Causal Attribution and Social Judgment

Back to construal

Misunderstandings across genders—the case of unwanted sexual advances

Back to construal

Misunderstandings across cultures—the Hainan island incident-- collision of Chinese and US jets in 2001

Apology diplomacy Different cultural

perceptions

Outline

1. Causal Attribution—how we make sense of other peoples’ behaviour

2. Self-knowledge—how we make sense of who we are and our own behaviour

3. Social Judgment—strategies, errors and biases in social decision making

Optimistic attributional style predicts future physical health

Even controlling for earlier health

Why Attribution Matters

Attribution –

Explanatory style -

Why Attribution Matters

Optmistic attributional style

Pessimistic attributional style

Optimistic attributional style predicts

Academic achievement Physical health Longevity Relationship satisfaction Likelihood of being elected to office

Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error: overestimating internal

factors and underestimating external factors when explaining other people’s behaviour “Castro Study”

Jones and Harris (1967) ‘Castro study’

Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error:

Anxious public speaker Friendly saleswoman Talkative talk show host Deranged suicide terrorist

Research shows Suicide Bombers are not…

Mentally ill Suicidal Poor Suffering from personality disorders But they are: unmarried young adult men Better explanation: group dynamics (recruitment) and

popular support for suicide attacks

Support for “martyrdom attacks”

Regular attenders 1.8 times more likely to support

Wald = 6.42 , 95% CI for OR = 1.16--3.02, P=0.01

No independent effect of prayer frequency

Control variables: prayer frequency, gender, economic satisfaction, education, refugee status, support for Islamic state

Study 1: Palestinian Representative Sample, 1999 (N=1151)Ginges, Hansen, Norenzayan, 2009

Agreement that “Islam encourages or requires martyrdom attacks”

Regular attenders 3.1 times more likely to support

Wald = 8.473, 95% CI for OR= 1.45--6.47, P=0.004

No independent effect of prayer frequency

Controls: prayer frequency, gender, economic satisfaction, education, refugee status and identification with Islamist Palestinian organizations

Study 2: Palestinian University Student Sample 2006 (N=719)

The tombstone of Baruch Goldstein which describes him as “murdered as a martyr of God”. On the 25th of February, 1994 Goldstein died while killing 29 Muslims at prayer, and injuring 60 others, in the “Cave of the Patriarchs”, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews located in Hebron, the West Bank

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10-Nation BBC Survey of Religious Beliefs

• Mexico (Catholic)• Great Britain

(Protestant)• Russia (Orthodox)• India (Hindu)• Indonesia (Muslim)• Israel (Jewish)

4704 participants

52.7% female

age 18 to over 55

Variation in SES & income

Major religious groupsJoint agreement with:1) “ I am willing to die for my God (beliefs)”2) “I blame other religions for the problems of the world”

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Controls: age, sex,SES, education,human dev index

Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error: explanations

Perceptual:

Cognitive:

Motivational:

Cultural:

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

The dilemma of the innocent victim

•JWB allows individuals to maintain a sense of purpose and control—bad things couldn’t happen to me•Injustice in the world is a perceived threat•Outcomes reflect personal traits – more FAE•One pernicious consequence: blaming victims

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”

Just World Beliefs

Blaming the victim—experiments by Lerner & colleagues Participants watch another person suffer (victim) Restore Justice Condition: Participant (or someone else)

can help the victim JWB Condition: participant (or someone else) cannot help

the victim Outcome: Results:

Just World Beliefs

Victim derogation is less likely

Who believes in a just world?

Just World Beliefs: Summary & Clarifications

When one believes in just world AND the victim cannot be helped =

MORE victim blaming Not about self helping victim (empathy) Not about perceived competence of the

victim (VB even when victim is “randomly assigned” to be a victim)

Attributional Biases Actor-observer effect:

Example: perceptions in conflictExplanations:1)

2)

Attributional Biases Self-serving bias:

Self-Knowledge

o How and how much do we know ourselves?

o Barriers to self-knowledgeo Conscious vs. unconscious self-

knowledgeo Strategies for self-knowledge

Escape from the Self

o Our defenses stop us from knowing ourselves, esp. undesirable aspects

We escape self-awareness throughDefensive strategies (suppression, denial)Addictions: alcohol and drug abuse, sex,

eating, TV, suicide, etc.Work, hobbies, other people

Self-Knowledge

o We may have limited ability to know ourselves

o Ways into self-knowledgeo Introspectiono Observing our own behaviouro Learning about how others see us

Introspection

Look inward to observe1) Feelings, thoughts, desires2) 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

Introspection--do we know the causes of our behavior?

Confabulation: studies with split-brain patients (Gazzaniga & Ledoux)

Pantyhose study (Nisbett & Wilson)

Language centres in Left Hemisphere

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

Observing our own behaviour

Self perception theory:

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: my colleague’s hostility in the late afternoon

Strategies that facilitate self-knowledge

Self-acceptance (less defensiveness) 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 (esp. for reasons

behind our actions)

“Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter

The statue that didn’t look right (see Gladwell, Blink)

First impression in dates, job interviews, consumer choices, …

“Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter

Judging personality traits (Willis & Todorov, 2006)

“Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter

Teacher evaluations (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993)

10, 5, 2 sec. long videotape of prof’s teaching…predicted student evaluations at the end of

term

“Thin slicing”: How first impressions matter

Do people agree on first impressions?Yes

The 1 million $ chicken-egg question:1) Is the (often biased) first impression coloring

longer term judgment? Or2) accurately perceiving what’s there takes only

seconds?

Prop. of correctly predicted soccer games as a function of expertise and thought, Exp 1 (Dijksterhuis et al 2009)

d

Immed: 20s Consc: 2m Unconsc: 2m distr.

Heuristics in Social Judgment

Heuristic:

Heuristics in Social Judgment

Representativeness heuristic-

Heuristics in Social Cognition

Availability Heuristic:

The statistics

By number of deaths:Deaths due to car transportation: 40,000/yearDeaths due to airline transportation: 200/year

By number of passengersCar: 1/6800 deaths per yearAirline: 1/1.6 million per year

Controlling for distance covered10-40 times more likely to die driving than

flying

The statistics

But media coverage is incredibly skewed:0.02 cancer stories/1000 cancer deaths1.7 murder stories/1000 homicides2.3 AIDS stories/1000 AIDS deaths138 plane crash stories/1000 airplane deaths

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

These ways of construal have consequences (health, decisions, conflict,…)