PSYC 215 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Explanatory Style, Ween, Trait Theory
2 Dec 2018
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People make cause attributions because they need to draw inferences about others and themselves in order to make predictions about future behavior. Attribution theory: a set of concepts explaining how people assign causes to the events around them and the effects of people"s causal assessments: from acts to dispositions: inferring the causes of behavior. Causal attribution: linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behavior. 1. 1 the pervasiveness and importance of causal attribution. Attributions are a constant part of mental life. E. g. someone bails on you bc they have a cold --> you make attributions. Entirely different set of emotional reactions when knowing they bailed on you bc they were really sick vs bailed bc you"re ugly. Explanatory style: a person"s habitual way of explaining events, typically assessed along three dimensions: internal/external stable/unstable global/specific. Was linked to long-term academic performance by researchers.
