Social Cognition - Cuasal Attributions

Question 1

Inferences that people draw about the causes of their own behaviors and the behaviors of others are called?

Answer 1

Causal attributions

Question 2

This attribution is the tendency to overestimate the role of dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors when making attributions about the behavior of another person.

Answer 2

Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross, 1977)

This is affected by culture.

Question 3

This attribution addresses how we think about ourselves and other people, and it is the tendency to attribute our own behaviors to situational factors and the behaviors of others to dispositional factors.

Answer 3

Actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1971)

Question 4

This applies to attributions we make about ourselves. It occurs when we attribute our own behaviors to dispositional factors when those behaviors have desirable outcomes but to situational factors when they have undesirable outcomes.

Answer 4

Self-serving bias (Ross & Sicoly, 1979

Question 5

This attribution applies to attributions made about members of entire groups. It occurs when the negative behaviors of members of one’s own in-groups are attributed to situational factors while the negative behaviors of members of out-groups are consistently attributed to dispositional factors, and vice versa for positive behaviors.

Answer 5

Ultimate attribution error (Pettigrew, 2001)

Question 6

What are the two variations of the group attribution error?

Answer 6

1. When people believe that an individual’s beliefs/attitudes reflect that of the whole group (Hamill, Wilson, & Nisbett, 1980)
2. When people believe that a group’s conclusion or decision reflects each member’s beliefs/attitudes (Allison & Messick, 1985)

Question 7

According to Kelley’s covariation model (1967), what three types of information are considered in determining causal attributions?

Answer 7

1. Consensus - would others do the same (high consensus)?
2. Consistency - does the person usually act like this (high consistency)?
3. Distinctiveness - do they act differently in other situations (high distinctiveness)?

If all are high = external attribution
If all are low but consistency = internal attribution