Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Gestalt Psychology, Forced Confession, Fundamental Attribution Error

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Doug Hazlewood

Document Summary

A member of the opposite sex is staring at you. A friend of yours gets a low mark on an exam that she thought she did well on. You see a homeless man lying on the street downtown. From a psychological perspective, you are thinking about the perception of the events. In each cause, different causal explanations lead to different perceptions. Attributions can be discussed in every chapter of our textbook. All the research in this area was initiated by a single individual : fritz heider (1944): Perceiving stability in an unstable world that is constantly changing. If an intelligent student does poorly on an exam, why do i continue to perceive them as intelligent: heider"s insights, we perceive stability by making attributions. Ex. attributing friendly behaviour to a friendly disposition. Ex. the person was friendly because of the environment he/she was in: we have a need to perceive stability: Gives us a sense of understanding, prediction, and control.