Psychology 1000 Chapter 13: Chapter 13; Social Processes

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000

Document Summary

We hold countless attitudes and beliefs, wonder about why people act as they do, and develop impressions of people. In everyday life, we often make attributions, judgments about the causes of our own and other people"s behaviour and outcomes. Attributions influence our subsequent behaviour and emotions. Fritz heider, a pioneer of attribution theory, maintained that our attempts to understand why people behave as they do typically involve either personal attributions or situational attributions. Personal (internal) attributions infer that people"s behaviour is caused by their characteristics: bill insulted carl because bill is a rude person; Situational (external) attributions infer that aspects of the situation cause a behaviour: bill was provoked into insulting carl. Three types of information determine the attribution we make: consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus. Social psychology teaches us that the immediate social environment profoundly influences behaviour. The fundamental attribution error applies to how we perceive other people"s behaviour rather than our own.