Hostile Attributional Bias

Hostile Attributional Bias is a tendency to perceive other people's neutral or ambiguous behaviors to be a result of hostile intent. A person with hostile attributional bias will automatically assume that another person has an intention to harm them so that normal behaviors are perceived as hostile and aggressive. An example could be seen in a school setting. A child with hostile attributional bias has milk accidentally spilled on him by another student. The bias makes the student appear as if he or she did it deliberately and the first student retaliates by being aggressive instead of realizing that it was an accident.