PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Fundamental Attribution Error, Dispositional Attribution, Confirmation Bias
Document Summary
Take a moment and imagine a person named michael, and then list five traits that you think michael possesses. Next, take a moment and imagine a person named vladamir. We make these snap judgments about other people all the time - there is no escaping it. As human beings we are bombarded with thousands upon thousands of pieces of stimuli every minute of our lives. And it is safe to say that we cannot possibly be attuned to it all. Of course, this ability has its drawbacks as well. If we are not considering all the evidence, then our explanations and judgments are less than perfect, and may actually be seriously flawed. If we resort to shortcuts in thinking (which social psychologists call heuristics) to assess the situation or others quickly, then there are going to be times in which our shortcuts will lead us astray.
