PSYCH 280 1st Edition Lecture 6 Outline of Last Lecture I. Finish up experimental methoda. Reliabilityb. ValidityII. Judgment Heuristicsa. Uses of heuristicsb. Types of heuristicsOutline of Current Lecture I. Simulation Heuristica. Counterfactual ThinkingII. The Norm-Exception RuleIII. The Action-Inaction RuleIV. Social Perceptiona. Internal v. External Attributionb. Consensus v. Distinctiveness v. ConsistencyV. Fundamental Attribution ErrorCurrent LectureI. Simulation HeuristicThe simulation heuristic is a process by which people explain past events/predict future events through mental constructions of scenarios that produce different outcomes. In addition, people often employ “counterfactual thinking” in order to rationalize events or try to undo the situation. For example, if Tim gets in a car accident and loses both legs, people will employ counterfactual thinking and ignore the fact that Tim lost both his legs—they will focus on a different outcome (Time dies in the other outcome) and say, “oh, well Tim is lucky—he could’ve died!”These simulations have “junctures,” or points where the event may have followed a different path. Again, going back to the car accident example, the juncture would be what happened to Tim: he could have died (he’s lucky to only lose his legs!), he could be paralyzed all over, etc.II. The Norm-Exception RuleThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.The norm-exception rule ties in nicely with counterfactual thinking and the simulation heuristic.People pay attention to the exceptions of events—not the norms of the events. For example, if Car-Accident Tim usually leaves his home at 8am for work and takes a different route to work, people will pay attention to the “exception” of the situation: Since Tim took a different route to work, that’s what caused the accident.III. The Action-Inaction RuleThe action-inaction rule also ties in with counterfactual thinking and the simulation heuristic. People will mutate their actions and not mutate their “non-actions.” For example, if two people—James and Brandon—both invest in the stock market (James invests in A and thinks about switching to B, but doesn’t, while Brandon invests in B but actually switches to A), and company A’s stock drops, Brandon will feel more regret because he actively switched his stock company, while James did not. Therefore, the action-inaction rule implies that we tend to regret our actions more than our non-actions.IV. Social PerceptionSocial perception is defined as “how people come to ‘understand’ eachother.” The fundamentalthesis of social psychology states that people’s perceptions are more important than the objective features of the stimulus, and since other people are the primary stimulus, social psychologists deem that people are the most important stimulus.When it comes to social perception, people are always curious about why a person displays a specific behavior (“Why did she say no to the date? How do I interpret that?”). According to Kelley’s Attribution Theory, people will attribute other’s behavior in one of two ways:a. Internal Attribution: The behavior of an individual is the result of their personality/disposition/attitude/some other characteristic of that person.i. This type of attribution makes it easier to praise people or place blame onthem  leads us to hold the person responsible.b. External Attribution: The behavior of an individual is the result of an outside stimulus or aspects of the situation there are in.i. This attribution defers us from holding the person responsible for their actions/behavior.Kelley’s theory also lines out a way to determine whether or not a person will make an internal or external attribution. First, a person needs to know three types of information before making a decision on the attribution:c. Consensus Information: would most other people behave this way in this same situation?d. Distinctiveness Information: does this person behave this way in all situations? Or is this behavior specific to this situation?e. Consistency information: does the person behave like this every time this situation occurs (consistency over time)?f. If all three types of information are “high,” then the person will make an external attribution.g. If consensus and distinctiveness information are low and consistency informationis high, the person will make an internal attribution.However, there is no perfect way to determine what type of attribution a person will make because people rarely seek out all three types of information and often people won’t use this information to guide their attributions even when it’s given to them. Therefore, although Kelley’s Theory is helpful, it does a poor job of describing how people actually choose which attribution to make.VI. Fundamental Attribution ErrorThe fundamental attribution error is a better way to model the way people choose which attribution to use. This attribution error is defined as the tendency for people to attribute someone’s behavior more to personality and the tendency for people to underestimate the influence a situation has on the person’s behavior. Basically, people tend to overlook the extent to which situations/circumstances influence our