*****Lecture 3 - Attributoin and social knowledge

Question 1

Define attribution

Answer 1

Process of assigning a cause to our own behaviour and that of others. Searching for causal explanations.

Question 2

Outline Fritz Heider’s concept of the Naive psychologist

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

What are the two types of attributions?

Answer 3

• Internal attributions (dispositional) - its their fault

- External attributions (situational) - its societies fault

Question 4

What theory did Jones & Davis (1965) propose?

Answer 4

Theory of correspondant inference

Question 5

Who proposed the Theory of correspondant inference?

Answer 5

Jones & Davis (1965)

Question 6

OUtline the Theory of correspondant inference

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

What did Jones & Harris (1967) do?

Answer 7

Castro Speeches

Question 8

Who did the Castro Speeches

Answer 8

Jones & Harris (1967)

Question 9

Outline Jones & Harris (1967)

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What model did Kelley (1967, 73) do?

Answer 10

Covariation Model

Question 11

Define what the covariation model describes:

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What 3 factors does the covariation model depend on?

Answer 12

• 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

Question 13

What are the limitations of Kelleys model?

Answer 13

• X - requires multiple observations
• X - we may have incomplete info - leading to errors
• X - Causal schemata - expect certain things to cause certain behaviours

Question 14

Who invented the two factor theory of emotion?

Answer 14

Schacter (1959) and Schachter and Singer (1962)

Question 15

BRiefly outline the 2 factor theory of emotion

Answer 15

Emotion = Physical arousal + Cognitive label

Question 16

Outline Schacter and SInger (1962)

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

What is meant by misattribution of arousal?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Who came up with the Self-Perception Theory?

Answer 18

Bem (1967,1972)

Question 19

Outline the Self-perception theory

Answer 19

We gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self attributions - infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour.

Question 20

Who came up with the internals and external attribution styles?

Answer 20

Rotter (1966)

Question 21

Outline the two attributional styles

Answer 21

internals - enourmous control over their destiny

Externals - no control, events occur by chance

Question 22

Who came up with Confirmation Bias?

Answer 22

Rosenhan (1973)

Question 23

Outline Rosenhan’s (1973) Confirmation Bias

Answer 23

Placing a label on someone sticks - negative description of people in groups always sticks

Question 24

Define Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 24

Attributing other peoples behaviour more to internal rather than situational causes (Ross, 1977)

Question 25

What are the 4 explanations of the FAE

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

Who invented the Self-other effect as an explanation for the FAE?

Answer 26

Jones + Nisbett (1972)

Question 27

Define the Ultimate Attribution error

Answer 27

Ignoring social context completely and blaming a group based on stereotypes

Question 28

What did Miller (1984) find?

Answer 28

THat by age of 15, Americans showed more dispositional in their attributions than indian hindus

Question 29

Define Self-handicapping

Answer 29

Making publicly advance external attributions for our anticipated failure/ poor performance (Bergus + Jones (1978))

Question 30

Outline Bergus + Jones (1978)

Answer 30

• 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