Causal Attribution and Social Judgment. Outline 1. Causal Attribution—how we make sense of other peoples’ behaviour 2. Self-knowledge—how we make sense.

Causal Attribution and Social Judgment

Outline

1. Causal Attribution—how we make sense of other peoples’ behaviour

2. Self-knowledge—how we make sense of who we are and our own behaviour

3. Social Judgment—strategies, errors and biases in social decision making

Optimistic attributional style predicts future physical health

Even controlling for earlier health

Why Attribution Matters

Attribution –

Explanatory style –

internal/externalstable/unstableglobal/specific

Why Attribution Matters

Optmistic attributional styleNegative events are viewed asExternal, unstable, specific

Pessimistic attributional styleNegative events are viewed asInternal, stable, global

Optimistic attributional style predicts

Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error: overestimating internal

factors and underestimating external factors when explaining other people’s behaviour “Castro Study”

Jones and Harris (1967) ‘Castro study’

Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error:

Attributional Biases

Fundamental attribution error: explanationsPerceptual:Cognitive:Motivational:Cultural:

Cultural differences in causal attributions

Sports articles: US newspapers, more dispositional attributions

Hong Kong newspapers, more situational attributions

Cultural differences disappeared for editorials

Lee, Hallahan, & Herzog, 1996

American Korean p

•Someone’s personality is something about them that they can’t change very much•A person can do things to get people to like them, but they can’t change their real personality•Everyone has a certain personality, and it is something that they can’t do much about•A person can change the way they act, but they can’t change their real personality

3.50

3.09

3.41

3.09

4.04

3.79

3.99

3.63

< .001

< .001

< .001

< .005

Cultural Differences in Perceptions of Personality Malleability (Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett, 2002)

Just World Beliefs(Lerner & Miller, 1978)

Just-world beliefs- “By and large, people deserve what they get in life” “Basically, the world is a just place” “People who do their job will rise to the top” “People who meet with misfortune have often brought it on

themselves”

Injustice in the world is a perceived threat to self JWB allows individuals to maintain a sense of purpose and

control—bad things couldn’t happen to me Outcomes reflect personal traits – more FAE One pernicious consequence: blaming victims

Just World Beliefs

Blaming the victim—experiments by Lerner & colleagues Participants watch another person suffer (victim) Restore Justice Condition: Participant can help the victim JWB Condition: participant cannot help the victim Outcome: Participants’ evaluation of the victim Results: RJ condition: positive evaluation of victim JWB condition: derogation of the victim

Just World Beliefs

Victim derogation is less likely

Who believes in a just world?

Attributional Biases Actor-observer effect:

Example: Explanations:

1) point-of-view: 2) Knowledge of situational inconsistency for

self, but not others

Attributional Biases Self-serving bias:

Cultural differences in this tendency:

Explanation:

Self-Knowledge

o How and how much do we know ourselves?

o Barriers to self-knowledgeo Conscious vs. unconscious self-

knowledgeo Strategies for self-knowledge

Escape from the Self

o Our defenses stop us from knowing ourselves, esp. undesirable aspects

We escape self-awareness through

Self-Knowledge

o We may have limited ability to know ourselves

o Ways into self-knowledgeo Introspectiono Observing our own behaviouro Learning about how others see us

Introspection

Look inward to observe1) Feelings, thoughts, desires2) Reasons behind our actions

More successful with 1) then 2) The causes behind our tendencies are

not readily visible—psychological research better way to know this

Introspection--do we know the causes of our behavior?

Confabulation: studies with split-brain patients (Gazzaniga & Ledoux)

Pantyhose study (Nisbett & Wilson)

• Flash images of emotion arousing object to left visual field--right hemisphere

• Observe p’s reaction

• Record p’s explanation

• Confabulation!

Language centres in Left Hemisphere

Introspection--do we know the causes of our behavior?

Confabulation: studies with split-brain patients (Gazzaniga & Ledoux)

Pantyhose study (Nisbett & Wilson) Cognitive dissonance studies, studies

of discrimination—peoples explanations of their own behaviour have little to do with observed causes

Observing our own behaviour

Self perception theory:

Visualizing a situation and observe our reactions to it

How Others See Us

Our defenses prevents us from wanting to know ourselves

But others who know us well can see through these defenses

They can also be good observers of our behaviour

Ex:

Strategies that facilitate self-knowledge

Self-acceptance Connecting with our feelings and observing

our thoughts without identifying with them Find out how knowledgeable others see us Visualizing our reactions to future situations Psychological research

Heuristics in Social Judgment

Heuristic:

They usually operate outside of awareness Helps us make decisions under uncertainty

Heuristics in Social Judgment

I have a friend: he loves art, enjoys classical music, travels a lot, and is temperamental. Is he a) French chef b) civil engineer?

Heuristics in Social Cognition

Which is a more likely killer: a) airline crash b) car accident

Which is more dangerous to your health: a) terrorism b) smoking

The statistics

By number of deaths:Deaths due to car transportation: 40,000/yearDeaths due to airline transportation: 200/year

By number of passengersCar: 1/6800 deaths per yearAirline: 1/1.6 million per year

Controlling for distance covered10-40 times more likely to die driving than

flying

The statistics

But media coverage is incredibly skewed:0.02 cancer stories/1000 cancer deaths1.7 murder stories/1000 homicides2.3 AIDS stories/1000 AIDS deaths138 plane crash stories/1000 airplane deaths

Social Cognition: Conclusions

Naïve realism: belief that one’s own perspective reflects objective reality, whereas others are biased

People are not objective observers of the social world; they construe their world in particular ways–heuristics and self-protective defenses to make sense of the social world