week 2 lectures (Errors and biases)

Question 1

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 1

Ross 1977 - ‘A general tendency to overestimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors relative to environmental influences’

Question 2

Who came up with the Actor- Observer effect?

Answer 2

Jones and Nisbett (1971)

Question 3

What is the Actor - observer effect (Jones and nisbet 1971)

Answer 3

The actor (person who did it) attributes causality to situational influences

Observers attribute causality to actors dispositions

Question 4

How do you reconcile Ross’s definition of the fundamental attribution error with The Actor- Observer effect

Answer 4

Clarify that it is the observers that have the general tendency to overestimate the importance of dispositional factors

Question 5

What is a proposed reason for the actor observer effect

Answer 5

• attribution depends on where we focus attention

- observers see actors, actors see environments

Question 6

Who compared western culture with indian culture

Answer 6

Miller (1984)

Question 7

What did Miller argue?

Answer 7

Compares western culture to indian culture

• Western is more indidualistic as opposed to collectivistic
• western world = self defined by internal attributes
  India = self defined by social relationships
• western world = Encourages seperation of self from context
  india = encourages integration of self within social context

Question 8

What does Millers study imply about the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 8

It suggests that the fundamental attribution error may be western specific and may not be applied to other cultures

Question 9

What was the method of millers study?

Answer 9

Cross cultural study

70 indian ppts, 60 US ppts

age 8, 11, 15, adult

Asked to describe 2 prosocial and 2 antisocial behaviours and why they occured

Measured the proportions of references to dispositions vs context

Question 10

What was the results of millers study?

Answer 10

(adult) Participants from the US attribute greater causality to actors dispositions than they do in india
(adult) Participants from India attribute greater causality to contextual features

Similar findings among 15 year olds, but no significant cultural differences among 8 and 11 years old

Question 11

What do harvey, town and yarkin argue (1981)

Answer 11

We cant know that the Fundamental attribution error is really an error.

Its impossible to observe the true cause of behaviour from a single instance

Theres also no objective criteria for the accuracy of atribution.

Therefore the FAE should be considered a bias rather than an error

Question 12

What do Gilbert and malone argue that we should call the FAE instead?

Answer 12

Correspondence bias

Question 13

What would be best definition of correspondence bias be?

Answer 13

A general tendency, aquired through socialisation into western culture, for observers to overestimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors relative to environmental influence

Question 14

What do Sabini, Sepimann and Stein argue?

Answer 14

Challenge the notion that there are easily seperated internal and external causes of behaviour

Every external cause must have a matched external cause and vice versa

Question 15

What is Gilbert, Pelham & Krulls model of correspondence bias?

Answer 15

Attribution involves three sequential processes:

• categorisation (What is the actor doing?)
• characterisation (What does the action imply about the actor?)
• correction (What situational constraints are in force?)

Categorisation and characterisation occur automatically
Correction requires conscious effort

Question 16

What is the concept of a cognitive load?

Answer 16

We have a limited amount of capacity for cognitively effort processing

When we dont have sufficient mental resources to expend on the task we fall back onto automatic processing

Cognitive load is a mentally effortful task that we impose on someone so we can see how well they do on another task, where they will fall back on automatic processes

Question 17

What was Gilbert, pelham and Krulls findings to do with cognitive load and correspondence bias?

Answer 17

Placing someone under cognitive load does make them more susceptible to correspondence bias

Question 18

What was the method of Gilbert, Pelham and Krull?

Answer 18

Particpants were made to listen to a pro or anti abortion speech

They were told speech was requested by the teacher

The main task was to rate speech writers attitude towards abortion

For half of participants, This was combined with a second cognitive load task where they were asked to prepare their own speech on abortion

Those who recieved the cognitive load task where more likely to have correspondence bias

Question 19

What does the results of Gilbert Pelhum and Krull imply?

Answer 19

Under cognitive load, participants were less able to correct for situational constraints

This suggests that correspondence bias occurs because people fail to correct their initial automatic attributions

Question 20

What is our final corrected definition of correspondence bias/ FAE

Answer 20

A general tendency
aquired through socialisation into western culture
for observers
to automatically attribute causality to the actor
and due to a lack of effort or cognitive busyness, fail to correct for situational factors

Question 21

What does simon argue on the topic of bounded rationality?

Answer 21

We cant always be rational because our capacity for being rational is limited

we are as rational as we can be

rationality is limited by availability of

• time
• information
• mental capacity/resources

therefore rationality has boundaries

Question 22

What is Tversky and Khanemans work on Heuristics and Biases?

Answer 22

Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts we make to simplify decision making

They are generally useful but can lead to errors

Question 23

What was the method of Snyder and Swann when studying confirmation bias in social interactions?

Answer 23

Half of students told to identify whether their partner was extroverted, half told to identify whether their partner was introverted

Half within each condition were told the info had been taken from a personality test (high certainty)
Half not told that the info was based on anything (less certainty)

They were ask to select which questions out of a list they would ask that person to find out

Question 24

What were the results and implication of Synder and Swann?

Answer 24

Those who tested the hypothesis that the partner was extravert chose a greater number of questions relating to extraversion

Those who tested the hypothesis that the partner was introvert chose a greater number of questions relating to introversion

There was no difference in the number of questions chosen relating to hypothesis certainty

Implication: When people test the hypothesis about other people they seek out questions that will confirm their hypothesis

This may lead to a self fufilling profecy as when questions were asked about extraversion, the interview rated the student as being more extraverted and vice versa

Question 25

What was the method of Kassin, Goldstein and Savitsky in confirmation bias?

Answer 25

Particapants were led to believe someone was innocent or guilty of a mock theft

They were allowed to choose which questions to interrogate with and which interrogation techniques to use

Those who were led to believe they were guilty chose more guilt presumptious questions and harsher interrogation techniques
When neutral observers listen to this conversation they are more likely to interpret the person as more defensive and suspect them as guilty

Question 26

What are some limitations of snyders and swanns study?

Answer 26

The participants were asked to confirm the hypothesis not test the hypothesis. Other studies that ask participants to test whether a hypothesis is false can eliminate confirmation bias.

Question 27

What was tversky and kahnemans study on anchoring using multiplication equations?

Answer 27

Gave people a limited time to calculate either

1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8
or
8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1

People who had to do first option gave a much lower estimate than those in the second option

Question 28

What was tversky and kahnemans study on anchoring relating to african countries?

Answer 28

Participants asked to spin random wheel

then asked to estimate whether there is more or fewer african countries in the UN than this number

Then asked how many african countries they estimate is in the UN

Group who scored lower on wheel estimated less countries, and group who scored higher on wheel estimated more countries

Question 29

What is tversky and kahnemans theory on why anchoring occurs?

Answer 29

We use the initial (anchoring) value as a reference point and then adjust to arrive at a plausible answer.

However we dont adjust sufficiently

Therefore estimates are biased towards initial values even if the values are arbitary

Question 30

What was Jacowitz and Khanemans theory of erroneous adjustment?

Answer 30

When uncertain, we counsider a range of values to be plausible

Anchoring provides a candidate answer
We adjust the answer until we reach an answer that is plausible (the boundary of acceptable values) and then we stop

Question 31

What is prospect theory by tversky and kahneman?

Answer 31

Preferences change when the same problem is framed different

With gain frame we prefer certain option to keep gains

With loss frame we prefer risky option to recover losses

This is because the pain associated with losing money is more powerful than the pleasure associated with gaining the same amount

Question 32

What is the asian flu example by tversky and khaneman?

Answer 32

Participants told

• Imagine your city is threatened by an asian flu expected to kill 600 people
• you have to choose between two vaccination programs

Group one told:
PROGRAM A: 200 out of 600 saved
PROGRAM B: 2/3possibility no one saved, 1/3 possibility 600 saved

group two told:
PROGRAM C: 400 out of 600 die
PROGRAM D: 1/3 possibility no one will die, 2/3 possibility that 600 die

• 72% of group 1 chose program A
• 78% of group 2 chose program D

IMPLICATION
gain frame leads to certain option
loss frame leads to risky option

Question 33

What is Gigerenzers arguments critiquing kahnemans theory on heuristics and biases?

Answer 33

1. Do participants all understand the question in the same way
2. many heuristics do not explain the theory. ‘explanation via redescription’
3. understanding heuristics is underdeveloped