Questions and Answers
What is the difference between situational and dispositional attribution?
What is self-serving bias?
The tendency to make situational attributions for failures and dispositional attributions for successes.
What does the foot-in-the-door phenomenon refer to?
The tendency to comply more readily with a large request after agreeing to a smaller one.
What is cognitive dissonance?
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What was the focus of Solomon Asch's length of line experiment?
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What did Milgram's obedience study investigate?
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What is social facilitation?
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What is social loafing?
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What is groupthink?
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Study Notes
Attribution in Psychology
- Situational Attribution: Analyzes a person's behavior based on the external context or situation.
- Dispositional Attribution: Judges behavior based on assumed internal traits or personality, often ignoring situational factors.
Self-Serving Bias
- Tendency to attribute failures to situational factors while attributing successes to personal factors.
- Example: Blaming a difficult test for failure while claiming personal knowledge for success.
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
- Individuals are more likely to agree to a larger request after first agreeing to a smaller one.
- Example: Successfully asking a friend to help decorate 200 cupcakes after initially requesting a smaller task like shopping for ingredients.
Cognitive Dissonance
- Involves conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors causing discomfort.
- Individuals alter one of the conflicting components to reduce discomfort and restore balance.
- Example: A smoker knows smoking causes cancer and feels dissonance between behavior and cognition.
Solomon Asch's Line Experiment
- Designed to study the impact of social pressure on perceptions.
- About one-third of participants conformed to the majority's erroneous opinions.
Milgram's Obedience Study
- Explored the extent to which people follow authority, even to extreme actions.
- Findings suggested ordinary individuals could commit acts of violence when instructed by authority figures.
- Relevant to the Nuremberg Trials, where defendants claimed they were “just following orders.”
Social Facilitation
- The presence of others enhances individual performance on tasks.
Social Loafing
- Individuals tend to lessen their effort on tasks when they work in a group, leading to reduced performance standards.
Groupthink
- A phenomenon where group consensus overrides logical reasoning and critical analysis.
- Example: Ignored logical assessments regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction leading to the 2003 invasion based on flawed group consensus.
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Description
Test your knowledge on key concepts from Chapter 14 of Psychology. This quiz covers important definitions such as situational versus dispositional attribution and self-serving bias. Perfect for review before your exam!