Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Fundamental Attribution Error, Confirmation Bias

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

Document Summary

Stereotypes widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group. Some examples include ethnicity, race, gender, religion (not include intelligence) Also based on physical appearance (e. g. , what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype) For example, attractive people are perceived more favorably justified. Stereotype is automatically triggered even in those who are not prejudiced. But if people can respond in a open manner and friendly way to those who are different, perhaps the positive behavior will lead to reduce in automatic biases. Reason : cognitive functionality, confirmation bias, self-fulfilling prophecy. The fundamental attribution error the tendency to explain other people" s behavior as the result of personal, rather than situational, factors. They are poor because they are lazy. , they are poor because they are stupid. Making attributions requires two steps: occurring spontaneously, observers make an internal attribution. They focus on individual not situation. (normally we stop after this step 1)