1. Sociocultural Loa How society and culture influences our actions.
Major Topics:
Attribution
Social ID Theory
Stereotype
Compliance and Conformity
Cultural Norms

2. Sociocultural Level of Analysis
Principles of SCLOA
1. Human beings are social animals with a basic need to belong.
2. Culture influences human behavior.
3. Humans have social self, and it is reflected by membership in groups.

3. Before we get to the research…
Please Read pages In your journal:
Write three principals of the SCLOA
Then, go to pages and then in your IB Psychology journal, define each of the following methods and discuss the ethical implications and challenges of each method:
Naturalistic Observations
Participant Observations
Covert Observations
Interviews
Case Studies

4. SAQ Practice: Use your notes and the Festinger study to address the following prompt:
Discuss how and why particular research methods are used at the sociocultural level

5. Attribution Theory Definition of Attribute:
Verb: To regard something as being caused by (someone or something).
Noun: a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something.
Attribution is how we interpret and explain causal relationships in the social world?
Common examples:
Can’t get a date
Can’t seem to get good grades like your sibling
Poverty

6. Attribution Theory explained
People tend to explain other people’s failures as dispositional or character flaws.
People tend to explain other’s successes as dispositional or character strengths.
Both of these ignore the situational circumstances
Example: The “successful company starts in a garage” myth.
Harley Davidson
Nike (Philly Boy Knight)
Microsoft (Gates)
Mattel Toys
Apple (Jobs and Wozniak)
Yankee Candle Company
Google (dorks)
Maglite
Amazon (Bezos)
Dell computer
Hewlett Packard
Disney (duh)

7. Attribution theory Two Learning outcomes… Some definitions…
Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior.
Discuss two errors in attribution.
Some definitions…
Attribution theory argues that we do not observe traits; we observe behaviors, and infer personal attributes which may have caused the behavior. Attribution is often spoken of and studied using the dichotomy of situational and dispositional factors.
In general, research indicates that people tend to attribute their own behavior – particularly their failures – to situational factors. Conversely, we tend to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional factors.

8. Disposition vs. Situation
Dispositional Attribution
Peoples’ behavior is caused by internal characteristics; someone’s beliefs, attitudes and personality.
Homelessness of a person explained as lazyness or lack of intelligence
Situational Attribution
Peoples’ behavior is caused by external factors; rewards, punishments and social pressure.
Homelessness of a person explained them being born into poverty, losing a job, lack of social infrastructure, a personal emergency, or an abusive relationship.

9. Attribution theory
Attribution theory assumes that humans are “naive psychologist,” trying to understand the world and other human beings. (Heider, 1958)
Other assumptions of attribution theory:
People tend to look for causes and reasons for other peoples’ behavior because they feel that there are motives behind their own behavior.
People tend to construct their own causal theories about other people’s behavior.
Humans explain and make inferences about their own behavior and that of other people on the basis of implicit assumptions about human nature and human behavior, previous experiences, knowledge from mass media and from the daily interaction with other people.
Most cultures have constructed causal explanations (myths or religious explanations) for the origin – and sometimes meaning – of life.

10. Attribution theory Approach to writing erq…
“Discuss two errors in attribution”: FAE and SSB
Explanation of each error.
Underlying assumptions of each error/Why the error persists.
Research in each error.
Evaluation of research.
Cultural evaluation of each error.

11. Attribution theory Remember the Case of Kitty Genovese (1964)…
IB Learning Outcome: Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior
Remember the Case of Kitty Genovese (1964)…
Genovese Stabbed to death outside of her apt. in NY.
Several (many?) witnesses heard her screams for help
None came to her aid.
Is the bases for studies on the Bystander Effect or Bystander Apathy: The phenomenon that notes that the more people are around an emergency incident, the less likely any one person is to help.
Most commentators tended to cite dispositional defects for the lack of help.

12. Attribution theory
IB Learning Outcome: Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior.
The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person's behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors.
Jones & Davis (1965) proposed the correspondence inference theory. This is the tendency to take someone’s immediate behavior as a general statement about who that person is.
Movie Stars
Teachers
Why do we tend to make the FAE?
The discounting principle of attribution argues that individuals strategically minimize the possible multiple attribution situations into a single and alternative explanation for the event.
We are cognitively conservative, and we like to “keep things simple.” FAE, therefore, is a heuristic - a short-cut for coming to a decision. This is easier done with disposition than situation.
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.

13. Attribution theory
IB Learning Outcome: Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior.
Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson have researched the attribution style for depressed patients, using the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ).
People diagnosed with unipolar depression (MDD) often have:
internal, stable and global attributional style for negative life events and
an external, unstable and local attributional style for positive life events.
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.

14. Ross et al (1977)
IB Learning Outcome: Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior.
Aim: To investigate whether knowledge of allocated social roles in a quiz show would affect participants’ judgments of people’s expertise.
Method: Eighteen pairs of students from an introductory class at Stanford University participated in a simulated quiz game where they were randomly assigned to the roles of either questioner or contestant. In the experimental condition the role of questioner or contestant was randomly allocated to one person in each pair.
Twenty-four observers watched the quiz.
The questioners were asked to compose 10 questions based on their own knowledge and the contestants were asked to answer these questions.
The questioner was instructed to ask each question and then wait around 30 seconds for a response. If the contestants did not answer correctly the questioner gave the correct answer.
After the quiz, all participants and the observers were asked to rate “general knowledge” of contestants and questioners.
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.

15. Ross et al (1977)
IB Learning Outcome: Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior.
Results: The contestants consistently rated the general knowledge of the questioners in the experimental condition as superior. The observers did the same.
This was a clear demonstration of the FAE. The contestants and the observers attributed the questioners’ ability to answer the questions to dispositional factors and failed to take into consideration the situational factors that gave the questioners an advantage. The questioners themselves did not rate their own knowledge as being superior to that of the contestants.
Evaluation: It’s difficult to determine the difference between attribution and response to an authority figure. Witnesses could have claimed that the host was more intelligent not because of internal factors but because of his role as host.
This could be more pronounced considering that the participants were college students, a group who spends their days listening the “expert” professors.
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.

16. Gilbert and Malone (1995) Why does the fae persist?
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.
Why does the fae persist?
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.
Gilbert and Malone (1995) suggest that FAE (they use the term “correspondence bias”) is simply the first step in a two-step process of attribution, claiming that our first attribution is often automatic and unconscious and a function of limited cognitive resources.
During the second step, we seek situational explanations of behavior. Both the first and second steps are important parts of attributing behavior.
This is similar Kahneman and Tversky’s (1972) availability heuristic, which they describe as a mental shortcut that occurs when people judge the probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples.
Both Gilbert and Malone and Kahneman and Tversky suggest that we have a certain type of short-run “cognitive laziness,” or two broad types of cognition: “fast and slow.”
In his best-selling book, Noble Prize-winning economist Kahneman notes these two modes of thought: “System 1” is fast, instinctive and emotional; “System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical.

17. Why does the fae persist?
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.
IB Learning Outcome: Discuss two errors in attribution.
Just-World Phenomenon
Lerner and Miller (1978) argued that FAE provides us with a sense of control over the world, a belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
Conversely, this implies that we have the power to stop bad things from happening to us. We are motivated to see a just world because it gives us a sense of security, helps us find meaning in difficult and unsettling circumstances.
Culture and FAE
Norenzayan (2002) suggested that Korean and Chinese participants tended to incorporate situational information in their attributions more than Americans. All participants, when given limited information, tended to first make dispositional attributions. When given additional information, Asian participants were more likely than Americans to change their attributions, incorporating situational factors.

18. Classwork/Homework
Using text pages and the handouts, define in your IB Psychology journal:
Attribution
Actor-observer affect
Situational Factors
Dispositional Factors
Fundamental Attribution Error
Self-serving Bias
The two exceptions to self-serving bias
Read the study Ross, Amabile and Stenmetz (1977)
In your journal, TADRCE the study and begin to answer the prompt “Discuss two errors in attribution.