Mod 6 Fundamental Attribution Error

UW Whitewater's SOC 355 Social Psychology Myers & Twenge's Exploring Social Psychology

fundamental attribution error

The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. (AKA the correspondence bias). (Lee Ross, 1977)

T or F: When referring to someone else, we more often describe what that person is ("He is nasty").

True (Fiedler et al, 1991)

T or F: Research on Williams College students in 1979 did not support the fundamental attribution error.

False. It did. Students interacted with either a graduate student who was instructed to be spontaneous (cond 1), friendly (cond. 2) or unfriendly (cond 3). Results were consistent with the FAE. Students who had a friendly grad student felt she was probably friendly anyway, and vice versa (Napolitan and Goethals, 1979)

T or F: When our action feels intentional and admirable, we attribute it to our own good reasons, not the situation.

True (Bertram Malle, 2006)

T or F: When we behave badly we are more likely to attribute our behavior to the situation.

True (Bertram Malle, 2006).

T or F: Viewing a videotape focused only on a suspect confessing during a police interview, they are perceived as coerced.

False. Those focused on the suspect are perceived as genuine, but if focused on the detective, the confession is perceived more as coerced (Lassiter et al, 2005, 2007)

A ____________ worldview predisposes people to assume that people, not situations, cause events.

Western (Jellison & Green, 1981)

dispositional attribution

Ascribing behavior to the person's disposition and traits.

situational attribution

Attributing behavior to the situation.