3- Attributions

Question 1

What does the Heider-Simmel illusion test for?

Answer 1

The hypothesis that people see shapes moving around as having personalities and intentions

Question 2

What do we want to do according to the Heider-Simmel illusion?

Answer 2

To come up with adequate explanations for ours and others’ behaviours

Question 3

What do people have a strong natural tendency to do?

Answer 3

See random shapes moving as rational beings with feelings and intentions

Question 4

What is an attribution?

Answer 4

Action of making inferences about behaviour

Question 5

Who proposed the naive psychologist theory?

Answer 5

Heider, 1958

Question 6

What does the naive psychologist theory believe about people?

Answer 6

People are intuitive psychologists

Question 7

What do people want to come up with according to the naive scientist theory?

Answer 7

Theories that are causal

Question 8

What do we want to use? (Naive psychologist theory)

Answer 8

Stable and enduring properties

Question 9

Why do we want to use stable and enduring properties? (naive psychologist theory)

Answer 9

To make it easier to control and predict

Question 10

What do people stick to? (naive psychologist theory)

Answer 10

Internal explanations in spite of evidence for external

Question 11

What are the three principles of the naive psychologist theory?

Answer 11

1. Behaviour is motivated- we look for causes of people’s behaviours
2. We search for stable and enduring properties
3. Two explanations- internal (dispositional) or external (situational)

Question 12

What is involved in internal (dispositional) explanations?

Answer 12

Personality and ability

Question 13

What is involved in external (situational) explanations?

Answer 13

Situations and social pressure

Question 14

Who came up with the correspondent inference theory?

Answer 14

Jones and Davis, 1965

Question 15

What is the key question investigated by the correspondent inference theory?

Answer 15

When do we infer internal causes from people’s behaviour?

Question 16

What do we like doing according to the correspondent inference theory?

Answer 16

Making correspondent inferences

Question 17

What do we attribute behaviour to according to the correspondent inference theory?

Answer 17

Underlying disposition

Question 18

What style is the dispositional cause in the correspondent inference theory?

Answer 18

Stable

Question 19

What five sources of information/cues are needed to make a correspondent inference?

Answer 19

1. Freely chosen behaviour
2. Behaviour with few non-common effects
3. Socially undesirable behaviour
4. Important direct consequences for self
5. Intention to benefit/harm us

Question 20

What do non-common effects provide?

Answer 20

Inferences about someone’s disposition

Question 21

What is the problem when there is none or a few non-common effects?

Answer 21

It is difficult for us to make a correspondent inference when there are none/few non-common effects

Question 22

Why is socially undesirable behaviour more useful than socially desirable behaviour?

Answer 22

Socially undesirable behaviour gives us a better basis to make a correspondent inference

Question 23

What is hedonic relevance?

Answer 23

Important direct consequences for the self

Question 24

What is personalism?

Answer 24

The intention to benefit/harm us

Question 25

Who came up with the covariation model?

Answer 25

Kelley, 1967

Question 26

What is the key question involved in the covariation model?

Answer 26

How do we explain people's behaviour?

Question 27

What do we aim to do according to the covariation model?

Answer 27

Assign a causal role of a factor by identifying which factor (internal/external) covaries most closely with the behaviour

Question 28

What are the three classes of information to assess in the covariation model?

Answer 28

1. Consistency- how the person acts in response to the same stimulus over time? 2. Distinctiveness- how the person acts in response to similar stimuli that are not the same? 3. Consensus- how other people act in response to the same stimulus?

Question 29

What does the covariation model see as the most important indicator of disposition?

Answer 29

Consistency

Question 30

Who came up with the attributional theory?

Answer 30

Weiner, 1979

Question 31

What is the key question investigated in the attributional theory?

Answer 31

How do we explain our own task performance and other people's?

Question 32

What are the three performance dimensions in the attributional theory?

Answer 32

1. Locus- if performance is caused by the actor (internal) or situation (external) 2. Stability- stable or unstable cause 3. Controllability- if future task performance is under the actor's control

Question 33

Who came up with the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 33

Ross, 1977

Question 34

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 34

Tendency to see other people's actions as internally caused, rather than situationally caused even when there are clear external causes

Question 35

Who investigated the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 35

Jones and Harris

Question 36

How did Jones and Harris investigate the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 36

US presidents read a pro or anti Castro speech- were either instructed to write or freely chose a perspective

Question 37

What did Jones and Harris find?

Answer 37

The external cause was still largely disregarded when perspective was freely chosen, and people preferred to make dispositional explanations even when they were instructed to write a perspective

Question 38

Who came up with the actor-observer bias?

Answer 38

Jones and Nisbett, 1972

Question 39

What is the actor-observer bias?

Answer 39

The tendency to see other people's actions as internally caused and own as situationally caused even when explaining the same actions

Question 40

When were mostly external causes attributed?

Answer 40

When explaining own rudeness towards someone else

Question 41

When were mostly internal causes attributed?

Answer 41

To the person ourselves when explaining someone else's rudeness towards ourselves

Question 42

What are self-serving biases?

Answer 42

We tend to make attributions that satisfy our desire for a favourable image of ourselves

Question 43

What are the three types of self-serving biases?

Answer 43

Self-enhancing bias, self-protecting bias, self-handicapping

Question 44

What is the self-enhancing bias?

Answer 44

We make internal attributions to our positive behaviours and successes

Question 45

What is the self-protecting bias?

Answer 45

We make external attributions to our negative behaviours and failures

Question 46

What is self-handicapping?

Answer 46

We make a public external attribution for anticipated failures or poor performance

Question 47

Who came up with the ultimate attribution error?

Answer 47

Pettigrew, 1979

Question 48

What is the ultimate attribution error?

Answer 48

The tendency to attribute bad outgroup and good ingroup behaviour internally, and to attribute good outgroup and bad ingroup behaviour externally

Question 49

What was involved in Taylor and Jaggi's experiment?

Answer 49

Hindus described their own ingroup vs the outgroup (Muslims) who were either behaving in a positive or negative way

Question 50

What did Taylor and Jaggi find?

Answer 50

We make more internal attributions when explaining ingroup positive behaviour and less when explaining negative behaviour

Question 51

What does WEIRD research describe?

Answer 51

A lack of diversity in research

Question 52

What is psychology overly reliant on?

Answer 52

Studies with WEIRD participants

Question 53

What do WEIRD participants undermine?

Answer 53

Generalisability

Question 54

What does WEIRD stand for?

Answer 54

Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic

Question 55

What did Miller find about differences about attributions in individualistic vs collectivist cultures?

Answer 55

People initially don't differ in the proportion of internal attributions between individualistic and collectivist cultures, but there was a clear difference by age 15

Question 56

What did Lee and Seligman find?

Answer 56

Self-serving bias is weaker in collectivist cultures

Question 57

Why is self-serving bias weaker in collectivist cultures?

Answer 57

Because collectivist cultures tend to focus more on the group