Egocentric biases in availability and attribution
Ross and Sicoly report five experiments with undergraduate discussion groups, married couples, intercollegiate basketball players and laboratory groups. Participants found their own contributions easier to recall and claimed more responsibility for a joint product than teammates credited them with. The bias weakened but did not disappear when the product was judged negatively. A selective memory cue that made a partner's contributions more accessible gave that partner a correspondingly larger share of responsibility for the group's decisions.
Ross and Sicoly report five experiments with undergraduate discussion groups, married couples, intercollegiate basketball players and laboratory groups. Participants found their own contributions easier to recall and claimed more responsibility for a joint product than teammates credited them with. The bias weakened but did not disappear when the product was judged negatively. A selective memory cue that made a partner's contributions more accessible gave that partner a correspondingly larger share of responsibility for the group's decisions.
Written from the abstract, library catalogue record, 2026-11-03.
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Ross, M., & Sicoly, F. (1979). Egocentric biases in availability and attribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(3), 322-336. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.3.322 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.3.322