lecture 1 - understanding others - attribution

Question 1

what is casual attribution
-why is understanding casual attribution crucial in understanding every day behaviour

Answer 1

-the construal process people use to explain both their own and others behaviour.
-that is , linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behaviour

-understanding causal attribution is crucial to understanding every day social behaviour because we all make causal attributions many times a day and the attributions we make can greatly affect our thoughts, feelings and future behaviour

eg when you ask someone on a date but you get rejected and they say they had a cold. you don’t really take the response at face value. you wonder about if they are lying etc

Question 2

attribution theory

Answer 2

-is a set of concepts explaining how people assign causes to the events around them and the effects of people’s casual assessments

Question 3

inferring the causes of behaviour
explanatory style
(Peterson & Barrett 1987)

Answer 3

-explanatory style refers to a persons habitual way of explaining events and asseses along three dimensions: internal, external,stable/unstable, and global/specfic (Peterson and Barrett 1987)

Question 4

assessing explanatory style
internal/external
stable/unstable
global/specific

Answer 4

-imagine 3 good and 3 bad events, and provide a likely cause for each.
-from the participants answer you can decode from their explanations and you come up with 3 explanations

1) internal/external - is due to something about them or something about other people or circumstances ‘there i go again’ ‘that was the pickiest set of question’ (not my fault someone elses)
2)stable/ unstable - will be presented again in the future or not . eg ‘im just not good at this’ ‘the cold medicine i was taking made me groggy’
3)global/specific - is something that influences other areas of their lives or just this one ‘im stupid’ ‘im not good with names’

Question 5

according to peterson and seligman, a tendancy to explain negative events in terms of _____,______ and ______ causes is considered a pessimistic explanatory style and is related to a variety of undesirable outcomes

Answer 5

internal, stable and global

Question 6

pessimistic explanatory style - undesirable life outcomes

Answer 6

students with a pessimistic explanatory style tend to get lower grades than those with amore optimistic style
* optimistic explanatory style during younger adulthood is a significant predictor of physical health and depression in later life.

Question 7

processes of casual attribution

Answer 7

-covariation principle
-discounting principle
-augmentation principle
-counterfactual thoughts

Question 8

the covariation principle

Answer 8

-covariation principle is involved in making attributions

-it describes how we attribute a persons behaviour to either internal causes (their disposition) or to external causes (the situation)

-basically dictates that something has to be present. if the presence of a factor (covariate) seems to be necessary (vary together with) the event to happen, and the absence of that factor seems to prevent the event from happening, then the factor could be considered a possible cause

Question 9

covariation principle
process of causal attribution
3 factors

Answer 9

1)do other people behave this way (consensus)
2)does the person always behave this way under similar circumstances (consistency)
3) does the person ever behave this way in different situations (distinctiveness)

Question 10

sometimes the info available to us suggests that either of two (or more) causes might be responsible for a given behaviour.

the ability to imagine what others would likely do in a given situation allows people to make use of the _______ _______ and the ________ ________.

Answer 10

discounting principle
augmentation principle

Question 11

discounting principle

Answer 11

states that our confidence in a particular cause being responsible for an outcome must be reduced (discounted) if there are other plausible causes that could have produced it

etc job interview a person seems personable, but is this because they are ? or because they want the job. in this case we discount the attribute

Question 12

the augmentation principle

Answer 12

-states that we can have greater confidence in a particular cause being responsible for an outcome if other causes are present that we imagine would produce a different outcome.

in sum it can be difficulty to conclude something about someone who behaves ‘in role’ but easy to figure out what to think about someone who acts ‘out of role’
eg nervous person in interview

Question 13

in making causal assesments we sometimes consider whether a given outcome is likely to have happened if circumstances were ______.
-our attributions are thus influenced by…

Answer 13

different
-influenced by our knowledge of what has actually happened in the past, as well as by counterfactual thoughts- considerations of what might have, could have or should have happened ‘if only’ a few minor things were done differently (Kahneman and tversky 1982)

Question 14

how can counterfactual thoughts affect attribution

Answer 14

People often perform mental simulations, adding or subtracting elements about the person or situation and estimating the likely effect on the outcome,
-then using these simulations to guide their attributions
-(counteractual thoughts can guide you attributions )
-Joy or pain in response to an event is amplified when counterfactual thinking encourages the thought that things might have turned out differently (emotional amplification)

Question 15

errors and biases in attribution

Answer 15

-self serving attributional bias
-fundamental attribution error

Question 16

self serving attributional bias
-what is it
-what is it motivated by
-can a rational person still use this bias
-what can this lead to

Answer 16

-cognitive bias in which individuals attribute their success to internal factors and their failures to external factors
-attribute events to causes that flatter ourselves beyond what evidence calls for

-motivated by the desire to maintain self esteem and can lead to a distorted view of reality

-a fully rational individual may exhibit this pattern of attribution due to the fact that success is often more closely connected to intentions and efforts than failure
-this bias can still lead to inaccurate understanding to the cause of events and impact how individuals respond to challenges / setbacks

Question 17

fundamental attribution error
what can it lead to

Answer 17

-is a tendency for people to attribute the actions and behaviours of others to their inherent personal characteristics rather than external factors or circumstances(Ross, 1977)

-Can lead to an oversimplification of the causes of success or failure
-Can result in an underestimation of the role of external factors and an overestimation of the role of personal characteristics

Question 18

quiz game experiment

Answer 18

-examined whether people commit the fundamental attribution error in situations with inherent advantages or disadvantages

-in a quiz game competition , questioners had an advantage and contestants had a disadvantage

-results showed that both contestants and observers overestimated the abilities of the advantaged questioners and underestimated the abilities of the disadvantaged contestants

Question 19

the business office experiment (humphrey 1985)
‘how people work together in an office setting’
-

Answer 19

-all participants came to the lab and witnessed a random procedure whereby some of the ppts were selected to be ‘managers’ and to assume supervisory responsibilities , while others were selected to be mere ‘clerks’ who followed orders

-managers and clerks rated themselves and each other on a variety of role related traits, such as leadership, intelligence , motivation for hard work, assertiveness, supportiveness.

-for all these traits , managers rated their fellow managers more highly than they rated their clerks
-for all but hard workingness, clerks rated their managers more highly than they rated their fellow clerks

Question 20

just world hypothesis

Answer 20

-one reason people make such erroneous attributions is due to the just world hypothesis:
-thinking that people get what they deserve and that bad outcomes are brought about by bad or incompetent people

-this belief can lead to the tendency to attribute negative events or outcomes to the character or actions of the victim
-this belief can serve as a coping mechanism to reduce anxiety and reassure oneself that similar negative events will not happen to oneself

Question 21

causes of fundamental attribution error

Answer 21

-just world hypothesis
-people and their behaviour tend to be more salient (stands out perceptually ) than situations
-attribution appears to be a two step process
-actor observer differences in attributions

Question 22

how is attribution a two step process

Answer 22

People typically characterize others immediately and automatically in terms consistent with their behaviour, and only later, or perhaps not at all, they adjust this initial characterization to account for the impact of prevailing situational forces

Question 23

actor/observer differences in attributions

Answer 23

we tend to make different attributions depending upon whether we are the actor or the observer in a situation. According to the actor-observer bias, people explain their own behavior with situational causes and other people’s behavior with internal causes.
actors can usually see the situations they confront better than observers can

Question 24

solution to the fundamental attribution error

Answer 24

-consider multiple explanations
-consider the context and external factors
-try to take the perspective of others