INDIVID DIFF - LOCUS OF CONTROL

Question 1

Causality

Answer 1

Humans are intrested in what causes events to occur

Question 2

What is attribution?

Answer 2

Explaining one’s own behavior and the behavior of others

Question 3

what is attribution theory?

Answer 3

attribute causes to events in the world

Question 4

What did Heider (1944) propose?

Answer 4

• interested in social perception and phenomenal causality
• argued for distinction between disposition and situation when understanding the attribution process
  Disposition - Personality traits, aptitude, IQ, attitudes, personal
  motivations, age, gender etc… i.e. internal
  Situation - external pressures such as social norms, peer / normative pressure, but also accidents of the environment, ‘acts of God’ & fluke/luck i.e external

Question 5

How does Rotter (1966) define locus of control

Answer 5

• as the extent an individual feels in control of ehat happens to them and the extent to which they, as an individual, can affect their life
• argues that LoC is a personality trait

Question 6

What did Holland (1967) and Blass (1991) do?

Answer 6

• replicated the milgram study
  a) 37% of ‘strong internalisers’ (SI) refused to obey up to max. shock level
  b) 23% of ‘strong externalisers’ (SE) refused to obey up to max. shock level

Question 7

Explain Maracek & Frasch 1977: JOb choices & Career prep

Answer 7

a) SE showed less commitment to their careers
b) SE showed less career planning
c) SE reported more discomfort at the thought of violating gender norms with their career choice

Question 8

Explain Seligman - 1975: Learned helplessness?

Answer 8

a) LH (akin to depression) - experiencing a negative event leading to an expectation that future negative events are uncontrollable
b) SI showed more resistance to such ways of thinking

Question 9

Explain Harrow et al - 2009: psychiatric hospital patients

Answer 9

a) SI - increased recovery levels from schizophrenia
b) Significant relationship between ‘externalising’ and psychosis c) Significant relationship between ‘externalising’ and depression

Question 10

Explain Merton 1948: The self fufilling prophesy

Answer 10

“a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true”. Merton (1968), p477
a) Self-imposed prophecies - your own expectations influence outcomes b) Other-imposed prophecies - others’ expectations influence outcomes

Question 11

Explain Miller & Ross -1975: The self serving bias (Attribution - bias in the system)

Answer 11

A persons tendency to attribute their successes to internal or dispositional factors & attribute their failures to external or situational factors beyond their control
i.e. take credit for success but to deny responsibility for failure

Question 12

Explain the self serving bias?

Answer 12

1) Protection of self esteem -
2) Impression management - may not believe it but convey it to give favourable impression to others
3) Memorybias-internalexplanationsofsuccessmaybemorereadily available

Question 13

Explain Kelley (1967) Covariation Model

Answer 13

There are three factors
1) consensus
If a behaviour is uniform / shared by many then attribution will tend to be situational

2) consistency
If a behaviour is consistent across events then attribution will tend be dispositional

3) Distinctiveness
If a behaviour is distinctive then attribution will tend be situational

Question 14

What are some problems with The Covariation model

Answer 14

A big problem with the theory -
The covariation model fails to consider the issue of intentionality - e.g.
Dispositional & deliberate v Dispositional & accidental

Question 15

How does Weiner 1974 address The issues associated with the covariation model?

Answer 15

1) Locus of attribution (Disp.v Situ.)
Two poles of attribution: internal v external
Extends the simple D v S in terms of longevity
More like an attributional style i.e. persistent over time

2) Stability
Stability - Do causal factors change over time or not? Examples:
Ability is internal (disp.) and stable Effort is internal (disp.) and unstable

3) Controllability

The extent to which causal factors are under the control of an individual e.g.
Dispositional & controllable - skills etc.
Dispositional & non-controllable - luck, mood, illness etc.

Question 16

Explain Tversky & Kahnememan (1972) - The respected Heuristic

Answer 16

1. First impressions of a person include sex, ethnicity, clothes, body type, language etc..
2. Drawing on previous experience of a ‘prototype’ to make initial conclusions about the persons aspects that we cannot see e.g personality
3. in this process we try and match observable behaviours onto the pre existing schema and stereotypes
4. these initial conclusions have a slight influence e.g shaping expectations
5. clear link with tendency to think in terms of over simplistic categories that we’ve been discussing

Question 17

What is explanatory style? Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale 1978

Answer 17

a) ‘Personal’ aspect - to which extent does someone personalise the cause of an event- “I really screwed up that relationship”(D) “That relationship was a tricky one” (S)

b) “permanent” aspect - to what extent does someone see events as unchangeable? - “i always screw up relationships”(D) “relationships are tricky business” (S)

c) “pervasive” aspect - to what extent does someone see events as all encompasing? - I always screw ‘everything’ up not only relationships but my job and my car, …. even my pet fish commits suicide rather than spend time with me !!!!!!! (D)
- Life is complicated and pretty tricky in general (S)

Question 18

What is fundamental attribution error Ross 1977

Answer 18

• over attributing the behaviour of another person to dispositional / personality factors and neglecting the environmental/ situational factors

1. The Just world hypothesis (disposition factors are less changeable than situation & the FAE satisfies our desire for fair and just world that we have control over- problem is that is blames the bad event on the person it happened to.
2. The sailience of the social- bias towards the role of the person and neglect of context. (belief it cant be that persons fault)
3. cognitive laziness- can humans be bothered to go through this process

Question 19

What is false consesus?

Answer 19

involves the tendency for people to believe that their own views & behaviours are highly widespread i.e. Consensual

1) We often surround ourselves with like minded others / friends and so the likelihood of similarity is increased

2) A stable perception of reality depends, in part, on us thinking that our views about the world are not hugely abnormal - the false consensus bias is thus adaptive