EDF-4210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Fundamental Attribution Error, Learned Helplessness, Controllability
21 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
Attribution theorists assumes that people try to make sense of our own behavior and the behavior of other by searching for explanations and causes. It describes how the individual explanations justifications, and excuses influence motivation. Students" explanation for their academic successes & failures: can be characterized into three dimensions, locus of causality. Internal or external: stability, stable or unstable, controllability, controllable or uncontrollable. Stable vs. unstable: stable: when people make a stable attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to stable, unchanging factors. Unstable: when making an unstable attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to unstable, temporary factors: closely related to expectations about the future, unstable factor (mood, luck, health) - hope for better outcome next. Fundamental attribution error: when judging behavior of others, we tend to overestimate the influence of internal factors (dispositional) and underestimate the external factors (situational).
