Chapter 5

Question 1

What is causal attribution?

Answer 1

Linking an event to a cause. Construal process people use to explain their own and others’ behavior.
Ex: Inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behavior.

Question 2

Why do we make causal attributions?

Answer 2

1. It satisfies our needs for prediction and control
2. If we can understand the causes of a behavior or an event, we will be better able to make predictions about future behavior and events.
   The attribution you make will shape your emotional and behavioral responses.
   The attributions you make for your successes and failures will influence your wellbeing

Question 3

What is explanatory style?

Answer 3

A person’s habitual way of explaining events, typically assessed along three dimensions:
1. Internal/external
2. Stable/unstable
3. Global/specific

Question 4

What do internal and external attributions ask?

Answer 4

Internal: Does the cause have something to do with me?
External: Does the cause have something to do with other people/the circumstances/something in my environment?

Question 5

What do stable and unstable attributions ask?

Answer 5

Stable: Is the cause permanent/recurring/long-lasting?
Unstable: Is the cause the product of specific and temporary circumstances?

Question 6

What do global and specific attributions ask?

Answer 6

Global: Does the cause generalize to other events, in other domains of life?
Specific: Is the cause specific to this one event?

Question 7

What is the pessimistic explanatory style?

Answer 7

The tendency to explain negative events in terms of internal, stable, and global causes.
Related to undesirable outcomes (ex: lower grades, poorer physical health).

Question 8

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 8

The state of passive resignation to an aversive situation that one has come to believe is outside of one’s control.

Question 9

Boys more likely to attribute failures to lack of _____, while girls are more likely to attribute their failures to lack of _____.

Answer 9

effort, ability

Question 10

What is behavior a function of?

Answer 10

The person and the person’s environment.
B = f(P, E) by Kurt Lewin.

Question 11

What does the covariation principle say?

Answer 11

The idea that behavior should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the observed behavior. We try to determine what causes vary with the observation or effect we’re trying to explain.
There are 3 types of covariation information:
1. Consensus
2. Distinctiveness
3. Consistency

Question 12

What implies a cause internal to the actor?

Answer 12

• Low consensus
• Low distinctiveness
• High consistency

Question 13

What implies a cause external to the actor?

Answer 13

• High consensus
• High distinctiveness
• High consistency

Question 14

What is consensus?

Answer 14

What most people would do in a given situation.
High consensus = everybody would do this, low consensus = nobody would do this.
If the consensus is high, the less it says about that individual and the more it says about the situation.

Question 15

What does distinctiveness ask?

Answer 15

Is a particular behavior unique to a specific situation, or does the person react the same way in many situations?
High distinctiveness = the person only shows the behavior in particular situations, low distinctiveness = an individual behaves similarly in all situations.
If the distinctiveness is high, the less it says about that individual and the more it says about the specific situation.

Question 16

What is consistency?

Answer 16

Does the person engage in this behavior regularly across time?
High consistency = the person shows the behavior all the time, low consistency = the person shows the behavior at specific times only.
High consistency (the person does this all the time) suggests something about the person.

Question 17

What is optimistic explanatory style?

Answer 17

The tendency to make external, unstable, and specific attributions for failure presumably makes us less prone to despair and encourages more of a can-do outlook.

Question 18

What does situational attribution say?

Answer 18

There is something special about the situation. High consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness.

Question 19

What does dispositional attribution say?

Answer 19

There is something special about the person. High consistency, low consensus and distinctiveness.

Question 20

What is the discounting principle?

Answer 20

The idea that people will assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behavior if other plausible causes might have produced it.
Ex: Young man interviews for a job.

Question 21

What is the augmentation principle?

Answer 21

The idea that people will assign greater weight to a particular cause of behavior if other causes are present that normally would produce a different outcome. We can be more certain that a person’s actions reflect what that person is really like if the circumstances would seem to discourage such actions. Ex: No change of belief with torture.

Question 22

What is counterfactual thinking?

Answer 22

Thoughts of what might have, could have, or should have happened “if only” something had occurred differently. Ex: “If only I had studied more for that exam…”

Question 23

What is emotional amplification?

Answer 23

An emotional reaction tends to be more intense if the event almost didn’t happen. In general, the pain or joy we derive from any event tends to be proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening. It’s the psychology of coming close or what might have been.
Ex: Last minute switch of places in a plane accident where the person had died would make the loss harder to bear because it “almost” didn’t happen.
Ex: Bronze vs silver medal on a podium.

Question 24

What is self-serving attributional bias?

Answer 24

The tendency to attribute failures and other bad events to external circumstances and to attribute success and other good events to oneself. It is a motivational bias, motivated by the desire to maintain self-esteem.
Ex: “I got an A on the exam because I’m smart” vs “I got a C on the exam because the professor is a jerk”.

Question 25

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 25

Tendency to give insufficient weight to situational influences on behavior while overemphasizing the influence of dispositions.

Question 26

What is the just world hypothesis?

Answer 26

The belief that people get what they deserve in life and deserve what they get. Also, thinking you are immune to bad things because you are a good person. Ex: Victims of rape often viewed as responsible for their fate.

Question 27

What does salient mean?

Answer 27

Most noticeable or important.

Question 28

Features of the environment that more readily capture our attention are more likely to be seen as potential causes of an observed effect. What is the most noticeable and interesting thing that tends to capture our attention the most?

Answer 28

People

Question 29

What is the actor-observer difference?

Answer 29

In the role of “actor”, you’re usually more interested in determining what kind of situation you’re dealing with than assessing what kind of person you are. In the role of “observer”, you’re often primarily interested in determining what kind of person you’re dealing with. By this logic, actors should be more likely than observers to make situational attributions for a particular behavior, when observers are more likely to focus on the actor’s dispositions.

Question 30

What is putting attribution to ability?

Answer 30

We tend to attribute people’s success in life to their inner qualities, like talent and hard work, even when other causes, like family connections and early opportunities, have played a strong role.

Question 31

Is the fundamental attribution error widespread across cultures?

Answer 31

Yes, but it is more pronounced for westerners than for easterners.

Question 32

Intentions and motivations exert an influence on our perception of others. Across a wide range of circumstances, people explain intentional actions by referring to the actor’s _____.

Answer 32

reasons

Question 33

The majority of the reasons offered to explain behavior fall into 2 classes. What are they?

Answer 33

Desires and beliefs

Question 34

What is perceptual salience?

Answer 34

Causes that are salient (more likely to capture our attention) are more likely to be seen as potential causes of observed effects.

Question 35

Why are we oblivious to the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 35

1. We’re not very good at assessing the validity of our own judgments.
2. We tend to see people in the same situations.