SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY ATTRIBUTION MISTAKES

Essay by methodman007University, Master'sB-, July 2008

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In this essay the attribution mistakes will be talked in order to give an example with a comic. To obtain information about other people’s traits, motives and intentions, we often engage in attribution efforts to understand why others have acted as they have. However, attribution is subject to several forms of error and it can lead us into serious errors concerning the causes of others behavior.

First of all, attribution theory is, we try to determine why people do what they do in order to uncover the feelings and traits that are behind their actions. Also it focuses on observations of behavior across time, place, different actors and different targets of the behavior and examines how the perceiver chooses either an internal or an external attribution. People also use mental shortcuts when making attributions, including the use of schemes and theories. One common short cut is fundamental attribution error, which is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which people do what they do because of factors.

To give an example for attribution error is: There is a traffic accident and it is a Bilkent university student, you’ll say that all Bilkent students are bad drivers.

Secondly, the summary of the comic, there is a driver who drives the car or a taxi, and there is a woman sits back of the car. The woman always talks and shouts at the driver to give directions. Although, the directions makes the driver angry as we can understand from his face. The woman shouts at driver: ‘Turn left here! Watch out that truck! Slow down! You drive like a maniac!’ these directions are too strict, and the driver can be influenced by her and she can force him to drive badly. Also there is a sentence at the bottom of the...