Lecture 5

Question 1

What is causal attribution?

Answer 1

Linking an event to a cause. Why something happened.

Question 2

Why do we make causal attributions?

Answer 2

• It satisfies our needs for prediction and control
• If we can understand the causes of an event or a behaviour, we will be better able to make predictions about future behaviour and events

Question 3

What are the consequences of making causal attributions?

Answer 3

• Our attributions can be faulty
• They will shape our emotional and behavioural responses

Question 4

What is an explanatory style?

Answer 4

• A person’s habitual way of explaining events
• Typically assessed along 3 dimensions : internal/external, stable/unstable, global/specific

Question 5

Explain the difference between internal and external attributions.

Answer 5

Internal: does the cause have something to do with me?

External: the cause has something to do with other people/the circumstances/something in my environment

Question 6

What is the difference between stable and unstable attributions?

Answer 6

Stable: the cause is permanent/recurring/long-lasting.

Unstable: the cause is only temporary.

Question 7

What is the difference between global and specific attributions?

Answer 7

Global: the cause can generalize to other events, in other domains of life.

Specific: the cause is specific to this one event.

Question 8

What is a pessimistic explanatory style?

Answer 8

The tendency to explain negative events in terms of internal, stable and global causes.

Question 9

Name the concept:
- State of passive resignation to an aversive situation that one has come to believe is outside of one’s control

Answer 9

Learned helplessness

Question 10

What are the gender differences in attributions about controllability ?

Answer 10

• boys —> more likely to attribute failure to lack of effort
• girls —> more likely to attribute failures to lack of ability

Comes from feedback from teachers.

Question 11

What is the covariation principle?

Answer 11

Behaviour is attributed to potential causes that occur at the same time.
- Consensus
- Distinctiveness
- Consistency

Question 12

What are the three dimensions of the covariation model?

Answer 12

Consensus —> do many people engage in this behaviour? Low consensus suggests something about the person

Distinctiveness —> is the person’s behaviour unique to this particular situation? Low distinctiveness suggests something about the person

Consistency —> does the person engage in this behaviour regularly across time? High consistency suggests something about the person

Question 13

What implies a cause internal to the actor?

Answer 13

• Low consensus
• Low distinctiveness
• High consistency

Question 14

What implies a cause external to the actor?

Answer 14

• High consensus
• High distinctiveness
• High consistency

Question 15

What is the discounting principle?

Answer 15

Tendency to assign less weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other potential causes are present.

Question 16

What is the augmentation principle?

Answer 16

Tendency to assign greater weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other potential are present that would normally produce a different outcome.

Question 17

What is the self-serving attributional bias?

Answer 17

Inclination to make situational attributions for one’s failures, but dispositional attributions for one’s successes.
Ex: I failed this exam because the professor is an asshole vs. I got an A on the exam because I am so smart.

Question 18

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 18

Tendency to give insufficient weight to situational influences on behaviour while overemphasizing the influence of dispositions

Question 19

What were the findings of the study by Jones and Harris about essays written pro-Castro or anti-Castro?

Answer 19

Participants tended to assume the people really believed what they wrote, even if they were forced to write on one or the other and they knew that fact.

Question 20

How are self-presentation advantages shown in the study with questioners and answerers?

Answer 20

• Questioners were rated as more intelligent by answerers and outside observers even if everyone knew the questioners were creating questions based on their own knowledge.

Question 21

What is the just-world hypothesis?

Answer 21

Belief that people get what they deserve in life and deserve what they get.

Question 22

What is perceptual salience?

Answer 22

-Causes that are salient (more likely to capture our attention) are more likely to be seen as potential causes of observed effects
- Our attention is more easily captured by people than other features in the environment (some of which re not visible at all)
- If something is not seen, we can’t attribute causation to it

Question 23

Why are we oblivious to the Fundamental attribution error?

Answer 23

• We tend to see people in the same situations. They might act differently in different situations, but we don’t know that. Sometimes, we are the situation and we do not realize it.

Question 24

What are the difference between independent cultures and interdependent cultures concerning the Fundamental attribution error?

Answer 24

Independent cultures —> (Western Europe, etc.) focus on personal agency, see themselves and others in terms of personal goals, attributes and preferences

Interdependent cultures —> (east and South Asia, middle Eastern, etc.) focus on connection to others, see themselves and others in terms of social roles and obligations to other people and institutions.

The fundamental attribution error is widespread, but more pronounced for westerners.

Question 25

What is the actor-observer difference?

Answer 25

-The degree to which you are oriented towards the person vs the situation depends on whether you’re engaged in the action yourself or if you are just observing someone else. À
- Actor —> more interested in the situation you are dealing with. More likely to make situational attributions
- Observer —> more interested in the person you’re dealing with. More likely to make dispositional attributions