Lecture 4 - Causal attribution 2 Flashcards
(essential reading):
Jones, E. E., & Harris, V. A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3, 1-24.
(essential reading):
(lecture synopsis):
Describe the fundamental attribution error (FAE).
(lecture synopsis):
The fundamental attribution error (FAE) is a tendency to overestimate the extent to which someone’s behaviour is due to their personality characteristics and dispositions and to underestimate the extent to which their behaviour is a response to situational factors. Three possible explanations are discussed.
1. The error arises out of a sequential process in which automatic attributions of personal characteristics come first and then effortful adjustments are made in the light of situational information. These adjustments can be disrupted by other things that make demands on processing capacity. However research has shown that this sequence can be reversed depending on the task set for participants. 2. The attribution of attitudes depends on the relation between the behaviour people see and what they expect. The FAE is found mainly because, in stimulus materials, there is a consistent bias in this relation. 3. People give more causal weight to things that are high in salience than to things that are low in salience, and actors tend to be more salient than situations.
(lecture):
Describe this study
Jones, E. E., & Harris, V. A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3, 1-24.
What phenomenon does this support?
(lecture):
PROCEDURE:
- Pps given an essay to read: for or against a particular issue.
- Pps were told the essay had been written by a student as a class assignment.
GROUP 1:
- Told the writers were able to choose for themselves whether they were for or against the issue.
- One subgroup of GROUP 1 saw a pro-issue essay and the other subgroup saw a anti-issue essay.
GROUP 2:
- Told the writers had no choice over which side they took and were instructed to write either a pro- or anti-issue essay.
- 2 subgroups of pro- and anti- issue essays.
- The Pps were then instructed to judge whether the writers, from the essays they’d just read, were pro/anti the issue.
- The higher the score, the more favourable the attitude is (if they think someone is pro-issue, there will be a higher rating, and vice versa for being anti-issue)
RESULTS:
- For all groups, Pps who saw a pro-issue essay were more likely to judge the writer’s views as pro-issue, vice versa for anti-issue.
- Even in the no-choice condition (GROUP 2), the Pps still judged the writers views according to their essay, even tho they had no choice over which side they could take. (pro-issue essay as pro-issue writer).
CONCLUSION:
The Pps see the behaviour (pro/anti-issue essay) as reflecting their characteristic. If FAE is wrong, the Pps should have viewed the writers essays as influenced by situational factors (pro-issue essay was written because was told to (situational factor)), However, the Pps saw behaviour as determined by the persons own characteristics, not the situational factors.
This study supports the fundamental attribution error phenomenon.
(lecture):
How does the fundamental attribution error happen? Like how is it so prevalent in the population?
(lecture):
Gilbert et al. automatic characterisation model:
Step 1: Behaviour identification
- Identify the nature of behaviour you see in other person
Step 2: Automatic characterisation
- Automatically characterise the person in terms of the behaviour you have identified (not something you deliberate about, it happens automatically)
Step 3: Adjustment for situation
- You attempt to take into account the situation the person was in. If the situation seems to warrant the behaviour, you adjust the previous view upon the person accordingly.
2 main claims of theory:
- order of step 2 and 3 is fixed in that order.
- step 2 Is automatic, step 3 is deliberate.
Gilbert, D. T., Pelham, B. W., & Krull, D. S. (1988). On cognitive busyness: when person perceivers meet persons perceived. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 733-740.
(lecture):
Describe the study that tests the Gilbert et al. automatic characterisation model.
(lecture):
Gilbert, D. T., Pelham, B. W., & Krull, D. S. (1988). On cognitive busyness: when person perceivers meet persons perceived. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 733-740.
Krull, D. S., & Erickson, D. J. (1995). Judging situations: on the effortful process
of taking dispositional information into account. Social Cognition, 13, 417-438.
Conclusions:
- step 2 and 3 in order doesn’t always happen, it actually depends on what task your Pps is doing.
- Automatic judgement of whatever task is set comes first, doesn’t matter what task it is, thats the automatic judgement that comes first. Then you adjust in an effortful way for other kinds of information that may be relevant.
This means that the Gilbert et al. proposal can’t explain the FAE because their explanation depends on the fact that the processing sequence is the same every time. Krull & Erickson have shown that the processing sequence is not fixed, and therefore Gilbert et al.’s model cannot explain FAE.
(lecture explains the procedure)
(he describes it in lecture recording around 16 min mark)
(lecture):
Jones, E. E., Worchel, S., Goethals, G. R., & Grumet, J. (1971). Prior expectancy and behavioural extremity as determinants of attitude attribution. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 59-80.
(lecture):
RESULTS:
When the essay held a strong argument, Pps judged the writers views as the same as in the original experiment. However, when the essays held a weak argument, the Pps judged the writers views as OPPOSITE of the views they were writing about
CONCLUSION:
The attitude you attribute to the writer depends on the relationship between what you see and what you expect.
Shows that previous research has probably only found supporting evidence for FAE because they have all used essays that are too strongly argued.
(He explains this study quite well in the lecture)
