Ch 7 Key Concepts Flashcards
Fundamental attribution error
The fundamental attribution error (FAE) is a tendency to ascribe other people’s behaviour to internal factors. It is bias rather than an error as this suggests a wrong cause, whilst in many cases the cause is usually not obvious. FAE is also an overgeneralisation since we are able to acknowledge situational causes for others’ behaviour. Conversely, when justifying our own behaviour we attribute it to external causes instead of dispositional causes, known as the actor observer effect. Storm’s experiment demonstrated evidence of these biases, in which he showed people observing their own behaviour on video tended to make dispositional attributions, suggesting a perceptual explanation for the FAE; the change in perspective led to a change in causal attribution. Heider stated that ‘behaviour engulfs the field’ suggesting that the actor is the focus of attention therefore being the main figure of causal behaviour, which is known as perceptual salience. It is valuable to note that some research indicates that FAE could be a cultural bias; U.S. participants demonstrated FAE while Indian Hindus favoured situational causes (Miller). Attributional preferences increase with age suggesting culture influences perceptual salience. The difference between Americans and Indian Hindus could be explained by an emphasis on the individual in U.S. culture, and on social groups in Asian cultures. Fundamental attribution error is important as it highlights that human thinking is not rational and is designed to protect personal needs and motivations from negative other perspectives.
Self-serving bias
The self-serving bias is an information process bias that benefits the perceivers interests, such as attributing success to internal causes (e.g. I did well in the exam because I worked hard), and failure to external causes (e.g., I did poorly because there was not enough time to revise). Lau & Russell’s content analysis of newspaper articles in which sport players and managers explained their successes and failure supports self-serving bias. While, L & R study has high ecological validity, it is a qualitative study and therefore considered subjective.
The self-serving bias could be considered a cognitive bias in that we expect to do well as we have made an effort or it may be a motivational bias to protect and increase self-esteem. Research has demonstrated that people with high self-esteem form more self-serving attributions than those with low self-esteem, although the direction of causal influence is unclear. It is difficult to distinguish between cognitive and motivational explanations of self-serving biases. The self-serving bias is important as identifying a source of distortion in the judgements we make.
Schema
A schema is a mental structure containing knowledge about a particular type of person, event, (known as scripts, for example a restaurant schema), or social group or role, e.g. a skinhead may be assumed to be aggressive. They exaggerate similarities within groups, and differences between groups. They are a generalised representation, abstracting common features based on experience. Schemas represent shared knowledge with others. Schemas are a quick and efficient way to understand social experiences, although they can produce biases and distortion. A downside of schemas is that they can be self-confirming, in that people see what they expect to see, as illustrated in the Darley and Gross study. In the experiment, information about academic ability was interpreted according to expectations based on socio-economic schemas, which rich children were seen as more similar to each other, i.e. having higher academic ability. Hannah was seen as having higher ability when shown as having high socioeconomic status. Schemas simplify the social world, by reducing cognitive processing (the cognitive miser model), to attend to only what is directly relevant, however, the motivated tactician model suggests that individuals carry out additional processing when it helps people achieve our goals. For example, Ruscher et al. found people spent more time reading information about a person which was inconsistent with their schema when the outcome of a task required them to work as a pair with that person. Schemas are important in identifying distortions underlying our judgements which can lead to stereotyping.
Stereotype
A stereotype is a mental representation of a person which emphasises group membership of a social category e.g. assuming that all Asians do better at math or science than others. Schema theory suggests stereotypes are a consequence of cognitive processes that lead to overgeneralizations. It also suggests that we interpret new information in the light of our previous knowledge and experience. Stereotypes tend to be automatic, and may be activated by physical characteristics, e.g. a skinhead may be assumed to be aggressive. Stereotypes can be self-confirming; we interpret information which reinforces our stereotype and not which challenges it. For example the Darley & Gross study demonstrated that participants judged a college student to have high academic ability based on her high socioeconomic status, rather than when portraying her to be of low socioeconomic status to have lower academic ability, therefore interpreting according to expectations. Stereotypes cut down processing effort (acting as cognitive misers), though individuals also seek out additional information when it helps to achieve a goal in the case of motivated tacticians. For example, Ruscher et al. found people spent more time reading information about a person which was inconsistent with their stereotype when the outcome of a task required them to work as a pair. Stereotypes are important in identifying distortions which underlie our judgements of others due to schematic processing.
Attribution theory
Attribution theories suggest that people make judgments of other’s behaviour (as well as our own) by looking for the cause being internal (dispositional) or external (situational) to the person to aid in understanding the social world. Jones & Davis claim individuals make dispositional attributions, as they are useful because they offer information about the person and have greater predictive value of how someone may behave in similar situations. Kelley’s covariation model offers that we infer causes by assessing levels of consistency (the frequency the person does an action in a situation), distinctiveness (the extent the person behaves in similar situations) and consensus (the extent others behave in a same way in a similar situation) (shortened to CCD). A vignette study by McArthur found patterns of CCD information, with high consistency and low consensus and distinctiveness leading to dispositional attributions, and other patterns leading to situational attributions. It is important to note though that vignette studies have low ecological validity as they are elaborately designed and require extensive control. Attribution theories contribute to understanding social cognition; however, they can be critiqued for emphasising logical reasoning in attributing causes to behaviour, as judgements are prone to errors and biases, e.g. FAE and self-serving bias. Moreover our concern with why people do things may be more to do with social accountability rather than the need to find causal explanations.
