Blame contagion: The automatic transmission of self-serving attributions

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volumn 46, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 97-106

  Fast, Nathanael J ^a   Tiedens, Larissa Z ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Attributions; Blame; Cultural transmission; Self image protection; Social contagion

Indexed keywords

EID: 70449685574     PISSN: 00221031     EISSN: 10960465     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.10.007     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Aarts H., Gollwitzer P.M., and Hassin R.R. Goal contagion: Perceiving is for pursuing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87 (2004) 23-37
2. Adams G., and Markus H.R. Toward a conception of culture suitable for a social psychology of culture. In: Schaller M., and Crandall C.S. (Eds). The psychological foundations of culture (2004), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ 335-360
3. Anderson C., Keltner D., and John O.J. Emotional convergence between people over time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 (2003) 1054-1068
4. Anderson C., and Thompson L.L. Affect from the top down: How powerful individual's positive affect shapes negotiations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 95 (2004) 125-139
5. Baldwin D.G. How to win the blame game. Harvard Business Review 55 (2001) 62
6. Barach P., and Small S.D. Reporting and preventing medical mishaps: Lessons from non-medical near miss reporting systems. British Medical Journal 320 (2000) 759-763
7. Barsade S.G. The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its effect on group behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly 47 (2002) 644-675
8. Blaine B., and Crocker J. Self-esteem and self-serving biases in reactions to positive and negative events: An integrative review. In: Baumeister R.F. (Ed). Self-esteem: The puzzle of low self-regard (1993), Plenum, New York 55-85
9. Bono J.E., and Ilies R. Charisma, positive emotions and mood contagion. The Leadership Quarterly 17 (2006) 317-334
10. Bradley G.W. Self-serving biases in the attribution: A reexamination of the fact or fiction question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (1978) 57-71
11. Campbell W.K., and Sedikides C. Self-threat magnifies the self-serving bias: A meta-analytic integration. Review of General Psychology 3 (1999) 23-43
12. Chartrand T.L., and Bargh J.A. The chameleon effect: The perception-behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76 (1999) 93-910
13. Chartrand T.L., Maddux W.W., and Lakin J.L. Beyond the perception-behavior link: The ubiquitous utility and motivational moderators of nonconscious mimicry. In: Hassin R., Uleman J., and Bargh J.A. (Eds). The new unconscious (2005), Oxford University Press, New York 334-361
14. Chatman J., and Cha S.E. Leading by leveraging culture. California Management Review 44 (2003) 20-34
15. Cheng C.M., and Chartrand T.L. Self-monitoring without awareness: Using mimicry as a nonconscious affiliation strategy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (2003) 1170-1179
16. Cialdini R.B., Reno R.R., and Kallgren C.A. A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990) 1015-1026
17. Cohen G.L., Aronson J., and Steele C.M. When beliefs yield to evidence. Reducing biased evaluation by affirming the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26 (2000) 1151-1164
18. Crocker J., Niiya Y., and Mischkowski D. Why does writing about important values reduce defensiveness? Self-affirmation and the role of positive other-directed feelings. Psychological Science 19 (2008) 740-747
19. Edmondson A. Learning from mistakes is easier said than done: Group and organizational influences on the detection and correction of human error. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 32 (1996) 5-28
20. Edmondson A. Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly 44 (1999) 350-383
21. Fein S., and Spencer S.J. Prejudice as self-image maintenance. Affirming the self through derogating others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73 (1997) 31-44
22. Festinger L. A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations 7 (1954) 117-140
23. Fiske S.T. Controlling other people: The impact of power on stereotyping. American Psychologist 48 (1993) 621-628
24. Fiske S.T., and Taylor S.E. Social cognition. 2nd ed. (1991), McGraw-Hill, New York
25. Forgas J.P., and George J.M. Affective influences on judgments and behavior in organizations: An information processing perspective. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 86 (2001) 3-34
26. Forsyth D.R., Berger R.E., and Mitchell R. The effects of self-serving vs. Other-serving claims of responsibility on attraction and attribution in groups. Social Psychology Quarterly 44 (1981) 59-64
27. Forsyth D.R., and Mitchell R. Reactions to others' egocentric claims of responsibility. The Journal of Psychology 103 (1979) 281-285
28. Gergen D. Eyewitness to power (2000), Simon and Schuster, New York
29. Gittell J.H. The southwest airlines way: Using the power of relationships to achieve high performance (2003), McGraw-Hill, New York
30. Gollwitzer P.M., and Bargh J.A. Automaticity in goal pursuit. In: Elliot A.J., and Dweck C.S. (Eds). Handbook of competence and motivation (2005), The Guilford Press, New York 624-646
31. Greenwald A.G. The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. American Psychologist 35 (1980) 603-618
32. Gregory S.W., and Webster S. A nonverbal signal in voices of interview partners effectively predicts communication accommodation and social status perceptions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 (1996) 1231-1240
33. Hatfield H., Cacioppo J.T., and Rapson R.L. Emotional contagion (1994), Cambridge University Press, New York
34. Kim P.H., Dirks K.T., Cooper C.D., and Ferrin D.L. When more blame is better than less: The implications of internal vs. External attributions for the repair of trust after a competence- vs. integrity-based trust violation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 99 (2006) 49-65
35. Kashima Y., and Triandis H.C. The self-serving bias in attributions as a coping strategy. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 17 (1986) 83-97
36. Lakin J.L., and Chartrand T.L. Using nonconscious behavioral mimicry to create affiliation and rapport. Psychological Science 14 (2003) 334-339
37. Leary, M. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). The nature and function of self-esteem: Sociometer theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 32, pp. 1-62). San Diego: Academic Press.
38. Lee F., Peterson C., and Tiedens L.Z. Mea culpa: Predicting stock prices from organizational attributions. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin 30 (2004) 1636-1649
39. Lee F., and Robinson R.J. An attributional analysis of social accounts: Implications of playing the blame game. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 30 (2000) 1853-1879
40. Lee F., and Tiedens L.Z. Who's being served? "Self-serving" attributions in social hierarchies. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 84 (2001) 254-287
41. Loersch C., Aarts H., Payne B.K., and Jefferis V.E. The influence of social groups on goal contagion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44 (2009) 1555-1558
42. Mason R.O. Lessons in organizational ethics from the Columbia disaster: Can a culture be lethal?. Organizational Dynamics 33 (2004) 128-142
43. Mennon T., Morris M.W., Chui C., and Hong Y. Culture and the construal of agency: Attribution to individual versus group dispositions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34 (1999) 701-717
44. Miller D.T. Ego involvement and attributions for success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34 (1976) 901-906
45. Morris M., Mennon T., and Ames D.R. Culturally conferred conceptions of agency: A key to social perception of persons, groups, and other actors. Personality and Social Psychology Review 5 (2001) 169-182
46. Neumann R., and Strack F. "Mood contagion": The automatic transfer of mood between persons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2000) 211-223
47. Oberg, J. (2003). NASA's culture of denial: Real change needed if space agency to reform ways. NBC News. Retrieved 13.06.07.
48. O'Reilly C., and Chatman J.A. Culture as social control: Corporations, cults, and commitment. In: Cummings L., and Staw B. (Eds). Research in organizational behavior Vol. 18 (1996), JAI Press, Greenwich, CT 157-200
49. Peterson C., and Seligman M.E.P. Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence. Psychological Review 91 (1984) 347-374
50. Schein E.H. Organizational culture and leadership. 3rd ed. (2004), Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA
51. Schminke M., Ambrose M.L., and Neubaum D.O. The effect of leader moral development on ethical climate and employee attitudes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 97 (2005) 135-151
52. Sherman D.K., and Cohen G.L. The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38 (2006) 183-242
53. Sherman D.K., and Kim H.S. Is there an "I" in "Team"? The role of the self in group-serving judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88 (2005) 108-120
54. Snodgrass S.E. Women's intuition: The effect of subordinate role on interpersonal sensitivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49 (1985) 146-155
55. Snyder C.R., and Higgins R.L. Excuses: Their effective role in the negotiation of reality. Psychological Bulletin 104 (1988) 23-35
56. Spencer S.J., Zanna M.P., and Fong G.T. Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective in examining psychological process than mediational analyses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89 (2005) 845-851
57. Steele C.M. The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In: Berkowitz L. (Ed). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 21 (1988), Academic Press, New York 261-302
58. Sy T., Côté S., and Saavedra R. The contagious leader: Impact of the leader's mood on the mood of group members, group affective tone, and group processes. Journal of Applied Psychology 90 (2005) 295-305
59. Tennen H., and Affleck G. Blaming others for threatening events. Psychological Bulletin 108 (1990) 209-232
60. Watson D., Clark L.A., and Tellegen A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54 (1988) 1063-1070
61. Wood J.V., Giordano-Beech M., Taylor K.L., Michela J.L., and Gaus V. Strategies of social comparison among people with low self-esteem: Self-protection and self-enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1994) 713-731
62. Yamaguchi S. Culture and control orientation. In: Matsumoto D. (Ed). The handbook of culture and psychology (2001), Oxford University Press, Oxford
63. Zanna M.P., Goethals G.P., and Hill J.F. Evaluating a sex-related ability: Social comparison with similar others and standard setters. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 11 (1975) 86-93
64. Zhao B., and Olivera F. Error reporting in organizations. Academy of Management Review 31 (2006) 1012-1030
65. Zuckerman M. Attribution of success and failure revisited, or: The motivational bias is alive and well in attribution theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47 (1979) 245-287