Lecture 4 Flashcards
What are the two attribution theories to explain causes of behaviour?
Who developed these?
Personal attribution; behaviour is caused by a person’s internal characteristics like mood, personality etc.
Situational attribution; behaviour is caused by external factors like other people, the event etc.
Heider.
Describe Kelly’s attribution theory
Peoples attributions are based on three factors. Consensus, distinctiveness and consistency. Consistency is an internal attribution, the other two are external. Consistency questions whether people usually behave this way in this particular situation. Distinctiveness questions whether the person behaves differently in different situations (e.g. with different people). Consensus questions whether other people behave the same in the same situation.
Discuss Ross’ fundamental attribution error theory (FAE)
Underestimating the impact of situational factors on one’s behaviour. E.g people acting very differently in different peoples companies. It’s the tendency for people to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics (personality) to explain someone else’s behaviour. People have a tendency to accept what they encounter as true and don’t account for variations of this.
Give an example study of FAE
Miller did a study exploring how people attributed their own behaviour. American participants said their behaviour was caused by personal attributions whereas indian participants didn’t. This is because of perceptual bias.
Describe Lassiter’s study of FAE
The participants either watched a suspect confess or the police officer interrogating and then they decided whether the suspect was coerced into confession. The results showed that when watching the interrogator, they believed the suspect was coerced significantly more. This is because they explained the officers behaviour via viewing his internal characteristics rather than looking at the wider picture/situation. We have FAE (bias in explaining others’ behaviour) and we have self serving bias (bias in explaining our own behaviour), leading to the results of this experiment.
Describe self-serving bias
If we succeed, it’s because of ourselves and if we fail, it’s because of the situation we’re in. If you attribute a negative explanation to another person, it’s FAE (the officer coerced the suspect). If you attribute a negative explanation of your own behaviour to the situation, it’s self serving bias.
Briefly describe a special type of self-serving bias
Blaming people for their own misfortunes, so it’s their fault the bad thing happened to them.
Discuss Lerner’s study about people getting ‘what they deserve’
People tend to blame the victim because of: self protection (to ensure themselves they won’t be the next victim) and fundamental attribution error (underestimating the external factors involved).
Discuss Frey’s locus of control study
People who blamed the road accident they were in on themselves, stayed in hospital for less long than people who were externally oriented. Telling us, that when taking responsibility, you are less passive and quicker to recover.
Discuss Rodin’s study exploring learned helplessness
When you take away all responsibility, people become passive. This was shown with the elderly in an old people’s home, when given the responsibility of looking after a plant, they became happier and the mortality rate of this group was better than the other group.
People who have self efficacy have:
A high internal LoC
A low internal LoC
A high internal LoC
Discuss Cunningham’s study about men rating attractiveness
Men like women to have: large eyes, small nose, small chin, prominent cheekbones, narrow cheeks, high eyebrows, large pupils and a big smile.
Women like men to have: large eyes, prominent cheekbones, large chin and a big smile. The is a cross-cultural finding.
Is beauty objective or subjective?
It’s objective as humans tend to be attracted to the same type of face.
However, it’s also subjective as ideas of beauty change over time, one’s mental state impacts it and situations have impacts.
Discuss Buss’ study exploring ideal characteristics in a partner
Males prefer females who are physically attractive and females prefer men who have a well paid job. Wealthy women in the past have generally found it harder to find a male.
Discuss Filsinger’s study which observed couples
He observed interactions, dominance and whether they had broken up in 5 years time. When the females were more dominant than the men, there was a strong relationship between that and the men ending the relationship within 5 years.
