SOP 3004 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Fundamental Attribution Error, Dispositional Attribution

• School: University of Florida
• Department: Social Psychology
• Course: SOP 3004
• Professor: James A Shepperd

Document Summary

First impressions form initial impressions of others right away. Attribution understanding one"s intentions make a difference in how we interpret the meaning of their behavior (process of explaining others" behavior) Internal: behavior based on personality, different reactions from everyone. External: behavior based on a situation, assume most people will respond the same way. The covariation model to decide whether a behavior was caused by internal or external factor. Research suggests that contempt and pride should be part of these universal emotions. Internal, dispositional attribution: consensus: how other people behave toward the same stimulus, distinctiveness: how this person behaves toward other stimuli, consistency: how this person behaves toward this stimulus. Fundamental attribution error (fae) the tendency to overestimate the extent to which people"s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors. Attribution theory is the study of how we infer the causes of other people"s behavior.