PSYC 2230 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Role Theory, Reference Group, Learned Helplessness

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2230
• Professor: Frank Marchese

Document Summary

Attribution theory - the study of how we make decisions concerning the events we experience. Concerns factors assumed by the general public to cause people"s behaviour. People attribute behaviour to particular factors -- either to consistent personality characteristics (dispositions) or to aspects of the social situation of the persons involved. Examines the explanations at which we arrive both when we observe someone else"s behaviour and also when we observe our own behaviour. Clean attributions do serve to alter future behaviour rests on three basic assumptions: assumes that we do attempt to determine the causes of both our own behaviour and that of others. We are motivated to seek out info that helps us make attributions about all cause-and-effect relationships. It helps us to understand and control our environment. Expectancy is a belief (cognition) that one thing will follow from another. What differs is the time we consider the linked events. When the cause has occurred, i expect the effect.