Page 190 - The Social Animal

172 The Social Animal

were asked to monitor) or from a reverse angle (i.e., the actors saw
themselves, and the observers saw the other person). When the cam-
era angle was the same, the actor-observer bias occurred; however,
when the camera angle was reversed, so was the actor-observer bias.
Actors who saw themselves from the observer’s point of view were
more likely to explain their own behavior in terms of dispositional fac-
tors, whereas observers who saw the world from the point of view of
the actors were more likely to explain behavior in situational terms.
Often the actor-observer bias can lead to misunderstanding and con-
flict. For example, if Sam shows up late for a date with Susan, he (the
actor) may explain his tardiness by noting that “all the traffic lights
happened to be red,” whereas Susan (the observer) may conclude that
Sam “is losing interest in me.” These differing perceptions and attri-
butions might, in turn, serve as the basis for subsequent action that
might serve to escalate feelings of hostility and conflict.
The Storms experiment points to one method for nipping this po-
tential conflict in the bud before it happens: Change the actor’s and
the observer’s perspectives. One tactic for doing this is to promote em-
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pathy by role-playing the other’s point of view. Another tactic, used
on the international front, is cultural exchange programs in which cit-
izens of one country live in another. Both tactics change both the per-
spective and the information available for making attributions.

The Self-Biases It is now time to turn our attention to what hap-
pens to our social cognitions when our most important knowledge
structure—the self—is involved. As you will recall from our earlier
discussion of self-schemas, psychologically, one of our major goals is
to maintain and enhance our view of ourselves. In William James’s
view, this is especially true for our social and “spiritual” selves. As
James put it:
The social self . . . ranks higher than the material self.... We
must care more for our honor, our friends, our human ties, than
for a sound skin or wealth. And the spiritual self is so supremely
precious that, rather than lose it, a man ought to be willing to
give up friends and good fame, and property, and life itself. 92

As a primary source of motivation, the way in which we conceive
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of the self greatly influences all of our social cognitions. We will be