COM 225 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Fundamental Attribution Error, Uncertainty Reduction Theory
Document Summary
To achieve competent communication and healthy relationships: recognize perceptual limitations, strive to correct perceptual errors, consider others" viewpoints, cognitively efficiently, bucket people quickly, but you"re often wrong. Interpretation assigning meaning to the information we encounter: we do it to explain why things are happening as they are, to make sense of what we"re expecting. Attributions rationales we create to explain the comments or behaviors of others: types of attributions: Internal they did that because they are nice. External they did that because they were in a hurry. Fundamental attribution error: attribute others" behavior to internal causes, most prevalent of all perceptual biases. Actor-observer effect: attribute own behavior to external causes. Self-serving bias: tendency to make internal attributions for our success. Uncertainty reduction theory: reduce uncertainty by gathering enough information so others" communication behavior becomes predictable & explainable. Culture an established, coherent set of beliefs, attitudes values and practices shared by a large group of people.
