8B: Social Thinking

Question 1

Attribution Theory

Answer 1

Holds that people attempt to understand behaviors of other people by attributing feelings, beliefs, and intentions to them

Question 2

What is dispositional attribution?

Answer 2

When behavior is attributed to internal causes, such as qualities of person being observed

Question 3

What is situational attribution?

Answer 3

When behavior is attributed to external causes, such as situations causing a person’s behavior

Question 4

Describe influences on whether attribution is dispositional or situational

Answer 4

Consensus cues: Related to how common a person’s behavior is, or how much it differs from acceptable
Consistency cues: How consistent a person’s behavior is over time
Distinctiveness cues: How comparable a person behaves in different scenarios

Question 5

Correspondent Interference Theory

Answer 5

Focuses on intentionality of a person’s behavior

Question 6

Consensus Cue: When someone’s behavior is more abnormal, how is it attributed?

Answer 6

More likely to be dispositional

Question 7

Consistency Cue: When someone’s behavior is more consistent with past behavior, how is it attributed?

Answer 7

More likely to be dispositional

Question 8

Distinctiveness Cue: When someone’s behavior is more varied, how is it attributed?

Answer 8

More likely to be situational

Question 9

If behavior is with consensus, how is it attributed?

Answer 9

More likely to be situational

Question 10

If behavior is inconsistent with past behavior, how is it attributed?

Answer 10

More likely to be situational

Question 11

If behavior is less distinctive from normal behavior, how is it attributed?

Answer 11

More likely to be dispositional

Question 12

Describe Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 12

Our tendency to place less importance on the import or situation or context of a behavior, and instead place undue emphasis on dispositional or internal qualities in order to explain behavior

We tend to think people are how they act

Question 13

Actor Observer Bias

Answer 13

Important for self-perception in creating attribution

We blame our own actions on situations, but the actions of others on personality

Question 14

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 14

Our tendency to credit ourselves with successes and our failures to the actions of others or our situation

Question 15

Optimism Bias

Answer 15

Belief that we are somehow exempt from bad things happening to us

Question 16

Halo Effect

Answer 16

Also halo and horns effect, seeing other people in black white as either good or bad

For example, your obnoxious co-worker becomes a bad parent in your mind when she talks about her family

Question 17

Describe Cultural Effect on Attribution

Answer 17

Difference in Western and Easter culture on how successes and failures are viewed

Americans place emphasis on internal qualities, inverse for Eastern

Question 18

Prejudice

Answer 18

Preconceived notion about a person, group, or thing that are either irrationally positive or negative and are made before knowing the people

Question 19

Social Factors of Prejudice

Answer 19

Class: One’s socioeconomic status
Power: One’s ability to achieve goals and control resources despite obstacles
Prestige: The level of respect given to a a person by others

Question 20

Explain the role of emotion in prejudice

Answer 20

Prejudices often come from a place of frustration or fear, and from a desire to create a scapegoat

Question 21

Explain role of cognition in prejudice

Answer 21

Our brains seek to organize data into categories, using shortcuts to classify things in ways that are often simpler than they are in reality

Distinctive people stick out in our minds and can be made to represent whole groups of people

Question 22

Stereotype

Answer 22

Widely held but oversimplified image or understanding of a group of people or things based on outwardly obvious characteristics

Question 23

Describe the Stereotype Content Model

Answer 23

Varying levels of competence and warmth categorize dominant views of groups held by society

Question 24

Paternalistic Stereotype (pity)

Answer 24

Marked by low competence and high warmth (housewives, elderly, disabled)

Question 25

Admiration Stereotype (pride)

Answer 25

High competence and high warmth, high social status and not competitive with in group (in-group, close allies)

Question 26

Contemptuous Stereotype (disgust)

Answer 26

Low competence and low warmth, low social status and not competitive (welfare recipients, poor)

Question 27

Envious Stereotype (envy)

Answer 27

High competence and low warmth, high social status and IS competitive with in-group (rich people, feminists)

Question 28

Describe Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 28

Process where stereotypes and perceptions of them can lead to behaviors to reinforce those stereotypes

Question 29

Stereotype Threat

Answer 29

Feeling that people can have of being at risk of confirming or exemplifying negative stereotypes about a group they belong to

Question 30

Ethnocentrism

Answer 30

Evaluation of other’s cultures based upon preconceptions and ideas that come from standards and customs of one’s own culture

Question 31

Cultural Relativism

Answer 31

Understanding that other activities and behaviors should be evaluated through their own culture, other cultures are not better or worse– just different