Summarize the process of making attributions, including the types of biases that influence attributions
What will be an ideal response?
The process of making attributions refers to the manner in which people explain the causes of behaviors. There are two basic types of attributions. A dispositional attribution explains behaviors in terms of internal factors such as someone's personality, while a situational attribution explains behaviors in terms of external causes. Saying that someone who stole something is a dishonest person is a dispositional attribution. Saying that someone stole something to help someone in need is a situational attribution. There are three general types of cognitive biases that influence attributions. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overlook situational explanations for the behavior of others. Instead, people tend to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional factors. Interestingly, this tendency is most
prevalent in individualistic cultures like the United States, where individuality and autonomy are emphasized. It is less prevalent in collectivist cultures such as Japan and China. The actor-observer effect is the tendency to commit the fundamental
attribution error and to rely on situational attributions to explain one's own behavior. A person may say that someone else is having a problem with a relationship because he or she is difficult. But the person's own relationship is in danger because his or her partner does not understand. Self-serving bias refers to the tendency to make attributions that are favorable to one's selfimage. So, successes are attributed to internal causes and failures are blamed on external causes. As with the fundamental attribution error, this tendency is more prevalent in Western cultures.
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Middle-aged adults simultaneously caring for children and parents are referred to as being in the _______________ generation
Fill in the blank(s) with correct word
If you want your child to learn more than one language growing up, it will be best to expose her to multiple languages prior to the age of ____ years
a. 7 b. 9 c. 11 d. 13
You are designing a public health initiative for emerging adults' sexuality. What topic would you choose in an effort to meet the greatest need?
a. Condom use, because emerging adults rarely use them.
b. Oral contraceptive use, because emerging adults rarely use them.
c. Cohabitation, because it increases the risk of sexual abuse.
d. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), because emerging adults are infected at a higher rate than any other age group.
Which of the following describes what happens when a boy is tested on one of the standard measures of a false belief?
a. a boy is asked about where a girl might look for an object that was moved when she was out of the room b. a boy is asked to sort shapes based on his beliefs about how someone else just sorted the shapes c. a boy is asked what he sees on a picture that looks like a dog but is labeled by an adult as a cat d. a boy is asked about whether it is possible for someone to make a dog be able to meow like a cat by believing the dog is actually a cat