PSYC 215 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Explanatory Style, Dispositional Attribution, Trait Theory

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 215
• Professor: Mark Baldwin

Document Summary

Attribution theory = a set of concepts explaining how people assign causes to the events around them and the effects of people"s casual assessments. From acts do dispositions: inferring the causes of behaviour. Casual attribution = linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behaviour. When you ask a girl on a date and she says she has a cold", you ask yourself if she actually has a cold or she just wants to brush you off. If you attribute the rejection to her being sick, then your emotional reaction will be completely different than if you attribute it to the possibility that she finds you unappealing. Explanatory style = a person"s habitual way of explaining events, typically assessed along three dimensions: internal/external, stable/unstable and global/specific. See study on p158 for explanation of 3 dimensions.