PSYC 3325 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Fundamental Attribution Error
Document Summary
The tendency to use personal attribution to explain other"s behavior. Ex: i cut you off in traffic because i was late for school. But if you do it, it"s because you"re a jerk. Using personal attributions to explain our good" behaviors and situational attributions to explain our bad" behaviors: ex: if you do well on a test, you say its because you"re smart. If you do bad, and you"ll say because the teacher gave a hard test. Why do we do this: it protects our self esteem, don"t have to feel responsible for negative outcomes. Depressed individuals tend to take responsibility for positive and negative outcomes: ex of negative: i did bad on the test because i"m not smart. Need to believe that the world is a fair place. Causes a greater tendency to blame victims/survivors of a crime for what happened to them. Three common heuristics used in social judgements: representativeness heuristic.
