Attribution Theory, Correspondence Theory - Notes | PSY, Study notes of Psychology

Download Attribution Theory, Correspondence Theory - Notes | PSY and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Social Psychology Module Two  Perceiving Others: To understand and explain other individuals, you need to know something about their disposition (how a person typically is) o Attributions: an explanation of others’ behaviors (why did the person act that way)  Attribution Theory: The process by which to explain other peoples’ behavior (Heider, 1958); behaviorism was losing influence (conditioning); not an either / or proposition, but which of the two attributions are more important in the situation; given a choice, we would prefer to make personal attributions because we like to think that we KNOW other people  Personal (Dispositional, Internal) Attributions: Those attributions that we attribute to internal causes of the person who engaged in the behavior (how they feel about themselves, their personality, how they relate to other people, their abilities)  Situational (External) Attributions: The reason for the person’s behavior is a function of the situation (How others treat you, environment, OTHER PEOPLE)  Weiner (1972): Stability & Instability (consistent or inconsistent behavior); A student tells the professor that he stinks, why?  Internal & Stable: Student is always a rude person  Internal & Unstable: Student doesn’t feel well today  External & Stable: He actually does stink  External & Unstable: It is hot and humid out  Covariation Principle of Attribution Theory (Kelley, 1967): Obtaining multiple observations of behavior from the same person; for something to be the cause of the behavior, it must consistently be present when the behavior occurs and consistently not present when the behavior does not occur; cause Is present, behavior is present; cause is absent, behavior is absent; Questions about behavior:  Consistency: Does the person behave the same way, when always presented with the same stimulus? (“No” = low consistency; circumstantial attribution) (“Yes” = high consistency; don’t know the type of attribution yet)  Distinctiveness: Does the person behave the same way when presented with a similar stimulus? (“No” = high distinctiveness; situational attribution) (“Yes” = low distinctiveness; personal attribution)  Consensus: Do other people behave the same way in response to the same stimulus? (“Yes” = high consensus; situational attribution) (“No” = low consensus; personal attribution) Hi hi low or hi low low 9/11/09 Correspondence theory  Correspondence inference theory: (Jones & Davis, 1965) How we make dispositional attributions based upon one observation. Under what conditions does a person’s behavior correspond with their disposition? - Single instance of behavior - Dispositional Attributions - Correspondence inference Behavior Correspondent Inference Non Correspondent Dick acts passionately Dick is a passionate person Dick just took Viagra Waiter spills coffee Waiter is a spaz Someone knocked into the waiter - Prefer to make dispositional attributions - Situational attributions are merely defaults  Discounting principle: People have a tendency to discount the extent/degree to which a behavior is caused by a dispositional factor when there is an obvious situational factor present.  Non-correspondent inference: Behavior exhibited does not correspond to the person’s disposition. We say the behavior is “non-diagnostic behavior” – it tells us nothing about the person. - When someone is quiet and reserved at a funeral. Everyone is quiet and reserved; it tells us nothing about her as a person.  Augmenting principle: More likely to make a corresponding inference, if the person’s behaviors are incongruent with norms. (Marti Gra: If someone is being quiet while everyone is running around showing their boobs)  Problems: You can be wrong!  Concern for confidence  Rules of thumb that will increase our confidence when generating attributions - Freedom of choice: When we know a behavior is freely chosen we are more likely to make a corresponding inference. o John: +7.5 o Yoko: + 9.0 o Assumed each trait has an equal weight  Information integration theory: Averaging elemental model. Holistic models (Asch)  Trained as Gestalt psychologist. He will say the attributes are dependent of one another. Meaning changes according to context in which it is discovered. He will tell you your overall impression is greater than the sum of the attributes.  Example: Friend 1 is honest and ambitious. Friend 2 is dishonest and ambitious. The meaning of an attribute depends on the context of the word.  Person A: o Skillful, industrious, warm, determined, practical, and cautious o Overall Impression: Good person  Person B: o Intelligent, skillful, industrious, cold, determined, practical, and cautious o Overall impression: Introverted, Self Kept, etc.  Central traits: Traits that infer the presence of a lot of other traits. o Traits interdependent of one another. (ex: warm and cold) o Weighted more heavily  Peripheral traits: Traits that do not infer the presence of other traits o Weighted less heavily  Weighted averaging model: Reconciliation of an averaging elemental model and Ascher’s holistic model. Biases in Impression Formation: Perception of people is defined by our pre-existing notion that certain attributes go together. (We think if someone is warm they are also kind)  Implicit personality theory: Associative network about the assumptions we make, regarding the relationship between various traits and attributes. - Principle of evaluative consistency: Our tendency to view others in a way that is internally consistent. -Prevents us from associating someone who is Kind, Warm, and Thoughtful to a Serial Killer - Dealing with inconsistent information: We discover someone who is peaceful and confrontational. Trait Pair Resolving Device “Brilliant & Foolish” Segregation (apply to separate parts of the person’s life) “Sociable & Lonely” Depth Dimension (an outer trait compensates for an inner trait) “Cheerful & Gloomy” Common Source ( Both arise from a common trait- maybe this person is extremely emotional)  Person A: Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious - Selfish, Stingy, Bossy, Big Headed, Judgmental, Self Centered - “He puts his intelligence to work”  Person B: Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, intelligent - Wreck less, Mean - “Bound to be restricted by jealousy and stubbornness”  Power of first impressions - Primacy effect: Information you encounter first is information that is more strongly stored and easier to recall  Person positivity bias: “Pollyanna effect” In all probability, you will give them the benefit of the doubt. You will initially form a favorable impression.  Affect Congruency Bias: We tend to make judgments in a way that is congruent with our affective state. (If we are in a “positive mood” and asked to judge a person, we judge them positively. - Positively rating your teacher even after a bad experience - Confirmation bias: the tendency to seek, interpret, and create information about someone in such a way that it verifies our existing beliefs or initial impressions of someone; this leads us to make mistakes about individuals - Belief perseverance: once we make an initial impression about someone, we tend to retain that impression, even when presented with contradictory information; this is very difficult to change  Bahbad: 200 students, given essay, told to grade it. ½ told good student, ½ told bad student; then told them she lied and it was an average student and they still do not change their grade  Classroom Ecology: studies about the distribution of grades and where you sit in the class (front rows = good grades; bad rows = bad grades); the teacher’s belief about the students will affect them Self-fulfilling prophecy: if an observer has an initial impression or expectation of an actor, then it’s possible that eventually the actor will behave in a way that is congruent with the observer’s impression; won’t work if the actor is motivated to prove the observer wrong or if observer is motivated to find the truth  Rosenthol & Jacobson: “Pygmalion in the Classroom” 1. Perceiver forms expectations about the target 2. Perceiver acts toward the target based on expectations 3. Target interprets the perceiver’s actions and responds so that his or her behavior is consistent with perceiver’s expectations Detecting lies: we need to pay attention to the transmission of expressions  Intentionally transmitted: things you control  Unintentionally transmitted: things you can’t control; “Leaky Behaviors” ; non-verbal leakage is not all weighted the same (facial expressions, body language & posture; don’t have a lot of leakage to them)  Micro expressions: fleeting changes in facial expression that occur in less than a tenth of a second  Interchannel discrepancies: channel = non-verbal behavior; find inconsistencies (maintaining eye contact but is turned away from you); moderate amount of leakage  Paralinguistic expressions: most leakage; not about what you say, but how you say it (pitch goes up, a lot of pauses in speech, grammatical errors)