Chapter 5: Attributions Flashcards
What is the attribution theory?
a theory that attempts to explain the interpretive process by which people make judgments about the causes of their own behavior and the behavior of others
-Merriam-Webster
What is casual attribution?
Linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behavior.
Explanatory style
A person’s habitual way of explaining events, is typically assessed along three dimensions:
1. Internal/external
2. Stable/unstable
-Will it be present again in the future or not?
3. Global/specific
-Is this something that influences other areas of their lives
or just one?
What is the covariation principle?
How “ we use the level of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency about a person’s behavior to explain the behaviors either caused by the person’s situation or by the person’s own characteristics or dispositions”
-Ifoque.com
The consensus within the covariation principle would ask…
If the person’s behavior is aligned with the norm
Distinctiveness within the covariation principle would ask if they…
Will do that same behavior with other people.
The consistency within the covariation principle question if…
the behavior is consistent each time the event happens.
What is the self-serving bias?
The tendency to attribute failure and other bad events to external circumstances and attribute success and other good events to oneself.
What is the actor-observer bias?
Our tendency to attribute our actions on external causes and attribute other people’s actions on internal causes.
