Chapter 12: Motivation by social processes

Question 1

Define attribution theory.

Answer 1

People are motivated to explain the behavior of themselves and others

Question 2

Describe the two types of attributions we might make.

Answer 2

Dispositional attribution is attributing behavior to a trait

Situational attribution is attributing behavior to something outside the person

Question 3

Explain the correspondent inference theory.

Answer 3

Examining behavior in the context that it was observed.
1. Was the behavior a result of their own volition or the situation
2. Determine the outcome of the behavior (try to get 1:1, if its 1:4 or more we got an issue)
3. Was the behavior socially desirable or not
4. Answer the question of whether it was their own willing behavior or the context of the situation

Question 4

Explain the covariation theory.

Answer 4

Proposes that we rely on three kinds of information about the behavior.
1. Distinctiveness. Is the behavior unique or common
2. Consensus. Is the situation unique or common
3. Consistency. Does the behavior occur regularly
There is also the discounting principle or when there is more one cause for a persons behavior we will be less likely be able to assign any cause

Question 5

Outline types of cognitive errors we make in relation to explaining behavior.

Answer 5

Fundamental attribution error: An automatic assumption of another that their behavior is their fault (dispositional) especially when it’s a pejorative

Self-serving bias: We assign successes to ourselves and failures to external causes

Just World Hypothesis: Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people

False consensus effect: That other people have the same opinion we do

False Uniqueness Effect: That we are unique or special

Actor-Observer Bias: When the actor overestimates the influence of the situation on their own behavior while the observer overestimates the importance of the actor’s personality traits on their own behavior

Question 6

Describe factors affecting persuasion.

Answer 6

1. Is a person is likable and credible
2. Does the message to appeal to a persons sensibilities. Is the message clear, concise and nuanced. Embracing nuance enhances credibility
3. The medium of the communication. Word is the least biased, TV pundits work best for clappardy or when the opinion is already agreed upon
4. The audience’s resilience of change. Preexisting beliefs make it hard to sway if your argument is counter to their understanding

Question 7

Describe cognitive dissonance in relation to attempts at persuasion.

Answer 7

When a person holds two contradictory views at once that creates a conflict that must be resolved.
How are ways an internal conflict can be resolved?
1. You can change your attitude
2. Add a consonant thought or a thought that is designed to justify the conflicting thought or behavior
3. Change your behavior
4. Reduce the importance of the cognitive dissonance
5. Focus on the choices you really had and the limitations. You may have had to do what had to be done….or really?

Question 8

Outline five factors affecting who we are attracted to.

Answer 8

1. Proximity. Its pretty easy to date someone if they live close. Think Evenett ‘
2. Attraction. What qualities does that person have that we like. Looks, intelligence, charisma, confidence. Note. The Halo effect or genius effect as I like to call it. We find someone magnanimous for one reason and we give them authority in another thing that they may not have authority in
3. Similarity to our thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. Oh you like this thing, so do I!
4. Equivalent exchange or mutualism. Is their a fairly equal giving and taking of services and benefits.
5. Intimacy. How much do we feel we can trust or disclose to a person. Can we trust them with information that could potentially hurt us?

Question 9

Social Trap

Answer 9

A small positive outcome that is immediate and can cause a large negative outcome that is delayed

Question 10

Temporal Trap

Answer 10

A one person trap that occurs with the denial of the interest of the group. A good example is eating bad food even though it has a long term consequence

Question 11

Factors of how fast a resource is consumed

Answer 11

1. Type of resource
2. Its accessibility
3. Rate of replenishment
   Each resource has an optimal harvest level, if it isn’t exceeded then it should be fine

Question 12

Resource dilemma

Answer 12

Like the tragedy of the commons, a person must decide how a much of a resource a person must take for himself at the cost of the group for the resource pool is excessively shrunk due to his actions

Question 13

What’s the difference between the resource dilemma and the public goods dilemma?

Answer 13

In the resource dilemma, the individual has less if she takes less from the common pool and in the public goods dilemma, the individual has less if she gives more to sustain the common resource.
Note: if it is unclear who is benefiting and who is getting screwed it can be hard to dictate the nature of the dilemma

Question 14

Aspects of behavior in social and temporal traps

Answer 14

social loafing (lack of individual responsibility for group outcome),

big pool illusion,

lack of understood relationship between individual choice and group outcome and

competition all potentially lead to overconsumption

Question 15

Why we tend to make decisions (The dumping jet fuel example)

Answer 15

In this example. Airline pilot’s fuel allowance is based on prior months’ use. If they don’t use up a certain amount of fuel then next month they may not get enough fuel for flight hours for training. So they dump fuel.

1. Take into concept future consideration. Not having enough fuel for flight training is a reason to dump
2. The concerns of a collective, this poor system made it likely that navy pilots could not be trained unless the dump occurred, they had to think about each other
3. 3. Moral or legal concerns. It’s a lesser of two evils. While wasteful, it is moral for defending the country with trained pilots
4. Outcomes of the system. What are the consequences, personal and group of this poor system

Question 16

Define Social identity theory

Answer 16

asserts that people have a proclivity to categorize their social world into meaningfully simplistic representations of groups of people.

Question 17

Decision making in Heuristics

Answer 17

Sometimes certain factors make equality hard to maintain

Some factors that make this hard according to the points experiment is whether resources are equally divisible or not. If they are, people tended to be equal, if not there was more greedy behavior. It was called the equal division rule

Also those in the low position tended to be more equal than those in higher positions

Also to be noted, those who have a high cognitive load tended to rely on stereotypes and heurisitics over those who had a low cognitive load which could think a bit more freely

Question 18

Levels of inclusiveness

Answer 18

Individual, intermediate in-group level, superordinate group levels like country or humanity

Some aspects of this are when group biases are made salient than superordinate goals may be considered not as important. This is also the case if individual costs are too high

Question 19

Optimal distinctiveness theory

Answer 19

People in large groups tend to categorize themselves by subgroup theory

Question 20

Clarify how social identity theory explains social dilemmas.

Answer 20

We have multiple in-group identities and they are hierarchically ordered. So in terms of social dilemmas depending on this order we may seek to outcompete an out-group and over plunder common resources. When selfish ideas are made salinet, we tend to horde

Question 21

Clarify how social values are measured.

Answer 21

They are measured in resource dilemma tests and public good dilemma tests,. And when there is little uncertainty about resource replenishment noncooperators don’t try to exploit.
Internalized rules early on usually dictate how people will conserve resources

Question 22

Clarify how uncertainty explains overconsumption of resources.

Answer 22

Environmental uncertainty: basically if things are pretty easily measurable and dividable then there is less overconsumption and exploitation but when its opaque you get more selfish behavior

Social Uncertainty: Uncertainty about the other actions. People tend to overconsume when their overconsumption is not direct and easily measured .
Egoism bias make it more likely to not see the damage one is doing