Chapter 5 Introduction to Attributions Things happen Cars break down people fail exams sports teams win and lose people fall in love marriages end in divorce people lose their jobs loved ones die people fight in the streets people kill others in war ethnic groups try to eliminate ot ID: 217449
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Slide1
Attributions
Chapter 5Slide2
Introduction to Attributions
Things happen…
Cars break down, people fail exams, sports teams win and lose, people fall in love, marriages end in divorce, people lose their jobs, loved ones die, people fight in the streets, people kill others in war, ethnic groups try to eliminate other groups
Most people, most of the time, do not accept that the world we live in is random, unpredictable, and unreliable
For most people, most of the time, things happen for a reason
Events are
caused
by something…
For life to be orderly and predictable, people attribute causes and explanations to events and try to understand why people behave the way they do
The ways in which people do this, the reasons why they attribute, how they attribute, the conditions under which they do and don’t attribute, all constitute the subject matter of
attribution theory Slide3
Introduction to Attributions
Like chapter 4 on attitudes, we will review the study of attributions from 3 perspectives
Social cognition, social identity, and social representations
As with most social psychological topics, the study of attributions has largely been dominated by the social cognitive tradition
Which reflects the mainstream view of how people attribute causes to everyday events and behavior
But, the other approaches have attempted to provide a more social and contextual account of attributing causality in everyday life Slide4
Social Cognition and Attributions
Attribution theory dominated social psychology during the 1970s and 1980s and in that time a massive body of research was generated
During the 1970s over 900 attribution studies had been published
By 1994 it was estimated that this number had quadrupled (3,600… wow)
Today a search for attribution studies turns up 27,700 articles
More recently, research on causal attributions has slowed down
Although much of this tradition has come to be subsumed under the field of “ordinary
personology
”
Ordinary
personology
– the processes by which ordinary people come to understand others by inferring their temporary states and feelings and other stable enduring traits and characteristics
However, this focus on understanding others shares many of the central concerns of the attribution theory Slide5
Social Cognition and Attributions
Despite the enormous attention devoted to the study of attribution, social psychology has failed to develop a single, unifying, integrating theory of attribution
Rather, there are several “mini-theories” of attributional processes
Historically, 3 of these are considered central
Heider’s
(1958) Naïve Psychology
Jones and Davis’ (1965) Corresponding Inference Theory
Kelley’s (1967) Covariation Model
These mini-theories are not seen as competing with each other or describing the same phenomena
Rather, these mini-theories are seen as complementing one another
They could be integrated into a single over-arching theory, but this has yet to be done Slide6
Social Cognition and Attributions:
Heider’s
(1958) Naïve Psychology
Fritz
Heider
was an Austrian Jew who fled to the United States during WWII
His most important work is his 1958 book
The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations
Set the stage for most of the work on attributions that followed
Described a “common sense psychology or a naïve psychology of action”
This common sense psychology views people as naïve scientists (remember from chapter 2?)
People in an intuitive way, or in a common-sense way, infer or deduce the causes of events around them
They naturally view the world as sets of cause and effect relations, even when there is no causal relationship at allSlide7
Social Cognition and Attributions:
Heider’s
(1958) Naïve Psychology
The arrangement of objects and events into cause and effect relations constitutes a
causal system
in our cognitive structure
The question of which objects and events will be seen as cause and which will be seen as effect is crucial
It almost defines the attributional process
Heider
claimed that we tend to perceive a cause and its effect as a perceptual unit
Some objects and events combine more easily than others to form a causal unit
Especially when the object or cause is a human actor and the event or effect is a social behavior Slide8
Social Cognition and Attributions:
Heider’s
(1958) Naïve Psychology
Two prime determinants of “unit perception” are
similarity
and
proximity
In our causal systems, two events are more likely to be seen as causally related if they are proximal rather than distal
Temporal proximity
(being close in time) is especially potent in influencing causality
Greater similarity between two events makes them more likely to be perceived as a causal unit than dissimilar events
Two more important principles of causal inference
People tend to attribute behavior to a single cause rather than to multiple causes
Causes of behavior can be thought of as residing either within the actor or outside the actor somewhere in the situation
Dispositional causes
– causes within the actor
Ex. Personality characteristics, motivation, ability, and effort
Situational causes
– causes outside the actor
Ex. Social context and role obligations
According to
Heider
, the
more
one of these causes is favored as an explanation of a particular behavior, the
less
likely the other will also be used
Heider
also noticed that people tend to emphasize dispositional or internal causes and tend to overlook situational causes when explaining behavior
Which has become known as the “fundamental attribution error”Slide9
Social Cognition and Attributions: Jones & Davis (1965) Correspondent Inference Theory
Edward Jones and Keith Davis’ theory of correspondent inferences (1965)
First systematic theory of
Heider’s
earlier ideas
The basic premise is that, under certain conditions, people tend to
infer
that people’s actions
correspond
to their intentions and dispositions
That is, people like to infer that a person’s behavior matches an underlying stable quality in the person
Ex.
Correspondent inference
would be to attribute someone’s aggressive behavior to an internal stable trait, such as “aggressiveness”
Jones and Davis argued that such inferences are motivated by our need to view people’s behavior as intentional and predictable, reflecting their underlying character
This in turn, enhances our sense of being able to predict and control other people’s behavior and thus our social interactions more generally Slide10
Social Cognition and Attributions: Jones & Davis (1965) Correspondent Inference Theory
In everyday life, however, making such correspondent inferences may not be straightforward
The information needed to make such inferences may be ambiguous, requiring us to draw upon cues that are maximally informative
i.e. that reduce uncertainty about the causes of those behaviors
Jones and Davis outline 3 major factors affecting the process of making correspondent inferences:
The social desirability of the behavior
A person’s choice in the behavior
The motivational variables of hedonic relevance and
personalism
We will discuss each of these factors in more detail Slide11
Social Cognition and Attributions: Jones & Davis (1965) Correspondent Inference Theory
Behaviors judged to be
socially desirable
are less informative
than behaviors judged to be socially undesirable
When a behavior is socially desirable in the context in which it occurs, it is normal or expected
Observing such behavior is not informative to the perceiver because there are several alternative, equally probable, reasons why the behavior occurred
Maybe because the actor is intrinsically a good person, chronically prone to commit socially desirable behaviors (dispositional attribution)
But, the behavior may also have occurred because it was expected; it was the right thing to do (situational or external attribution)
Either explanation is equally likely
The behavior is uninformative because it does not help the perceiver decide between the two competing explanations of the good, desirable, expected, normative behavior Slide12
Social Cognition and Attributions: Jones & Davis (1965) Correspondent Inference Theory
This is not the case for socially undesirable behavior
These behaviors are counter-normative; they are not what is expected
For this reason they are more informative than socially desirable behavior
For socially desirable behaviors, dispositional and situational explanations are equally likely
For socially undesirable behaviors, the situational explanation is eliminated (because the behavior is not expected); therefore, it is less likely than the dispositional explanation
Thus, the perceiver, the intuitive scientist, has data that reduce uncertainty, which helps in deciding between competing explanations
Undesirable behaviors are more informative than desirable behaviors, and allow the perceiver to make a dispositional attribution about the actor with more confidence
The attribution about the actor’s disposition is likely to be as negative as the observed behavior Slide13
Social Cognition and Attributions: Jones & Davis (1965) Correspondent Inference Theory
The second important factor in determining correspondent inferences is
whether the actor freely chose the behavior
:
the principle of non-common effects
This principle applies particularly when an actor has, or at least is perceived to have, free choice in action between several behavioral alternatives
Again, this principle works because when someone is believed to have freely chosen this behavior it is informative
It reduces uncertainty by implicitly favoring one explanation for the behavior over other, competing explanations Slide14
Social Cognition and Attributions: Jones & Davis (1965) Correspondent Inference Theory
The desirability of outcomes and the principle of non-common effects are both
cognitive
factors influencing the attributional process
The third factor is
motivational
Includes 2 related constructs:
hedonic relevance
and
personalism
An action is said to be
hedonically relevant
for a perceiver if the consequences of the action affect the perceiver
The welfare of the perceiver is either harmed or benefited by the action
Personalistic
actions are a subset of hedonically relevant actions, and are characterized by the
intention
of an actor for the action to have hedonic relevance for the perceiver
Does the perceiver think the actor is intentionally trying to affect his/her welfare
Actions that are perceived to be hedonically relevant or
personalistic
are more likely to produce a correspondent inference (the action matches some underlying trait in the actor) about the actor than are other actions Slide15
Social Cognition and Attributions: Kelley’s (1967) Covariation Model
The analogy between the professional scientist and the everyday perceiver, is emphasized in Kelley’s covariation model of attribution
The model rests on the
principle of covariation
Asserts that before two events can be accepted as causally linked they must covary with one another
If two events do not covary, they cannot be causally connected Slide16
Social Cognition and Attributions: Kelley’s (1967) Covariation Model
The principle of covariation was used by Kelley as an analogy for the way people infer causation in their everyday lives
Kelley suggested there are 3 factors crucial in assessing covariation
And that different combinations of positions of these 3 factors lead to different types of causal conclusions regarding the specific behavior in question
Consistency
,
distinctiveness
, and
consensus
The general context in which these 3 dimensions are applied is one where a perceiver attributes a cause to a person’s response to a particular stimulus as a particular time
Consistency
– whether that person responds in the same way to the same stimulus or similar stimuli at different times
Distinctiveness
– whether the actor acts in the same way to other, different stimuli, or whether the actor’s response distinguishes between different stimuli
Consensus
– is not a feature of the actor’s behavior, but of the behavior of others: is there consensus across actors in response to the same stimulus, or do people vary in response?Slide17
Social Cognition and Attributions: Kelley’s (1967) Covariation Model
According to the covariation model, perceivers will decide, almost in a dichotomous way:
That the actor acts either in the same way at different times (consistency is high) or in different ways (consistency is low)
That the actor either shows similar responses to different stimuli (distinctiveness is low) or acts this way only in response to this particular stimulus (distinctiveness is high)
That the actor either acts in the same way as most other people (consensus is high) or acts differently (consensus is low)
Different combinations of positions on the 3 dimensions lead to different attributions
An internal or dispositional attribution is most likely when consistency is high, distinctiveness is low, and consensus is low
An external or situational attribution is most likely when consistency is high, distinctiveness is high, and consensus is low
Other combinations lead to less clear attributions Slide18
Social Cognition and Attributions: Kelley’s (1967) Covariation Model
2 important factors were added to the covariation model by Kelley five years after his original formulation:
discounting
and
augmentation
An event can have many causes
It sometimes happens that several plausible causes co-occur
But some would be expected to augment the given effect, or make it more likely
And some would be expected to inhibit the given effect, or make it less likely
If the effect occurs even in the presence of inhibitory causes, the augmenting cause will be judged as stronger than if the augmenting cause and its effect had occurred without the inhibitory cause
Ex. If you have the opportunity to help an elderly lady get her shopping bags in her car but there are several inhibitory factors involved (ex. Its raining heavily and you are running late and in a hurry) but you have been raised to help the elderly (augmenting factor) and you end up helping the elderly lady, the augmenting factor will be seen as stronger
But if it wasn’t raining and you weren’t in a hurry, this factor may not be perceived to be as strong Slide19
Social Cognition and Attributions: Kelley’s (1967) Covariation Model
Kelley’s model has one requirement that is not included in either
Heider’s
model or Jones and Davis’ model
Perceivers use information across times, situations, and actors
Without this information it is not possible to make consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus judgments
In contrast, perceiver in the naïve scientist model or in the correspondent inference model makes causal attributions based on a single action performed by a single actor on a single instance
This is an important point when we try to evaluate how well the theory relates to everyday life
People don’t assign cause to an action as though they are unaware or ignorant of the likelihood that other people would perform the same action in response to the same stimulus, or the same person would repeat the behavior, or how that actor would perform in response to other stimuli
People do not consider each event as if it were new
On the other hand, people don’t engage in the complex mental calculations described by Kelley’s covariation model every time they assign a cause to an actionSlide20
Social Cognition and Attributions: Kelley’s (1967) Covariation Model
A resolution to this dilemma is offered by the concept of
causal schemas
Kelley’s concept can be taken to refer to a set of stored knowledge about the relations between causes and effects
We each acquire an implicit causal theory of events through our socialization
This implicit theory gives us ready-made attributional accounts of most events we encounter from one day to the next
It allows us to run on default most of the time, and we only have to devote attention to unusual, exceptional or important cases Slide21
Social Cognition and Attributions: Sum of the 3 Theories
All three of the theories just discussed view people as naïve scientists that systematically seek the causes of events
A consequence of this is that it views the human perceiver as rational, as going about the attributional process in a fairly systematic, logical fashion
However, we all know that people do not typically act in this way, not even scientists
It is reasonable to think of attribution theory as being prescriptive
It describes how attribution perhaps should be made
Empirical research has found that people do not make attributions in such a systematic and calculated way
Rather, social perceivers demonstrate persistent biases when attributing causality to events and behavior Slide22
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases
When an attribution deviates from the prescribed model, it is thought of as a biased attribution
Some attribution researchers refer to biases as
errors
This implies that researchers know the
true
causes of behavior
But, in all probability, they don’t
There are no validity benchmarks for assessing the authenticity of an attribution
It is better, then, to refer simply to attributional biases, rather than errors Slide23
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Fundamental Attribution Error
Original conception
[The
fundamental
attribution error] is the tendency for attributers to underestimate the impact of situational factors and to overestimate the role of dispositional factors in controlling behavior
More recently, Gilbert has referred to this phenomenon as the “correspondence bias”
The earliest empirical demonstration of the
fundamental attribution error (FAE)
was produced by Jones and Harris (1967)
Participants were shown to make correspondent inferences about an actor’s attitudes based on the actor’s statements about an issue
These inferences occurred even when the participants knew the actor had no choice in making the statementSlide24
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Fundamental Attribution Error
1
st
experiment (conducted in NORTH CAROLINA!!!)
Participants read a short essay on Castro’s Cuba and then indicated what they thought the essay writers true attitude was
Each participant only read one essay, but half of the essays were pro-Castro and the other half were anti-Castro
Manipulation 1
At the time, there were not many pro-Castro advocates in NC
Thus, the direction of the essay (pro- or anti-) constituted a manipulation of the probability of the behavior
Meaning that the pro-Castro essay was improbable and therefore more informative behavior
Manipulation 2
Participants were led to believe that the essay’s position had been either assigned (no choice, uninformative) or chosen by the writer (choice, informative)
After reading the 200-word essay participants answered questions about what they thought the essay writer’s
TRUE
attitude was towards Castro’s Cuba
And then indicated their own attitude Slide25
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Fundamental Attribution Error
If the
informativeness
of the behavior was the most important factor in determining whether or not a correspondent inference was made by the observer
Then such an inference should be most evident among those who read a pro-Castro essay written by someone who could have chosen to write an essay criticizing or defending Castro’s Cuba
Meaning that this condition should lead participants to believe the essay truly reflected the attitude of the essay writer
And should be least evident among those participants who read the anti-Castro essay written by someone who was instructed what to write
Meaning this condition should lead participants to believe the essay did not reflect the true attitude of the essay writer Slide26
The mean “attributed attitude scores,” the attitudes participants attributed to the essay writers
Range from 10 (anti-Castro) to 70 (pro-Castro)
There is indeed evidence that participants made correspondent inferences
The inferred attitude matched the essay direction
Inferences are stronger in the choice conditions than in the no-choice conditions
But, importantly for the FAE
Correspondent inferences are still evident in the no-choice condition
Even when participants were told that the essay writer was instructed to write either a pro- or and anti-Castro essay, they still infer that the essay writer has an attitude consistent with the views expressed in the essay
This is the FAE: attributers (participants in the experiment) have apparently underestimated the impact of situational factors and over estimated the role of dispositional factors in determining behavior
Mean attributed
attitude scores (and variances in parentheses), according to essay direction and degree of choice
Essay Direction
Choice Condition
Pro-Castro
Anti-Castro
Choice
59.62 (13.59)
17.38 (8.92)
No choice
44.10 (147.65)
22.87 (17.55)Slide27
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Fundamental Attribution Error
Further, in a second experiment
Demonstrated that emphasizing the choice manipulation did not diminish the attitude attribution effect
Even under no-choice conditions participants were correctly aware of the essay writer’s choice or lack of choiceSlide28
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Dispositional Attributions are Spontaneous & Automatic
Recent research has drawn upon the work on automaticity in social perception
Suggesting that making correspondent inferences is so pervasive that dispositional attributions are made spontaneously and without conscious awareness
In the view of social cognition
Dispositional attributions are the “default option”
Perceivers spontaneously attributed behavior to people’s traits because these attributions are fast and require little effort Slide29
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Dispositional Attributions are Spontaneous & Automatic
Quattrone
(1982) was the first to propose a sequential model of attribution
Once a behavior is identified, dispositional attributions are always made first, spontaneously and without conscious deliberation
But, these can be subsequently corrected by situational attributions if perceivers are motivated and have time to consider alternative explanations
Thus, trait attributions are easy and effortless, and situational attributions are corrections that require more effort and cognitive resources
Identification
Attribution
Automatic dispositional inference
Attribution
Effortful situational correctionSlide30
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Dispositional Attributions are Spontaneous & Automatic
A review by Trope and Gaunt (2003) concludes that situational attributions are more likely to be made if perceivers:
1) are made accountable for their inferences
2) are not cognitively busy or distracted by pursuing other goals; or
3) when situational attributions are made salient, accessible and relevant
But why should dispositional attributions be so effortless and less cognitively demanding than situational attributions?Slide31
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the FAE
Explanations of FAE tend to belong to one of two types
Explanations based on psychological or cognitive processes
Explanations which seek the origins of the bias in social, cultural, and ideological processes
Heider
was the first to suggest a cognitive explanation
Arguing that “behavior in particular has such salient properties it tends to engulf the total (
perceputal
) field”
Fiske and Taylor support this cognitive explanation
Describing situational factors that give rise to behavior, such as social context or situational pressures, are relatively less salient and unlikely to be noticed when compared with the dynamic behavior of the actor
Thus, the fundamental attribution error has primarily been explained by the dominance of the actor in the perceptual field Slide32
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the FAE
Another explanation is a motivational one
Emphasizes the degree to which attributions about a person give us a sense of predictive control of other people’s behavior
Jones and Davis (1965) stressed this aspect of correspondent inferences:
That such inferences are motivated by our need to view people’s behavior as intentional and reflecting their underlying personality traits
The main point being:
If we believed that people’s behavior was unstable and fluctuated according to the situations people are in, then this makes predicting their behavior and controlling our environment more difficult
Thus, dispositional attributions or correspondent inferences enhance our sense of prediction and control in everyday life
This is why we prefer themSlide33
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the FAE
Others have suggested that this bias toward dispositional attributions is not a universal law of cognitive functioning
But, rather, reflects the dominant ideology of individualism in European and American culture
The tendency to favor personal over situational causation was first noted by
Ichheiser
(1949)
Instead of viewing this phenomenon as an individual “error” or bias in cognitive judgment, he viewed it as an explanation grounded in American society’s collective and cultural consciousness
The dominant representation of the person in western liberal democracies is that of an important causative agent, over and above situational and contextual forces
The FAE, then, may not be a cognitive or perceptual bias alone
Rather, it may largely be a product of western, industrialized constructions of the “individual” as the source of behaviorSlide34
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of FAE
If attributions and explanations are grounded in cultural representations of the person
Then cross-cultural differences should be evident in the prevalence of person attributions
Indeed, this has been largely confirmed by studies comparing the prevalence of dispositional attributions in individualist as compared to collectivist cultures
The “person” does not seem to enjoy the same degree of perceptual dominance among non-western people living in
collectivist societies Slide35
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Actor-Observer Effect
“There is a pervasive tendency for actors to attribute their actions to situational requirements, whereas observers tend to attribute the same actions to stable personal dispositions.” (Jones &
Nisbett
, 1972, p. 80)
Heider
noted that actors and observers have different views of behavior, of the situation, and of the causes of behaviors in situations
“The person tends to attribute his own reactions to the object world, and those of another, when they differ from his own, to personal characteristics in [the other]” (1958, p. 157)
Think of how easy it is for us to explain our own socially undesirable behavior (e.g., being rude or impolite to a fast food worker) in terms of extenuating, stressful circumstances (we’re having a bad day)
But we are less sympathetic when others behave in this way (the teller at the bank was rude to you), and attribute the behavior to the person’s character (the teller was just a mean person)
Heider
referred to this as a “polar tendency in attribution”
Jones and
Nisbett
called it the
“actor-observer effect” (AOE)Slide36
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Actor-Observer Effect
Classic AOE experiment Ross,
Amabile
, and
Steinmez
(1977)
Setup was a quiz game, involving pairs of same-sex participants
One member of the pair was randomly assigned the role of questioner, the other the role of contestant (participants were aware the roles were assigned randomly)
12 pairs of participants were in the experimental condition
Questioners were told to make up 10 “challenging but not impossible” general knowledge questions to ask to the contestant
While the questioner did this, the contestant was told to compose 10 easy general knowledge questions, “just to get into the spirit of the study”
6 pairs of participants were in the control condition
The questioner and participant both made up 10 easy questions
During the quiz game itself, participants were told the questioner would ask the contestant 10 questions made up before the study by someone else
During the quiz game
Experimental condition: questioners asked the contestants the 10 “challenging but not impossible” questions they themselves had made up
Control condition: questioners asked 10 questions given to them by the experimenterSlide37
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Actor-Observer Effect
In the experimental condition the average number of correct answers in the quiz game was 4
After the quiz game
Questioners and contestants rated themselves and their partner on a number of dimensions, most importantly “general knowledge compared to the average Stanford student” (experiment was conducted at Stanford)
Participants rated self and other on a scale from 0 to 100, with 50 being “the average Stanford student”Slide38
Results
Control condition: questioners and contestants didn’t really distinguish between self and other in terms of general knowledge relative to the average Stanford student
Everyone rated self and other as about average
Experimental condition: there are big differences in how each member of the pair sees self and other
The questioner doesn’t really distinguish between self and other
The contestant devalues self relative to average and increases the rating of the questioner relative to average
Presumably because the contestant only got 4 out of 10 answers right on average and also because they acknowledged the difficulty of the general knowledge questions produced by the questioner
Mean ratings
of self and others’ general knowledge by questioners and contestants
Ratings
of
Ratings
by
Self
Other
Experimental
Condition
Questioner
53.5
50.6
Contestant
41.3
66.8
Control Condition
Questioner
54.1
52.5
Contestant
47.0
50.3Slide39
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Actor-Observer Effect
What makes these results so cool?
ROLE ASSIGNMENT WAS RANDOM (and the participants knew it was)
So presumably, if the roles were reversed, the contestant would have made up 10 difficult questions and the former questioner would have got about 4 of them right
There is an asymmetry between the roles in terms of opportunity to express “smart” behavior
The questioner gets to call the shots and the contestant has to play along
The role of questioner implies an advantage over the contestant
Questioners apparently recognized this
They elevate neither their own status nor lower the contestants’ status
But contestants appear to be unaware of, or to under-correct for, the advantage of the questionerSlide40
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, The Actor-Observer Effect
In a 2
nd
experiment
Confederates re-enacted some of the questioner-contestant performances from study 1
Real participants watched these interactions, believing they were authentic
Participants then rated both the questioner and the contestant on general knowledge ability, relative to other Stanford students (on the same rating scale used in experiment 1)
Results
Participants, acting as observers, apparently saw the quiz game through the eyes of the contestant
The average rating of the questioners was 82.08
The average rating of the contestants was 48.92
Thus, these results mirrored the ratings given in experiment 1, by the contestants themselves Slide41
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the AOE
Of course, there are competing explanations of the AOE
Like the FAE, one explanation is perceptual
Essentially argues that actors and observers literally have “different points of view”
Actors cannot see themselves acting
From an actor’s perspective what is most salient and available are the situational influences on their behavior (the objects, the people, the role requirements, and the social setting)
From an observer’s point of view, the actor’s behavior is more perceptually salient than the situation or context
These different “vantage points” for actors and observers lead to different attributional tendencies
Situational attributions for actors
Dispositional attributions for observers Slide42
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the AOE
Taylor and Fiske (1975) attempted to test the perceptual salience hypothesis
2 male confederates were seated opposite one another, and conversed for 5 minutes
A participant sat behind confederate A, so that they could only see confederate B
A participant sat behind confederate B, so that they could only see confederate A
A participant sat at the table between confederates A and B and could see them both
Blah
Blah
C
C
O
O
O
A
BSlide43
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the AOE
After watching A and B interact for 5 minutes all observers rated each confederate on the dimensions of:
Friendliness
Talkativeness
Nervousness
The extent to which each confederates behavior was caused by dispositional qualities and by situational factors
How much each confederate set the conversation’s tone
Determined the kind of information exchanged in the conversation
Caused the other’s behavior
Results
The observers behind A watching B viewed B as more causal than A
The observers behind B watching A viewed A as more causal than B
Observers between A and B viewed A and B as about equally influential
Thus different vantage points do matterSlide44
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the AOE
Other individualistic explanations of AOE have been suggested
Jones and
Nisbett
(1972)
Originally suggested that actors and observers may possess different information about events and this is what leads to the different attributions
In this view, actors have access to their own feelings, desires and motivations, as well as to their own cross-situational behavioral history
Which observers are unaware of
This theory of informational differences between actors and observers has been supported by research
Idson
and
Mischel
(2001) found that observers were more likely to make situational inferences and fewer trait attributions about an actor’s behavior if that person is familiar and important to them
Presumably, then, the longer we know someone, the more knowledge we are likely to have about their behavior across different situationsSlide45
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the AOE
Another individualistic (although more social and interactive) explanation is based on the linguistic practices of actors and observers
Different linguistic categories convey different information about an event
Semin
and Fielder (1988) suggest there are 4 linguistic categories referring to interpersonal relations
Descriptive action verbs
Ex. Sally is talking to Bob
Interpretive action verbs
Ex. Sally is helping Bob
State verbs
Ex. Sally likes Bob
Adjectives
Ex. Sally is an extroverted person Slide46
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Explanations of the AOE
Adjectives convey more information about a person than do verbs
And therefore lead to more dispositional inferences
Ex. It’s hard to imagine making a dispositional correspondent inference based on the statement “Sally is talking to Bob”
Ex. But it’s hard not to make a dispositional correspondent inference with the information “Sally is an extroverted person”
Because this presumes a disposition in itself
Semin
and Fiedler (1989)
Found that actors tended to use the more concrete linguistic forms (descriptive and interpretative verbs)
i.e. “Sally is talking to Bob,” and “Sally is helping Bob”
Observers tended to use the abstract forms (state verbs and adjectives)
i.e. “Sally likes Bob,” and “Sally is an extroverted person”
In contrast to purely cognitive models of attribution, this work emphasizes how language itself can shape attributionsSlide47
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional
Biases
Both the actor-observer effect and the fundamental attribution error are two of the most widely investigated attributional biases
Actors and observers differ, sometimes drastically, in the inferences they draw from and the attributions they make about presumably the same event
But, the evidence we have discussed here cannot support a strong form of either the AOE or the FAE
It appears that attributers do not make
either
a dispositional
or
a situational attribution
Rather, a weak form of the AOE and the FAE is more
c
onsistent with research as a whole
Attributers use
both
dispositional
and
situational factors in constructing causal sense of events surrounding them
But, they tend to rely on one relatively more than the other depending on their perspective of
events Slide48
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases
While there is evidence that changing people’s point of view alters their attributional accounts of events in that view, this does not imply that there are hard-wired, innate cognitive attributional mechanisms
Developmental and cross-cultural research suggests that people learn the attributional accounts favored by their social environment
Ex. European and North American’s tend towards dispositional attributions and people from more collectivist societies tend towards situational attributions
This learning is likely to be so efficient that particular attributional accounts become automatic and unconscious Slide49
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional
Biases, Self-Serving Biases
Theories of attribution tend to view the attributer as a uninvolved bystander observing events around them
But, as we all know, this is far removed from the heat of normal human interaction
People
are
involved, passionately or not, in the events around them
People, and their attributions, affect and are affected by others and by events
People often make attributions that reflect
self-serving biases
Designed consciously or unconsciously to enhance their self-esteem in their own eyes and in the eyes of others Slide50
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving
Biases, Attributions for Success and Failure
It is an all too common phenomenon that people accept credit for success and deny responsibility for failure
Students do it after passing for failing a course
Athletes do it after winning or losing an event
Even academics do it after having a manuscript accepted or rejected for publication
Although the strength of the effect varies across cultures, the attributional asymmetry following success or failure has been noted in cultures around the globe
Again, both cognitive and motivational explanations have been formulated to account for the attributional difference Slide51
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Attributions for Success and Failure
Example of cognitive explanation
Weary (1981) suggested that focus of attention towards self or away from self and informational availability may be 2 strong cognitive mechanisms involved in this phenomenon
However, most researchers advocate a motivational explanation related to an almost self-evident, common-sense explanation
People accept credit for success and deflect responsibility for failure because doing so makes them feel good and look good
Basically, it serves a self-enhancement motive
Ex. Miller (1976)
Found that the attributional difference is greater when the task participants succeed or fail at is important to themSlide52
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Attributions for Success and Failure
Attributing egocentrically not only bolsters self-esteem, but also influences the impressions others have of the attributer
Evidence for the impressions of others is clearer than bolstering one’s own self-esteem
Ex.
Schlenker
and Leary (1982)
Found that audiences were generally most favorably impressed by actors who make “accurate” attributional claims for their success
i.e. actors who were modest about their superior performance were liked more than actors who boasted about their performance
Also, audiences disliked actors who predicted that they would not do well, even when that prediction turned out to be accurate
What is clear here, is that different attributional patterns following success or failure create different impressions on an audience
Some kinds of attributions do seem to make the actor look good in the eyes of others
and others seem to make the actor look less favorable
Whether they also make the actor feel good is another issue Slide53
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Attributions for Success and Failure
Central to any self-enhancement explanation of attributional biases are these predictions:
Self-esteem will increase following a self-serving attribution
An internal attribution following success or an external attribution following failure
Self-esteem will decrease following a self-deprecating attribution
An external attribution following success or an internal attribution following failure
Research does support this,
Maracek
and
Metee
(1972):
People with chronically high self-esteem make more self-serving attributions
People with chronically low self-esteem make more self-deprecating attributions
This is an important finding with clinical implications for the history and treatment of depression
But, this finding is not quite the same thing as evidence that changes in self-esteem follow particular attributions
Which is the core of any self-enhancement explanationSlide54
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Attributions for Success and Failure
The absence of studies documenting attribution effects on self-esteem is curious, and perhaps due to 2 factors:
First, many researchers appear to accept such effects as obvious and hence not needing empirical verification or falsification
Second, it is methodologically difficult to design an unconfounded experiment to test the hypothesis Slide55
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Attributions for Success and Failure
A pure, experimental investigation would require the experimenter to:
Assign participants randomly to either an internal or an external attribution condition following either success or failure and to observe consequent effects on self-esteem
The problem is that participants make their own attributions
They cannot be assigned to an internal or external attribution condition in the same way as they can to a success or failure condition
So direction of attribution cannot be experimentally controlled
It can only be investigated by allowing participants to make their own attributions
But, allowing this automatically introduces a confound between participants’ attributional direction and their prior self-esteem
Because we know that people with chronic high self-esteem accept credit for success and deflect blame for failure and people with chronically low self-esteem tend to do the opposite
And who knows if these attributional styles cause or reflect differences in chronic self-esteem
Thus there is no direct test of the central hypothesis of a self-enhancement explanationSlide56
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Depression
Implicit in the self-enhancement account of attributional biases is the notion that it is functional, and biologically adaptive to make
these
biased attributions because they help to create and maintain a positive self-esteem
Weiner’s attributional theory of motivation and emotion
Argues that the kinds of attributions people make for success and failure elicit different emotional consequences
And that these attributions are characterized by 3 underlying dimensions
Locus
: whether we attribute success and failure internally or externally
Stability
: whether the cause is perceived as something fixed and stable (like personality or ability) or something changing and unstable (like motivation and effort)
Control
: whether we feel we have any control over the cause
Locus
Stability
Control
Ability
Internal
Stable
Uncontrollable
Effort
Internal
Unstable
Controllable
Luck
External
Unstable
Uncontrollable
Task difficulty
External
Unstable
Uncontrollable Slide57
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Depression
Consistent with the self-enhancement bias
People who attribute their achievements to internal, stable and controllable factors are more likely to feel good about themselves
Ex. After making an A on an English essay exam, a student attributes success to personal ability and effort (I’m good at writing English essays and I studied hard)
In contrast, attributing negative outcomes to internal, stable and uncontrollable factors is associated with negative emotions such as hopelessness and helplessness
Ex. After failing an English essay exam, a student attributes failure to personal lack of ability (I’m never going to be good at writing English essays because I’m just a dumb student)
This attributional pattern for negative events and outcomes has been referred to as a
“depressive attributional style”
This style has been strongly linked with clinical depressionSlide58
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Self-Serving Biases, Depression
The learned helplessness model of depression views this attributional style as directly
causing
depression
Others have argued this attributional tendency is merely a
symptom
of depression
Reflecting the affective state of the depressed person
Whether a cause or a symptom
Attributional retraining programs, in which people are taught how to make more self-enhancing attributions, are being widely accepted as an important clinical intervention in the treatment of depression Slide59
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Do People Attribute Spontaneously?
Some psychologists have suggested that attribution theory exaggerates the extent to which people seek causal explanations for everyday occurrences and events:
That the degree of attributional activity suggested by attribution research may simply be an artifact of the reactive methodologies used in such studies
Keep in mind that most attribution studies require, and instruct, participants to indicate their agreement or disagreement with attributional statements provided by the researchers
So, do people spontaneously engage in causal thinking and, if so, under what conditions do they make causal attributions?
2 studies address these questions directlySlide60
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Do People Attribute Spontaneously?
Lau and Russell (1980):
Examined newspaper reports of 33 sporting events
The 6 baseball games in the 1977 World Series, and a number of college and professional football games
Found that more causal attributions were made after an
unexpected
outcome than an expected outcome
Taylor (1982):
Found that 95% of a sample of cancer victims spontaneously made attributions about the cause of their cancer
Also that 70% of close family members of cancer victims made spontaneous attributions about the cause of their loved one’s cancerSlide61
Social Cognition & Attribution: Attributional Biases, Do People Attribute Spontaneously?
These two studies suggest that people do in fact spontaneously make causal attributions about events around them
At least when those events are either unexpected or negative
Weiner (1985) similarly concludes that people do indeed engage in spontaneous causal thinking
But mostly for unexpected events and especially when confronted with failure
This conclusion is consistent with that of others who have argued that people
actively look
for causal explanations for the unexpected or different
And that in such situations the complexity of attributions increases
No doubt many events in social life are common, routine, everyday, and give no need for any sort of attributional analysis
For such events, people probably function
mindlessly
or essentially run on automatic
However, people
do
make causal attributions under some conditions
And even when operating mindlessly people probably could generate causal attributions for the events passing them by if they were required to Slide62
Social Cognition & Attribution: Criticisms of Classic Attribution Theories
Thus far in this chapter, attributing causes to behavior and events has been presented primarily as an
intraindividual
cognitive phenomenon
In traditional attribution models individuals are construed as information processors:
Who attend to and select information from the environment
Process the information
And then arrive at a causal analysis of the behavior or event in question
This is too simple
As we all know, social life is an intricate complex mass of individuals, couples, groups, sects, ethnicities, nations, etc. all interacting and negotiating an ever-changing social reality which is reproduced, represented, and reconstructed
None of us interacts with any one other person as if that person were an abstracted, fixed and given
individual
We all are social, contextualized, and cannot interact with or even perceive others as if we, or they, were anything else
According to your textbook:
Attribution theory persists in theorizing the asocial, decontextualized fiction called the “individual”Slide63
Social Cognition & Attribution: Criticisms of Classic Attribution Theories
Hewstone
has argued that the bulk of attributional research has been articulated at the
intrapersonal
and the
interpersonal
levels
Kelley’s covariation model is a good example of the intrapersonal level
An individual perceives an event – usually behavior enacted by another individual
Engages in a mental calculus estimating the consistency, consensus and distinctiveness of that event
Then arrives at a conclusion regarding the cause of the event
The attributer turns only inward in this attributional search
Without reference to interpersonal relations, dominant social representations, the language of causation, and their relative group memberships and identifications
Everything, apart from the event that triggered the attributional search, takes place internally within the mind of the individual Slide64
Social Cognition & Attribution: Criticisms of Classic Attribution Theories
The actor-observer effect and the fundamental attribution error are examples of interpersonal attribution research
Even here, the individuals in the interaction come to the interaction strictly as individuals:
The individuals have no history, no power or status differentials, no social context
They are interchangeable, asocial, decontextualized, often disembodied individuals Slide65
Social Cognition & Attribution: Criticisms of Classic Attribution Theories
These models thus far have had little to say about the social, interactive, and cultural context within which causal attributions are made
Attribution theory has therefore been criticized for being predominantly an individualistic theory
Requiring a greater social perspective
Several social psychologists have attempted to develop a more social account of attributionsSlide66
Social Identity Theory and Attributions
The extraordinary events of September 11, 2001 – the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington – will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the most politically salient and defining events at the beginning of the 21
st
century
These attacks and their graphic portrayal on television (as they occurred in real time) stunned the world Slide67
Social Identity Theory and Attributions
The research on spontaneous attributions would suggest that such a negative and unexpected event is likely to generate considerable attributional activity
Indeed, as the enormity and significance of the attacks began to sink in, people tried to make sense of this event by looking for reasons as to why it occurred
Why would a group of individuals plan and execute such a brazen act of mass murder and suicide by flying planes into tall buildings?Slide68
Social Identity Theory and Attributions
Here is how Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Britain, attempted to make sense of this event in a speech he delivered the day following September 11, 2001:
“The world knows the full evil and capability of international terrorism which menaces the whole of the democratic world. The terrorists responsible have no sense of humanity, of mercy, or of justice. To commit acts of this nature requires a fanaticism and wickedness that is beyond our normal comprehension.”Slide69
Social Identity Theory and Attributions
Over time, of course, we have been provided with a range of explanatory accounts, by a variety of expert sources including other world leaders, politicians, the media, and social analysts
These explanations included accounts such as that of Tony Blair that attributed the cause(s) of September 11 primarily to the religious fanaticism and extremism of “evil” terrorists
Accounts that attributed the cause(s) to geopolitical factors and the current state of international relations
Importantly, people’s attributions for this significant event were not arrived at simply through a solitary cognitive process of information processing:
People’s social, cultural and political identifications significantly shaped their causal analysis and response to the events of September 11Slide70
Social Identity Theory and Attributions
A social identity, or intergroup, approach to attributions examines:
How group memberships, social identifications, and intergroup relations affect the sorts of attributions people make
Although we will discuss this work in more detail later in the chapters on stereotyping and prejudice
Here we will cover what Pettigrew (1979) has coined the “ultimate attribution error”Slide71
Social Identity Theory and Attributions: The “Ultimate Attribution Error”
Pettigrew combined the fundamental attribution error and
Allport’s
classical work on intergroup relations:
Formulated an analysis of how prejudice shapes intergroup “misattributions”
Pettigrew (1979) noted how people typically make attributions that:
Favor and protect the group to which they belong (ingroup)
Derogate groups to which they do not belong (outgroup)
The title of the universal attribution error was meant partly as a joke about the rather grand title Ross gave to the FAE
It’s very unlikely that anything in the social sciences deserves the label “fundamental”
Thus, Pettigrew names this ingroup serving and outgroup derogating attributional pattern the
“ultimate attribution error”
Slide72
Social Identity Theory and Attributions: The “Ultimate Attribution Error”
When a person is confronted with an obviously positive behavior committed by a member of a disliked outgroup
That person will have trouble reconciling this with their negative stereotype of the group
And is unlikely to make a dispositional attribution
This positive outgroup behavior is likely to be explained away or dismissed as either being:
Due to external situational pressures OR
Due to the exceptional and thus unrepresentative nature of the outgroup member
In contrast, negative behavior by an outgroup member will be attributed to stereotypic dispositions and traits that are associated with the outgroup
This pattern of attributions is completely reversed for ingroup behavior
Positive ingroup behavior is attributed to dispositional traits
Negative ingroup behavior is attributed to external situational factors Slide73
Social Identity Theory and Attributions: The “Ultimate Attribution Error”
Indeed studies from around the world have demonstrated what may be a universal, certainly a pervasive, self-serving and ethnocentric pattern in the way we see and explain the events around us
These studies will be discussed in detail in chapter 7
But we will discuss one interesting study regarding the real world of intergroup conflict in Northern Ireland Slide74
Social Identity Theory and Attributions: The “Ultimate Attribution Error”
Hunter, Stringer, and Watson (1991): simple study demonstrating the social psychological processes underlying the markedly different perceptions of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland
Gathered newsreel footage of Catholic and Protestant violence in Northern Ireland
One scene showed a Protestant attack on a Catholic funeral
The other scene showed two soldiers in a car being attacked by a group of Catholics
Both scenes had been rated as being comparable in their degree of violent content by a sample of Spanish and German foreign exchange students
Then the two clips were shown to Catholic and Protestant students at the University of Ulster (located in Northern Ireland)
The clips were shown without sound to control for any possible effects of media bias
Students were then asked to “explain in their own words what they thought was happening in the videos, and why they thought those involved had behaved as they had”
Students’ reasons for the behavior of the people shown in the video were coded as either an internal or an external attributionSlide75
Social Identity Theory and Attributions: The “Ultimate Attribution Error”
Catholic students:
Causes of violent acts committed by Catholics were viewed as being somewhere in the situation (21 vs. 5)
Causes of violent acts committed by Protestants were viewed as being caused by dispositional factors (19 vs. 5)
Protestant students:
Causes of violent acts committed by Protestants viewed as situational (15 vs. 6)
Causes of violent acts committed by Catholics viewed as dispositional (15 vs. 6)
Yet the two groups were watching the same acts of the same people which had been judged to be equal in violence
Pattern of internal and external attributions
Catholic violence
Protestant violence
Catholic students
Protestant students
Catholic students
Protestant students
Attribution
Internal
5
15
19
6
External
21
6
5
15Slide76
Social Identity Theory and Attributions: The “Ultimate Attribution Error”
The behavior of participants in the Hunter et al. experiment isn’t unusual
Studies of this type demonstrate that social perception, especially in situations involving partisanship, is rarely, if ever, neutral and dispassionate
Also, the possibility of ever being able to find a single “true” account of social “reality” is highly questionable
These studies also suggest that differential attributions of this kind for ingroup and outgroup violence are probably linked to the maintenance and perpetuation of intergroup conflict
External attributions for violence committed by ingroup members by both groups may serve to justify violence committed by one’s own group and to view it as legitimate
Further, internal attributions for the other group’s violence may perpetuate hostilities and perhaps even lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy
Members of the outgroup come to act in ways the ingroup expects Slide77
Social Identity Theory and Attributions: Group Differences in Explanations for Social Issues
A considerable body of research has indicated that social groups prefer different explanations for a range of social issues and problems (ex. Poverty and unemployment)
Explanations for these social issues are linked to political identifications and voting behavior
Ex. In Britain
Conservatives rate individualistic explanations for poverty and unemployment as more important than Labor voters
Labor voters rate societal-structural factors as more important
Explanations are therefore not purely cognitive phenomena
But, are collectively shared by those with similar political and social identities Slide78
Social Representations and Attributions
How do social representations affect attribution processes and outcomes?
If we accept that explanations for everyday events and experiences are social phenomena, which are negotiated and communicated during social interaction
Then, we require an approach that emphasizes the contents of social knowledge
Enter social representations theory Slide79
Social Representations and Attributions
Like attribution theory, social representations theory also emphasizes the fundamental human need to understand and explain events in everyday life
Difference:
Attribution theory seeks to identify the internal cognitive processes involved in making causal explanations
Social representations theory seeks to locate these causal attributions not in individual minds, but in the cultural meaning systems embodied by social representations
So, both theories emphasize the importance of explanation in social life
But, the two theories are articulated at different levels of analysis
Unlike traditional attribution theory, social representations theory emphasizes the social and collective nature of explanations Slide80
Social Representations and Attributions
Moscovici
and
Hewstone
have proposed that social representations should be viewed as the foundations on which attributions are built
“A theory of social causality is a theory of our imputations and attributions, associated with a representation… any causal explanation must be viewed within the context of social representations and is determined thereby.”
Meaning that, when we attribute causality, our attribution stems from an overall social representation
And thus, any attribution we make has to be viewed in the context of the social representation it came from Slide81
Social Representations and Attributions
In a similar vein,
Lalljee
and Abelson (1983) suggest a “knowledge structure” approach to attribution
Well-learned consensual structures, like highly organized event schemas or scripts, do not usually evoke causal explanations because people expect the sequence of events that occur
People’s prior expectations, beliefs knowledge or schemas will determine what parts of social information we need an attribution for
Information that is consistent with a person’s schema or representation won’t require an in-depth search for causality, because that information is expected and therefore automatically processed
In contrast, information that is inconsistent with expectations or existing knowledge will require a more detailed search to an explanation
Ex. The
Walmart
greeter scenario
The greeter is nice, polite, and helpful = expected and processed automatically
The greeter is mean and insulting = need to know why the greeter acted this way, thus attributional processes are needed Slide82
Social Representations and Attributions
“… social representations impose a kind of automatic explanation. Causes are singled out and proposed prior to a detailed search for and analysis of information. Without much active thinking, people’s explanations are determined by their social representations”
The social function of such automatic explanations is that they are learned and thus socially communicated through language
It is suggested that the use of cultural hypotheses to explain behavior and events can be regarded as a kind of
“socialized processing”
Culturally agreed upon explanations eventually become common-sense explanations
Each society has its own culturally and socially sanctioned explanation or range of explanations for phenomena such as illness, poverty, failure, success, and violence
Point being, people don’t always need to engage in an active cognitive search for explanations for all forms of behavior and events
Instead, people can use their socialized processing for social representations Slide83
Social Representations and Attributions: Social Origins of the FAE
The study of perceived causality in attribution theory is primarily concerned with what passes as everyday social explanation
There are 2 kinds of attributions central to attribution theory: dispositional (personal) and situational (contextual)
These 2 types of explanation correspond to what has been referred to as “individual” and “social” principles
Earlier we discussed one of the most consistent findings in attribution research: the FAE
We also discussed that this bias has primarily been explained by cognitive and perceptual factors (like the dominance of the actor in the perceptual field)
But, we also talked about how others have suggested that this bias may be due to our individualistic culture Slide84
Social Representations and Attributions: Social Origins of the FAE
The importance of individualism specific to liberal democratic societies and, most particularly, in American social, cultural, and political life, has been emphasized by political philosophers
Ex.
Lukes
(1973) pointed out how political, economic, religious, ethical, epistemological, and methodological domains have been filled with individualist principles
Liberal individualism’s central principles emphasize the importance of the individual over and above society, and view the individual as the center of all action and processes
This representation of the person may seem pretty self-evident and not particularly controversial, But, the anthropologist
Geertz
emphasizes its uniqueness:
“The western conceptions of the person as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both against a social and natural background is, however incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s cultures.”
Meaning that the emphasis on individualism in western culture is odd given that the majority of societies around the globe don’t think this waySlide85
Social Representations and Attributions: Social Origins of the FAE
If, indeed, attributions and explanations are grounded in social knowledge
Then, cultural variations in the representation of the person should yield cross-cultural differences in the prevalence of person attributions
The overcomplicated point the authors of this textbook are trying to make:
The focus on individualism in western society, which is part of our social representations, is not the general view of the rest of the world
Emphasis on individualism leads to more personal attributions and less situational attributions
So, if attributions do stem from social knowledge, or social representations, cultures that place emphasis on individualism should make different attributions from cultures than do not
Thus, there should be differences in prevalence of personal attributions between cultures
Supporting research…Slide86
Social Representations and Attributions: Culture and Attributions
Before any research was specifically designed to examine cultural influences on attributions:
Developmental research had found a significant tendency for dispositional attributions to increase with age in western cultures
Young western children predominantly make references to contextual factors to explain social behavior
Western adults are more likely to stress dispositional characteristics of the actor
Anthropologists had also found that that:
Non-western adults place less emphasis on the dispositional characteristics of the agent and more emphasis on the contextual or situational factors, compared to western adults Slide87
Social Representations and Attributions: Culture and Attributions
At first, social psychologists didn’t attempt to explain these differences in a social way
Rather, they tried to explain them in terms of individual cognition and experience
Ex. Early explanation of why young children don’t make dispositional attributions
Young children have a limited cognitive capacity to make dispositional attributions because it requires the cognitive competence to generalize behavioral regularities over time
It was argued that children did not acquire the cognitive capacity to do this until they were older
Similarly, it was argued that non-western adults are less likely to make dispositional attributions because the cognitive capacity to do so is more likely to be associated with the experience of living in complex modernized societies Slide88
Social Representations and Attributions: Culture and Attributions
Joan Miller was among the first social psychologists to point out that these explanations disregard the possibility that developmental and cultural differences may:
“result from divergent cultural conceptions of the person acquired over development in the two cultures rather than from cognitive or objective experiential differences between attributors”
Cultural differences
Western notions of the person are essentially individualistic, emphasizing the centrality and autonomy of the individual actor in all action
Non-western notions of the person tend to be holistic, stressing the interdependence between the individual and his/her surroundings
Developmental/age differences
Reflect the enculturation process – the gradual process by which children adopt the dominant conception of the person within their culture Slide89
Social Representations and Attributions: Culture and Attributions
Miller’s 1984 research does support this theory
Cross-cultural study comparing the attributions made for prosocial and deviant behaviors
American vs. Indian Hindu
Sample: 8, 11, and15 year olds, and a group of adults (mean age = 40.5 years)
Results:
At older ages, Americans made significantly more references to dispositions (
M
= 40%) than did Hindus (
M
< 20%)
Most of the dispositions referred to personality characteristics of the actor
There were no significant differences that distinguished the responses of 8-11 year old American children from the responses of Hindu children (difference was an average of 2%)Slide90
Social Representations and Attributions: Culture and AttributionsSlide91
Social Representations and Attributions: Culture and Attributions
Within each culture developmental trends indicated a significant linear age increase in reference to:
General dispositions among Americans
Context among the Hindus, emphasis on social roles and patterns of interpersonal relationships
These attributional patterns reflect Indian cultural conceptions
Emphasis on locating a person, object, or event in relation to someone or something else
Ex. Explanations given by an American and a Hindu participant regarding a story about an attorney who, after a motorcycle accident, left his injured passenger in a hospital without consulting with the doctor while he went on to work
American: “The driver is obviously irresponsible (disposition). The driver is aggressive in pursuing career success (disposition).
Hindu: “It was the driver’s duty to be in court for the client whom he’s representing (context). The passenger might not have looked as serious as he was (context/aspects of another person).Slide92
Social Representations and Attributions: Culture and Attributions
More recent cross-cultural studies have generally confirmed Miller’s cultural hypothesis
It appears that the tendency to overrate personal/dispositional factors of the agent in western adults cannot be completely explained by cognitive and experiential interpretations
The attribution “bias” may not simply be a cognitive property or universal law of psychological functioning
It may be culture-specific
Though the agent of action tends to dominate the perceptual field for Americans
The “person” does not seem to enjoy the same degree of perceptual dominance among non-western people Slide93
Social Representations and Attributions: Lay Explanations for Social Issues
It’s clear that attributions or lay explanations for behavior and events are not only the outcome of internal cognitive processes
Rather, they are social phenomena that are based on widely held and shared beliefs in the form of social and collective representations
Hewstone
(1989) suggested the concept of an
“attributing society”
– our tendency to seek explanations within our predominant cultural frameworkSlide94
Social Representations and Attributions: Lay Explanations for Social Issues
Our explanations for social phenomena are shaped not only by culture but also by scientific and expert knowledge
The diffusion and popularization of scientific concepts throughout society is occurring at a rapid rate through the mass media
Increasingly, expert knowledge contributes to the stock of common sense which people draw upon to understand social reality
Thus, people can be regarded as “amateur” scientists, “amateur” economists, “amateur” psychologists, etc., as they draw upon this information to explain a range of phenomena
Such as the causes of cancer, economic depression, or problems in personal relationships
Some of this knowledge becomes an integral part of mass culture and, ultimately, what will come to be regarded as “common sense”Slide95
Social Representations and Attributions: Lay Explanations for Social Issues
The attributions that people make for societal events such as social issues provide us with rich insight into a society’s prevailing explanations or meaning systems
Research on causal attributions for social issues has included everyday explanations for poverty, unemployment, riots, and health and illness
Research has found that people in western industrialized societies are more likely to attribute poverty to individualist-dispositional causes, such as lack of effort and laziness, than situational-societal causes
People primarily hold the poor responsible for their dilemma
In contrast, unemployment is predominantly attributed to social and structural causes such as economic recession and government policies