Social Cognition

Question 1

Attribution Theory

Answer 1

Attribution Theory: Fritz Heider
(1958) suggested that we have
a tendency to give causal
explanations for someone’s
behavior, often by crediting
either the situation or the
person’s disposition.

We make attributions about others:
• Attributions are people’s causal explanations for events or actions,
including other people’s behavior
• People are motivated to draw inferences in part by a basic need for
order and predictability in their lives
• Just world hypothesis

Question 2

situational attribution

Answer 2

Situational (external) attributions:

• Outside events, accidents, or the actions of other people

Question 3

personal attribution

Answer 3

• Personal (internal) attributions:

* Within a person, such as abilities, traits, moods, or effort

Question 4

fundamental attribution error

Answer 4

The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and
underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors
of others leads to the fundamental attribution error.

We see Joe as quiet, shy, and introverted
most of the time, but with friends he is
very talkative, loud, and extroverted.
Or, a person who does something quite
immoral, may be more likely seen as a
“bad” person, rather than someone
forced into the act by extenuating
circumstances.

Question 5

Actor-Observer discrepancy

Answer 5

More commonly see other’s actions as arising from their internal
characteristics (e.g. disposition, motivations)
• More commonly see our own actions under the same circumstances
to be the result of the situation
• Very strong qualification (self-serving attribution)
• Good things result from our own actions
• Bad things result from our situation
• Works on acceptance of praise as well

Question 6

Schemas

Answer 6

Cognitive schemas: shortcuts when limited information is available
• Schemas operate when
• trying to explain why people behave the way they do
• Make social judgments quickly and with less effort
• Implicit theories of personality: our schemas for …
• How we remember other people
• How we perceive them
• How we interpret what they have done

Question 7

Stereotypes

Answer 7

One way we simplify our world is to
categorize. We categorize people into groups
by stereotyping them.
• Do they provide some advantage in some
circumstances?
• Profiling in law enforcement
• At a group level
• Individual level (e.g. serial killers)

Question 8

Theory of Mind

Answer 8

• Humans posses a diverse set of mechanisms designed to acquire
information from others’ minds
• Some of these have long evolutionary histories:
• Gaze detection
• ‘Seeing is knowing’ inference system
• Some are much more unique to humans

Traditional uses of ToM
• Predicting the behavior of others
• What do they see?
• What do they know?
• What do they want?
• Therefore, what will they likely do?
• Common & ancient problems:
• Predicting behavior of predators
• Predicting behavior of competitors

Can be very simple…
• Predator doesn’t see me?
• Freeze
• Predator sees me?
• Run!

Question 9

Sally-Anne reasoning: the false belief task

Answer 9

Where was the marble in
the beginning?
Where is the marble
now?
Where will Sally look for
her marble?

4-year olds pass;
majority of 3-year-olds fail