumsy and messy. That's why they spilt the milk." That's like saying it's all about who your friend is as a person, and it doesn't consider other things.

But here's the trick: Maybe your friend spilt the milk because the cafeteria tray was wobbly, or someone bumped into them by accident. Those are things outside of your friend's control.

The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) is a cognitive bias where people tend to amplify internal attributions for other people's behaviour while dismissing external factors. In other words, we often attribute the behaviour of others to their personality or character traits, even when situational factors may be more influential. This bias can lead to misinterpretations of why people do what they do.

We live in a world where people often jump to quick judgments, especially in social situations where we rely on our assumptions and moral instincts.?

The correspondence bias is a phenomenon widely studied by psychologists, and results are usually consistent: when mistakes occur, we often focus on people's personalities and ignore the impact of the surroundings.

Summarizing what those two biased behaviours do, It's like giving all the credit or blame in a situation to one thing and not considering all the other factors that played a part in it, and then attributing this thing to someone's character, not to the circumstances.?

Sounds awful right? But it is more common than we think.?

Suppose you have a team member named Sarah who is known for being introverted and reserved. During a team meeting, Sarah doesn't contribute much to the discussion, and some of your colleagues start thinking she's not interested in the project or lacks the necessary skills. This is an instance of the fundamental attribution error.

In reality, Sarah might be quiet in the meeting because she's prepared and prefers to listen and process information before offering insights. It doesn't necessarily mean she lacks interest or skills. The error here is attributing her behaviour to her personality traits (introversion) without considering situational factors and her true capabilities.

?We are trapped in our own experience, and we perceive the world by it, not with it.??

Like in many things in life, lots of factors can affect what happens in a business, in the design of a product or service, or in a research project. It's not just about being the best or the worst in what one does; it's about all the different things that come together to happen concomitantly.?

Being fully merged into the tech world and talking to many of my peers, I started paying more attention to conversations with other people in Product, Design and Research and realized those two biases might be affecting our product and services on a very deep level. Whether doing interviews or interacting with colleagues, the fact is, humans are very terrible at analysing reality.?

It is very common for people under a lot of pressure in their workplaces, to fall into naive realism and fundamental error cycles. Unfaeven more common if the person to whom the judgement is being directed is more?

Here are some common situations where those come into place:

User Behavior Analysis.?It could be when a researcher jumps to a conclusion regarding a respondent's behaviour that does not fit with their expectations. For example, you have a piece of research on a topic that is taboo, or a social consensus (like sustainability) and you see dissonance in the answers a respondent gives to you. A junior researcher or someone who was not trained to do research might jump to the conclusion that the respondent is a liar when in reality they might not even be aware that their answers are not logical.?

User Feedback Interpretation.?Companies often collect feedback from user surveys, metrics, or usability testing. Users' feedback can be influenced by various factors, including their mood, personal preferences, or specific circumstances. People who do research should consider these factors when interpreting user feedback to avoid making overly simplistic conclusions.?

Design and Product Decisions: When making design decisions based on research findings, UX professionals should be cautious not to over-attribute the success or failure of one particular element. A well-designed product or service is the result of many interconnected factors, and attributing everything to a single aspect may lead to suboptimal design choices and poor metrics.?

Is there a way out??

Yes. There are several academic studies regarding those two biases that have been done over the years.?

In a study by Vonk and Konst (1998), they looked into whether people are less likely to quickly judge others when these judgments go against their wish to support people in their own group instead of people from other groups. The study involved leaders and their team members in a company. They were given descriptions of either good or bad behaviour by either a leader or a team member, along with information about whether the behaviour was because of the person's character or because of the situation they were in. The results supported the idea that when bad behaviour was blamed on the situation, people made gentler judgments if the person was from their own group. On the other hand, if a person from a different group showed good behaviour because of the situation, that also led to milder judgments.

In another interesting study, (Tetlock, 1985) people read an essay that either supported or opposed affirmative action. They were told that the essay writer had either picked their stance or was told what to write. These people were put into groups based on whether they thought they needed to explain their thoughts about the writer before or after reading the essay.

The study found that when people didn't feel they had to explain their thoughts about the writer or only realized they had to explain after reading the essay, they tended to think the writer's views matched the essay, even if they were told what to write.

However, when people knew they had to explain their thoughts before reading the essay, they paid more attention to the situation that might have influenced the writer's views.?

This shows that when people feel accountable for their judgments early on, they pay more attention to what might have influenced the situation.?

So what can we do to reduce our own biases??

Remember to think about yourself and the people around you. Ask yourself if your opinion is the only one that matters. Talk openly with your peers in safe spaces. But most importantly, take responsibility for your mistakes.

Understand that your point of view is just one piece of the puzzle. Other people see things differently because of their experiences. This is the first step to avoiding biases and improving the quality of what we do in our work and the things we offer to others.??

References

Gallo, A. (2022, September 13).?Getting Along. Harvard Business Press.

Krull, D. S., Loy, M. H.-M., Lin, J., Wang, C.-F., Chen, S., & Zhao, X. (1999). The Fundamental Fundamental Attribution Error: Correspondence Bias in Individualist and Collectivist Cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(10), 1208–1219. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167299258003

Langdridge, D., & Butt, T. (2004, September). The fundamental attribution error: A phenomenological critique.?British Journal of Social Psychology,?43(3), 357–369. https://doi.org/10.1348/0144666042037962

Matthew Nudds, Recent Work in Perception: Na?ve Realism and its Opponents,?Analysis, Volume 69, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 334–346

Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y., & Ross, L. (2002).?The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(3), 369–381.

E. Tetlock. (1985). Accountability: A Social Check on the Fundamental Attribution Error.?American Sociological Association,?48(3).

Vonk, R., & Konst, D. (1998). Intergroup bias and correspondence bias: People engage in situational correction when it suits them.?British Journal of Social Psychology,?37(3), 379–385. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1998.tb01178.x