L6 - Social identity and attributions Flashcards
What is attribution theory?
Most people believe that things happen for a reason (there is a cause)
(people tend to attribute causes to things that happen)
What did Social Cognitive approaches to attribution theory attempt to understand?
How people attempt to understand the minds of others.
Making inferences about the causes of their behaviour.
What do the following attribution theories have in common:
Heider’s naive psychology
Jones and Davis’ correspondent inference theory
Kelly’s co-variation model
Gilbert’s stage model
- Highlights the dispositional vs. situational
* (dispositional = internal explanations, intrinsic to their character / situational = (what influence the outside world had on behaviour)* - People are more likely to attribute causes to unlikely events or failures
- Person making attributes are ‘naive scientists’ (highly rational and systematic in how they prescribe meaning)
In attribution theory, when is an attribution “biased” (or an error)?
When attributions deviate from the prescribed model.
(e.g. when people focus too much on one bit of information over other leading to them being misinformed or generating biases)
What is the fundamental attribution error (FAE)?
The tendency for people to underestimate the impact of situational factors and overestimate the role of dispositional (cognitive) factors in controlling behaviour
What was Jones and Davis psychological explanation for the fundamental attribution error (FAE)
People have a need to view peoples behaviour as reflecting underlying dispositional traits so we feel like we can predict their behaviour and control our social world.
What is the ideological explanation for the fundamental attribution error (FAE)?
The ‘just world hypothesis’
The world is just; therefore good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
(people want to believe people get what they deserve)
Explain the bias of ‘the actor-observer effect’ (AOE).
Actors and observers have different views about the situation and the causes of the same behaviour.
- Actors attribute their actions to situational requirements.*
- Observers attribute the same actions to stable personal dispositions.*
What are some explanations for the actor-observer effect (AOE)?
We have access to our thoughts and feelings so are more likely to use them as an explanation, whereas we don’t have these for observers.
Does the actor-observer effect (AOE) become less prominent the more you know someone?
Yes
The more we know someone the more familiar we are with their behaviour and so we are more likely to attribute situational factors over dispositional.
Describe the self-serving bias for making attributions.
Attributions that are designed to enhance their esteem in the eyes of others.
- (e.g. accept credit for success and deny responsibility for failure)*
- universal phenomenon*
What are the explanations for self-serving bias?
Self-enhancement motive - it makes you look good to others
People with high self-esteem are more likely to make self 1)_____ attributions. Whereas people with depression are more likely to make self 2) _____ attributions.
1) serving
2) deprecating
What is the SIT approach to attributions?
SIT examines how group memberships, social identifications and intergroup relations affect what sorts of attributions people make.
What is the SIT theory of ultimate attribution error (UAE)?
People typically make attributions that favour and protect the group to which they belong (in-group)
and unfavourable attributions for groups which they do not belong (out-group)
(in-group serving and out-group derogating attributional patterns)
