Social Psychology Lecture 4- Attribution Flashcards
What is causal attribution?
The process of assigning a cause to an event or behaviour
What is locus of causality?
behaviours/events can be attributed to internal causes (dispositional attributions) or external causes (situational attribution)
What is stability?
can be attributed to stable causes or unstable causes
What is controllability?
can be attributed to controllable or uncontrollable causes
What is Heider’s explanation of attribution?
We are motivated by a need to form a coherent view of the world and be in control of our environment, so we use causal attribution to make sense of the world
Define correspondence inference theory
suggests that we make attributions based on five factors:
Choice- did the person choose the behaviour
Non-common-effects- are the effects of the behaviours on others relatively unique to the behaviour or are they common effects that occur with many behaviours
Social desirability- is the behaviour/event coherent with social norms
Hedonistic relevance- does this behaviour have consequences for you
Personalism- was the behaviour attended to affect you
If a behaviour has all of these factors, we are likely to link it to a dispositional attribution
What are some issues with correspondent interference theory?
It focuses on single incidences of behaviour, whereas our everyday lives involve diverse varieties of behaviour. It also only focuses on underlying dispositional factors
What is the covariation model?
Argues that attribution is based on what factors co-occur and are associated with the behaviour events as it occurs
It suggests we draw on 3 pieces of information to see the causality of why a person did something/why something happened: consensus, consistency and distinctiveness
What does consensus mean in terms of the covariation model?
whether everyone behaves towards a stimulus the same way? If so, then the attribution is more likely to be situational, if no then the attribution is more likely to be dispositional.
What does consistency mean in terms of the covariation model?
Whether the person performing the behaviour/event behaves the same to this stimulus on different occasions (if yes, we assume a dispositional attribution, if no we assume a situational disposition)
What does distinctiveness mean in terms of the covariation model?
Whether the person performing the event/behaviour behaves the same way to different stimuli (if yes, we assume a dispositional attribution, if no we assume a situational disposition)
What is one major issue of the covariation model?
We don’t always have information on all the dimensions (consistency, consensus and distinctiveness) but we still do make attributions
Most of the time, we will make attributions on less information because it is quick
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The tendency to over-attribute actions to the person rather than the situation (i.e. assume that attribution is dispositional when it is really situational)
How did Morris and Peng show how The Fundamental Attribution Error is not applicable across all cultures?
They had Chinese and American high school and undergraduate students watch fish swimming around a screen, with a blue fish acting abnormally. Participants reported to what extent they thought this fish’s behaviour was due to dispositional or situational factors
American high school students made more dispositional attributions than the Chinese students, and overall, HS students showed more dispositional attributions.
So fundamental attribution error can vary with both age and culture
What are 3 explanations of fundamental attribution error?
Lack of awareness of situational constraints- we can only see the person and the behaviour, not the entire situation
Unrealistic expectations of behaviour- we’re really bad at identifying how much a situation will affect someone else’s behaviour
Incomplete corrections of dispositional inferences- we don’t tend to test assumptions of dispositional inferences
