PSY BEH 11C Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Stereotype Threat, Cognitive Dissonance, Pluralistic Ignorance
29 May 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
How we understand someone"s behavior depends on the attribution we choose for the behavior. Situational attributions involve factors external to the person we are observing; dispositional attributions focus on factors internal to the person. People in collectivistic cultures emphasize the ways in which people are interdependent and tend to make situational attributions. People in individualistic cultures view themselves and others as independent and tend to make dispositional attributions; this tendency is so powerful that it is referred to as thefundamental attribution error. We rely on implicit theories of personality when we think about or remember other individuals. These theories help us understand the situations we encounter but also leave us vulnerable to error. These errors are obvious when we rely on socialstereotypes, which are transmitted to each generation both explicitly and implicitly. By priming a person"s stereotype, the person"s behavior can be influenced in an unconscious and automatic fashion.
