Attribution Basics
The process of explaining someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition.
What is attribution theory?
The tendency to overestimate personality and underestimate situations hwen explaining others' behavior
What is the Fundamental Attribution Error?
Mental categories we use to quickly judge others
What is schema?
Classic experiment on obedience. Found that most people are willing to follow an authority figure
The Milgram Experiment
Attributing behavior to internal characteristics
What is dispositional attribution?
Attributing success to yourself but blaming failures on external factors.
What is the self-serving bias?
The tendency to let one positive trait influence overall judgement of a person (they are pretty, so they must also be kind)
Hale effect
Experiment on roles and behaviors conducted by Phillip Zimbardo. Had to be called off early because it was out of control.
Stanford Prison Experiment
Attributing behavior to external circumstances
What is situational attribution?
What is the false consensus effect?
Judging someone based on a group perception rather than individual traits
Stereotyping
Experiment on conformity where the only true participant was the one who answered last in the group. Showed that most often people will conform to a group standard.
Asch Line Experiment
We tend to attribute the behavior of others to their character, but attribute our behavior to the circumstance
What is the Actor-Observer Bias?
The tendency to believe that the world is fair and people get what they deserve
We percieve those like us as better and all those outside our group as being the same (there are 2 concepts here)
In-Group Bias & Outgroup Homogenity
How the participants were selected for the Milgram Experiment
The difference between prejudice and discrimination
Prejudice is an interal way of thinking/feeling, discimination is an external action based on prejudice.
There is a quiet student in class. You do not interract with them much because you assume they are unfriendly. Which concept applies?
The Fundamental Attribution Error
We are more easily able to distinguish between faces of our same race than those of other races.
Other Race Effect
What percentage of people were willing to go to the max shock level in Milgram's experiment?
60%