Cognitive distortions- Hostile attribution bias and Minimalisation

Hostile attribution bias

• The tendency to judge ambiguous situations or other people's actions/behaviour as aggressive, offensive or threatening in some way, when in reality it may not be that way.
• Example, if you accidently look at someone across a bar and they shout 'What are you looking at?!' 
• Research has shown an association between Hostile Attribution bias and aggression- e.g Spielberger (1988)
• Cues from behaviour are misinterpreted, which can lead to a hostile response or even an aggressive act, hence the link to offending behaviour.
• Linked to Impulsive aggression- reactive outbursts. 
• Hostile Attribution bias measured through use of hypothetical scenarios, which are interpreted as hostile/ambigious or benign- individual states how angry they think they'd be in the hypothetical situation.

Research and Evaluative points:

• Crick & Dodge (1994)- found a relationship between h.a.b and aggression in children and adolescents. This was evidenced using hypothetical situations, but also found relationships in real situations also, therefore theory applies to real life behaviour too.
• Holtzworth-Munroe & Hutchinson (1993) found links between h.a.b and domestic violence, showed men vignettes (scenarios) of different marital situations & asked to rate woman's behaviour in each case. Men who had been violent towards wives more likely to think woman…