Hostile Attribution Bias

The term was first coined in 1980 by Nasby, Hayden, and DePaulo, who noticed—along with psychologist Kenneth A. Dodge—that a subgroup of children tend to attribute hostile intent to ambiguous social situations more than others. Dodge's 1980 research found that children are much more likely to attribute hostile intent to peers with reputations for aggressiveness than to nonaggressive peers. Social-cognitive models propose that children who frequently interpret others' intentions as hostile in ambiguous situations respond more aggressively, treating interactions as requiring retaliation or defense. Dodge and colleagues found that high hostile attribution bias predicted later aggressive behaviors.