CH5 - Social attribution

Question 1

What is attribution theory?

Answer 1

A set of concepts explaining how ppl assign causes to events around them and the effects of these kinds of causal assessments

Question 2

Which concept has the following definition?

linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behaviour

Answer 2

Causal attribution

Question 3

Which factors contribute to a pessimistic explanatory style?

Answer 3

A pessimistic explanatory style is characterized by explanations of the causes of negative outcomes as being stable, global, and internal.

Question 4

Which factors contribute to an optimistic explanatory style?

Answer 4

Positive outcomes are perceived as due to stable, global and internal causes.

Question 5

How is gender and attributional style related?

Study

Answer 5

Boys tend to attribute failure to lack of effort
Girls attribute failure to lack of ability

Results from teachers different feedback pattern, different way to take criticism + praise

When inversed, girls performances tended to improve drastically

Question 6

What is the covariation principle?

Answer 6

An effect is attributed to one of its possible causes with which, over time, it covaries. Causes of an outcome can be attributed to the person (internal), the stimulus (external), the circumstance, or some combination of these factors

Question 7

How do you know whether to associate a behavior to a person or to a situation?

Answer 7

When people engage in a given behavior across many situations, you attribute that behavior to the person.

However, when a person engages in behavior only in a given situation, and their behavior is the same as others = attribute to the situation.

We try to look for internal/dispositional cause >< external/situational cause when explaining people’s behavior.

Question 8

What are the three factors that people look at during the process of causal attribution?

Answer 8

🡪Consensus: type of covariation information: whether most people would behave the same way or differently in a given situation

🡪Distinctiveness: whether a behavior is unique to a particular situation or occurs in many/all sit

🡪Consistency: whether an individual behaves the same way or differently in a given situation on different occasions

Question 9

Which principle has the following definition?

situational constraints could plausibly have caused an observed behavior = tendency to discount role of person’s dispositions

Answer 9

The discounting principle

Question 10

Define the following principle: Augmentation principle

Answer 10

strong forces were present that would typically inhibit behavior but it occurs anyway = assume actor’s dispositions were particularly powerful

Question 11

What is counterfactual thinking?

Answer 11

Focus on how the past might have been, or the present could be, different = “if only”. It can amplify joy/pain in response to an event and has a powerful effect on attribution

Question 12

Looking at the emotional reaction of people winning silver medals, they seem less happy than bronze winners. Why?

Answer 12

The people winning silver medals are sad because they were closer to ‘making it’, consumed by what they didn’t receive, This is an example of emotional amplification, or the increase in an emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening.

Question 13

When teachers tend to give themselves credit if a student improves from one session to other, but blames student if they continue to perform poorly.

What is this an example of?

Answer 13

It is an example of self-serving attributional bias: a cognitive process that’s distorted by the need to maintain + enhance self-esteem
or
the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner with the tendency to attribute failure/bad event to external circumstances but attributing success/good events to themselves

Question 14

What is one of the causes of the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 14

The just-world hypothesis: it is thinking that ppl get what they deserve + bad outcomes are brought about by bad / incompetent people

In this hypothesis, there is a tendency to assign too much responsibility to individuals for great accomplishments and terrible mistakes + not enough to a particular situation/societal forces/pure dumb luck.

When we observe someone’s behavior, we automatically characterize the person as having a disposition corresponding to the behavior observed. The situation is secondary when looking for a causal explanation.

It is more likely to commit this type of error when tired.

Question 15

What are the two steps of attribution?

Answer 15

1. Characterization of ppl automatically in terms consistent w their behaviour
2. Adjustment to account for the impact of situational forces (sometimes)

Question 16

Give an example of a study illustrating the just-world hypothesis.

Answer 16

When showing a video of an anxious woman answering questions:

• One group knows she’s answering intruding questions, other not
• everyone would assume she was just anxious, those told abt anxiety-causing questions would take that into account

Twist: same info given to 2 other groups but had them memorize a list of words while watching video
=> less cognitive resources needed to adjust initial characterization so rated her just as anxious

Question 17

What can be possible causes for the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 17

Things in life may rob us of the cognitive resources needed to carry out the correction phase of attributional analysis in which we take into account situational constraints.
Furthermore, we’re bad at assessing the validity of our own judgments + sometimes only see individuals in a particular kind of situation.

Question 18

What is the actor-observer difference?

Answer 18

There are actor-observer differences in attributions bc actors tend to attribute behavior to situations more than observers bc a better perspective on a situation.

Explaining someone else’s choice: refer to characteristics of the person
Own behaviour: context-based, external factors

Question 19

Why does the actor-observer difference exist?

Answer 19

1. Different assumptions about what needs explaining
2. Actors know intentions influencing their behavior but observers can only guess them, so the logical focus would be on character

Question 20

How do dependent and interdependent cultures define themselves?

Answer 20

Western: define themselves through personal goals, attributions, preferences

Non-Westerns: relationships, social role + obligations

Question 21

Which type of culture tends to make less FAE? Why?

+ study

Answer 21

Interdependent ppl tend to make less FAE than independent -> pay attention to contexts, look to the situation confronting the actor

Study: Koreans realized pwr of situation when asked to write essay on specific topic w/ POV specified before, no assumptions abt the attitudes of target individual observed.
Americans were just as likely to believe coerced targets believed what they said

Question 22

What is the link between causal attribution, culture and bicultural people?

Answer 22

When bicultural ppl are primed to think about one/other culture, they make causal attributions consistent w culture primed.

Study: Asked to recall experience making them either American/Asian
Showed pictures of abstract cartoon vignettes
Asked to determine if it was bc of int/ext factors
American primed – causes were internal
Asian – less

Question 23

What are the 5 big personality dimensions?

Answer 23

Extraversion
Neuroticism
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Openness to experience