Ch. 4 Social Perception

attribution

how people explain the causes of behavior

Fritz Heider

founder of attribution theory, the study of how we infer the causes of other people’s behavior

internal attribution

behavior is a result of an internal (personal) characteristic

external attribution

behavior is a result of an external (situational) factor

naive/common sense psychology

people are like amateur scientists, trying to understand people’s behavior

Harold Kelley

thought that we were missing the fact that we may have other information about a person when making attributions

Covariation model

to form attributions about behavior, we not the pattern between when the behavior occurs and the presence of possible causal factors. we use data about how a person’s behavior “covaries” or changes across time, place, and target of behavior

Consistency (Covariation Model)

frequency with which the observed behavior between the same person and stimulus occurs across time and circumstance - does the person usually behave like this in this situation? Ex: Is the behavior towards Hannah consistent/frequent in any context?

high frequency/consistency: may be the situation/person that causes this behavior

low frequency/consistency: no perceived pattern, typically external attribution is affecting the way they behave

Consensus (Covariation Model)

how people behave towards the same stimulus - do other people behave that way in that situation?

high consensus: most ppl behave like this

low consensus: not many ppl behave like this

Distinctiveness (Covariation Model)

How a person responds to other stimuli - does the person’s behavior occur only in this situation? Is Hannah the only one who causes this behavior?

yes: high distinctiveness, they don’t behave like this in other situations

no: low distinctiveness, they behave like this in other situations

minimal data

internal attribution

high consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness

covariation model conditions for external attributions

high consistency, low consensus and distinctiveness

covariation model conditions for internal attributions

Fundamental Attribution Error (Correspondence Bias)

tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people’s behavior results from internal, dispositional factors and underestimate the role of external, situational factors

Jones & Harris

IV: readers told that the writers chose their position vs were assigned their position on Castro

DV: readers estimate of the writer’s true attitude on Castro

Results: participants assumed student writers really believed in their stance regardless of condition (overlooking the situation), jumping to conclusion about internal explanations

Two-Step Attribution Process

1. Characterization: we make automatic internal attribution and assume that behavior was due to something about the person

2. Correction: we attempt to adjust our attribution by considering situational factors (although we don’t/can’t always engage in correction due to cognitive load or distraction)

Step 1 is quick and spontaneous but step 2 requires effort and conscious thinking, only activated if we consciously slow down or are suspicious about target behavior

Perceptual Salience

seeming importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention, why we tend to make internal attributions and what we focus on while making them

Taylor & Fiske

Observing a conversation between 2 males

Constant: 2 ppl sit seeing both males

IV: 2 ppl sit behind male A, 2 ppl sit behind male B (manipulating which conversationalist was visually salient - the one the listeners could see better)

DV: who the 2 ppl thought led the conversation

Results: ppl thought the person who they were able to see (the one who was visually salient) was the one leading the conversation, ppl who could see both thought it was equal

Implications: explains why fundamental attribution error is so widespread, we focus attention more on the person than on the surrounding situation

Self-serving attributions

people’s tendency to take credit for their successes by making internal attributions but to blame the situation (or others) by making external attributions, used to maintain self-esteem

belief in a just world

assumption that people will get what they deserve/deserve what they get

bias blind spot

tendency to think that others are more susceptible to attributional biases than we are

Eastern culture

ppl think more like social psychologists, considering situational cause of behavior, credit success to team/society/supporters and make self-critical attributions for failure

Western culture

prompt pp to think more like personality psychologists, view behavior dispositionally, make internal attributions for success and external for failure