PSY 1102 Lecture : Social Psychology.docx

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: Christine Mountney

Document Summary

Social psychology scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. Social thinking involves thinking about others, especially when they engage in doing things that are unexpected. Attribution theory: fritz heider (1958) suggested that we have a tendency to give causal explanations for someone"s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person"s disposition. A teacher may wonder whether a child"s hostility reflects an aggressive personality (dispositional attribution) or is a reaction to stress or abuse (a situational attribution). So, if joe is a quiet, shy, and introverted child, he is likely to be like that in a number of situations. The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors of others leads to the fundamental attribution error. We see joe as quiet, shy, and introverted most of the time, but with friends he is very talkative, loud, and extroverted.