social perception ✅

attributions

causal analysis of why something
happened, why someone did something

automaticity of attributions

 We make attributions automatically

dispositional attribution

internal ( personality, attitude, or character)

about the person

situational attribution

external

Focus on context/situation; factors beyond someone’s overall personality or disposition

fundamental attribution error

is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations.

self-serving bias

Internal attributions for success “I am so smart.” “Man did I study hard.”

External attributions for failure “The professor was awful.” “The questions were ambiguous.”

actor-observer bias

Tendency to attribute one’s own behavior to situational causes and others’ behavior to dispositional causes

just world hypothesis

the belief that people get what they deserve in life and deserve what they get

perceptual salience

When looking at others, the people are more visually salient than the situation

▪ But for your own experiences, you see the situation around you

Fundamental Attribution Error: Essay Study (Jones & Harris, 1967

▪ IV1: Pro-Castro vs. anti-Castro essay
▪ IV2: told that writer freely chose the position vs. was assigned the position
▪ DV: ratings of essay writer’s pro-Castro attitudes

Self-serving bias: athletic wins and losses

Attributing results to own team’s performance vs. referee calls or luck
depending on whether the team won or lost the game

Actor-Observer bias: TV Quiz Show Study (Ross et al., 1977

IV: role in a quiz game (questioner/host vs. contestant)
▪ DVs: questioner’s and observers’ ratings of both the questioner’s and
contestant’s general knowledge

Perceptual Salience Study (Taylor & Fiske, 1975

Participants observed a discussion between 2 actors,
and were assigned to be facing Actor A, Actor B, or
equally between both of them
▪ DVs: Perceptions of each actor’s causal role in the
discussion (i.e., who was more influential?)

Dual process model of attributions: anxious
woman study (Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988)

iV1: told woman in video discussing anxious vs.
relaxing topic
▪ IV2: put under cognitive load or not
▪ DV: ratings of how anxious of a person the woman is

Correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965

Behavior is seen as corresponding to one’s personality
(i.e., a dispositional attribution) if freely chosen,
inconsistent with social role, and socially undesirable

Kelley’s covariation principle

Dispositional vs. situational attribution depends on
consensus, distinctiveness, & consistency

Dual process model of Attributions

automatic first step of dispositional/internal attribution

effortful second step of taking situatopn into account (external attributions)