Psy15 Chapter 5: Social Attribution - Explaining Behavior Flashcards
attribution theory
An umbrella term used to describe the set of theoretical accounts of how people assign causes to the events around them and the effects that people’s causal assessments have
causal attribution
Linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait was responsible for a behavior
explanatory style
A person’s habitual way of explaining events, typically assessed along three dimensions: internal/external. stable/unstable, and global/specific
covariation principle
The idea that behavior should be attributed to potential causes that co-occur with the behavior
consensus
What most people would do in a given situation - that is, whether most people would behave the same way or few or no other people would behave that way
distinctiveness
What an individual does in different situations - that is, whether the behavior is unique to a particular situation or occurs in all situations
consistency
What an individual does in a given situation on different occasions - that is, whether next time under the same circumstances, the person would behave the same or differently
discounting principle
The idea that people should assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behavior if other plausible causes might have produced it
augmentation principle
The idea that people should assign greater weight to a particular cause of behavior if other causes are present that normally would produce the opposite outcome
counterfactual thoughts
Thoughts of what might have, could have, or should have happened “if only” something had been done differently
emotional amplification
A ratcheting up of an emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening
self-serving attributional bias
The tendency to attribute failure and other bad events to external circumstances, but to attribute success and other good events to oneself.
just world hypothesis
The belief that people get what they deserve in life and deserve what they get
actor-observer difference
A difference in attribution based on who is making the causal assessment: the actor (who is relatively disposed to make situational attributions) or the observer (who is relatively disposed to make dispositional attributions
social class
The amount of wealth, education, and occupational prestige a person and his or her family enjoy
