attributions Flashcards
what are attributions?
attributing a cause for individuals behaviour
(to say something is because of something)
name the attribution models
- naive psychologist/scientist theory - heider 1958
- correspondence inference theory - jones and davies 1965
- cobariation model - kelly 1967,1973
- task performance attributions - weiner
explain naive psychologist/science theory
- the part that tries to understand and explain the actions of others (basis of attribution theory)
-
what is the findings of naive psychologist/science theory?
behavior is caused by traits rather than a situation they find themselves in - this is biased
what test did naive psychologist/science theory do to prove their findings? explain it
heider-simmel illusion - got people to narraite a story between a big triange, small triangle, circle - everyone made the big triangle seem mean and a bully
what was the aim of the correspondence inference
- agreed with naive psychologist/science - wanted an explanation on why we decide behavior is caused by a trait instead of s situation they find themselves in
what is the findings of correspondance inference theory
this model is too complicated - dosent work
what are the 5 steps in the brain according to the correspondence inference model that helps to make decisions about a situation/characteristic/traits
- the behaviour is freely chosen.
- the behaviour produces a non-common effect
- the behaviour was not socially desirable
- the behaviour has an important outcome for us
- the behaviour is directed towards us (positively or negatively)
what do the 5 steps in correspondence inference show?
if your brain answers no to any of the steps then the behaviour is likely situational, if you answer yes then the behaviour is dispositional
explain the correspondence inference experiment
- given an essay on castro
- they told half of the participants that the essay was written freely, told the other half that the author was told to write it either pro or anti castro
- the participants then had to attribute of how positive or negative the author felt about castro
what was the results of the correspondence inference experiment?
- the results of the participants that were told that the author wrote freely was more pro than anti but more or less just the opinion of the author
- the results of the participants that were told that the author wrote ‘forced’ of an opinion looked similar to the other one which is a problem as there should be no opinion on it as they were forced, there for it was not the author’s disposition
- it was expected that the participants that was told that it was a forced opinion would say that they are not able to answer if they were pro or anti castro - people still come up with attributions
- this model doesn’t seem to work too well
what does kelley’s covariation model say?
- when assigning a casual role to behaviour, we act like scientists
- we try to find a factor that covaries most with the behaviour, assigning that a casual role
- attributing cause of behaviour either dispositions or situations
- we rely on three classes of information to make these decisions
according to the covariation model what are the 3 classes of information we rely on to make decisions? explain them
- consistency - does this behaviour always occur with a stimulus?
- distinctiveness - does this behaviour occur across many kinds of stimuli?
- consensus - to what extent do other people react similarly to this stimulus
how do you decide if the attribute behaviour is a disposition or situation
more low - disposition (the behaviour is because of the individual not situation)
more high - situation (the behaviour is because of the situation not the individual)
what is the results of the covariation model? (internal and external attributions)
people make internal attributions where:
- consistency is high, distinctiveness and consensus is low
people make external attributions where:
- consistency, distinctiveness and consensus is high
