Understanding People And Behaviour Flashcards
What is the purpose of attribution theory?
To provide a framework for understanding the reasons behind people’s actions
What are the two types of attribution?
Dispositional and situational
What is a dispositional (internal) attribution?
Something within the person we are observing, such as their personality
What is a situational (external) attribution?
Something caused by the person we are observing, such as their situation
What is fundamental attribution error?
When we assume a person’s actions are a results of their actions/personality while undermining their prior experiences or situational factors
What is self serving bias?
When people relate their successes to internal causes and their failures to external causes
What is false consensus bias?
The tendency to see our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours as the norm
What is social attribution?
When we seek to identify the causes of our or other’s behaviour
What is attribution bias?
Errors that are made when people try to find reasons for their own or other’s behaviour
What is perspective taking?
Looking at a situation with a different viewpoint to usual
What is a first impression?
An impression of someone assessed within seconds of meeting them (positive or negative)
What is the primacy effect?
Remembering the first piece of information we encounter better than information encountered later on
What is the recency effect?
When more recent information is better remembered and has a greater influence in forming a judgement
What is confirmation bias?
When we are more likely to remember and process information that is consistent with our initial impression (information that contradicts our impression is discarded or ignored)
What is positivity bias?
When we assume the best and form a positive impression of a person
What is negativity bias?
When negative information strongly influences our impressions in a way that is resistant to change
What are implicit personality theories?
How certain traits form certain types of personality
What are personal constructs?
Personal ways of forming impressions of others
What are stereotypes?
Widely shared views of a social category and its members
What are the characteristics of stereotypes?
Acquired from people around us, resistant to change, provide a fast way of making judgements, and exaggerated similarities and differences
Haire and Grune experiment (1950)
Participants had to write a paragraph describing a working class man in a factory, using information they had been provided earlier
Participants did this easily unless the working class man was described as intelligent (stereotype inconsistent)
Solomon Asch lines experiment (1955)
A participant was placed in a room with 7 confederates, and presented with a target line and 3 comparison lines. They had to answer which comparison line matched the target line, the answers were obvious. The confederates purposely gave the wrong answer 12 out of 18 times to see if the participant would conform to their answers.
Approximately 32% of participants conformed, and 75% conformed at least once
What is self-fulfilling prophecy?
When you are certain about an outcome, you may unknowingly produce the expected result
What is social influence?
When the precense of others influences our thoughts and actions
What are social norms?
Behaviours that vary across contexts, cultures, and times
What does individualistic refer to?
Preferring individual gains over the betterment of a group
What is conformity?
When people modify their behaviour to be consistent with the behaviour of others
What causes groupthink?
Overestimating the group, closemindedness, and pressure for uniformity
What is the bystander effect?
When the presence of others influences a person’s willingness to help someone in need
What is the bystander effect?
When the presence of others influences a person’s willingness to help someone in need
What is diffusion of responsibility?
When a person waits for someone else to act, beliving that someone else present will respond
What is pluralistic ignorance?
When people fail to act because they rely on social cues from others to guide their behaviour, forgetting the other people are likely just as uncertain
Asch’s configural model (1946)
Central traits: influential in forming impressions
Peripheral traits: insignificant in formation of impressions
What is the actor-observer effect?
A tendency to attribute our behaviour to external causes, while attributing other’s behaviour to internal causes
What is ultimate attribution error?
Attributing bad outgroup and good ingroup behaviour to internal factors
Attributing good outgroup and bad ingroup behaviour to external factors
