Attribution & Social Perception

• Attribution: The process of explaining the causes of people’s behavior (including our own).

• Attribution Theory: A theory that describes how people explain the causes of behavior, attributing it to either internal dispositions or external situations.

Example: if a student fails an exam, they might attribute it to their lack of preparation (internal) or the difficulty of the exam (external).

• Actor-Observer Bias: The tendency to attribute our own actions to external factors but others’ actions to internal traits.

Example: As you are walking down the street, you trip and fall. You immediately blame the slippery pavement, an external cause. However, if you saw a random stranger trip and fall, you would probably attribute this to an internal factor, such as clumsiness or inattentiveness.

• Fundamental Attribution Error: The tendency to overestimate the influence of personal traits and underestimate situational factors when evaluating others.

Example: if a colleague is late, we might assume they're lazy, but if we're late, we might blame traffic.

• Situational Cause: Behavior attributed to external factors like the environment or circumstances.
  
  

• Dispositional Cause: Behavior attributed to internal traits like personality or character.
  
  

• Stereotype: A generalized belief or assumption about a group of people.
  
  

• Prejudice: A negative attitude or feeling toward an individual based on their group membership.
  
  

• Discrimination: Negative or unfair behavior toward individuals based on their group membership.
  
  

• In-group / Out-group: An in-group is the group you identify with; the out-group is everyone else. People tend to favor the in-group.
  
  

• Just World Phenomenon: The belief that the world is fair and people get what they deserve.
  
  

• Scapegoat Theory: Blaming an innocent group/person for one’s own problems or societal issues.
  
  

• Social Comparison: Evaluating oneself by comparing with others.
  
  

• Explicit vs Implicit Prejudice:
  
  

  • Explicit prejudice: Conscious, deliberate negative attitudes.
    Ex) a teacher might openly claim that students from a certain ethnic background are exceptionally good in math

Implicit prejudice: Unconscious, automatic negative attitudes.
Ex) when most people hear the word “kindergarten teacher,” they are more likely to picture a female