PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Stanford Prison Experiment, Fundamental Attribution Error, Solomon Asch

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Penelope Kostopoulos

Document Summary

Social psychology: study of how people in uence others" behaviours beliefs, and attitudes. Process by which individuals explain the causes of behaviours and events. When we try to gure out why people, ourselves included, did something, we"re forming attributions, or assigning causes to behaviours. There are internal attribution (inside the person) and external attribution (outside the person). Yet, if the eld of social psychology imparts one lesson that we should carry with us for the rest of our lives, it"s the fundamental attribution error. By dispositional in uences, we mean enduring characteristics, such as personality traits, attitudes, and intelligence. Because of this error, we attribute too much of people"s behaviour to who they are. We also tend to underestimate the impact of situational in uences on others" behaviour. Fundamental attribution error: tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional in uences on other people"s behaviour. A prevalent misconception is that attitudes are good predictors of behaviour.