Attribution

Person Perception and Social Identity

Person perception is how we form impressions of others and ourselves, comparing our behavior to theirs. We define our social identity through these comparisons, helping us understand who we are in relation to others.

• Personality psychologists focus on individual traits and why people act differently in the same situation.
• Social psychologists study the situation, examining social influences that cause people to act differently in different contexts.

Attribution Theory and Errors

Attribution Theory explains how we attribute behavior to internal (dispositional) or external (situational) causes:

• Dispositional Attribution: We attribute a person’s behavior to their stable traits (e.g., “Alex didn’t study hard enough”).
• Situational Attribution: We consider external factors (e.g., “The test was too difficult”).

However, we often make a fundamental attribution error by overlooking situational factors and focusing on personal traits (e.g., assuming Alex is lazy despite external factors).

• Actor-Observer Bias: We tend to attribute our own behavior to the situation (e.g., blaming failures on external circumstances) while attributing others’ behavior to their personal traits.

Social Comparison and Prejudice

• Social Comparison: We assess our abilities and actions by comparing ourselves to others, which influences our self-perception.
• Prejudice: Refers to unjustifiable, often negative attitudes towards a group based on characteristics like ethnicity, gender, or culture. Prejudice has three components:
  • Stereotypes: Generalized beliefs about a group.
  • Negative emotions: Feelings of hostility or fear.
  • Predisposition to action: The tendency to discriminate.

One form of prejudice is ethnocentrism, where one’s own ethnic group is considered superior.

Implicit Prejudice and Its Types

Psychologists study implicit prejudice (unconscious bias) through:

• Unconscious group associations
• Unconscious patronization
• Monitoring reflexive bodily responses

Common types of prejudice include:

• Racial and ethnic prejudice
• Gender prejudice
• Belief system prejudice

Social Inequality and Divisions

When some groups hold more power, wealth, and status, they may justify their position using the just-world phenomenon, a belief that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people. This leads to victim blaming and fuels prejudice.

Ingroup vs. Outgroup

• Ingroup: Groups we identify with (“us”).
• Outgroup: Groups we don’t identify with (“them”).

This distinction shapes our social identity and fosters divisions, such as the ancient Greeks’ view of non-Greeks as “barbarians.”

Emotional and Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

Emotional Roots: Prejudice is fueled by emotions like frustration and anger. According to scapegoat theory, we may direct blame at outgroups during times of hardship.

Cognitive Roots:

• Forming Categories: We categorize people, often by race, leading to the other-race effect, where people can more easily recognize faces of their own race.
• Remembering Vivid Cases: We tend to overestimate the frequency of memorable events, reinforcing stereotypes.
• Victim Blaming: Prejudices are justified by blaming the victim, often influenced by hindsight bias, which makes us believe current social structures are natural or deserved.