Ch. 5: Social Attribution Flashcards
Attribution Theory
A set of concepts explaining how people assign causes to the events around them and the effects of people’s causal assessments
Causal Attribution
Linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behaviour
Explanatory Style
A person’s habitual way of explaining events typically assessed along three dimensions: internal/external, stable/unstable and global/specific
What is the explanatory style for a pessimist?
internal, stable and global
What is the explanatory style for an optimist?
external, unstable and specific
What does research show regarding boys and girls attributional style in school?
Boy are more likely to attribute failure on lack of effort while girls are more likely to attribute failure on lack of ability
Dispositional cause
an outcome is the product of something within the person
Situational cause
a reflection of the context or circumstances
Covariation Principle
The idea that behaviour should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the observed behaviour
What are the three different types of covariation?
- Consensus
- Distinctiveness
- Consistency
Consensus
A type of covariation information
What most people would do in a given situation.
high consensus = when individual reactions are shared
low consensus = when reactions are different
Distinctiveness
A type of covariation information
What an individual does in different situations; whether the behaviour is unique to a situation or occurs in all situations
High distinctiveness = when a reaction is confined to a particular situation
Low distinctiveness = multiple situations elicit the same situation
Consistency
A type of covariation information
What an individual does in a given situation on different occasions
High consistency = a reaction to a situation is repeated over time
Low consistency = reactions to a situation change over time
External/Situational attribution
HIGH consensus, HIGH distinctiveness, HIGH consistency
Internal/Dispositional attribution
LOW consensus, LOW distinctiveness, HIGH consistency
Discounting Principle
The idea that people should assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other plausible causes might have produced it
** if situational constraints likely affected the behaviour **
Augmentation Principle
The idea that people should assign greater weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other causes are present that normally would produce a different outcome
**if strong forces would typically inhibit the behaviour but it didn’t - we infer that behaviour is strongly innate/personable **
Counterfactual Throughts
Thoughts of what might have, could have, or should have happened “if only” something had occurred differently
Emotional Amplification
An increase in an emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening
Self-Serving Attributional Bias
The tendency to attribute failure and other bad events to external circumstances, and to attribute success and other good events to oneself
Fundamental Attribution Error
The failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behaviour, and the corresponding tendency to over emphasize the importance on behaviour
Just World Hypothesis
The belief that people get what they deserve in life and deserve what they get
Actor Observer Difference
A difference in attribution based on who is making the causal assessment:
the actor is relatively inclined to make situational attributions
the observer is relatively inclined to make dispositional attributions
Social Class
The amount of wealth, education and occupational prestige individuals and their families have
What are some attributional differences between interdependent and independent cultures?
interdependent: more likely to make situational attributions
independent: more likely to make dispositional attributions and fall victim to the fundamental attribution error
