Attribution 1

Question 1

Kelley’s Covariation Model (Kelley, 1967, 1973) perceived people as _____ _____.

Answer 1

naive scientists.

Question 2

what is an attribution?

Answer 2

an explanation or inference of behavior.

Question 3

why do we engage in attribution processes?

Answer 3

it is in order to explain our own behavior or others in different contexts.

Question 4

Controllability and adaptive value (Fosterling & Rudolph, 1988) proposes:

Answer 4

that people are ‘naïve’ or lay psychologists and we try to predict and control our environment.

Question 5

Appropriate interpersonal functioning (Heider, 1958; Ross, 1977) believes

Answer 5

that people can adjust their behavior in order to increase prosocial behavior by bettering their emotional regulation, for example.

Question 6

Self-esteem (Weiner, 1985) is defined as … and is the different explanations of …

Answer 6

the confidence in ones own worth or abilities; success and failure.

Question 7

Brunswick (1956) General theory of social perception based on Lens theory means that …

Answer 7

We have to describe behavior rather than to predict it.

Question 8

Heider (1958) believes that all behavior is _____.

Answer 8

intentional.

Question 9

How do people perceive each other and how do they perceive others’ behaviour according to Heider?

Answer 9

he believed that our behavior is intentional therefore a personal explanation of ourselves i.e. infer of our beliefs, emotions etc.

Question 10

according to heider, behavior is labelled as what term?

Answer 10

variance.

Question 11

what were the misunderstandings of heider’s theory of attribution?

Answer 11

that dispositional properties are not equivalent to personality traits. he also did not address the person-situation dichotomy. if you rely solely on observed behavior, people will be wrongly accused.

Question 12

person-situation dichotomy

Answer 12

controversy concerning whether the person or the situation is more influential in determining a person’s behavior.

Question 13

Correspondence Inference Theory (Jones & Davies, 1965) is a psychological theory

Answer 13

“systematically accounts for a perceiver’s inferences about what an actor was trying to achieve by a particular action.”

Question 14

“The more uncommon the behaviour, the more we engage in attribution.” is the definition of what principle?

Answer 14

Non-common effects principle

Question 15

‘personalism’

Answer 15

not just about the tendency of behaviour to happen but about the kind of consequences the action may have i.e. does it hurt us or others?

Question 16

what are some limitations of the Correspondence Inference Theory (Jones & Davies, 1965)?

Answer 16

sometimes careless behavior is unintentional.

people hardly considered nonchosen actions when making an attribution.

Question 17

‘covariation principle’ can be explained as:

Answer 17

Aims to explain behavior by frequently occurring factors.

As naïve scientists we are always observing people behaviour, repetitively we can draw inferences about their behaviour.

Question 18

consensus
consistency
distinctiveness
are apart of what model in attribution theory?

Answer 18

Kelley’s covariation model.

Question 19

‘consensus’ is defined as

Answer 19

questioning if there are similarities between different people in their behavior.

Question 20

‘consistency’ is defined as

Answer 20

the consistency of a persons behavior i.e. do they always behave this way?

Question 21

‘distinctiveness’ is defined as

Answer 21

in different context, is the behavior still the same?

Question 22

what are some limitations of kelley covariation model?

Answer 22

consensus is under use
people are poor at assessing covariation
people also tend to rely on salience
character cannot be accounted for by single observations.