Judgements of Others

Question 1

What is the tripod of social psychology?

Answer 1

situationism; forces in society
construal; interpretations of situations
tension systems; state of tension
- centrality of the self

Question 2

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 2

Merton; a false definition of a situation can evoke a new behaviour making the original false conception come true

Question 3

What do studies on behavioural confirmation effects show?

Answer 3

initial expectations about a person or event can influence their subsequent behaviour and confirm the initial expectation

Question 4

Describe the main features of two behaviour confirmation studies

Answer 4

Phonecall (Snyder et al., 1977); attractiveness manipulation influences the friendliness of a female participant
Hostility (Snyder & Swann, 1978); labelling and attribution manipulations affect the targets use of noise gun

Question 5

What are Ichheiser’s causes of misunderstandings in human relations?

Answer 5

physical appearance
behaviour
situational factors
communications from others and from the person themselves

Question 6

What are the two types of attribution?

Answer 6

disposition; outcomes are the result of personal, internal characteristics
situation; outcomes are the result of external factors

Question 7

Which study showed a difference in the importance of disposition and situation in producing events?

Answer 7

Diary; Gilovich & Regan (1986)
action events are more causally related to disposition
experiencing events are more causally related to situation

Question 8

What are Pronin’s (2008) aspects of judgements?

Answer 8

positive illusions; inflated views of the self and ones future
interpersonal knowledge; overestimate what can be learnt during brief encounter
pluralistic ignorance; misconstruing the thoughts and motives of others
miscommunications; what people say vs. what they mean
conformity; people deny that they conform and see themselves as unique
objectivity; people see themselves as objective and others as biased

Question 9

What is the correspondence bias?

Answer 9

when people make attributions about others based on their disposition when their actions can be entirely explained by the situation

Question 10

Which study supports the correspondence bias?

Answer 10

Jones & Harris (1967) Castro’s Cuba

participants given no choice were rated as more favourable to Castro when they wrote a defensive essay

Question 11

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 11

the tendency to overestimate the effect of dispositional factors and underestimate the effect of situational factors

Question 12

What factors can affect the FAE?

Answer 12

cognitive load
mood
culture
political orientation

Question 13

How does cognitive load affect the FAE?

Answer 13

Gilbert et al. (1988)
dispositional inferences are resource efficient
situational correction requires more cognitive effort

Question 14

How does mood affect the FAE?

Answer 14

Forgas (1998)

positive mood increases the incidence of dispositional inferences due to less systematic processing

Question 15

How does culture affect the FAE?

Answer 15

dispositional inferences are more prevalent in North America
situational inferences are more prevalent in Asia
collectivistic cultures use more situational correction

Question 16

Which study supports the FAE?

Answer 16

Ross et al. (1977)
quizmasters and contestants
Q’s rate themselves & C’s are similarly above average
C’s rate themselves below and Q’s significantly above average

Question 17

How do political attitudes affect the FAE?

Answer 17

Skitka et al. (2002)
liberals focus more on situational explanations for homelessness and crime
conservatives focus more on dispositional explanations
quizmaster-contestant like experiment shows this

Question 18

Which study shows a bias in the perception of situational correction?

Answer 18

Van Boven et al. (2003)
Columbine massacre attributions
people estimated more situational than dispositional factors
people rated others as making similar ratings of dispositional and situational factors
people want to see themselves as superior people perceivers

Question 19

What is embarrassment?

Answer 19

an aversive emotional state rooted in social interaction involving flustering and the desire to hide

Question 20

What is face?

Answer 20

positive aspects of character that a person lays claim to

Question 21

How does Sabini explain Milgram’s findings using RFAE?

Answer 21

people are controlled by a disposition to obey authority, this is stronger than their disposition to follow their conscience; obey experimenter to avoid embarrassment

Question 22

How does Sabini explain Asch’s findings using the RFAE?

Answer 22

people are more eager not to look like fools (so follow disposition) than to obey the experimenters instructions (following the situation)

Question 23

What is the really fundamental attribution error?

Answer 23

disposition is in fact generally the root of behaviour, but it is the disposition to obey the situational constraints rather than a disposition of positivity towards the action
FAE misunderstands the aspect of disposition at play

Question 24

What are 6 stages of making attribution?

Answer 24

Gilbert & Malone (1995)

1. prior beliefs
2. situation perception
3. behavioural expectations
4. behaviour perception
5. dispositional inference
6. situational correction