Chapter 4 Attribution

Introspection

act of reflecting upon one's self and eliminating one's motives and behavior.

Saliency bias

when an object or a behavior is conspicuous, it is salient. If two stimuli differ in their salience, the more salient one is mot likely to be thought to be the cause of ensuring events.

Corresponding bias

when people see behavior as corresponding to a disposition.

High Achievers

will approach rather than avoid tasks which they are confident.

External situations

Events Environment Place

Biases in Attribution

Slef-serving biases Slef-fulfilling Prophecies Motivational biases Saliency biases Overvonfidence phenomenon Illusory correlation Illusion of control Heuristic

Availability Heuristics

a cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory.

Heuristic

a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgment. defined by Heuristic Myers

Global-Specific

an attribution with which the thought as the cause is global for failure, but specific for success at control

Stable-Unstable

an attribution with which the thought as the cause is stable for failure, but unstable for success at control.

Internal-External

an attribution with which the thought is the cause for failure, but external for success at control.

Salience

casual term of attribution for others behavior are more likely to focus on the person they see , not the situational forces acting upon that person that people may not be aware.

Kelley's Theory of Causal Attribution or Co Variation Model

considered some major points of consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness for both internal and external causes.

Daniel Gilbert

first attribution theorist who used the term for the fundamental attribution error

Self-perception theory

people infer their attitudes by looking at their own behavior and the situations with which it occurs.

Motivational biases

people tend to make more favorable, self-serving and one-sided attributions for their own behavior.

Representative Heuristic

the tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling/representing a typical member.

Actor-Observer effect

this effect means the tendency for people to attribute their own behavior to external causes but that of others to internal factors

Observers

- tend to emphasize the role of actors characteristics, they make dispositional attribution

Personal Attribution Situational Attribution

2 Categories of Attribution

Temporary-internal Temporary-external Stable-internal Unstable-external

4 Diferent Kinds of Causes

External Attribution or Situation Attribution

An attribution that locates the cause of an event to factors external to the person such as luck or other people or situation.

Internal Attribution or Person Attribution

An attribution that locates the cause of an event to factors internal to the person such as personality traits, moods, attitudes, abilities or effort.

Situational attribution

Attribution factors external to an actor such as the task, other people, or luck.

Personal attribution

Attribution to internal characteristics of an actor such as ability, mood, or effort.

Internal dispositions

Enduring traits Motives Attitudes

Self Attribution

Introspection Self-Perception Theory Overjustification effect Attribution of emotions

Controllability

It contrasts causes one can control such as skill, efficacy from causes one cannot control such as aptitude, mood, others' actions, and luck. Being within people's control and others as being outside their control.

4 Main Reasons for fundamental attribution error

Lack of Awareness Unrealistic Expectations Inflated Categorization Incomplete Corrections

Other Attribution Concepts or Theories

Learned Helplesness Kelley's Theory of Causal Attribution or Co Variation Model Jones and Davis's Corespondent Inference Theory

3 main dimensions employed when people explain events

Locus of control Stability Controllability of causal attributions

Attribution theory

People are all scientists of a sort. Because they are motivated to understand others well enough to deal with social environment that is, they observe, analyze and explain their behavior with which the explanations are called attributions. (Fritz Heider)

Native psychology or Common sense psychology

People explain everyday events or people think in a quasi-scientific way like rationally and logically testing hypothesis about the behavior of others.

Correspondent Inference Theory

assumes that people prefer making dispositional attributions.

Low achievers

avoid success related chores because they tend to doubt their ability and/or assume success is related to luck or to "who you know" or to other factors beyond their control.

Self-fulfilling prophecies

beliefs that are necessary to evoke behavior that confirms the initial opinion or expectation of the events.

Franzoi

defined Attribution as a process by which people use information to make inferences about the causes of behavior or events.

Myers

defined Attribution as how people explain others' behavior by attributing it either to internal dispositions or to external situations .

Learned Helplesness

explains that individuals in the stress event have lack of control due to the following attributions:

Attribution Theory (Bernard Weiner)

focused on achievement The most important factors affecting attributions for achievement are ability, effort, task difficulty and luck. Explains the difference of achievement in motivation more particularly between high and low achievers.

Helpless

individuals who continually fail to exercise coping control

Attribution

inference that a person makes about why an event occured or about a person's disposition

Ability

is classified as a stable, internal cause

Effort

is classified as unstable and internal.

Internal cause

is either absence or presence of ability

External cause

is good or bad.

Attribution of emotions

it emphasizes not only self-attribution but also social comparisons. -Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer

Fundamental Attribution Error

or Fundamental Attribution Theory the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. -by Lee Ross -also called "Corresponding Bias"

Actor

tend to emphasize the role of situation, they make situational attribution.

Self serving biases

tendency that people have to attribute positive outcomes to their own behavior.

Over justification effect

the consequence of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may be led to see their action as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.

Consensus

the extent to which others faced with the same situation, behave in a manner similar to the person perceived.

Distinctiveness

the extent to which the person perceived acts in the same manner as in different situations.

Consistency

the extent to which the person perceived behaves in the same manner as with other occasions when faced with same situations.

Illusory correlation

the perception of a relationship where none exist or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exist.

Illusory of control

the perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable that they are.

Overconfidence phenomenon

the tendency to be more confident than correct so that to overestimate the accuracy of one's belief.