Glossary
Attributional ambiguity
What is attributional ambiguity?
Attributional ambiguity is uncertainty about why someone gave feedback or treated a person in a particular way. In research on stigma, it often concerns whether treatment reflects personal qualities or group-based prejudice.
How it works
Crocker and colleagues’ 1991 experiments examined how attributing feedback to prejudice affected emotions and self-esteem. Such attributions could protect self-esteem after negative feedback, while making positive feedback less reassuring in some conditions.
Why it matters
A person who receives praise might wonder whether it reflects performance or a desire to appear unbiased. The uncertainty concerns what to learn from the praise, even when the evaluator may be entirely sincere.
The effects can pull in different directions: attributing criticism to prejudice can protect self-esteem, while the same possibility can make praise less reassuring. Crocker and Major’s earlier paper developed this self-protective account; the later experiments tested it under particular conditions.