Attributional ambiguity

Attributional ambiguity is a psychological attribution concept describing the difficulty that members of stigmatized or negatively stereotyped groups may have in interpreting feedback. According to this concept, a person who perceives him- or herself as stigmatized can attribute negative feedback to prejudice. This can lead stigmatized group members to feel uncertainty about whether negative outcomes are due to discrimination against them or their own behavior. In comparison, they might discredit positive feedback as a form of sympathy rather than seeing it as the result of their ability and achievement. The term was coined by Jennifer Crocker, Brenda Major and their colleagues. Attributional ambiguity is a psychological attribution concept describing the difficulty that members of stigmatized or negatively stereotyped groups may have in interpreting feedback. According to this concept, a person who perceives him- or herself as stigmatized can attribute negative feedback to prejudice. This can lead stigmatized group members to feel uncertainty about whether negative outcomes are due to discrimination against them or their own behavior. In comparison, they might discredit positive feedback as a form of sympathy rather than seeing it as the result of their ability and achievement. The term was coined by Jennifer Crocker, Brenda Major and their colleagues. Attributional ambiguity can have unfortunate repercussions for members of stigmatized groups. Members of groups that are ‘stereotype-vulnerable’ or are often stereotyped are at greater risk of having less self-worth through the lens of attributional ambiguity. With this concept, when people of an often stigmatized group receive feedback, they are unsure what the basis is for that feedback and believe it could have been attributed to things other than performance alone. Whether it is positive or negative feedback they face uncertainty about how accurate that feedback was and thus feeling uncertain about how to interpret the responses.