Attribution Flashcards
Attribution Theory
rooted in social psych and attempts to explain how individuals view behavior, both our own and others
Dispositional Attribution
attribute behavior to internal causes
Situational Attribution
attribute behavior to external causes
How do we attribute behavior?
through consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus
Fundamental Attribution Error
Underestimate impact of situation and overestimate impact of a person’s character or quality. blame behavior on the internal factors
Actor-Observer Bias
tendency to blame our actions on the situation and blame actions of others on personalities.
Self Serving Bias
tendency to attribute success to ourselves and failures to others or external environment
Optimism Bias
belief that bad things happen to other people but not us
Just World Phenomenon
World is fair and people get what they deserve. Good/bad things happen because of actions
Halo Effect
tendency to believe people have inherently good or bad natures rather than looking at individual characteristics
Physical Attractiveness Stereotype
Specific type of halo effect; people tend to rate attractive individuals more favorable for personality traits and characteristics that they do for those who are less attractive
Social Cognition
Ability of brain to store and process information regarding social perception
False Consensus
when we assume everyone agrees with what we do
Projection Bias
When we assume others have same beliefs as we do
Stereotypes
oversimplified ideas about groups of people, based on characteristics
Prejudice
thoughts, attitudes, and feelings someone holds about a group of people that are not based on experience
Discrimination
The way someone treats a group of people due to beliefs
Illusory Correlation
attributing one trait of a famous individual to a group and generalizing to everyone in the group (Since MJ is good at basketball, all black people are good at basketball)
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
behaviors that affirm original stereotypes
Stereotype Threat
self-fulfilling fear that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype
Cultural Relativism
judging another culture based on its own standards
Aggregate
People who exist in same place but do not interact or share common sense of identity
Group
Actively interact in same place sharing norms, values, and expectations
Category
people who share similar characteristics but are not tied together
Primary Groups
play a more important role in individual’s life. Usually smaller. more emotional, long term connection
Secondary Groups
larger and impersonal and may interact for specific reasons for shorter periods of time. Pragmatic needs
Social Facilitation Effect
do better on simple tasks in presence of other people
Deindividuation
High degree of arousal and very low sense of responsibility results in different behavior than usual due to larger group, masking, or arousing activities
Group Polarization
leads one side to the extreme by informational and normative influences
Informational Influence
Ideas that occur are the ones with the dominant viewpoint
Normative Influence
accepted ideas in group polarization are due to social desirability
Social Comparison
evaluating opinions and comparing them to others
