istic, and the availability heuristic. Each of these biases provide a way for people to make judgments very quickly. Although they often work, they can also be a source for error because people, in making quick judgments, tend to make generalizations about others that are sometimes accurate, but not always. In considering decision making skills, research has demonstrated that people tend to think more highly of themselves, both morally and in their capabilities, than others. This inflated self view can cause people to greatly overestimate their own capabilities while grossly underestimating the capabilities of others. People’s overconfidence can lead them to make inaccurate decisions and to choose the wrong course of action: they tend to give more attention and weight to their own insights rather than to objective information.Attribution is an everyday part of life that involves everyone, but only a few take time to stop and think about what it is, and the implications that it has on the world. Baron and Byrne (2000) define attribution as a process through which people try to understand the causes of their actions and behaviors as well as those of other people. While trying to figure out the causes of behavior, people often make fundamental errors. These errors prohibit people from identifying the true sources of these behaviors. Correspondence bias and self-serving bias are two of the major fundamental errors. Correspondence bias occurs when people attribute another person’s actions as part of their disposition even when there is evidence, such as situational causes, to indicate otherwise (Baron & Byrne, 2000). An example of this would be if a professor attributed a student’s tardiness to irresponsibility even though they know that the student’s car broke-down on the way to school. The self-serving bias is quite opposite from the correspondence bias. It states that people will attribute their own neg...
