Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Fritz Heider, Dispositional Attribution, Burning House
15 Dec 2013
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Document Summary
Different causal explanations (attributions) cause different perceptions on it. Part 1: attribution theory: perceiving the causes of behaviour: fritz heider (1944): perceiving stability in an unstable world. Heider"s insights: we perceive stability by making attributions. Person attributions: aka dispositional ; internal attributions: reflect stable properties of people. Environment attributions: situational ; external attributions: reflect stable properties of environments, we have a need to perceive stability. Gives us a sense of understanding, prediction, and control. A ball will stay stable as a ball because it is round. Was this intended: correspondent inference theory: (jones & davis: from acts to dispositions, a two-step process (not same as p. 216) If no behaviour is perceived as unintended (can"t infer anything about a person"s dispositions) If yes , behaviour is perceived as intended, proceed to step 2. Step 2: make a dispositional attribution (or correspondent inference ):
