Chapter 3 Flashcards
What is attribution?
The process of assigning a cause to our own behaviour, and that of others.
What is an internal (or dispositional) attribution?
Process of assigning the cause of our own or others’ behaviour to internal or dispositional factors.
What is an external (or situational) attribution?
Assigning the cause of our own or others’ behaviour to external or environmental factors.
What is correspondent inference?
Causal attribution of behaviour to underlying dispositions.
What are non-common effects?
Effects of behaviour that are relatively exclusive to that behaviour rather than other behaviours. Where the number of potential reasons available for the choice is 1
What is outcome bias?
Belief that the outcomes of a behaviour were intended by the person who chose the behaviour.
What is personalism?
Behaviour that appears to be directly intended to benefit or harm oneself rather than others.
What is hedonic relevance?
Refers to behaviour that has important direct consequences for self.
What is Kelley’s covariation model?
Model that people assign the cause of behaviour to the factor that covaries most closely with the behaviour.
What are the three classes of information associated with co-occurence/covariation of a certain action?
- Consistency information - Information about the extent to which a behaviour Y always co-occurs with a stimulus X.
- Distinctiveness information - Information about whether a person’s reaction occurs only with one stimulus or is a common reaction to many stimuli.
- Consensus information - Information about the extent to which other people react in the same way to a stimulus X
What is discount?
If there is no consistent relationship between a specific cause and a specific behaviour, that cause is discounted in favour of some other cause.
What are causal schemata?
Experience-based beliefs about how certain types of causes interact to produce an effect.
What is self-perception theory?
Bem’s idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour.
What is correspondence bias?
A general attribution bias in which people have an inflated tendency to see behaviour as reflecting (corresponding to) stable underlying personality attributes.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
Bias in attributing another’s behaviour more to internal than to situational causes. Although it is affected by culture so its not so “fundamental”
What is essentialism?
Pervasive tendency to consider behaviour to reflect underlying and immutable, often innate, properties of people or the groups they belong to.
What is the actor-observer effect?
Tendency to attribute our own behaviours externally and others’ behaviours internally.
What is the false consensus effect?
Seeing our own behaviour as being more typical than it really is.
What are self-serving biases?
Attributional distortions that protect or enhance self-esteem or the self-concept.
What is self-handicapping?
Publicly making advance external attributions for our anticipated failure or poor performance in a forthcoming event.
What is the illusion of control?
Belief that we have more control over our world than we really do.
What is the “belief in a just world” phenomenon?
Belief that the world is a just and predictable place where good things happen to ‘good people’ and bad things to ‘bad people’.
What is intergroup attribution?
Process of assigning the cause of one’s own or others’ behaviour to group membership.
What is the ultimate attribution error?
Tendency to attribute bad outgroup and good ingroup behaviour internally, and to attribute good outgroup and bad ingroup behaviour externally.
What is Heider’s Attribution Theory?
The model of social cognition that people are naive psychologists/scientists
What is Correspondent Inference Theory?
A model that suggests that we infer intentions from consequences and that consequences correspond with intention (ie. intention > behaviour > consequence). Confidence in inference if freely chosen, not socially desirable and has few non-common effects.
What is the discounting principle?
The presence of a certain cause renders other possible causes less relevant
What is the augmenting principle?
Assumption that a possible cause must be the cause because an inhibitory factor is present
What is Schaachter’s Theory of emotional liability?
Emotions have two distinct properties, undifferentiated psychological arousal and labelled cognitions
What is Weiner’s Attributional Theory?
Focuses on the causes and consequences of the attribution people make for how well they and others perform the task
What is Deschamp’s, Hewstone’s and Jaspar’s Intergroup perspective?
People should be viewed as cognitive misers/motivated tacticians due to attributional biases as they choose not the most accurate cases but the most beneficial/convenient
