Attribution Style Flashcards
What internal states drive attribution style?
- Culture or cultural perceptions
- Emotion or transient states
- Personality traits
- Prejudices, biases and preconceptions.
What are the three attribution errors?
- Fundamental attribution error
- Self-serving bias
- Spotlight effect
Who are the two main theorists of the FAE?
Heider and Miller
What was Heiders FAE theory?
Naive psychology: dispositional (internal) attribution is strong this leads to the FAE or SSB even though minority of the population are better than average.
What was Miller’s FAE theory?
He presented a task for rating others on degree of true extraversion/introversion (both stable personality traits)
Participants of study were rated higher dependent upon random allocations.
Displays the irrationality of humans.
What other examples show millers irrationality of humans?
Sanford prison experiment.
Teachers and eye colour.
Conclude that randomly assigning roles to people will determine their behaviour.
Explain the Jeremy Paxman effect
Jeremy Paxman is rated as more intelligent than contestants depute him having the answers in front of him.
Who propose the Jeremy Paxman effect?
Ross et al. (1977)
Explain the Self Serving Bias.
Better than average effect. Personal success and met expectations are attributed to internal influences. Personal failure and violated expectations are attributed to external factors.
The success of others is a situations attribution whereas the failure of others is their internal attribution.
What considerations are there for Henrich’s positive self-view?
Considered fundamental to human psychology.
Represents a small percentage of the population.
Non-western populations score lower.
East asians show non or reversed i.e. a self-effacing bias.
What is the just-world hypothesis?
The belief that good things happen to good people, it is a related hypothesis or concept.
‘what goes around comes around’
What is the spotlight effect?
Individuals overestimate how much others are paying attention to their appearance and behaviour.
How did Gilovich et al show the spotlight effect?
Barry Manilow t-shirt experiment.
Participants wearing an embarrassing t-shirt believed that 50% of their peers noticed in comparison to the 20 that actually did.
Participants eating a flattering t-shirt correctly estimated the 20% that notices their t-shirt.
Explain the Optimism bias.
Belief that positive event happen to me more and negative events happen to me less than others.
Who are the two theorists of the optimism bias?
Taylor and Roesch.
What did Taylor’s 2002 study of the optimism bias show?
Event when presented with accurate divorce statistics newly weds will predict their marriage to last a life time.
Was did Roesch’s 1997 study of optimism bias show?
Smokers believe themselves to be less likely to get lung cancer than other smokers.
What are the consequences of the optimism bias?
Increased risk taking because it will never happen to me.
Insufficient preventative methods.
Poor planning.
Explain the pessimism bias.
Over-estimation of the likelihood of negative events happening to me.
Who shows pessimism bias most?
People suffering from depression or anxiety, more so than normally functioning adults.
What did Seligman propose people who show the pessimism bias have?
A learned helplessness (1967)
They feel powerless to change a situation.
Who shows the most depression or anxiety?
Countries operated by a foreign force. (External attribution)
It is a stable dispositional attribution (Internal attribution)
What are the consequences of the pessimism bias?
Optimism bias goes down because bad things always happen to them.
SSB: they believe themselves to be worse than average.
Can we change attribution styles by increasing self-esteem, self-efficacy?
Durgin 2011
Altering perception of a hill slope and probably to reach the top.
Basic perceptions change given situation; backpacks, glucose etc.
Psychological support changes perception; being with a friend.
