Chapter 5: Social Attribution - Explaining Behavior

Question 1

DEF What is attribution theory?

Answer 1

a set of concepts explaining how people assign causes to the events around them and the effects of these kinds of causal assessments

Question 2

DEF What is causal attribution?

Answer 2

the construal process people use to explain both their own and other’s behavior

• linking an event to a cause
• inferring a personality trait is responsible for a behavior

Question 3

DEF What is explanatory style?

Answer 3

a person’s habitual way of explaining events, assessed along three dimensions

• internal/external
• stable/unstable
• global/specific

Question 4

What is internal/external (explanatory style)?

Answer 4

do you attribute yourself or some external cause?

Question 5

What is stable/unstable (explanatory style)?

Answer 5

with this effect remain the same or could it change?

Question 6

What is global/specific (explanatory style)?

Answer 6

does this effect many areas of life or something specific?

Question 7

DEF What is a pessimistic explanatory style?

Answer 7

internal, stable, global
i make everything suck all the time
- also a predictor of poor heath in the long term

Question 8

DEF What is optomistic explanatory style?

Answer 8

external, unstable, specific
something else this one time affected this one thing
- also a predictor of positive health in the long term

Question 9

What is the correlation between gender and attribution style?

Answer 9

boys attribute failure to lack of EFFORT
girls attribute failure to lack of ABILITY
boys criticized for non-intellectual factors
girls criticized for intellectual failures
boys associate praise with intellect
girls learn that praise is NOT associated with intellect

Question 10

What is behavior a function of ?

Answer 10

behavior is a function of the PERSON and the SITUTATION

• important to consider both when creating an attribution theory
• important to isolate which cause is more significant for a given situtation

Question 11

DEF What is the covariation principle?

Answer 11

behavior should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with observed behavior
- concluding that an atrribution is situation or asituational (more related to the individual)

Question 12

What are the three components of covariation principle?

Answer 12

• consensus
• distinctiveness
• consistency

Question 13

DEF What is consensus?

Answer 13

• component of the covariation principle
• what most people would do in a situtation
• more about the situtation, not the individual

Question 14

DEF What is distinctiveness?

Answer 14

• component of the covariation principle
• Is this behavior distinct from what the individual would normally do?
• more about the individual

Question 15

DEF What is consistency?

Answer 15

• component of the covariation principle
• what an individual would do in a given situation on a different occasion
• are they consistent within their own actions

Question 16

DEF When is an attribution situational?

Answer 16

consensus = high
distinctiveness = high
consistency = high

Question 17

DEF When is an attribution asituational?

Answer 17

consensus = low
distinctiveness = low
consistency = high

Question 18

DEF What is the discounting priniciple?

Answer 18

our confidence that a particular cause is responsible will decrease if there are other possible causes
- related to attribution

Question 19

DEF What is the augementation principle?

Answer 19

our confidence that a particular cause is responsible will increase if other possible causes lead to different outcomes
- related to attribution

Question 20

DEF What is counterfactual thinking?

Answer 20

thoughts of what might have, could have, or should have happened had the situation occured differently
- related to attribution

Question 21

DEF What is emotional amplificiation?

Answer 21

an increase in the emotional reaction to an events that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening
ex bronze medal winners are happier than silver because the silver can more easily imagine winning gold and are even more distraught they did not
- affected by time and distance (easy to imagine something right here right now
- affected by routine or a departure from the norm

Question 22

DEF What is self-serving attributional bias?

Answer 22

tendency to attribute failure and bad events to external circumstances, and success and good events to oneself

Question 23

DEF What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 23

failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behavior AND overemphasize the importants of personal dispositions on one’s behavior

Question 24

fundamental attribution error example

Answer 24

shock experiment

• failure to recognize how the nature of the experiment asked participants to administer the shock so you are more judgemental when the participants do
• believing that the participants must have a cruel disposition because they administered the shock

Question 25

What are some potential causes of the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 25

• just-world hypothesis

- perceptual salience

Question 26

DEF What is the just-world hypothesis?

Answer 26

the belief that people in life get what they deserve and deserve what they get
ex. blaming victims of sexual abuse

Question 27

DEF What is perceptual salience?

Answer 27

how easily a potential cause or explanation comes to mind

- things that capture ones attention are more like to come to mind and be considered a cause

Question 28

we make attributions for people’s behavior in favor of the fundamental attribution error

Answer 28

• as we observe someone’s behavior, we automatically characterize their behavior to correspond
• we analyze situation context later if at all
  ex video of a nervous woman without sound, regardless of what she was reported to be saying, people focused on her nervous tendencies

Question 29

What are some of the consequences of the fundamental attribtution error?

Answer 29

• put too much value in trust in an interview to accurately portray a person and how they would do their job

Question 30

Why are we so succeptable to the FAE

Answer 30

• not good at assessing the validity of our own judgments

- we only see people in certain types of situations

Question 31

DEF What is the actor observer difference?

Answer 31

a difference in attribution based on who is making the causal assessment
ex describe why you and your friend chose majors

Question 32

What is the actor prone to?

Answer 32

make situational attributions

Question 33

What is the observer prone to?

Answer 33

make disposistional attributions

Question 34

What factors create the actor observer difference?

Answer 34

• assumptions about what need explaining can vary for the actor/observer
  ex WHY do you rob banks? vs why do you rob BANKS?
• the perceptual salience of the actor and situation is dif for actor/observer
• actors/observers have dif information about the actor and their behavior

Question 35

How does causal attribution differ across cultures?

Answer 35

western individuals are better at absolute judgement
eastern individuals are better at relative judgement (with context)
westerners fall prey to the FAE more than easterners