*****Lecture 3 - Attributoin and social knowledge Flashcards
Define attribution
Process of assigning a cause to our own behaviour and that of others. Searching for causal explanations.
Outline Fritz Heider’s concept of the Naive psychologist
- People search for causal explanations of events/ behaviouris in life.
- We look for stable and enduring properties of the world around us
- Try to make causal explanations on the meaning of life
What are the two types of attributions?
- Internal attributions (dispositional) - its their fault
- External attributions (situational) - its societies fault
What theory did Jones & Davis (1965) propose?
Theory of correspondant inference
Who proposed the Theory of correspondant inference?
Jones & Davis (1965)
OUtline the Theory of correspondant inference
- How people infer that a persons behaviour is correspondant to an underlying disposition
- Basically the process of how we assume a behaviour is due to the individuals personality
- We do this by looking at some characteristics
- 1) The act was freely chosen
- 2) The act was not expected
- 3) The act wasnt socially desirable
- 4) The act had direct impact on us (hedonic relevance)
- 5) The act seemed intended to affect us (personalism)
- 6) The act reflects some true characteristic of the person
What did Jones & Harris (1967) do?
Castro Speeches
Who did the Castro Speeches
Jones & Harris (1967)
Outline Jones & Harris (1967)
P’s either could choose to write a pro-castro or anti castro speech OR didnt have a choice. If it was freely chosen, the speaker was attributed a pro or anti-castro attitude respectively. But even for those who didnt have a choice, they were still attributed the attitude. This the FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
What model did Kelley (1967, 73) do?
Covariation Model
Define what the covariation model describes:
The tendency to assign the cause of behaviour to the factor that covaries most closely with it. We use it to decide whether to attribute a behaviour to internal dispositions or external
What 3 factors does the covariation model depend on?
- Consistency (Behaviour y always co-occurs with X)
- Distinctiveness (reaction occuring only with 1 stimulus or common reaction to many stimuli)
- consensus - whether others react in the same way
What are the limitations of Kelleys model?
- X - requires multiple observations
- X - we may have incomplete info - leading to errors
- X - Causal schemata - expect certain things to cause certain behaviours
Who invented the two factor theory of emotion?
Schacter (1959) and Schachter and Singer (1962)
BRiefly outline the 2 factor theory of emotion
Emotion = Physical arousal + Cognitive label
Outline Schacter and SInger (1962)
P’s were injected with epinephrine or placebo. Participants were then either:
1) Informed of what they will feel
2) Not told what they will feel
3) misinformed - told incorrectly
They were then placed in either:
1) ROom with euphoric confederate
2) Filled in questionnaire with highly insulting and personal questions
The person looked to their environment to see how to act.
What is meant by misattribution of arousal?
E.g falling in love on holiday, as soon as youre home and environment changes you no longer feel that way. Similarly when you are scared
Who came up with the Self-Perception Theory?
Bem (1967,1972)
Outline the Self-perception theory
We gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self attributions - infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour.
Who came up with the internals and external attribution styles?
Rotter (1966)
Outline the two attributional styles
internals - enourmous control over their destiny
Externals - no control, events occur by chance
Who came up with Confirmation Bias?
Rosenhan (1973)
Outline Rosenhan’s (1973) Confirmation Bias
Placing a label on someone sticks - negative description of people in groups always sticks
Define Fundamental Attribution Error
Attributing other peoples behaviour more to internal rather than situational causes (Ross, 1977)
What are the 4 explanations of the FAE
- Focus of attention - focusing more on person not env
- Differential forgetting - forgot about social context
- Western societies - making internal attributions is socially valuble
- Self-other effect (Jones + Nisbett 1972) - tendency to attribute others behaviour dispositionally, and our own internally
Who invented the Self-other effect as an explanation for the FAE?
Jones + Nisbett (1972)
Define the Ultimate Attribution error
Ignoring social context completely and blaming a group based on stereotypes
What did Miller (1984) find?
THat by age of 15, Americans showed more dispositional in their attributions than indian hindus
Define Self-handicapping
Making publicly advance external attributions for our anticipated failure/ poor performance (Bergus + Jones (1978))
Outline Bergus + Jones (1978)
- P’s were given either a solvable or unsolvable puzzle
- before the next task given the choice of taking a drug that improves performance, or one that hinders
- Those with the impossible possible chose the hindering one and vice versa
