Against the background of a different theory of explanation, Malle, Knobe, and Nelson (2007) tested an alternative set of three actor-observer asymmetries and found consistent support for all of them. Malle (2006) interpreted this result not so much as proof that actors and observers explained behavior exactly the same way but as evidence that the original hypothesis was fundamentally flawed in the way it framed people's explanations of behavior-namely, as attributions to either stable dispositions or to the situation. However, a meta-analysis of all the published tests of the hypothesis between 19 (Malle, 2006) yielded a stunning finding: there was no actor-observer asymmetry of the sort Jones and Nisbett (1971) had proposed. Supported by initial evidence, the hypothesis was long held as firmly established, describing a robust and pervasive phenomenon of social cognition. This term falls under " attribution" or " attribution theory." The specific hypothesis of an actor-observer asymmetry in attribution (explanations of behavior) was originally proposed by Jones and Nisbett (1971), when they claimed that "actors tend to attribute the causes of their behavior to stimuli inherent in the situation, while observers tend to attribute behavior to stable dispositions of the actor” (p. But, they see other people’s actions as solely a product of their overall personality, and they do not afford them the chance to explain their behavior as exclusively a result of a situational effect. People are more likely to see their own behavior as affected by the situation they are in, or the sequence of occurrences that have happened to them throughout their day. This frequent error shows the bias that people hold in their evaluations of behavior (Miller & Norman, 1975). Yet when a person is attributing the behavior of another person, thus acting as the observer they are more likely to attribute this behavior to the person’s overall disposition than as a result of situational factors. When a person judges their own behavior, and they are the actor, they are more likely to attribute their actions to the particular situation than to a generalization about their personality. Actor-observer asymmetry (also actor-observer bias) explains the errors that one makes when forming attributions about behavior (Jones & Nisbett, 1971).
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