Introduction and Attribution (VL 1+2)

Question 1

Social Psychology - Definition

Answer 1

Social Psychology =
“Scientific investigation of how
The thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals
Are influenced by
The actual, imagined or implied presence of others”

Question 2

Levels of explanation in social psychology

Answer 2

• Intrapersonal: How people organize their experience of the social environment
• Interpersonal and situational: interpersonal interaction, dynamics of relations at given moment by given individuals at given situations, positional factors external to the situation are not considered
• Positional: interpersonal interaction in specific situations, role of social position outside the situation considered
• Ideological: interpersonal interaction that considers the role of general social beliefs, and social relations between groups

Question 3

Hindsight Bias

Answer 3

Tendency for people to believe falsely, that they would have predicted the outcome of an event correctly, people tend to exaggerate the extent to which they had foreseen the likelihood of the occurrence –> Events in the past appear predictable when you already know the outcome

Question 4

Correlational Research

Answer 4

asks whether two or more factors are naturally associated

Question 5

Inferential Statistics

Answer 5

determine whether findings are real or due to chance

Question 6

Attribution theory

Answer 6

description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people´s behavior

Question 7

Causal attribution

Answer 7

attributes/explains reasons for a specific behavior, attribution to internal and external factors, ex. Coming late to the lecture – internal reason: person overslept, is not interested – external reason: lecture is boring, train was late

Question 8

Heider: Theory of naïve psychology

Answer 8

• Father of attribution theory
• People are like naïve psychologists, piecing information about people´s behavior together until they arrive at a reasonable cause
• Try to discover personality traits and enduring abilities in people, or stable properties of situations
• Split in internal and external attributions

Question 9

Jones and Davis: Theory of correspondent inference (entsprechender Rückschluss)

Answer 9

• Behavior corresponds to a characteristic of the person –> we use social context to make the inference
• Correspondent inference is made when behavior
  o Is not socially desirable
  o Is freely chosen
  o Has a “non-common effect”
  o Is not part of a social role
  o Has direct impact on us

Question 10

Kelley´s covariation model

Answer 10

• Consensus information: Information how other people besides the actor treat the target
• Distinctiveness information: Information about how the actor treats other people besides the target
• Consistency information: Information about how the actor treats the target across time and different situations
• Model: To form an attribution, we note a pattern between the presence/absence of possible casual factors and focus on Consensus, Distinctiveness and Consistency information (that we gather from the situation)
• Attribution:
  o Most likely internal: When consensus and distinctiveness are low, consistency is high –> attribute behavior to the actor
  o Most likely external: When all are high –> attribute behavior to the target/the situation (stimulus)
  o Cannot be made: When consistency is low –> Searching for a different cause

Question 11

Schachter´s extension of attributional theory: Emotional liability

Answer 11

• Two distinct components of emotions: State of physical arousal, cognitions which label arousal and determine which emotion is experienced
• Experiment of Schachter and Singer: Patients became adrenaline and placebo and were correctly informed, not informed or misinformed. Misinformed participants experienced unexpected arousal and searched for an explanation/cause in their environment

Question 12

Weiner´s attributional theory

Answer 12

Performance and achievement attributions as a function of

• Locus: Performance caused by actor or situation?
• Stability: Is the cause stable or unstable?
• Controllability: To what extent is future task performance under the actor´s control?

Question 13

Biases in attribution

Answer 13

• The fundamental attribution error
• The Actor-Observer effect
• Self-Serving biases
• The false consensus effect
• The ultimate attribution error

Question 14

The fundamental attribution error

Answer 14

• Tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person´s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors –> focus is too much on the actor rather than the situation
• Ex. Although it is determined randomly, if you write an article in favor or against, the author is attributed with sympathy if article is written in favor
• Perceptual salience (Wahrnehmungsauffälligkeiten) – explains why the fundamental attribution error is prevalent (verbreitet)

Question 15

The Actor-Observer effect

Answer 15

• Tendency to see other people´s behavior as dispositional caused, but focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one´s own behavior
• First reason: Perceptual salience –> actors notice situations that influence them (consistency), observers notice actors only
• Second reason: Actors have more information about themselves than observers

Question 16

Self-Serving biases

Answer 16

• Self-serving attributions: explanations for one´s success credit internal, dispositional factors, explanations for one´s failure credit external, situational factors
• Defensive attribution: explanations for behavior/outcomes that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality
• Unrealistic optimism: form of defensive attribution, people think good things are more likely to happen to them (than to their peers) and negative events are less likely to happen to them (than to their peers)
• Belief in a just world: form of defensive attribution, way to deal with tragic information by making it seem like it could never happen to us –> Good things happen to good people, and bad things to bad people
• Self-handicapping: making external attributions publicly and intentionally before an event where failure is anticipated

Question 17

The False Consensus Effect

Answer 17

• You think, that your own behavior is more typical than it is –> ex. Would you donate to Mr. Dick?
• Why do we tend to think of our behavior/opinions as typical?
  o We have a biased sample of similar others among our friends
  o Our own opinions are more accessible/salient (auffallend, hervorstechend)
  o We fail to realize that our choices reflect our interpretations and that others have different perceptions
  o We are motivated to see ourselves as normal and good

Question 18

The ultimate attribution error

Answer 18

Tendency to internally attribute bad outgroup and good ingroup behavior and to externally attribute good outgroup and bad ingroup behavior

Question 19

Fundamental attribution error and Culture

Answer 19

• Inclination (Neigung) to conclude that people´s behavior matches their personality
• People from collectivist cultures are more likely to notice situational information and use it to form situational attributions (than Westerners)  Nevertheless fundamental attribution error is prevalent in all cultures
• Westerners are more prone to Self-serving bias than Easterners
• Defensive attributions are more prevalent in societies where extremes in wealth and poverty exist