Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Explanatory Style, Impact Bias, Learned Helplessness

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Alvin Segal

Document Summary

Explain how optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles are related to adjustment. Explanatory style tendency to use similar causal attributions for a wide variety of events in one"s life. People who use an optimistic explanatory style attribute setbacks to external, unstable, and specific factors. People who use a pessimistic explanatory style attribute setbacks to internal, stable, and global factors. Foster passive behavior and more vulnerable to learned helplessness and depression. Self-understanding: identify two motives that guide self-understanding. Self-assessment desire for truthful information about oneself (not everyone has) Dunning-krueger effect : self-distorting bias occur when we fail to recognize our lack of skill in a given domain when we not recognize the genuine skill of others and how inadequate we are. Because of impact bias when people misjudge the eventual intensity and duration of their emotional response to future events. Also focalism when people overestimate the emotional impact of a single event.