Attribution Processes And Bias

Question 1

Social psychology:

Answer 1

Perceptions and behaviour and how influenced by others

Question 2

Social cognition:

Answer 2

How we process and store social information

How this affects our perceptions and behaviour

Question 3

Attribution-

Answer 3

Process of assigning a cause to our own and others behaviour

Question 4

Social schemas-

Answer 4

Knowledge about concepts
Make sense with limited info
Facility top down (theory driven) processing

Question 5

Category-

Answer 5

Organised hierarchy (associative network) fuzzy set of features organised around a prototype

Question 6

Prototypes-

Answer 6

Cognitive representation of typical defining features of a category

Question 7

Causal attribution-

Answer 7

An inference process through which perceivers attribute an effect to one or more causes

Question 8

Naive scientist-

Answer 8

People are rational and scientific like in making cause and effect attributions

Question 9

Biased / Intuitionist

Answer 9

Info limited and driven by motivations leads to errors and biases

Question 10

Cognitive miser

Answer 10

People use least complex and demanding info processing- cognitive short cuts

Question 11

Motivated tactician-

Answer 11

Think deeply when required and only then
Scientifically
Quickly and use heuristics for others
When less important and do things quickly

Question 12

Homo rationalis:

Answer 12

Analytical, cogent, balanced, logical
Hypothesis testing
Attribute causes to effects to create a stable world that makes sense

Question 13

Fritz heider’s naive scientist 3 principles:

Answer 13

Need to form coherent view of world
Need to gain control over environment
Need to identify internal (personal) vs external (situational) factors

Question 14

Weiner’s attributional theory:

Answer 14

Performance (success/failures) 
Feelings (positive/negative)
Attributions 
Specific emotions (pride) 
Expectations

Question 15

Causality of success or failure:

Answer 15

Locus (internal / external)
Stability (nature ability / mood)
Controllability (effort / luck)

Question 16

Jones and Davis Correspondent inference theory’s cues:

Answer 16

Act was freely chosen 
Act produces a non common effect
Not socially desirable 
Hedonic relevance 
Personalism 
Acts reflect a true characteristic of person

Question 17

Harold Kelley’s Co Variation Model:

Answer 17

Multiple observations to try to identify factors that covary behaviour assign causal role to factor
Whether behaviour internal or external

Question 18

Covariation model features:

Answer 18

Consistency
Distinctiveness
Consensus

Question 19

Consistency

Answer 19

Does this behaviour always occur with the cause

Question 20

Distinctiveness:

Answer 20

Is the behaviour exclusively linked to this cause or is it a common reaction

Question 21

High distinctiveness

Answer 21

I never failed other exams

Attribute to external cause

Question 22

Low distinctiveness

Answer 22

I generally fail exams

Internal attribution

Question 23

Consensus:

Answer 23

Do other people react in the same way to the cause / situation

Question 24

Heider’s naive scientist

Answer 24

Internal / stable or external / situational
Inverse relationship?
Validity of distinction?

Question 25

Correspondent inference model:

Answer 25

Infer behaviour to internal attributes (traits)

Intentionally? Automatic or deliberate attribution?

Question 26

Kelleys co-variation model:

Answer 26

Consistency, distinctiveness, consensus
Covariation really used?
Salience of prior info?
Covariation = correlation not causation

Question 27

Attributional biases:

Answer 27

Systematic errors indicative of short cuts, gut feeling, Intuition

Question 28

Heuristics:

Answer 28

Cognitive short cut
Avoid effort resources expenditure
Rule of thumb not complex mental judgement
Quick and easy

Question 29

Types of heuristics:

Answer 29

Availability heuristic
Representative heuristic
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Question 30

Availability heuristic:

Answer 30

Frequency or probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples (memory accessibility)

Question 31

Representative heuristic:

Answer 31

Categorise based on similarity between instance and prototypical category members
Allocate a set of attributes

Question 32

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic:

Answer 32

Starting point or initial standard influences subsequent judgments