Social thinking and behaviour

Question 1

What is the meanings of these two key terms ( they come under prejudice and discrimination)
- Personal explanations
- Situational attributions

these are the 2 ways we make attributions about other people?

CLUE - Links to the 2 types of LOC

Answer 1

Personal explanations - peoples explanations of events link to the persons internal characteristics such as traits mood etc

Situational attributions - Peoples explanations for events refer to external actions such as luck and accidents

Question 2

What are the meanings of these key terms which are the 2 bias’s people hold in attribution
- Fundamental attribution bias
- Actor/observer bias

Answer 2

• Fundamental attribution bias - when explaining peoples behaviour we tend to overestimate personality traits and underestimate situational factors
• Actor/observer bias - When looking at our own behaviour we tend to focus on situational variables whereas when interpreting other peoples behaviour we tend to look at personal attributions

Question 3

when talking about relationships what are the 4 antecedents of relationships ?

Answer 3

• Propinquity - those who live near us
• Mere exposure effect - familiarity
• Proximity and anticipating the cost of negative relationships - we tend to focus on the positives
• Similarity