Causal Attribution and Social Judgment

1. Causal Attribution and Social Judgment

2. Outline • Causal Attribution—how we make sense of other peoples’ behaviour • Self-knowledge—how we make sense of who we are and our own behaviour • Social Judgment—strategies, errors and biases in social decision making

3. Optimistic attributional style predicts future physical health Even controlling for earlier health

4. Why Attribution Matters Attribution – Explanatory style – internal/external stable/unstable global/specific

5. Why Attribution Matters Optmistic attributional style Negative events are viewed as External, unstable, specific Pessimistic attributional style Negative events are viewed as Internal, stable, global

6. Optimistic attributional style predicts

7. Attributional Biases • Fundamental attribution error:overestimating internal factors and underestimating external factors when explaining other people’s behaviour • “Castro Study”

8. Jones and Harris (1967) ‘Castro study’

9. Attributional Biases • Fundamental attribution error:

10. Attributional Biases • Fundamental attribution error:explanations • Perceptual: • Cognitive: • Motivational: • Cultural:

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Just World Beliefs Victim derogation is less likely Who believes in a just world?

16. Attributional Biases • Actor-observer effect: • Example: • Explanations: • 1) point-of-view: • 2) Knowledge of situational inconsistency for self, but not others

17. Attributional Biases • Self-serving bias: • Cultural differences in this tendency: • Explanation:

18. Self-Knowledge • How and how much do we know ourselves? • Barriers to self-knowledge • Conscious vs. unconscious self-knowledge • Strategies for self-knowledge

19. Escape from the Self • Our defenses stop us from knowing ourselves, esp. undesirable aspects • We escape self-awareness through

20. Self-Knowledge • We may have limited ability to know ourselves • Ways into self-knowledge • Introspection • Observing our own behaviour • Learning about how others see us

21. Introspection • Look inward to observe • 1) Feelings, thoughts, desires • 2) 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

22. Introspection--do we know the causes of our behavior? • Confabulation: studies with split-brain patients (Gazzaniga & Ledoux) • Pantyhose study (Nisbett & Wilson)

23. 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

24. 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

25. Observing our own behaviour • Self perception theory: • Visualizing a situation and observe our reactions to it

26. 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:

27. 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

28. Heuristics in Social Judgment • Heuristic: • They usually operate outside of awareness • Helps us make decisions under uncertainty

29. 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?

30. 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

31. The statistics • By number of deaths: • Deaths due to car transportation: 40,000/year • Deaths due to airline transportation: 200/year • By number of passengers • Car: 1/6800 deaths per year • Airline: 1/1.6 million per year • Controlling for distance covered • 10-40 times more likely to die driving than flying

32. The statistics • But media coverage is incredibly skewed: • 0.02 cancer stories/1000 cancer deaths • 1.7 murder stories/1000 homicides • 2.3 AIDS stories/1000 AIDS deaths • 138 plane crash stories/1000 airplane deaths

33. 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