Naive Explanations of Road Accidents: Self-Serving Bias and Defensive Attribution

The aim of this article is to take into account the explanations given by people involved in road accident (drivers, passengers and witnesses) so as to consider preconisation susceptible to improve road safety. Testimonies from 205 reports of the French "Gendarmerie Nationale" were analysed. The results show the existence of actor (driver)/observer (passenger and witness) asymmetry in attribution. In fact, observers give as many internal explanations as external explanations, when actors give more external explanations than internal explanations. This result can be interpreted in term of self-serving bias (in so far as we note an effect of the severity of the outcomes on the drivers' explanations) and also can be interpreted according to the theory of defensive attribution (even if we fail to show that observers' explanations can be influenced by accident severity). Actors and observers explain events with different categories (actor/observer asymmetry bias), but use the same motivational strategies of protection: drivers would try to protect their self-esteem in order to avoid being held responsible for the accident (self-serving bias), while observers would try to protect themselves (defensive attribution) from the idea that they could find themselves in the same situation. Finally, we examine some preconisations likely to enhance the road safety.

Attribution of Blame Toward Offenders: Victim and Offender Ethnicity, and Observer Ethnic and Religious Background

This study focuses on the effects of victim/offender ethnic affiliation and cultural background of observers on attitudes toward offenders. To examine the effect of cultural background, we compared offender attribution among Christian Arabs ( n = 51), Muslim Arabs ( n = 249), and Jews ( n = 285). The participants were students from several Israeli universities and colleges. The age range was 18 to 33 years ( M = 20.23, SD = 2.67), and the majority were female (75.6%). The participants read a version of a vignette describing a case of a stabbing, and then rated the offender’s blame. In different versions of the crime scenario, we manipulated victim and offender ethnicity: two victim (Arab/Jewish) and three offender (African/Arab/Jewish) types. The results indicate that, in general, participants blamed African offenders more than Arab or Jewish offenders. Although the results show that differences in offender blaming between Arab and Jewish participants were not statistically significant, there is an interaction between participant cultural background and victim ethnicity in regard to offender blaming: Participants attributed more blame to offenders who stabbed a victim belonging to the same ethnic group as the participants. Overall, the results support defensive attribution theory, suggesting that observer attitudes toward offenders tend to be affected by similarity in ethnic affiliation. The discussion addresses the findings through the perspectives of cultural reciprocity, defensive attribution theory, and minority threat theory. It also acknowledges the limitations related to the specific cultural and geopolitical context of this research. Practical implications for practitioners and policymakers include training and increased ethnic diversity among professionals and experts working within the criminal justice system.

It Won’t Happen to Me: An Examination of the Effectiveness of Defensive Attribution in Rape Victim Blaming

Defensive attribution posits that victim blame results from one’s underlying perception of vulnerability. The resulting blame is believed to reduce perceived similarity to the victim and vulnerability to victimization, though extant research has neglected to examine its effectiveness in men and women. The current study employed multigroup analysis structural equation modeling with 618 male and female undergraduates exposed to fictional police reports of a reported rape. The theory was partially supported; among women, defensive attribution of blame effectively reduced perceived vulnerability to sexual victimization, whereas among men, blame had no effect on perceived similarity or vulnerability. Recommendations for interventions to target perceived vulnerability are discussed.