Attribution Example why accidents happen Causal attribution assigning a cause for an event or behavior Think of a time you performed poorly on an exam Attribution theory the theory of how people explain others behaviors Why do people act the way that they do What prompts attribution Unexpected events Negative events Motivation gain a sense of control over our environment heider Explain why people do what they do an learn from it Dimensions of attributions Locus internal vs external Dispositional attribution cause is internal characteristic and stable Situational attribution cause is external contextual and unstable Stability permanent vs temporary independent of causality cid 127 Globality all people like this or few Controlability within your control or not not the player Judgements should be made with respect to the situation When crazy factors are at play it shouldn t all be on the person Discounting reducing weight to a cause when other factors present could produce same effect ex performing poorly when sick sickness weighs performance Augmenting increase weight to a cause when other factors present would produce an opposite effect performing well when sick you give them over praise What is an implicit personality theory a type of schema people use to organize and make sense of which personality traits and behaviors go together What are nonverbal behaviors Nonconcsious mimicry How do these phenomenon inform our understanding of people s true interactions feelings What is Kelly s covariation model of attribution According to Kelly what are the most important components of an individuals behavior that we take in to account when making attributions How do we use these different components to derive a given attribution Covariation model of attribution Humans behave as naive scientists when making attributions Consistency does the person usually behave this way in this situation Distinctiveness Does the person behave different in different situations Consensus do others behave similarly in this situation Dispositions attribution High consistency every time Low distinctiveness Low consensus That s how the person is Situational High consistency High distinctiveness cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 High consensus That s how the context situation is Ex Josh at the bar always drunk at this bar gets drunk at other bars other people don t get drunk at this bar Dispositional it is johns character Ex 95 20 90 0 Helpful vs unhelpful friends Math equations on pp See if you put more weight on people or the situation Most put more emphasis on the situation What is the difference between internal and external attributions Dispositional attribution cause is internal characteristic and stable Situational attribution cause is external contextual and unstable Fundamental attribution error Read Fundamental attribution error fae When explaining the behavior of others we have a fundamental tendency to cid 127 Overestimate the role of dispositions characteristics Underestimate role of situational characteristics Lewins field theory Discounting principle we should discount a dispositional cause for behavior if other plausible situation causes are known cid 127 Observers heard speak in favor against Castro cid 127 Observers told the speaker did Did not choose the topic DV observers ratings of speakers attitude towards Castro Results people would like Castro speech if it was in favor and did not like if against not situational I Vs Study cid 127 Questioner quiz master make hard questions Contestant answer questions cid 127 Observers audience DV ratings of Q and C General knowledge Predict that the questioner is smarter even though he is making the questions Q rated Q and c equal C rated q higher O rated q a lot higher Attributions for others behaviors fae Attributions for our own behavior Actor observer bias Dispositional explanation for others behaviors Situational explanation for our own behavior Salience of different information For our own behavior situation is salient For others behaviors others are salient Storms perspective study 2 actors converse cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 2 observers watch Conversation videotaped Interaction is played back to some but not others Actors and observers make attribution for actors behavior Sometimes they don t see tape only go off of other person being salient Can watch video of self or of other actor No video actor is situational but observers give dispositions From own view actor purely situational and observers dispositions From other view actor totally dispositions and observer is more situational What are self serving biases Self serving attribution Dispositional explanations for positive outcomes Situational explanation for our negative outcomes cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 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