PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Social Proof, Cognitive Dissonance, Fundamental Attribution Error

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: Jackie Carnegie

Document Summary

To answer this, we can study emoions, cogniion, reinforcers, etc. Personality psychologists could study traits that might make one more likely than another to speak, and. Social psychologists might examine aspects of the classroom situaion that would inluence any student"s decision about speaking. Atribuion - a conclusion about the cause of an observed behaviour/event. Atribuion theory - we explain others behaviour with two types of atribuions: Situaional - factors outside the person doing the acion, such as peer pressure. Disposiional - the person"s stable, enduring traits, personality, ability, emoions. Williams college study - a woman was paid and told to act friendly to some students, unfriendly to others. The students felt that her behaviour was part of a disposiion, even when they were told that she was just obeying instrucions. When we explain our own behaviour, we partly reverse the fundamental atribuion error: we tend to blame the situaion for our failures.