PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Fundamental Attribution Error, Fidel Castro, American Kids
Document Summary
Week 3 social judgment and social cognition. What are causal attributions: reasons, explanations for an outcome, what we psychologically come up with as a reason/attribution. What is attribution theory: analysis of how people explain behaviour, researchers trying to explain how people explain things. Why do people make causal attributions: predict, control (of social environment), and learn about lasting traits. Thomas) attributions do matter no matter if they are correct or not. Internal attributions: something about the person is the cause, such as an attitude, a preference, or a personality trait. External attributions: something about the situation is the cause. Most people would react in the same way in those circumstances. Inference (in this context) means the same thing as attribution: sometimes things just happen, there is no reason for it ^ Determining factors (when will they do this: free choice: