attribution theory 2 Flashcards
What did Heider 1958 say about two primary needs?
people are motivated by two primary needs:
1) the need to form a coherent view of the world
2)the need to gain control over the environement
the need for coherence and control leads us to behave like naive scientists… the social world becomes predictable
What does the naive scientist discuss?
- how we make inferences about others
- how we understand our social world
- are we rational beings
- how we observe a behaviour and attribute a cause. e.g throw a punch= aggression
- we test our hypothesis about the social world
What is attribution theory ?
the theory that humans are drawn to explain others behaviour, through making inferences. interacting with the social world. assessing cause and effect. find meaning to comprehend the social world. causality ascribes meaning to our world, it reduces uncertainty and uncertainty is unpleasant
Who is Fritz Heider?
(1896- 1988)
the father of attribution theories
What did Heider and Simmel show?
that people ascribe intentionality even to the movement of basic geometrical shapes. intentionality is predictable.
What is internal (person) attribution?
any explanation that locates the cause as being internal to the person (personality, mood, attitudes, abilities, effort).
these are stable and therefore predictable.
social perceivers prefer internal because they are more valuable in making predictions and personality is fixed an stable
What is external (situation) attribution?
any explanation that locates the cause as being external to the person (actions of others, the nature of the situation, luck)
What is correspondent inference theory by Jones and Davis, 1965?
social perceivers attempt to infer that a given action is as a result of or corresponds to some permanent personality trait.
there are two stages:- was the action freely chosen, - which personality trait caused it.
What is the covariation model by Kelley, 1967?
behavioural attributions are made using the covariation principle.
the cause of a particular behaviour must be present when the behaviour is present and absent when the behaviour is absent over time/ multiple observations.
from multiple potential causes we ascribe casuality to the one that covaries with the behaviour to the greatest extent.
attributions are either situational or dispositional.
What does consensus, consistency and distinctiveness mean?
-consensus = OTHER PEOPLE= extent to which others react like the target
- consistency= TIME= extent to which the target reacts in the same way on different occasions
- distinctiveness = SITUATION= extent to which the target reacts the same way in other social contexts (situations)
information about these are used to make inferences about people’s behaviour.
What are attribution biases?
shortcuts made by the individual to make an inference on others behaviour
fundamental error
also referred to as heurisics= mental shortcuts- time saving- simple rules of thumb
we are cognitive misers
we make mental shortcuts to save time with limited resources- they are valuable
What experiment did Jones and Harris, 1967 conduct?
-had p’s read essays
-essays were either pro or anti castro
- p’s told writers they had either chosen the topic or had no choice
- p’s asked to guesss which attitude the writer had towards castro
-in the choice condition p’s assumed writers choice of essay reflected their own opinions- however p’s also assumed the same in the no choice condition= an internal attribution
What is perpetual salience?
the person observed is salient aspect of the situation– becomes associated with the act– an internal attribution becomes much more accessible
What is the actor observer bias?
people attribute their own behaviour to external causes but that of others to internal factors– perpetual salience, actors attention is away from themselves (external), observers attention is on actor (internal)
What is the self-serving attribution bias?
internal attributions for our successes, e.g. i’m intelligent, and external attributions for failures, e.g. it was a particularly hard exam
motivational explanations- could be internally attributing success and externally attributing failure protects self- esteem
What is the representative heuristic?
allocating a set of attributes to a person if they match a prototype stored in memory.
What is the availability heuristic?
associations that come easily to mind and thus are considered more common and prevalent than they really are
What is the false consensus effect?
related to the availability heuristic- exaggeration of our own perspectives based on availability of information
What does Kruglanski, 1996 suggest?
people are flexible social thinkers who choose between multiple cognitive strategies based on their current goals, motives, and needs
suggesting a dual process of cognitive misers and naive scientists
What does the motivated tactician suggest?
the strategy we use to the decisions we make is determined by:
- how much time we have
- how many cognitive resources we have free
- how important the judgement we are making is
- the amount of information we have about the target
