Chapter 7 - Perceiving and understanding the social world Flashcards
Attribution Theory
Book 1 Part 3
Page 71
A theory which supposes that people attempt to understand the behaviour of others by attributing feelings, beliefs, and intentions to them. Heider argued that we look for causes when we make judgements about people’s actions, either INTERNAL/DISPOSITIONAL CAUSES (factors that motivate behaviour that are located within the person: personality, mood, ability etc.) and EXTERNAL/SITUATIONAL CAUSES (factors that motivate behaviour that are located within the person’s environment).
IiPb:
Schema
Book 1 Part 3
Page 63/64
A mental structure containing knowledge relating to a particular kind of object.
Note: A schema is a structure in which all knowledge relating to a particular object (including social objects such as person, types of social situation or activity) is packaged together so that each piece of information is linked to the whole.
IiPb:
Stereotype
Book 1 Part 3
Page 67
A mental representation of a person as more like a ‘typical’ member of a social category than the person actually is. Seen as an inevitable consequence of the basic cognitive process of over generalisation.
IiPb:
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
Book 1 Part 3
Page 75
The tendency, when explaining the behaviour of other people, to favour internal (factors that motivate behaviour that are located within the person: personality, mood, ability etc) .rather than external (factors that motivate behaviour that are located within the person’s environment) attributions.
IiPb:
Self-serving Bias
Book 1 Part 3
Page 77
An information processing bias which serves the perceiver’s interests in some way, for example the tendency to attribute one’s success to internal causes (for example, doing well on an assignment so saying it was due to the large amount of personal effort) and failure to external causes (for example, doing badly on an assignment so blaming it on not having enough time to do it).
IiPb:
