PSY 005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Fundamental Attribution Error, Victim Blaming, Attribution Bias

• School: College of The Sequoias
• Department: Psychology (PSY)
• Course: PSY 005
• Professor: Fulmer

Document Summary

Blaming the victim: a consequence of the fundamental attribution error. Even if people are made aware of the situational factors responsible for the plight of disadvantaged members of our society (ex. inadequate nutrition, disrupted family life), they may still see these individuals as responsible for their misfortune. Another situation like this is when people decide that victims could have exercised control over a situation but didn"t. Study don"t at university of windsor and university of manitoba. Showed that people who attribute serious illnesses to controllable factors are likely to blame victims for their illness. Ex. caregivers more likely to blame a lung cancer patient if they continued to smoke. Other research has shown that people are more prejudiced toward overweight people if they are seen as personally responsible for being fat. The role of perceptual salience in the fundamental attribution error.