Fundamental Attribution Error • Attribution Theory: attribute the behavior to a person based on the person’s sable, enduring traits (a dispositional attribution), or we can attribute it to the situation (a situational attribution) • Fundamental Attribution Error: Overestimating the influence of personality and underestimate the influence of situations Factors of Attribution • Affected by culture • Western cultures may attribute power to personal traits and Eastern cultures (e.g., China and Japan) may attribute power to the situation • People were asked to view scenes of big fish swimming among smaller fish and plants • Americans focused on the big fish and Japanese viewers voces on the scene (Chua et al., 2005) Attitudes and Actions • Attitudes: feelings, often influenced by beliefs that predispose our reactions to objects, people, and events • Attitudes affect behavior • Vivid, easily recalled information to White sun-tanning college students about putting them at risk for future skin cancer • 72% in the experimental group had decrease in tanning behavior Actions affect Attitudes • Foot-in-the-door-phenomenon: Individuals who agree to a small request will find it easier to later comply with a larger one and may adopt the attitude congruent with the behavior • Korean War: US prisoners were held in Chinese communist war camps • Captors secured collaboration by having them complete simple tasks (e.g., running errands) • Eventually captors had them complete more serious actions (e.g., divulge US military information or false confessions) • When the war ended, 21 prisoners chose to stay with the communists Actions affect Attitudes • Dozens of experiments have demonstrated that researchers can coax people into acting against their attitudes • E.g., after giving orders to harm an innocent victim by making nasty comments or delivering presumed electric shock, people begin to disparage their victims Role-Playing Affects Attitudes • Fake it until you make it phenomenon • Early 1970’s Greek military government eased men into their roles of trained torturers by role-playing • First had them stand has guards outside of interrogation cell, then had them step their foot in the door, then became involved in the question and torturing role • People often become more similar to the role they play Cognitive Dissonance • When we become aware that our attitudes and actions don’t coincide • We relieve the tension by bringing our attitudes in line with past actions • Not only can we think ourselves into action, we can act ourselves into a way of thinking Persuasion • Peripheral route persuasion: Using attention-getting cues to trigger speedy, emotion-based judgements • Comparison of verbal information about the debunked myth of vaccines causing autism compared to showing pictures of unvaccinated children with mumps, measles, and rubella • Only those with vivid descriptions and pictures became convinced (Horne et al., 2015) • Central route persuasion: Offers evidence and arguments that trigger careful thinking • Marshal support for climate change intervention, they may use arguments focused on accumulating greenhouse gases, melting artic ice, rising world temperatures, and seas (van der Linden et al., 2015) Can you change anyone’s point of view by debating? Social Influences • Enormous power of social influence creating social norms: rules for expected and accepted behavior • Social contagion: one person yawns, laughs, coughs, scratches, states at the sky, checks phone, others in the group often do the same (Holle et al., 2012) • Even reading about yawning increases people’s yawning (Provine, 2012) Social Contagion & Behavior Clusters • Mood contagion • Hearing someone read in a happy or sad-sounding voice creates a mood contagion in listeners (Neumann & Strack, 2000) • Positive Ratings generate more positive rating • Positive herding • Facebook experiment in 2010 for US congressional election generated an estimated 282,000 votes because of an “I voted” button • Highly publicized shootings lead to more purchased guns and threatening of violence (Porfiri et al., 2019) • Highly publicized suicides lead to spikes in suicide rates (Phillips et al., 1985; 1989) Conformity and Social Norms • Conformity: adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard • Solomon Asch (1955) Conformity experiment Conformity Experiments • More likely to conform when we are made to feel incompetent or insecure: • Are in a group with at least three people • A group in which everyone agrees (if one other person disagrees, the odds of disagreeing greatly increases) • Admire the group’s status and attractiveness • Have not made a prior commitment to any response • Know that others in the group will observe our behavior • Are from a culture that strongly encourages respect for social standards Obedience: Following Orders • Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974) • Do people give in to outright orders as they do social pressures? • 1000, mostly men, aged 20-50 took part in 20 experiemnts • Told to draw a slip of paper that will say either “teacher” or ”student” • Bot slips of paper say “teacher” • The teacher delivers shock to student if they do not learn the word pairs correctly • The shocks begin slight and progress to Obedience Replication • 60% complied up until the last switch • 65% obeyed the experimenter in a replicated study • Even when the learners reported a slight heart condition or cries of protest • In 10 later studies, women obeyed as similar to men • Replicated in Poland and used for a French TV reality show in which the audience egged on the teacher • The teachers displayed genuine stress (e.g., perspired, trembled, laughed nervously, bit their lips) Influences of Obedience • The person giving orders was close at hand and perceived to be a legitimate authority figure • Authority figure was supported by a powerful and prestigious institution • Victim was depersonalized or at a distance, or in another room • No role models for defying the experimenter Lessons from Conformity and Obedience Studies • ”All evil begins with 15 volts.”-Dr. Zimbardo, Stanford lecture, 2010 • ”I was only following orders.”- Adolf Eichmann, Director of Nazi deportation of Jews to concentration camps • Cruelty does not require devilish villains, just ordination people corrupt by an evil situation • Strong social influences induce many people to conform to falsehoods • Those who resisted usually did so early Power of the individual • Social control: Power of the situation • Personal control: Power of the individual Group Behavior • Social facilitation: Strengthened performance in other’s presence • Complex: The presence of the audience strengthens our most likely response, the correct one on an easy task or a incorrect one on a difficult task • Social loafing: Diminished effort in the presence of a group • Diminished feelings of responsibility (e.g., slacking in a group project) • Deindividuation: Loss of self-awareness and self restraint in the presence of a group Group Behavior • Group Polarization: Beliefs and attitudes we bring to a group grow stronger as we discuss them with like-minded others Group Behavior • Groupthink: Harmonious among the group, but unrealistic group thinking

Fundamental Attribution Error

Related Documents

Recommended Documents

Description

Related Documents

Free up your schedule!

Take 5 seconds to unlock