Social Cognition – Causal Attributions Flashcards
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to:
A. overestimate the role of dispositional causes of desirable outcomes and underestimate the role of situational causes of undesirable outcomes.
B. overestimate the role of situational causes of desirable outcomes and underestimate the role of dispositional causes of undesirable outcomes.
C. overestimate the role of dispositional factors when determining the cause of the behaviors of other people.
D. overestimate the role of situational factors when determining the cause of the behaviors of other people.
Answer C is correct. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the role of dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors when making attributions about the behaviors of other people.
You are exhibiting the actor-observer effect when you:
A. overuse base rate information when determining the cause of the behaviors of other people and underuse that information when determining the cause of your own behaviors.
B. underuse base rate information when determining the cause of the behaviors of other people and overuse that information when determining the cause of your own behaviors.
C. attribute your successful behaviors to dispositional factors and your unsuccessful behaviors to situational factors.
D. attribute your own behaviors to situational factors and the behaviors of other people to dispositional factors.
Answer D is correct. The actor-observer effect addresses the attributions we make about ourselves and others and refers to the tendency to attribute our own behaviors to situational factors and the behaviors of others to dispositional factors.
Your co-worker complains when the boss gives her a new task to complete. According to Kelley’s (1967) covariation model, you’re most likely to attribute your co-worker’s dissatisfaction with her new task assignment to external causes (e.g., to the difficulty or tediousness of the task) if you determine that:
A. consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness are all high.
B. consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness are all low.
C. consensus and distinctiveness are low but consistency is high.
D. consistency is low but consensus and distinctiveness are high.
Answer A is correct. According to the covariation model, people are most likely to attribute the behavior of another person to external causes when consensus, consistency and distinctiveness are all high. For the situation described in this question, this would occur if you conclude that other co-workers would also complain about the task (high consensus), the co-worker is likely to respond in the same way to similar tasks (high consistency), and the co-worker doesn’t respond this way to different types of tasks (high distinctiveness).
