Attribution and social perception Flashcards
(38 cards)
What is attribution?
People engaged in the process of explaining human behaviour
- Attributing causes and reasons to observed behaviours and events
What did Heider (1958) argue our two primary needs are from the lens of Naive psychology?
What types of features/factors do we look for?
- To form a coherent view of the world
- To gain control over the environment
We therefore look for stable and enduring features
- personal, internal, dispositional factors
- Environmental, external, situational factors
What did Heider and Simmel (1944) study?
Moving shapes study
- 34 ppts
- 33 ppts described movements of shapes as social planning and interaction
- 1 ppt described it as moving triangles and circle
What is correspondent inference theory? (Jones & Davis, 1965)
- What does a behaviour tell me about a person?
- We prefer to attribute to underlying dispositions of a person.
Renders the world stable, understandable and predictable
What are the 5 (or 3) relevant factors in drawing a correspondent inference? (Jones & Davis, 1965) + example of someone stealing my car
- Was the behaviour freely chosen? (were they coerced?)
- Did the behaviour produce unique consequences? (non-common effects) (would the same effect have been produced had they chosen a different course of action? - not stealing the car)
- Was the behaviour socially desirable? (is stealing a car socially desirable?)
- What are its consequences for me? (Hedonic relevance)
- Was it intended to benefit or harm me? (personalism) (did they steal my car because they knew it was mine?)
What is the intention-disposition limitation of Jones & Davis’ 1965 correspondent inference theory?
Is intention necessary to infer disposition?
- eg. clumsiness/carelessness
Overly focused on personal factors?
What is the group-level information limitation of Jones & Davis’ 1965 Correspondent inference theory?
Group-level information can also be used in attributions
- eg. stereotypes used to explain behaviour
What is the empirical support limitation of Jones & Davis’ 1965 correspondent inference theory?
Only limited empirical support
- eg. people don’t routinely take into account non-occurring behaviours - difficult to see how they could assess non-common effects
What does Kelley’s 1967 Covariation model suggest?
covariation/co-occurrence of behaviour with other factors
What are the 3 types of information in Kelley’s (1976) covariation model?
- Consistency (does this person always do this in this situation?)
- Distinctiveness (does this person do this in other situations?)
- Consensus (do other people do this in the same situation?)
When consistency is high, and distinctiveness and consensus is low, what type of attributions are made?
Internal attributions
When consistency is low and distinctiveness and consensus do not apply, what attributions do we tend to make?
External attributions
When consistency, distinctiveness and consensus are high, what type of attributions do we tend to make?
External attributions
What is the limitation of evidence of Kelley’s (1967) covariation model?
Evidence shows people can use specifically prepared consistency, distinctiveness and consensus information, but does this mean they do so in real life?
- how good are people at assessing covariation? - are they always systematic?
- covariation does not equal causality
What is an issue with the assumptions about access to information in Kelley’s (1967) covariation model?
Covariation theory assumes we have access to info on multiple occurrences (has it happened before?)
- what about one-off events?
e.g., Seeing someone fall over in the street in a new city
- We don’t know whether this person always falls over here (consistency), whether this person falls over everywhere else (distinctiveness) or whether everyone else falls over here (consensus)
What is a causal schema in Kelley’s (1972) configuration theory?
A general conception that a person has about how certain kinds of causes interact to produce a specific kind of effect
- kick in when info is missing or not worth collecting
- when we see someone fall in the street, factors like wet pavement, shoes untied, crooked paving stones, might be relevant - in the absence of these, perhaps we’ll conclude that the person is clumsy (internal attribution)
What are 3 important attribution biases according to Hewstone (1989)?
- Fundamental attribution error
- Actor-observer effect
- Self-serving bias
What is Fundamental Attribution Error?
The tendency to attribute to internal, dispositional causes rather than situational causes
- can be explained in terms of heuristics or minimising cognitive effort
What was Jones and Harris’ 1967 study into fundamental attribution error?
pro- & anti-Castro (communist leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008) speeches
- 1 group of US students wrote essays expressing either view, another group were either informed that writers freely chose their arguments OR were explicitly asked for pro/anti arguments - rated positive attitudes for both types of essays
- Even when participants were aware that speakers had no choice over whether they made a pro- or anti-Castro speech, internal attributions were made
How do perspectives change things in fundamental attribution error?
Lassiter and Irvine (1986) - videos of prisoner confessions
3 viewpoints of camera:
1. on suspect
2. on police interrogator
3. on both
prisoner’s confession seen to be:
- least coerced when watching prisoner
- most coerced when watching police officer
What is the actor-observer effect?
More likely to attribute others’ behaviour to internal causes, and own behaviour to external causes (Jones & Nisbett, 1972)
What is an example of actor-observer effect? (driving test)
Someone else fails their driving test
- they probably aren’t a very good driver (internal, personal)
You fail your driving test
- rubbish car, bad instructor, dodgy examiner, other drivers (external, situational)
What is the self-serving bias? (Olson & Ross, 1988)
The tendency to:
- Attribute own success to internal factors (self-enhancing bias)
- Attribute own failure to external factors (self-protecting bias)
What is a self-enhancing bias? (self-serving bias)
Attributing internally, taking credit for success
