Psychology Social Psychology Attribution, Attitudes & Social Influence
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Attribution
Attributions are inferences that people make about the causes of events and behavior. People make attributions in order to understand their experiences. Attributions strongly influence the way people interact with others.
Types of Attributions
Researchers classify attributions along two dimensions: internal vs. external and stable vs. unstable. By combining these two dimensions of attributes, researchers can classify a particular attribution as being internal-stable, internal-unstable, external-stable, or external-unstable.
Internal vs. External
Attribution theory proposes that the attributions people make about events and behavior can be classed as either internal or external. In an internal, or dispositional, attribution, people infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings. In an external, or situational, attribution, people infer that a person’s behavior is due to situational factors.
Example: Maria’s car breaks down on the freeway. If she believes the breakdown happened because of her ignorance about cars, she is making an internal attribution. If she believes that the breakdown happened because her car is old, she is making an external attribution.
Stable vs. Unstable
Researchers also distinguish between stable and unstable attributions. When people make a stable attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to stable, unchanging factors. When making an unstable attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to unstable, temporary factors.
Example: Lee gets a D on his sociology term paper. If he attributes the grade to the fact that he always has bad luck, he is making a stable attribution. If he attributes the grade to the fact that he didn’t have much time to study that week, he is making an unstable attribution.
Attribution Bias
When people make an attribution, they are guessing about the causes of events or behaviors. These guesses are often wrong. People have systematic biases, which lead them to make incorrect attributions. These biases include the fundamental attribution error, the self-serving bias, and the just world hypothesis.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to internal factors such as personality traits, abilities, and feelings. The fundamental attribution error is also called the correspondence bias, because it is assumed that other people’s behavior corresponds to their personal attributes. When explaining their own behavior, on the other hand, people tend to attribute it to situational factors.
Example: Alexis falls asleep in class. Sean attributes her behavior to laziness. When he fell asleep in class last week, however, he attributed his own behavior to the all-nighter he pulled finishing a term paper.
The Self-Serving Bias
The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to situational factors. This bias tends to increase as time passes after an event. Therefore, the further in the past an event is, the more likely people are to congratulate themselves for successes and to blame the situation for failures.
Example: Chad wins a poetry competition but fails to get the poem published in a magazine he sent it to. He attributes his success in the competition to his talent. He attributes his failure to get it published to bad luck.
The Just World Hypothesis
The just world hypothesis refers to the need to believe that the world is fair and that people get what they deserve. The just world hypothesis gives people a sense of security and helps them to find meaning in difficult circumstances.
Attitudes
Attitudes are evaluations people make about objects, ideas, events, or other people. Attitudes can be positive or negative. Explicit attitudes are conscious beliefs that can guide decisions and behavior. Implicit attitudes are unconscious beliefs that can still influence decisions and behavior. Attitudes can include up to three components: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral.
Example: Jane believes that smoking is unhealthy, feels disgusted when people smoke around her, and avoids being in situations where people smoke.
Dimensions of Attitudes
Researchers study three dimensions of attitude: strength, accessibility, and ambivalence.
- Attitude strength: Strong attitudes are those that are firmly held and that highly influence behavior. Attitudes that are important to a person tend to be strong. Attitudes that people have a vested interest in also tend to be strong. Furthermore, people tend to have stronger attitudes about things, events, ideas, or people they have considerable knowledge and information about.
- Attitude accessibility: The accessibility of an attitude refers to the ease with which it comes to mind. In general, highly accessible attitudes tend to be stronger.
- Attitude ambivalence: Ambivalence of an attitude refers to the ratio of positive and negative evaluations that make up that attitude. The ambivalence of an attitude increases as the positive and negative evaluations get more and more equal.
The Influence of Attitudes on Behavior
Behavior does not always reflect attitudes. However, attitudes do determine behavior in some situations:
- If there are few outside influences, attitude guides behavior.
Example: Wyatt has an attitude that eating junk food is unhealthy. When he is at home, he does not eat chips or candy. However, when he is at parties, he indulges in these foods.
- Behavior is guided by attitudes specific to that behavior.
Example: Megan might have a general attitude of respect toward seniors, but that would not prevent her from being disrespectful to an elderly woman who cuts her off at a stop sign. However, if Megan has an easygoing attitude about being cut off at stop signs, she is not likely to swear at someone who cuts her off.
- Behavior is guided by attitudes that come to mind easily.
Example: Ron has an attitude of mistrust and annoyance toward telemarketers, so he immediately hangs up the phone whenever he realizes he has been contacted by one.
The Influence of Behavior on Attitudes
Behavior also affects attitudes. Evidence for this comes from the foot-in-the-door phenomenon and the effect of role playing.
The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
People tend to be more likely to agree to a difficult request if they have first agreed to an easy one. This is called the foot-in-the-door phenomenon.
Example: Jill is more likely to let an acquaintance borrow her laptop for a day if he first persuades her to let him borrow her textbook for a day.
Social Norms and Social Roles
Social norms are a society’s rules about appropriate behavior. Norms exist for practically every kind of situation. Some norms are explicit and are made into laws, such as the norm While driving, you may not run over a pedestrian. Other norms are implicit and are followed unconsciously, such as You may not wear a bikini to class.
Social roles are patterns of behavior that are considered appropriate for a person in a particular context. For example, gender roles tell people how a particular society expects men and women to behave. A person who violates the requirements of a role tends to feel uneasy or to be censured by others. Role requirements can change over time in a society.
Social Influence
People influence each other constantly, in a variety of different ways.
Social Influence Strategies
One social influence strategy is the foot-in-the-door technique (see the “Attitudes” section for a complete explanation). Three other strategies include manipulating the reciprocity norm, the lowball technique, and feigned scarcity.
Manipulation of the Reciprocity Norm
The reciprocity norm is an implicit rule in many societies that tells people they should return favors or gifts given to them. A person or group can manipulate this norm to make it more likely that people will buy a product or make a donation.
Example: If a wildlife preservation organization sends Harry a pad of notepaper personalized with his name, he may feel obligated to send them the donation they want.
The Lowball Technique
The lowball technique involves making an attractive proposition and revealing its downsides only after a person has agreed to it.
Example: A car salesperson tells Sheila that a car she is interested in buying costs $5,000.
After she has committed to buying the car, the salesperson points out that adding a stereo, an air conditioner, and floor mats will cost an extra $3,000.
Feigned Scarcity
Researchers have found that when something is hard to get, people want it more. This observation is often manipulated by groups and people who want to sell something. They imply that a product is in scarce supply, even when it is not, in order to increase demand for it.
Example: A grocery store advertises a brand of yogurt for a reduced price, noting in the ad that there is a limited supply.
Elements of Persuasion
People often try to change others’ attitudes through persuasion. There are four elements involved in persuasion: the source, the receiver, the message, and the channel.
The Source
The person who sends a communication is called the source. Persuasion is most successful when a source is both likable and credible. Credible sources are those that are trustworthy or that have expertise.
An expert source is particularly likely to increase persuasion when a communication is ambiguous.
Sources are considered less trustworthy if they seem to have a vested interest in persuading people. On the other hand, sources seem more trustworthy if they provide counterarguments for their position.
