Attribution Theory

Question 1

attributions

Answer 1

• causal ascription of what happened (correct or incorrect)
• human nature if wanting to explain the world around us -> automatic

Question 2

explaining attributions

Answer 2

1. internal vs external (control or not)
2. stable vs unstable (happening again or different outcome next time)
3. global vs specific (generalizable -> impact in entire life)
   -> optimists; internally, stable and global
   -> pessimists; external, unstable and specific

Question 3

dispositional attributions

Answer 3

inherent characteristics

Question 4

situational attributions

Answer 4

looking outside of the target for explanation of this targets behavior

Question 5

correspondence bias

Answer 5

situational constrains are obvious but we still blame this persons dispositional behavior
-> collectivists are better when brought into others peoples shoes; considering others people situations better than individualists

Question 6

fundamental attribution error

Answer 6

tendency to explain others behavior in terms of disposition while ignoring situational factors (when those are very obvious) -> not aware of how powerful situation is
-> our default is to look for dispositional attributions

Question 7

cultural difference of attribution errors

Answer 7

• individualistic cultures focus on dispositional descriptions -> tendency to ignore situational factors when making attributions for others behavior
• collectivist cultures bring in way more situational descriptions -> tendency to consider situational factors when making attributions for others behavior
  -> different baselines of describing events
  -> cultural ingrained; we get taught how we see others

Question 8

why are we doing such errors

Answer 8

we are more likely to notice the world around us then the world around others -> what you capture perceptually is the basis of your explanation

-> dispositional attribution as default (when we don’t know people) -> the more we know someone the more we consider the situation which might cause to behave the way they do

Question 9

asymmetry in attribution making

Answer 9

seeing us situational and others dispositional
-> we look at how the people behave in the environment, we focus on them and not their environment
(mirror helps to bring us from situational to dispositional attribution making about ourselves)

Question 10

attributions and emotions - basics

Answer 10

emotions we have are result of attributions we make up on our current physiological state

Question 11

two factor theory of emotions

Answer 11

1. evaluate emotional state by assessing physiological arousal and situational attribution for arousal -> seeking for explanation
2. assessment (understand feeling or don’t understand -> causing unexpected emotions)
   -> if we have arousal to explain we look into our situation to explain it