Psychology Chapter on Attribution Theory

A tendency to overemphasize personality traits and underestimate situational influences when explaining someone's behavior.

The problem of deciding how much credit or blame to assign to someone's success or failure.

External factors that affect a person's behaviour.

Internal characteristics that describe a person.

Regular assessments of success and failure.

Evaluating people's actions requires considering their behavior over an extended period, not just a quick glance.

A person's actions are more significant in evaluating them than their outward appearance.

Understanding a person's character involves assessing their actions consistently over a period, not just based on outward appearance.

Assessing people based on their actions over significant time durations.

A person's actions tell us more about them than their looks.

Mental frameworks for interpreting information.

Using prior knowledge and existing schemas to interpret new information.

Processing information from the outside world to build understanding.

Schemas are essential tools for understanding the world.

Schemas use prior experience to interpret, while bottom-up uses sensory information.

The feeling of ease or difficulty when processing information.

Information that is difficult to process, such as unclear text or complex instructions.

People tend to make judgments about information based on how easy or difficult it is to process.

A mental shortcut where people classify something based on how similar it is to a prototype.

Thoughtful consideration and evaluation of information.

The overall frequency of an event in a population. It's like the average occurrence rate.

It refers to the general frequency or likelihood of a certain event or characteristic in the population.

Ignoring the overall frequency of something when making a decision. It can lead to biased judgments.

It helps us make accurate judgments by providing a context for individual cases. Ignoring it can lead to biased decisions.

Imagine you're trying to decide if someone is a doctor. Knowing the proportion of doctors in the population (base-rate) would help you make a more informed judgment.

A mental shortcut where we judge the likelihood of something based on how easily examples come to mind. If we can easily recall instances, we're more likely to overestimate its frequency or importance.

The perception of a relationship between two things when there's actually none, or a weaker relationship than we perceive. Our brains can create connections that don't exist.

Illusory correlations arise when the availability and representativeness heuristics work together. We easily recall instances that confirm our biases, and those instances fit our preconceived notions, leading to a false sense of connection.

Imagine you hear about several car accidents involving red cars. You might believe red cars are more prone to accidents than other colors, even though data suggests otherwise. The easily recalled instances and the stereotype of 'red = dangerous' create a false correlation.

The way information is presented—using different words or emphasizing certain aspects—can significantly influence how people perceive it and make decisions.

Words with strong emotional connotations or biases that sway people's opinions without presenting factual information.

The language used to describe events can shape how people understand them, leading to different interpretations and judgments.

Describing a policy as "tax relief" is more appealing than calling it a "tax cut" because it implies benefits rather than a loss.

The deliberate use of language to manipulate public perception of events or policies, often by emphasizing certain aspects and downplaying others.

A theory that identifies five core domains underlying our moral intuitions, influenced by social, economic, and religious factors.

One of the five core domains of moral foundations, focused on protecting and caring for others.

A core domain that emphasizes justice, equality, and reciprocity in social exchanges.

A foundation centered on group loyalty, patriotism, and prioritizing the interests of one's group.

A moral domain that emphasizes respect for hierarchy, order, and established traditions.

A concept or idea that is easily noticed or remembered due to its importance or novelty. It stands out in memory.

The process of making a schema, or mental framework, more accessible in your mind. This happens when a schema is used recently or frequently.

Activated schemas are more likely to be applied to new information. Our brains often use existing frameworks to understand new things.

Both recent use and frequent use of a schema increase its activation, making it more likely to be used.

Schemas are crucial for understanding the world. They help us organize information, make predictions, and interpret events.

The structured ranking of individuals or groups within a society based on factors like power, wealth, or prestige.

Following social rules and showing respect for those in positions of authority.

Respect and embarrassment play a crucial role in maintaining societal order.

A positive emotion that shows admiration for individuals or institutions.

A negative social emotion that motivates people to conform to social norms.

A phenomenon where individuals are less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present, as they feel less personal responsibility.

The number of people living in a particular area. Higher density means more people living close together.

The phenomenon where people are less likely to help in emergencies in urban settings (with higher population density) because they feel less personal responsibility.

People may be less likely to help in a city because of the diffusion of responsibility. High population density makes it harder for individuals to feel a sense of personal responsibility for helping in an emergency.

Higher urban density can lead to reduced helping behavior because it makes individuals feel less responsible for assisting in emergencies. The presence of many others around diffuses the sense of personal responsibility.

The tendency for individuals to be less likely to help someone in need when there are other bystanders present.

A situation where people privately disagree with a group's prevailing opinion but publicly conform to the majority view. Each individual assumes that others agree with the majority view, thus misinterpreting the situation.

When bystanders can clearly see each other's initial expressions of concern, it reduces the likelihood of pluralistic ignorance and increases the chances of someone taking action to help a person in need.

Bystanders seeing each other's concern breaks the illusion that everyone else is okay with the situation, making it more likely that someone will take action.

The Bystander Effect and Pluralistic Ignorance are related phenomena. The presence of other bystanders can lead to a diffusion of responsibility and the adoption of pluralistic ignorance, making it less likely for anyone to intervene.

A subtle form of prejudice where people may hold egalitarian values but still harbour negative feelings and attitudes towards certain groups, often due to ingroup favoritism and a desire to maintain the status quo.

A type of prejudice where discriminatory actions are masked behind seemingly non-prejudiced behavior, often occurring in group settings.

A form of prejudice that appears positive but actually reinforces harmful stereotypes. It involves seeming positive beliefs about a group but with underlying negative assumptions about their capabilities.

The mental effort required to manage conflicting beliefs and attitudes, often felt by members of stigmatized groups when interacting with majority group members.

Forms of prejudice that are not overtly expressed, but are subtle and ambiguous, requiring the targets to interpret the meaning and intentions of the behavior.

Prejudice based on a person's name, often due to unconscious biases associated with certain names.

The evolution of prejudice research from focusing solely on overt forms of prejudice to acknowledging subtler and more complex forms of bias.

Overt and explicit forms of prejudice that are often considered unacceptable in contemporary society.

Making assumptions about entire groups of people based on their membership, often ignoring individual differences.

A negative or positive attitude towards a group and its members, often based on stereotypes.

Unfair treatment of individuals based solely on their group membership, often stemming from prejudice.

Tendency to prefer and favor members of one's own group over members of other groups.

The conflict between people's stated beliefs about equality and their actual attitudes or actions toward certain groups.

The idea that competition for resources can lead to groups discriminating and developing prejudices against each other.

The belief that one's own group is superior and other groups are inferior.

Goals that can only be achieved by groups working together.

A technique showing that even arbitrary group distinctions can lead to in-group bias and discrimination.

This perspective focuses on how psychological needs, like the desire for security or social identity, contribute to prejudice and discrimination.

This perspective traces the origins of stereotyping to basic cognitive processes, like categorization.

The bonds and sense of unity within a group.

A learning strategy where students work together in diverse groups to teach each other specific parts of a lesson.

A research method that creates groups based on arbitrary distinctions (e.g., preference for a painting) to study in-group favoritism without real-world social factors.

The difference in points between one's own group and another group, even if the total points are lower.

Our self-esteem comes from our individual identity AND the groups we belong to.

Boosting your self-esteem by associating with a successful group.

Putting down other groups to increase your own group's status.

When unsure of ourselves, we strongly identify with groups to gain self-esteem.

We tend to associate unfamiliar groups with their rare traits, often overlooking shared characteristics. This is because our brains prioritize noticing the unusual.

Stereotypes perpetuate themselves. Behaviors that match our pre-existing beliefs are noticed and remembered, while contradicting behaviors are ignored or forgotten.

Our expectations can influence the behavior of others. Treating people in a way that confirms our stereotypes can create the very behavior we predicted.

People who contradict stereotypes are often dismissed as exceptions, allowing us to maintain our beliefs without actually changing them.

Abstract descriptions (like 'she is lazy') reveal more about our perception of a person than concrete descriptions (like 'she was late').

Information supporting a stereotype is more impactful than contradicting information.

Unfair advantages or disadvantages built into the systems and structures of society, often based on race, gender, or other social categories, leading to unequal opportunities.

The challenge of classifying books about intersectional identities, such as Black women's history, into existing categories that may not fully capture their complex nature.

Language that centers on masculine perspectives and experiences, often neglecting or marginalizing feminine perspectives.

Groups that are absent or lack visibility in significant areas of society, such as media or decision-making bodies.

The historical idea, rooted in racism, that a single ancestor of African descent classifies an individual as Black, regardless of other ancestry.

Physical features that are often associated with stereotypes, which can lead to discriminatory treatment based on appearance.

Language shapes our perception and representation of things and people. Terms used can make some things more prominent in our minds while others become absent.

The understanding that people have multiple intersecting identities (e.g., race, gender, class) that interact to shape their experiences and opportunities.