Unit 3: Attribution Flashcards
Attribution
Assigning causes to our and others’ behavior
Theory of Naive Psychology (Heider, 1958)
The idea that behaviors are influenced by specific causes, so we look for their reasons (personal vs. environmental causes)
Theory of Correspondent Inference (Jones & Davis, 1965)
The idea that people’s behaviors correspond to their basic personality traits (behavior = personality)
Covariation Model (Kelley, 1967)
Attributions based on consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus of behavior
Consistency
A behavior always occurs after a specific
stimulus
Distinctiveness
Information about whether a person’s reaction is specific to one stimulus or happens with many.
Consensus
To check if a behavior is specific to one person or happens with others too
Two-Factor Theory of Emotions (Schachter & Singer, 1964)
Explains what happens when we face a situation that triggers an emotional response (physiological arousal & cognitive appraisal)
Attribution Theory (Weiner, 1979)
Explains how people attribute success or failure to factors like ability, effort, and luck
Correspondence Bias
Over-attributing behavior to personality traits instead of the situation
Actor-Observer Effect
Blaming others’ actions on them, but our own on the situation
False Consensus
Seeing our own behavior as being more typical than it really is
Self-Serving Bias
Taking credit for success but blaming failures on external factors
Intergroup attribution
Blaming behavior on group identity while favoring our own group (ethnocentrism)
Locus of Control
Is the performance caused by
the actor (internal; ability & effort) or by the situation (external; task difficulty & luck)? + Stability + Controllability
