Week 6 - Attribution Flashcards
1
Q
Define attribution
A
- Assigning a cause to a behaviour of ourselves / others
- Providing a reason why somebody does an action
2
Q
Why are we more likely to make an external than an external attribution?
A
[Heider]
- Feel discomfort if we don’t know why things have happened : motivated to find cause
- People make internal or external attribution
- Know more about situations than person
3
Q
Covariation Model : 3 types of info
A
- CONSISTENCY OF INFO: do they usually behave in this way?
- DISTINCTIVENESS INFO: do they behave to different objects in the same way?
- CONSENSUS INFO: do other people behave similarly in this situations?
4
Q
Weiner (1986) : 3 dimensions of achievement
A
- LOCUS : Internal / external factors?
- STABILITY: is it stable or unstable?
- CONTROL: is it controllable or uncontrollable?
5
Q
How are attribution , emotions , and behaviour linked together?
A
- Attributions predict emotions [ Internal = controllable = shame]
- External , stable and uncontrollable = anger
- Emotions predict behaviour
6
Q
Explain Fundamental Attribution Error / Correspondence Error
A
- When making a casual attribution about others we blame a person
- Supported [Jones and Harris] wrote speech for / against Fidel Castro , rated based on internal or external (experimenter) : internal had more pos ratings
7
Q
Explain the actor observer effect
A
- People attribute behaviour of others to person (internal)
- People attribute their own actions to the situation (external)
- Supporting : More likely to make external attribution for self and internal for friends [Nisbett and Caputo]
8
Q
Explain Self Servicing Bias
A
- Do we always attribute our own actions to others?
- Attribute success to self = more self esteem = self enhancing
- Attribute failures to others factors = help protect self esteem and protecting
- [Hewstone] : suggests we have bias attributions for groups we belong to
