module 3 Flashcards
attribution theory
- group of theories that describe how people explain the cause of theory
two types of attributions
- personal (dispositional, internal)
- situational (external, not the person’s fault)
Jones and davis attribution theory
- correspondent inference theory
- stet of factors that ppl use to see if a behaviour is internally or externally motivated
- whether behaviour: was freely chosen, was expected/common, or has desirable outcomes for the actor
kellys attribution theory
- kelly’s covariation model
- cause must be present when an event occurs and absent when it does not occur
what are the three types of info used in kelly’s covariation model
- consensus
- consistency
- distinctiveness
when are you more likely to engage in using effort to make an attribution
- if events are: unexpected, unpleasant, novel, or self-relevant
fundamental attribution error
- when making attributions abt other ppl’s behaviours, we overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes
- you are more likely to think behaviour is caused by internal factors not situational
- beahviour=product of the person
two stage model of attribution
- proposed by gilbert et al
- Step 1: we make internal attributions (often stops here)
- Step 2: if we have motivation/cog resources, we can consider situational info and revise attributions accordingly
errors in judgement examples
- actor-observer effect (we are more likely to attribute other’s behaviours to internal causes and our behaviours to situational attributions)
- victim blaming, prejudice beliefs abt groups
- relationship-enhancing vs distress maintaining attributions in romantic relationships
relationship enhancing attributions
- if the partner does smth positive=internal attributions
- partner does smth negative=external attribution
- opposite is true for relationship distressing attributions
Carol Dwek attribution theory
- what type of attributions made about oneself
- two types: ability (good at smth) vs effort (worked hard to get there) attributions
what do ability vs effort attributions tell you about a person
- if ppl think abilities are fixed or incremental
the two types of abilities
- fixed: you are either good at smth or youre not
- incremental: you improve through effort and learning
What did Dwek find about praise for ability vs effort
- kids praised for effort showed more persistence, enjoyment and better performance than those praised for ability
what should you praise children for: ability or effort?
research says effort even though most parents praise their children for ability
heuristsics
- mental short-cuts
- enable quick and efficient judgements
- helps with the overwhelming cog stimuli
representative heuristsic
- tendency to classify smth based on its similarity to a norm
- ie carrot cake has veggies so its healthier
- can be applied to stereotypes
is something comes to mind quickly, we figure it must be true is an example of __________ heuristic
Availability heuristic
Availability heuristic
- things that come to mind first are thought to be right
- hard to tell why, could be bc of ease of retrieval or the amount of information retrieved
What did schwarz study about the availability heuristic and what did he find?
- if its caused by ease of retrieval or the amount of information retrieved
- he found that it was ease of retrieval is the cause
what is the availability heuristic related to
- common biases
- based on assessment of risk (ie car crash and cancer over diabetes)
- contribution of joint biases
Base rate neglect
- error when ppl ignore the numerical frequency (base rate) of various events when estimating likelihood
what is anchoring and adjustment
- mental shortcut where you rely on an initial starting point to make an estimate but fail to adequately adjust from that point
- can affect what people are willing to pay for an item (sale items are more enticing)
What kind of info is weighed more heavily? Negative or positive?
- Negative
- applies to meeting people, bad impressions are harder to undo
