attributions

Question 1

what is attribution?

Answer 1

the process of assigning a cause to behavior

Question 2

situational/external vs dispositional/internal attributions

Answer 2

situational = environmental factors e.g. social pressure
dispositional = personal factors e.g. personality, ability

Question 3

Heider’s theory of naive psychology

Answer 3

• characterizes people as using rational scientific-like analysis to understand the world

based on:
- believe our own behavior is motivated, not random - we look for causes for other peoples behavior
- we construct theories to predict and control our env
- we distinguish between internal & external attributions

Question 4

Jones & David’s theory of correspondent inference

Answer 4

• predicts that people infer that a persons behavior corresponds to an underlying disposition or personality trait

5 cues to correspondent inference
1. freely chosen behavior
2. non-common effect: effects of behavior that are exclusive to said behavior says more than behavior w common effects
3. expectedness: socially undesirable behavior says more than typical
4. hedonic relevance: behavior that has important direct consequences for self
5. personalism: behavior that is directly intended to benefit or harm oneself rather than others

Question 5

Kelly’s covariation model

Answer 5

• people assign the cause of behavior to the factor that covaries most closely with the behavior
• do this by assessing 3 classes of info:
  1. consensus = diff people, same stimulus
  2. distinctiveness = same person, diff stimuli
  3. consistency = same person, same stimulus, diff occasion
• when consistency is low we discount the potential cause & search for an alternative
• all 3 high = external attribution
• consistency is high but others are low = internal attribution

casual schemata (bcuz of criticisms) = experience based beliefs about how certain types of causes interact to produce an effect

Question 6

what is the augmentation principle?

Answer 6

the idea that people should assign greater weight to a particular cause of behavior if other causes are present that normally would produce a different outcome

Question 7

what is the theory of emotional liability (schachter)

Answer 7

• 2 factor theory of emotion
• sometimes cognitions precede arousal but at other times arousal may occur which prompts a search of the immediate env for possible causes
• epi study: drug uninformed p’s searched for a cause for arousal from env

Question 8

self perception theory (bem)

Answer 8

we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions

we infer our own attitudes from our own behavior

Question 9

fundamental attribution error/correspondence bias/over attribution effect

Answer 9

• attributing another’s behavior more to internal than external factors

Question 10

actor-observer effect

Answer 10

the tendency to attribute our own behavior externally and other behavior internally

• can be inverted if the actor knows their own behavior is dispositionally cause
• can be abolished or reversed if the actor takes on tole of the observer regarding the behavior and vice versa

Question 11

availability heuristic

Answer 11

the tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind

Question 12

false consensus effect

Answer 12

seeing our own behavior as more typical than it actually is & assuming that others would behave the same under similar circumstances

Question 13

base-rate fallacy

Answer 13

people are relatively insensitive to numerical information

we are more influenced by graphics and dramatic events

Question 14

counterfactual thinking

Answer 14

the tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have occurred but didn’t

Question 15

self-serving bias

Answer 15

attributional distortions that protect or enhance self-esteem/self-concept.

attribute our successes internally and failures externally

Question 16

motivational bias

Answer 16

attribute the behaviors of others in a way that suits you at that particular time

Question 17

self-handicapping

Answer 17

publicly making advance external attributions for our anticipated failure in a forthcoming event

Question 18

illusion of control

Answer 18

the belief that we have more control over our world than we actually do

Question 19

intergroup attribution

Answer 19

assigning cause of one’s own or other’s behavior to group membership

Question 20

Riggio & Garcia (jonestown)

Answer 20

• p’s explained causes for a characters bad day
• exp group watched a doc on jonestown, control group watched a lecture on research methods & another group watched a lecture about FAE
• exp p’s made sig less internal & more external attributions in explaining the bad day
• students tendency to make the FAE was reduced by using cults as real-life examples & emphasizing role of external factors in social influence

Question 21

Rogers et al (BFF)

Answer 21

6 diff experiments
1. ppl believed that their own views on politics would be more widely held in the future than opposing views
2. BFF is larger in magnitude than the FCE, was distinct from 2 types if optimism & affected financial decisions
3. BFF emerged across cultures
4. BFF was greatest when ppl considered their views to be based on objective fact
5. believing that other ppl would share one’s policy preferences in the future could lead to believing that these policies would be enacted
6. BFF could reduce people’s likelihood of donating money to a campaign that they would like to win