attributions Flashcards
definition of attributions by Hogg and Vaughan
’ the process of assigning a cause to our own behaviour or that of others’
attributions differ of several key dimensions …
causal power
controllability
personal or environmental focus
stability over time (frequency)
what are the attribution theories
naive psychologist/scientist
correspondence inference
covariation theory
what is the naive psychologist theory
Heider
-people act like ‘common sense’ scientists by forming intuitive reasons for behaviour
-we believe our behaviours are reasoned not random so we assume others are the same (bias)
what is the Heider Simmel illusion (part of naive psychologist theory)
-look for stable properties
-big and little triangle and a circle which enters a box
-Heider states we try to discriminate between internal and external causes
-we over rely on dispositional traits but try to predict enviroment
what is the correspondence inference theory
Jones and Davies 1965
-how we infer behaviour is linked to disposition
-big triangle from Heider Simmel illusion is ‘mean’ bc of its behaviours
dispositional attributions give sense of control
Jones and Davies 5 cues for correspondence inference (correspondence theory)
- behaviour is freely chosen
- behaviour produces a non common effect
- behaviour was NOT socially desirable
(e.g not acting yourself when meeting partners parents) - behaviour has an important outcome for us
(hedonic relevance: attribute disposition to behaviours directly affecting us) - behaviour directed towards us (high personalism)
(if no to any of these: situational, if yes: assume disposition)
evaluation of correspondence inference
Jones and Harris
- pp given essay about Castro, either pro or anti
- author either given choice or enforced to write pro or anti
- pp asked to infer true attitude of author
- when author was forced to write a pro essay, we assume disposition which goes against 5 cues as no. 1 says behaviour must be freely chosen for attributing to disposition
what is a weakness of the 5 cues of correspondence
- for non common effects to work you have to consider behaviours that did not occur but people dont consider these when making attributions (Ross)
what is the covariation theory
Kelley
-when assigning causal roles we act like scientists
-find a factor that covaries the most w. behaviour and assign that a causal role
what 3 classes of info do we rely on to make decisions in covariation theory
1 consistency
(does behaviour always occur at same stimuli)
2 distinctiveness
(does behaviour occur across many stimuli)
3 consensus
(do other people react same way)
if all 3 are high, we attribute causes to situation
if 1 is high but 2 and 3 are low then we attribute to disposition
strengths and weaknesses of covariation theory
+ McArthur, experiments with 3 classes and asking pp to assign situational or dispositional: consensus underused as less important when making attributions
-covariation can only work over long exposures, time needed to collect data on all three classes-schemas fill in this gap
-covariation doesnt imply causation
-causation attributed to most salient aspect (Nisbett and Ross)
-demanding set of rules, more likely to rely on heuristics and schemas
what are task performance attributions
-how we attribute successes and failures can impact future motivations and expectations
when making an achievement attribution we make use of…
Weiner
1. Locus (is causes perceived to be internal or external)
2. Stability (is the internal/external cause stable or unstable)
3. Controllability (to what extent is future performance under control)
achievement attributions study by Mueller and Dweck 1998
-children given intelligence test
-either congratulated on being smart (internal, stable, uncontrollable) or for working hard (internal, unstable, uncontrollable)
-effects the effort each child puts in e.g if told they are smart they may not put in any work as their intelligence is uncontrollable
