PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Fundamental Attribution Error, Cognitive Dissonance, Normative Social Influence

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: N/ A

Document Summary

Social psychology is the way we think, feel, and relate in a social situation: social thinking, attributions. The actual explanation we offer for behaviour. Possibilities: dispositional, situational, interaction between the disposition and the situation. The fundamental attribution error: tendency to focus on dispositional factors and disregard situational factors. Effects of attributions: attitudes and actions. Definition: a learned tendency to evaluate a person, situation, object, animal in a specific way; can be negative or positive; can have a cognitive, emotional, and/or behavioural component to them. Attitudes can be a poor predictor of behaviour. Just because someone has an attitude, it does not necessarily translate into a behaviour. Our attitudes guide our actions when: attitudes are very extreme, and super aware of them, outside influence is minimum, personally want to gain or lose something, the attitude is specifically relevant to the behaviour. To value a healthy lifestyle doesn"t necessarily mean to run on a treadmill but valuing exercise will.