Chapter 4 Flashcards

Question

External Attribution

Answer 1

Infer a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation *Assume most people would respond the same way in that situation

Answer 2

*Partner’s positive behaviors –Internal attributions ▪ “She helped me because she’s such a generous person.” *Partner’s negative behaviors –External attributions ▪ “He said something mean because he’s so stressed at work this week.”

Answer 3

Partner’s positive behaviors –External attributions ▪ “She helped me because she wanted to impress our friends.” *Partner’s negative behaviors –Internal attributions ▪ “He said something mean because he’s a totally self- centered jerk.”

Answer 4

A theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence or absence of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs *Focuses on how behavior “covaries” – Across time, place, actors, and targets *Examines how perceiver chooses an internal or an external attribution

Answer 5

–Consensus –Distinctiveness –Consistency

Answer 6

The extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does

Answer 7

The extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli

Answer 8

The extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

Answer 9

Internal attribution occurs when –Consensus = Low ▪Behavior is unique to the person –Distinctiveness = Low ▪Person displays same behavior with different targets and in different situations –Consistency = High ▪The person’s behavior occurs reliably across occasions

Answer 10

*Information about all three dimensions may not be available –People still make attributions *Consistency and distinctiveness used more than consensus

Answer 11

–Tend to focus attention on person, not the surrounding situation ▪ The person is “perceptually salient” –Use the focus of attention as a starting point

Answer 12

–The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention

Answer 13

–Assume that a person’s behavior was due to something about that person –Occurs quickly, spontaneously

Answer 14

–May fail to make enough adjustment in second step –Requires effort, conscious attention

Answer 15

–You consciously slow down, think carefully before reaching a judgment – You are motivated to reach an accurate judgment –You are suspicious about the behavior (e.g., we suspect lying)

Answer 16

Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors, and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors

Answer 17

1. We want to maintain self-esteem. 2. We want other people to think well of us and to admire us. 3. We know more about the situational factors that affect our own behavior than we do about other people’s.

Answer 18

*Belief in a just world –The assumption that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get –Type of defensive attribution

Answer 19

*Advantage –Allows people to deal with feelings of vulnerability, mortality *Disadvantage –Blaming the victim ▪Rape victims ▪Battered wives

Answer 20

*People realize biases in attribution can occur *Believe other people more susceptible to attributional biases compared to self

Answer 21

– Values in Western cultures foster this kind of thinking – Focus on properties of object or people, pay less attention to context or situation

Answer 22

– Values in Eastern cultures foster this kind of thinking – Focus on the object or person AND the surrounding context and relationships between them * Generalized cultural difference, but variability within cultures

Answer 23

Hedden and colleagues (2008) used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify where in the brain cultural experience predicts processing * Judged length of line inside boxes * Two conditions: – Ignore the box around each line (ignore context) – Pay attention to the box around each line (attend to context) * Results: – Americans: greater brain activation when told to pay attention to context – East Asians: greater brain activation when told to ignore context

Answer 24

–Prefer dispositional attributions –Think like personality psychologists

Answer 25

–Prefer situational explanations –Think like social psychologists –Greater situational focus is matter of degree

Answer 26

▪ Do they make dispositional attributions? ▪ Are they more likely to go on to the “second step”?

Answer 27

–Make attributions to external causes in U.S., but internal causes in China –Self-critical attributions hold groups together in some Asian cultures

Answer 28

–More prevalent in cultures with extreme differences in wealth