ter 5Making Judgments©2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLCNBCU Phot.docx

ter 5
Making Judgments
©2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty
Images/NBCUinversal/Getty Images
Learning Objectives
By the end of the chapter you should be able to:
· Contrast conscious and automatic processes
· Define schemas and scripts and discuss their importance
· Describe the value of heuristics
·
Identify and explain the availability heuristic, representativenes
s heuristic, and affect heuristic
·
Describe how the conjunction fallacy and the base rate fallacy c
ontribute to errors in judgment
·
Define belief perseverance, confirmation bias, and illusion of co
ntrol
· Describe how the self-fulfilling prophecy can affect behavior
Chapter Outline
5.1 Conscious and Automatic Processes
5.2 Schemas and Scripts
· Schemas
· Scripts
5.3 Heuristics
· Availability Heuristic
· Representativeness Heuristic
· Affect Heuristic
5.4 Errors in Judgment
· Belief Perseverance
· Confirmation Bias
· Illusion of Control
5.5 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Chapter Summary
5.1 Conscious and Automatic Processes
When you make a decision do you weigh your options, carefully
sorting out pros from cons? Have you ever made a decision bec
ause youhad a gut feeling? Psychologists believe that our cognit
ive processes operate at two levels: the conscious and the autom
atic. The thoughtprocesses we are aware of and tend to direct ar
e on the conscious level. We might involve conscious thought w
hen we make a decision bycarefully weighing our options. Proce
sses that are done without our intention or awareness, such as w
hen we make a decision based onour gut feeling, occur on the au
tomatic level. Researchers have called these principles a variety
of names, but they all focus on some kindof rational, conscious
process and another more emotional or experientially-
based unconscious process (Epstein, 1994; Kahneman, 2003;Pet
ers, Hess, Vastfjall, & Auman, 2007; Reyna, 2004).
Table 5.1 summarizes the basic differences between these syste
ms. As you can see from the table, the processing of the automa
ticsystem is something that we are generally not aware of. It pro
cesses or interprets stimuli that come from our environment, an
d when ithas completed processing or gets stuck, something rese
archers call disfluency, it alerts the conscious system (Alter, Op
penheimer, Epley, &Eyre, 2007). The capacity of the conscious
system is much smaller than that of the automatic system but it i
s a system we can direct.The unconscious system may be proces
sing something you are not interested in working on; it is only t
he conscious system that allowsyou to deliberately focus on a p
articular idea, situation, or problem.
Table 5.1: Characteristics of the automatic and conscious syste
ms
Automatic System
Conscious System
Fast
Slow
Outside of conscious awareness

Within conscious awareness
Effortless
Effortful
Large capacity
Limited capacity
May do many tasks at once
Limited to very few tasks at once
Imprecise, general responses
Nuanced responses
Sometimes these systems conflict with one another. An example
of the conscious and the unconscious system working against o
neanother can be seen in the Stroop Color–
Word Task (Stroop, 1935). In this task, people are asked to iden
tify the color in which letters orwords are printed. When the lett
ers are meaningless, such as the lines of Xs in Column 1 of Tabl
e 5.2, the task is easy and people gothrough the list quickly. Ho
wever, when the letters spell a color that is not the same as the
color of the ink, people tend to stumble. Thetime it takes someo
ne to go through the second list is much longer than the time it t
akes to go through the first list. The reason for this isthe fact th
at reading color words is a well-
practiced skill for most adults; most of us read the word whethe
r we want to or not. When thetwo do not match, there is a fight
between the automatic system, which says "Green! The word is
green!" and the conscious system, whichfocuses on the color of
the blue ink (although, not everyone agrees with this interpretati
on; see Besner, Stolz, & Boutilier, 1997). Thisslower response
when dealing with two conflicting stimuli is called the Stroop ef
fect. The Stroop effect was named after J. R. Stroop whodevelo
ped the task in the 1930s and wrote about the phenomenon. Sinc
e then, a variety of other tasks have been developed that havesi
milar findings (MacLeod, 1991).
Table 5.2: The Stroop color–word task
For each column identify the color of the ink in which the letter
s are written. For example, in the firstcolumn the first set of lett
ers is red.

Column 1
Column 2
XXXX
Green
XXXX
Blue
XXXX
Red
XXXX
Blue
XXXX
Brown
XXXX
Red
XXXX
Green
Expand Your Knowledge:
Stroop Effect
To try out the Stroop effect for yourself by clicking here.The pr
ogram will time you as you identify the ink colorin two differen
t tasks. You can compare those times tosee if naming an ink col
or in a contrasting color wordslows you down.
The conscious and automatic systems do work together at times.
Imagine you are at a busy and boisterous bar and are talking wit
h asmall group of people. Suddenly, in the next group over you
hear yourname being spoken. You were not actively listening fo
r your name andwere engrossed in your conversation, yet, you s
omehow heard it. Thisoften occurs when we recognize our own
name or other self-
relevantinformation amidst other distracting stimuli without con
sciouslylistening for it (Moray, 1959; Wood & Cowan, 1995). In
this scenario,our conscious system is oblivious to what those in
the other group aretalking about, but your automatic system is
monitoring what is goingon around you. When your name is spo
ken, your unconscious systemalerts the conscious system to pay
attention and suddenly you are straining to hear what is being sa

id about you (Alexopoulos, Muller,Ric, & Marendaz, 2012; Mac
Leod, 1998). Similarly, our own faces jump out at us from a sea
of others faces; you may have noticed thisphenomenon if you h
ave ever looked at a group picture and quickly noticed your own
face (Tacikowski & Nowicka, 2010).
Test Yourself
Click on each question below to reveal the answer.
· What are some characteristics of the conscious system?
·
What are some characteristics of the unconscious system?5.2 Sc
hemas and Scripts
Our automatic system allows us to make shortcuts and come to c
onclusions without
taxing the conscious system (Shah & Oppenheimer,2008). In fac
t, when our resources are depleted we are more likely to use the
shortcuts offered by the automatic
system (Masicampo &Baumeister, 2008). The automatic system
has two ways of doing this; one focuses on things like objects o
r people, while the other focuseson events, what they include, a
nd how they are sequenced.
SchemasFigure 5.1: Schemas
Your schema for a baseball game may include a baseballdiamon
d, a salute to the American flag, and peanuts.
Dorling Kindersley RF/Thinkstock, iStockphoto/Thinkstock,iSto
ckphoto/Thinkstock
Chapter 2 introduced the idea of schemas as knowledge structur
es that organizewhat we know and that can affect how we proce
ss information. Self-
schemas areknowledge structures about the self, but we can hav
e schemas about many otherthings in our world, such as animals
, objects, places, and concepts (see Figure 5.1).When we are ma
king judgments, schemas may affect those judgments. Forexamp
le, a boss might have a schema about an employee as a good, rel
iableworker. If that employee is late one day, the boss makes a

different judgment aboutthat employee than she would if the bos
s had a schema about that employee aslazy and irresponsible. Be
cause of the positive schema about her employee, theboss might
also quickly remember the employee's contributions to past pro
jects,eventually concluding that the employee had a good reason
to be late. Whileschemas can help us remember things by organ
izing them into preconceivedstructures, they may also create fal
se memories for us (Lampinen, Copeland, &Neuschatz, 2001). If
you were to sit in a professor's office for several minutes andth
en, outside of the office hours later were asked what you saw in
that office, yourschema could help you answer. You expect to se
e bookshelves with books, a desk, acomputer, a stapler, and som
e pens in a professor's office. As you remember what was in the
office, your existing schema might help youremember that you s
aw a bookshelf. But the schema may lead you to remember some
thing that was not there. If you expected to see astapler, you mi
ght report that a stapler was there, even if it was not.
Schemas
00:00
00:00
How schemas influence behavior.Critical Thinking Questions
·
Why are schemas considered a fundamental partof social psycho
logy?
·
How does a victim's schema put people at a higherrisk of being
victimized?
Schemas can also help us remember items because they violate a
schema. If youwere to see a stuffed teddy bear in a professor's
office, you might rememberand recall it because it was outside
of your typical professor's-
office schema.This type of effect may have serious
consequences when we examine the role ofschemas in eyewitnes

s testimony in court. Researchers have found that schemasfor cr
imes can influence the details people remember about crimes th
ey witness(Tuckey & Brewer, 2003). For example, you would ex
pect a bank robbery toinclude a thief with a bag; a bag is a sche
ma-
consistent element. You would notexpect the thief to wear brigh
t clothing; bright clothing is a schema-
inconsistentelement. People tend to be accurate about schema-
relevant and schema-
inconsistent information. Information that is irrelevant to the sc
hema is mostlikely to be forgotten.
Schemas can be fairly broad, applicable in a wide variety of situ
ations or with awide variety
of objects or people, or relatively narrow, being very specific to
oneor two objects, people,
or situations. Broader schemas take us longer to learn, aswe enc
ounter different ways to think about and view a particular entity
orproblem. But these broader schemas may allow us to be more
flexible (Chen &Mo, 2004). For example, as a child you might
have learned the concept ofsharing toys and applied it when pla
ying at home with friends. But, if you wereprovided with examp
les of a variety of ways to share over the course of yourlife, incl
uding sharing resources and time with others, you may be more
able torecognize when someone needed your help and know how
to provide it.
Scripts
How do you know what to do when you go into a restaurant? Ho
w do you know what is expected on a first date? In our lives it i
s helpfulto know how to act and respond in social situations. Ps
ychologists call expected series of events scripts, like the script
s in a movie orplay that tell the actors what is going to occur ne
xt. Scripts can be very helpful to us. When a restaurant follows
a script, both the serverand the diner know what to do and what
is expected of them without having to discuss the process. If yo
u have ever lived or traveled in adifferent country, or if you are

part of a distinctive subculture in your own country, you know t
hat others do things differently. Forexample, in Chinese culture
when someone shows admiration for something done well, the a
ppropriate response in the Chinese socialscript is to respond wit
h modesty. According to the script, the admirer's next response
should show even greater admiration for theaccomplishment (Ha
n, 2011). If you are new to a culture or situation, you may find
yourself confused and unsure. In those kinds ofsituations you m
ay feel like everyone knows what is going on but you—
you do not know the script.
©Getty Images/Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Thinkstoc
k
Adhering to your script of grocery shopping, what might occur
next in thesequence of events? What next event would violate y
our script for groceryshopping?
In a dating scenario between a heterosexual couple, it is likely t
he man will pick the woman up at her home for the first date, th
ey will goto a restaurant, talk about their lives, hope to impress
one another, and perhaps then attend a movie. The man will like
ly offer to pay forboth the dinner and the movie. Not all first da
tes follow this pattern, but many do (Eaton & Rose, 2012; Laner
& Ventrone, 2000). Likeschemas, we use scripts to make sense
of and organize our experience. Schemas involve our expectatio
ns for things or concepts, whilescripts involve our expectations
for events or sequences of events.
Dating scripts can be quite detailed and can include behaviors t
hat are different for men and women. In a 1989 study, undergra
duatestudents listed 19 different actions that women would enga
ge in and 27 different actions for men. Most of these students ag
reed on whatbelonged in the script, indicating that scripts are sh
ared within a culture (Rose & Frieze, 1989). Students noted that
certain foods weredate foods and others were not; foods that co
uld be eaten neatly, foods that were not too smelly, and foods th
at were not likely to causebad breath were suggested date foods
(Amiraian & Sobal, 2009). Dating scripts go beyond the first da

te, implicating how a relationshipshould develop over time. Wh
en partners share a script for how the relationship should develo
p, they show greater relationshipsatisfaction (Holmberg & Mac
Kenzie, 2002). For example, if both partners expect to call one
another daily and go out on a date everyFriday night, each will
be more satisfied than if one is expecting only a couple phone c
alls a week and a date every other Saturday night.
The effects of scripts on our lives are not always benign or help
ful. A script that supports risky sexual behavior, such as not usi
ng acondom, may lead to high-
risk behavior and, therefore, increased rates of infection with se
xually transmitted diseases (Bowleg, Lucas, &Tschann, 2004; H
ussen, Bowleg, Sangaramoorthy, & Malebranche, 2012). Sexual
scripts come from parents, peers, school, television andthe movi
es, as well as pornography (Hussen, et al., 2012). Sexual scripts
might also be learned from romance novels. Such novelsgeneral
ly have very similar sexual scripts and these scripts have change
d little over the last 20 years (Menard & Cabrera, 2011). A sexu
alscript includes when and where a couple has sex. For example,
some might expect sex after a few dates while others may need
to knowtheir partner for months or be engaged or married before
engaging in sexual intercourse. Partners might expect to have s
ex in a bed inone of their bedrooms or in some other location in
their living space, their car, or in a hotel. The script will also in
clude elements of theencounter itself such as who initiates sex, l
ength of foreplay, type of activities expected in foreplay, and th
e use of condoms or otherbarriers that reduce the risk of sexuall
y transmitted diseases or pregnancy.
The ability to describe a script or put events in a script in the co
rrect order seems to lie in the frontal lobe of the brain, directly
behindthe forehead. People with brain damage to this part of the
brain sometimes show difficulties with scripts (Grafman, 1989)
. Our ability towork with scripts can also be influenced by age.
Older adults had more difficulty correctly ordering extensive sc
ripts than younger adults(Allain et al., 2007). For example, an o
lder adult may have more difficulty accurately describing the se

quence of events needed to changea flat tire.Test Yourself
· How are schemas and scripts similar?
·
How might schemas lead to false or mistaken memories?5.3 Heu
ristics
Quick processing is a theme of our cognitive systems. As discus
sed, schemas help us keep information organized and can help i
n memory,and scripts help us know what to do without expendin
g a lot of energy trying to figure out what is appropriate in a giv
en situation. Whenmaking judgments we also attempt to get quic
k answers. The shortcuts we use in making judgments are heuris
tics. If you were havingtrouble answering an abstract problem, y
ou might try to think about it concretely, or draw a picture in an
attempt to answer the questionquickly, without further taxing y
our cognitive system. Just as schemas and scripts can be helpful
to us, heuristics can also be helpful—
weare likely to quickly come up with a pretty good answer. But
just as schemas can cause us to remember something was there
when it wasnot, heuristics can lead to incorrect judgments. Rese
archers who evaluate heuristics most often focus on what happe
ns when heuristicsfail us and we make incorrect judgments. Des
pite the problems they sometimes create, heuristics quickly prov
ide us with a good-enoughanswer most of the time.
Heuristics
00:00
00:00
Heuristics and their impact on our lives.Critical Thinking Quest
ions
· How do heuristics function in daily life?
· How are heuristics studied in social psychology?
Availability Heuristic

Are there more words in the English language that begin with th
e letter "R," orthat have the letter "R" as the third letter of the w
ord? Tversky and Kahneman(1973) asked participants in their st
udy to respond to this question. Most peopleresponded that ther
e are more words with "R" as the first letter, estimating thatther
e are about twice as many with "R" as the first letter than with "
R" as thethird letter. How do people make this judgment? If you
solved this like mostpeople do, you thought briefly about how
many words you knew that had "R" asthe first letter (relatives, r
ainbow, rich, run). Then you thought about how manywords you
knew that had "R" as the third letter (park, more, marshmallow)
. Asyou made those calculations, you realized that you were abl
e to come up withmany more words with "R" as the first letter t
han "R" as the third letter. Wordsstarting with "R" were more av
ailable to you in your memory.
Making a judgment this way, you and the research participants
were using theavailability heuristic. The availability heuristic in
volves the tendency to makejudgments about the frequency of s
omething or the likelihood of an eventoccurring by considering
how available it was in memory. Instances that comemore easily
to mind, and thus are more available, are judged to be more lik
ely. Asnoted earlier, these strategies often get us the right answ
er, but in the case of theposition of the "R" our judgment is wro
ng. There are actually more words in the English language with
"R" as the third letter than "R" asthe first letter. Often this type
of judgment will provide you with the right answer, but, as in th
is instance, there is room for error.
We can apply this to other realms and other experiences. How s
uccessful is online dating? Many people will tell you about a co
usin orcoworker who met and is happily married to someone fou
nd on an online dating site. You may have such a story yourself.
But how oftendo you hear the stories about unsuccessful search
ers who gave up on online dating in frustration? Occasionally, p
erhaps, but because wehear more of the happily-ever-
after stories and fewer stories of frustration, many of us assume
online dating is successful for the majorityof those who engage

in it.Test Yourself
Click on the question below to reveal the answer.
·
Why does the availability heuristic have the word availability in
its name?
Representativeness Heuristic
"Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She
majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned
with issuesof discrimination and social justice, and also particip
ated in antinuclear demonstrations" (Tversky & Kahneman, 198
3, p. 297). Which ofthe following is more likely?
1. Linda is a bank teller.
2. Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement.
If you are like most people you chose answer b. Why? Most peo
ple say they chose b because Linda sounds to them like someone
whowould be active in the feminist movement who happens to
be a bank teller rather than just a stereotypical bank teller. If yo
u answeredthis way, for this reason, you were using something c
alled the representativeness heuristic. The representativeness he
uristic involvesmaking decisions based on how similar someone
or something is to the typical, or representative, person or situat
ion. Because Lindaseems like your typical vision of someone in
the feminist movement, you choose b.Expand Your Knowledge:
Heuristic Simulation
Want to think more about the representativeness andavailability
heuristics? You can participate in simulationsof heuristics at htt
p://cat.xula.edu/thinker/decisions/heuristics/. Otherheuristics ar
e described as well. After making your ownjudgments, you can r
ead about usual answers andexplanations for these answers.
The representativeness heuristic will often get you to the right a
nswerwhen you are making quick decisions. But in the above ex
ample, Lindais more likely to be just a bank teller than to be bot
h a bank teller andactive in the feminist movement. There are m
ore bank tellers thanthere are bank tellers who are active in the
feminist movement. Whenwe rate two things occurring together

as more likely than one of thosethings occurring alone, we enga
ge in the conjunction fallacy. Theconjunction fallacy is the erro
r of believing that two events occurringtogether are more likely
than either of those events occurring bythemselves. It is a fallac
y because logic dictates a single event is morelikely than that sa
me event happening with another event.
Another piece of faulty reasoning that may be behind these heur
isticsis the base rate fallacy (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). Cons
ider the following: Walter is a 47-year-
old man who reads poetry, watchesPBS, and plays golf in his sp
are time. Which is more likely: that Walter is an Ivy League pro
fessor or that Walter is a truck driver? Formost of us, Walter so
unds like an Ivy League professor. Using the representativeness
heuristic, we solve this problem by thinking aboutwhether Walt
er is more like a typical Ivy League professor than a typical truc
k driver. But Walter is more likely to be a truck driver. Why?Ac
cording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012) 1.6 million hea
vy and tractor-
trailer truck drivers are employed in the United States, tosay not
hing of elsewhere in the world. Consider how many Ivy League
professors there are. With only eight Ivy League schools, withb
etween a little under 1,000 faculty (Dartmouth and Brown) to ju
st over 4,000 (Pennsylvania and Columbia) per school, there are
about19,500 Ivy League professors. Given the very large numb
er of truck drivers and relatively small number of Ivy League pr
ofessors, it ismuch more likely that Walter is among the large gr
oup than the small group. When we make a decision about the li
kelihood of somethingand ignore the number of instances of that
in the population (of people, actions, diagnoses, etc.) we are vi
ctims of the base rate fallacy.Test Yourself
· Why is the conjunction fallacy called a fallacy?
·
How does the base rate fallacy contribute to making an incorrec
t judgment when using the representativenessheuristic?

Affect HeuristicExpand Your Knowledge:
Affect Heuristic
Research on how people understand numbers shows thatwhile fr
equencies and percentages are easily understood,absolute freque
ncies are given greater weight. Absolutefrequencies are perceiv
ed to be larger than equivalentfrequencies or percentages. Altho
ugh there may be otherthings going on, the text explains this as
at least partlydue to the affect heuristic. We connect emotionall
y toabsolute frequencies (30 people with cancer) in a way wedo
not with percentages (30% of the group has cancer).Click here f
or an article explaining the research"Numerical Information Can
Be Persuasive or InformativeDepending on How it's Presented."
Source: Science Daily/University of Toronto.
Imagine you are on a parole board deciding whether to parole an
inmate. You are told that 20 in every 100 people released under
similarcircumstances as this inmate go on to commit a violent cr
ime. Wouldyou parole the person or deny parole? What if you w
ere told that 20%of people released who are like this inmate go
on to commit a violentcrime? Research participants have been a
sked similar questions. Thosegiven information using relative fr
equency, the first form of question,believed there was greater da
nger than those with information instatistical form (Slovic, Mon
ahan, & MacGregor, 2000). Rationally, weknow that 20 out of e
very 100 people is equivalent to 20%, but weprocess these bits
of information differently. When this information ispresented in
relative frequency form, in this case the number ofinstances out
of 100, people imagine 20 perpetrators of violent crimes—
a disturbing image. These images lead to a gut-
level negativeemotional reaction. The statistical form, a percent
age in this case,seems to separate us from that image, and theref
ore reduces thenegative affect (emotional reaction). We use our
gut-
level reactions tohelp us make decisions (Slovic, Peters, Finuca
ne, & MacGregor, 2005).This tendency to use affective reaction
s (gut-
level emotional reactions) as information to make judgments is

called the affect heuristic.Someone looking for a home might us
e the affect heuristic. Although price, square footage, school dis
trict, and neighborhood may all bepart of the judgment, if the af
fect heuristic is in play homebuyers might report that the home t
hey chose just felt right.
These heuristics are not just a novelty of research studies. They
can affect our lives. In a study of women who were being tested
forgenetic vulnerability for breast and ovarian cancer, research
ers found extensive use of the availability heuristic and the repr
esentativenessheuristic (Kenen, Ardern-
Jones & Eeles, 2003). The women described vivid stories of oth
ers they knew who had been treated for or diedof cancer, which
affected how vulnerable these women felt in terms of their canc
er risk. The representativeness heuristic caused thewomen to jud
ge their own cancer risk by how similar they felt they were to ot
hers who had died of cancer.Test Yourself
·
Why would information about a new literacy program that helps
60 out of every 100 children sound better to peoplethan if the n
ew literacy program were described as helping 60% of children?
Social Psychology in Depth: Heuristics and Politics
When you vote, do you spend all the time and energy required t
o consider all the issues for all the candidates? If not, youare no
t alone. Voters often use heuristics to make judgments about pol
itical candidates. The time required to find, sortthrough, and ev
aluate information on all the candidates is more than many peop
le can afford. How, then, does that affect thedecisions themselv
es?
R. R. Lau and D. P. Redlawsk (2001) note that voters often use
party affiliation or candidate ideology to make quickdecisions i
n voting. Most of the time such decision-
making strategies get the voters what they want, but there are ti
meswhen party affiliation or ideology can lead a voter astray. A
candidate might be categorized incorrectly. For example, theme
dia may say that a candidate for governor is a conservative whe

n she is actually more of a moderate in her policies.Candidates
may also differ from the party line. A voter may assume that be
cause the candidate is Republican she is pro-
life,but she may actually be pro-choice.
Beyond party affiliation and ideology, a voter might also use en
dorsements to make decisions. If a favorite celebrity showssupp
ort for a particular candidate, that voter might choose to vote fo
r that candidate. Endorsements may come fromindividuals one tr
usts, like a close friend or a celebrity, or from organizations one
believes in, like the National RifleAssociation or the National
Organization for Women.
Polling data also provides a simple cue to a voter. When a partic
ular candidate is ahead in the polls, voters might vote forthat ca
ndidate because that candidate is popular or because they percei
ve that candidate will win. Candidate appearancecan also influe
nce voters.
The researchers found that less sophisticated voters made poore
r decisions when they relied on these heuristics. Thesevoters wo
uld have been better served if they had examined the issues the
candidates stood for and made a logical, rationalchoice rather th
an relying on heuristics. Using a shortcut was detrimental to dec
ision making. More sophisticated voters,those with greater inter
est and knowledge of the political system, made good decisions
while using heuristics. This findingis somewhat ironic given tha
t sophisticated voters are least likely to need heuristics, but they
were the ones whosedecisions making did not suffer from using
them.
5.4 Errors in Judgment
Heuristics often get us the correct answer and do so quickly. At
times, however, our cognitive systems use shortcuts that make it
moredifficult for us to find the right answer. These ways of thi
nking create and perpetuate errors by leading us to keep believi
ng in somethingeven after our reasons for believing have been d
isconfirmed. The cognitive shortcuts might also cause us to igno

re or discountinformation that goes against our beliefs. When w
e believe we have more control than we actually do, we are mak
ing an error in ourjudgment.
Belief Perseverance
Imagine you were presented with evidence that firefighters who
are risk takers are better firefighters. These firefighters are willi
ng to dorisky things like climb up tall ladders and run into burni
ng buildings. Their risk-
taking tendencies also help them to find new andinventive ways
to fight fires. After you have seen this evidence you are then tol
d it is completely false. There is no relationship betterfirefighte
rs' ability to fight fires and their risk-
taking tendencies. Would you continue to believe what you were
told? Researchers foundthat research participants presented wit
h evidence did continue to believe, even after the researchers tol
d them they had falsified thedata. They continued to believe it
when the researchers checked with them one week later (Anders
on, 1983). Maybe because the ideathat risk taking is needed in f
irefighting is so self-
evident, it is the logical thing to believe, even when the story is
debunked. The problemwith this conclusion is that the researche
rs only told half of the participants that good firefighters are ris
k takers. The other half weretold that risk aversion was a good q
uality in firefighters. Firefighters need to carefully analyze situ
ations and only go into a burningbuilding when they know the ri
sks, so they can get themselves and others out safely. The partic
ipants told about the positive effects ofrisk avoidance continued
to believe the story they had been told even after they found ou
t it was fabricated.
The tendency to believe something even after the initial reasons
for that belief are discredited is called belief perseverance. Beli
efperseverance can be problematic in many situations. For exam
ple, if your romantic interest becomes secretive, you might susp
ect him orher of cheating on you. Even when you find out the se
cretiveness was part of planning a romantic surprise for you, yo

ur suspicion mightremain. Students who come to believe they la
ck a certain ability may persevere with that belief despite evide
nce that their poorperformance is a result of poor instruction, ra
ther than inability (Lepper, Ross, & Lau, 1986).
One way to counteract belief perseverance is to come up with ex
planations that are opposite
of that belief. When research participantshad to explain why ris
k-
averse firefighters might be good firefighters, the opposite of th
eir initial belief, they showed less beliefperseverance (Anderson
, 1982). However, if people try to come up with an alternative f
or their initial belief and find it difficult to do so,they come to h
old their initial belief more strongly. When using the availabilit
y heuristic, people assume that an explanation that isdifficult to
think of is an unlikely explanation. Another, counterintuitive wa
y to fight against belief perseverance is to ask people to comeup
with a large number of explanations for the initial belief (Nestl
er, 2010). If it is difficult to develop 10 reasons why risk-
takingfirefighters might be better firefighters, then people come
to believe that conclusion less.
Confirmation Bias
Once a belief is established, people tend to search for informati
on that will confirm that belief, a phenomenon called the confir
mationbias. This is not something people do consciously
or deliberately (Gibson, Sanbonmatsu, & Posavac, 1997). Nonet
heless, wheninformation is presented, the material that supports
a preexisting belief is seen as convincing
while material that refutes a belief isexamined closely and critic
ized (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). For example, a professor mi
ght evaluate a student paper whose argument isin line with his b
eliefs on economic policy very favorably. However, he might att
ack the logic or arguments of a paper that goes againsthis positi
on on economic policy, even if it is as well-
written as the other paper.

©Bettman/Corbis/AP Images
A person's pre-
existing belief might be confirmed by reading anewspaper that s
upports his or her opinions.
This tendency might be particularly dangerous in criminal cases
. Whensomeone commits a crime, police and lawyers need to fin
d the personresponsible and make a case against that person. If t
he police andprosecutors believe a particular person is guilty th
ey are likely to searchfor information that confirms that belief a
nd may discount or ignoreinformation that goes against their bel
ief. If they are correct in the guiltof the person, belief persevera
nce is not too problematic. It is when aninnocent person is accu
sed that belief perseverance is most dangerous.For example, ear
ly identification of a particular suspect colors perceptionsof late
r evidence, even when that identification was made with littleco
nfidence in its accuracy (O'Brien, 2009). Police officers might p
ushharder in interrogation for someone they believe to be guilty
thansomeone they are less sure of and see evidence of someone'
s innocenceas less reliable (Ask, Rebelius, & Granhag, 2008; Ka
ssin, Goldstein, &Savitsky, 2003; Kerstholt, & Eikelboom, 2007
). Also, when a potentiallyguilty suspect has been identified, fe
wer alternative avenues may bepursued (O'Brien, 2009; Rassin,
Eerland, & Kuijpers, 2010).
Keep in mind that this is an unconscious process. Serious, well-
meaning, and ethical police and lawyers may fall victim to this
generalhuman tendency. Individuals in other professions are jus
t as likely to experience belief perseverance. Psychiatrists, for e
xample, may seekinformation to confirm a certain diagnosis the
y believe to be true (Mendel, et al., 2011). One technique that c
an be helpful to fight againstthe confirmation bias is to delibera
tely discuss evidence both for the belief and against it (O'Brien,
2009). Arguing against a belief canhelp make people aware of o
ther possibilities and explanations.
Illusion of Control
Our cognitive shortcuts do not only allow us to maintain and per

severe in our beliefs—
even when reasons behind our beliefs are nolonger valid, they al
so cause us to make errors in our judgments about the control w
e have in situations that involve chance. Despiteknowledge to th
e contrary, we treat many chance situations as circumstances in
which our choice, skill, or hard work will make adifference—
a phenomenon shown in Ellen Langer's studies of illusion of co
ntrol. In the 1970s, Ellen Langer did a series of studiesinvestiga
ting the amount of control people believe they have in situations
involving chance. In one of these studies, Langer asked people
ifthey would like to buy a $1 card to participate in a $50 lottery.
Half of the participants were allowed to choose the card from a
deck ofcards, the other half were handed a card from that same
deck. When Langer came back later to ask if they would be willi
ng to sell thecard they owned, those who had chosen their card
wanted an average of $8.67 for the card. Those who were hande
d a card said theywould sell for $1.96. Why the difference? Lan
ger proposed that choice gave people a sense that they had some
control over the outcomeof the lottery, even though all cards w
ere equally likely to win.
When people participate in a game of chance and believe that th
eir actions somehow influence the outcome, they have an illusio
n ofcontrol. An illusion of control occurs any time we approach
a situation believing and acting as though we have more control
that weactually have. This is true when we have no control and
act as though we have some control, or when we have some cont
rol and act asthough we have more control than we do (Presson
& Benassi, 1996). The illusion is greater when people are more
involved in the taskand when the task or aspects of it are more f
amiliar (Langer, 1975; Thompson, 1999; Wohl & Enzle, 2002).
A state lottery that allows youto choose your own numbers is us
ing both of these to increase your sense of control. By choosing
your own numbers you are moreinvolved. Many people who pla
y the lottery play with familiar, sometimes much loved, number
s such as birth dates or weddinganniversaries. Success at a task
also increases illusion of control. When people get the outcome

they desire, particularly at the beginningof a string of outcomes,
their illusion of control is greater (Langer & Roth, 1975; Thom
pson, 1999). For example, if someone was playing aslot machin
e and had a string of wins early on, that person would have a str
onger illusion of control and may, with that illusion, be morelik
ely to continue to play.Test Yourself
·
While doing an Internet search on the topic of gun control, And
y quickly zeroes in on a story that is consistent with hisviews, a
nd ignores a different story that goes against his point of view.
Which of the concepts discussed in this sectionbest describes A
ndy's behavior?
·
Before rolling the dice in a game, Sue always blows on the dice
and whispers what she wants them to be. Which of theconcepts
above best describes Sue's behavior?
5.5 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
DeAgostini/SuperStock
Self-
fulfilling prophecy is even prevalent in ancientmythology. Oedi
pus, a Greek king, was told that hewould one day kill his biolog
ical father and marryhis biological mother. This dated painting
depictsOedipus killing his father.
Can our judgments about another person affect that person's beh
avior? In otherwords, can one person's expectations affect how
another person acts? This was aquestion investigated by Robert
Rosenthal in a study involving teachers and students(Rosenthal
& Jacobson, 1966). After giving students what appeared to be a
test ofintelligence, Rosenthal told teachers that certain students
were predicted to "bloom"over the school year; that is, these stu
dents were expected to make great intellectualgains. In reality t
hese students' names were randomly chosen from each classroo
m.The students were not told anything about the tests or what th
eir teachers expectedof them. When the researchers returned at t

he end of the school year, they found thatthese randomly chosen
students did indeed make gains. The researchers concludedthat
because the students were no different from their classmates at t
he beginning ofthe study, it must have been the teachers' expect
ations that affected the students'performance.
This tendency for our expectations to affect the behaviors of oth
ers is called the self-
fulfilling prophecy. We "prophesy" someone else's behavior,
that is, we believesomething will happen, and through our actio
ns resulting from that belief, we make itcome true (see Figure 5.
2). The behaviors we engage in to make these propheciescome tr
ue is behavioral confirmation. Left alone, the prophesied behavi
or wouldlikely not have happened; these students would not hav
e made the gains they did.Because of the prophecy and the teach
er's subsequent behavior, the teacher managedto create a situati
on where the prophecy would come true. The teachers called on
thestudents
they expected to make gains more often, gave them more feedba
ck, andcreated a generally more welcoming learning environmen
t. Researchers themselvescan fall victim to the self-
fulfilling prophecy. When doing an experiment a researcherhas
expectations for how the study will turn out, stated in the hypot
hesis for the study. If controls are not put in place, the research
ermight act in a way that leads the participants to behave in a w
ay that fulfills the experimenter's expectations.
Figure 5.2: The self-fulfilling prophecy
The self-
fulfilling prophecy demonstrates that our beliefs about others an
d subsequent actions toward themcan influence the beliefs and a
ctions of others.
One theory that helps explain how individuals come to behave i
n ways others expect them to is self-
verification theory. According toself-
verification theory people want to confirm or verify what they b
elieve to be true about themselves (Swann, 1987). Even when ou

rbeliefs about ourselves are negative we desire to confirm those
beliefs because it allows for a stable self-
concept and a predictable socialworld (North & Swann, 2009). F
or example, if you believed you were awkward in social situatio
ns, you would want others toacknowledge that because then you
would not have to change your self-
concept and others would not expect you to be suave and self-
confident in social situations. Self-
verification interacts with self-
fulfilling prophecy when the behaviors of the person making the
prophecy lead the person to internalize those beliefs and then w
ork to fulfill that sense of self. For example, in a longitudinal st
udy ofteens and their mothers, Madon et al. (2008) found that a
mother's beliefs about her child's future drinking behavior influ
enced thechild's belief about his or her future drinking behavior.
The child's belief lead to self-
verification behaviors and, therefore, the fulfillmentof the moth
er's drinking prophecies.
Self-
fulfilling prophecies have multifarious effects. As noted, parent'
s beliefs about their child's underage drinking can create a self-
fulfilling prophecy, leading to greater or lesser drinking later on
depending on the prophecy (Madon, Guyll, Spoth, Cross, & Hil
bert, 2003;Madon, Willard, Guyll, Trudeau, & Spoth, 2006). Wi
thin relationships, researchers found that women with high rejec
tion sensitivity—
inother words, those who expect that the other person will reject
them—
act in ways that lead to rejecting responses. These womenproph
esied rejection and, by their actions, created rejection in their ro
mantic partners (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998).
Self-
fulfilling prophecy has even been proposed as partially responsi
ble for the extreme violence found in the Pelican Bay State Pris
on, asuper-
maximum security prison for extremely violent and dangerous p

risoners (King, Steiner, & Breach, 2008). Researchers argue tha
t theexpectation of prisoners to be very violent in the prison env
ironment creates behavior that leads to a fulfillment of that prop
hecy.
The self-
fulfilling prophecy may influence our experiences of pain or illn
ess. Teens who believed they would have more pain after surger
yended up feeling more pain and using more pain medication th
an those who believed their pain would be minimal (Logan & R
ose, 2005).It may be that the teens who were expecting pain wer
e more anxious and paid more attention to every twinge of disco
mfort, leading to amore severe experience of pain. In a similar
way, naval cadets who believed they would experience less sea
sickness and any sea sicknessthey experienced would be unlikel
y to affect their work did better when at sea (Eden & Zuk, 1995)
. In neither of these situations did theprophecy eliminate the pai
n or sickness, but it did make it better for both.
Test Yourself
· How is it that self-fulfilling prophecies come true?
Conclusion
Our cognitive systems are designed to work as efficiently as pos
sible, with the automatic system taking over as much as it can,
while theconscious system deals with the nuanced and difficult
problems that the automatic system cannot handle. The use of sc
hemas andheuristics helps make this possible. These mental sho
rtcuts can be helpful to us, but, at times, do lead to errors.Chapt
er Summary
Conscious and Automatic Processes
The human cognitive system operates on two levels, a conscious
level and an automatic level. The conscious system is directed
by theindividual and works slowly and deliberately on problems
to provide nuanced answers. The automatic system works outsi
de of consciousawareness and without intention. The automatic
system works quickly, is largely effortless, and provides general

answers.
Schemas and Scripts
Schemas are knowledge structures that allow for organization of
information. Schemas
can be helpful in memory but can also providemisleading cues
when something we expect because of our schema is not present
. Scripts are knowledge structures about events. Scriptscan be h
elpful by allowing individuals to predict what will happen and t
o, therefore, engage in expected behavior.
Heuristics
The automatic system allows us to make quick judgments throug
h the use of mental shortcuts
called heuristics. When we use theavailability heuristic, we judg
e the likelihood of an event based on how available that event is
in memory. The representativenessheuristic involves judging th
e likelihood of an event based on how closely it resembles the t
ypical case. When we make errors injudgments using these heuri
stics it may be due, in part, to the conjunction fallacy or the bas
e rate fallacy. With the conjunction fallacy, wejudge the likelih
ood of two things occurring together as more likely than one of
those occurring alone. When we ignore the rate of eventsand ma
ke judgments that suggest the unlikely event is more likely, we
have engaged in the base rate fallacy. The affect heuristic occur
swhen we make judgments based on gut-
level emotional reactions to events.
Errors in Judgment
Particular ways of thinking can contribute to errors in judgment.
When we engage in belief perseverance we continue to believe
insomething even after our reasons for believing have been disc
onfirmed. Confirmation bias occurs when we ignore or discount
informationthat goes against our beliefs and search for and pay
attention to information that fits with our beliefs. When we beli
eve we have morecontrol in a situation we have an illusion of co

ntrol.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Others' expectations of us can influence our behavior. Research
ers have found that prophecies for behavior—
in other words, what peoplethink others will do—
can become self-
fulfilling when individuals act in ways that elicit that behavior f
rom the other.Critical Thinking Questions
1. How might schemas be helpful and harmful in one's life?
2. What might your life be like if there were no scripts?
3.
Consider a time when you might have used the availability, repr
esentativeness, or affect heuristic in making a judgment. How di
d thataffect the accuracy of your judgment?
4.
Although the examples in the chapter concern times when heuris
tics lead us to incorrect answers, why are heuristics helpful and
used regularly by us?
5.
What might you do to recognize and fight against belief perseve
rance and confirmation bias?
6. Have self-
fulfilling prophecies ever affected your life?Key Terms
Click on each key term to reveal the definition.
affect heuristic
automatic system
availability heuristic
base rate fallacy
behavioral confirmation
belief perseverance
confirmation bias
conjunction fallacy
conscious system
heuristics
illusion of control

representativeness heuristic
schema
scripts
self-fulfilling prophecy
self-verification theory
Stroop effect
Chapter 4
Attitudes, Attributions, and Behavior
©IS Stock/Valueline/Thinkstock
Learning Objectives
By the end of the chapter you should be able to:
·
Define attitude, and differentiate between implicit and explicit a
ttitudes
· Describe when behaviors and attitudes are likely to match
· Explain the theory of planned behavior
·
Describe cognitive dissonance theory and insufficient justificati
on
· Describe self-perception theory
·
Define an attribution, and differentiate internal and external attr
ibutions
· Define the fundamental attribution error
·
Explain how explanatory style works, and differentiate between
optimistic and pessimistic explanatory style
· Describe the hostile attribution of intent
·
Differentiate the false consensus effect and false uniqueness eff
ect
· Explain the illusion of transparency and spotlight effect
Chapter Outline

4.1 Attitudes
4.2 Behavior and Attitudes
· Theory of Planned Behavior
· Behavior and Attitude Mismatch
· What Is My Attitude?
4.3 Explaining the Behavior of Others
4.4 Fundamental Attribution Error
4.5 Explanations and Our Behavior
· Optimistic and Pessimistic Explanatory Styles
· A Hostile World
· Just Like Everybody Else
· What Do Others See?
Chapter Summary
* * *
If you have ever tried online dating, you are in good company.
A study by Match.com reported that 40 million people visited or
used an online dating site in the previous year, with an annual r
evenue of 1.9 billion dollars (Laird, 2012). Most online datingsi
tes involve profiles, where potential daters post information abo
ut themselves. Others then access that information and decidew
hether they would like to communicate with or date the person p
rofiled. People often share their likes or dislikes in theirprofiles
, and potential online dates look at those attitudes and form thei
r own attitudes about the person. In meeting newpeople, online
or face to face, and in interacting with those we know, we are c
onstantly trying to understand the motivationsbehind people's ac
tions—
we make attributions for behavior. In this chapter we look at bot
h of these phenomena, attitudes andattributions, and how they in
teract with our behavior.
· Knowledge Check
4.1 Attitudes

From the time you wake up in the morning to the moment your
head hits the pillow at the end of the day, you encounter objects
, people,animals, actions, and situations that require a response.
As you face all these things, you must make quick evaluations s
o you know howto react. For example, if you evaluate the neigh
bor as mean and cream as good, you would avoid interacting wit
h the neighbor and putcream in your coffee. Attitudes are evalua
tions. These evaluations are based on our reactions—
both in terms of how we feel and what wethink—
to some attitude or object. The objects of our attitudes/evaluatio
ns can be physical objects, other people or groups of people,abs
tract or concrete ideas, animals, behaviors, or even some aspect
of ourselves (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). An online dater might ha
ve anattitude about his online date, as well as about her dislike
of football, her love of cats, and her identity as a runner. The w
oman, football,cats, and running are all attitude objects. Your n
eighbor and cream are also attitude objects.
Expand Your Knowledge: Pew Global
Attitudes Project
If you would like to investigate a wide variety of attitudesfrom
around the world, take a look at the Pew GlobalAttitudes Projec
t website at http://pewglobal.org/.Reports on a variety of survey
s are also available.
Attitudes have long been considered important to social psychol
ogy(Allport, 1935). Throughout the years, social psychologists
have foundthe subject of attitudes a fruitful area of research (Cr
ano & Prislin,2006). The evaluations we make have two measur
es: strength andvalence. Attitudes may be very strong or very w
eak. In terms ofvalence, we may have attitudes that are on the p
ositive side of thespectrum (you like cats) or negative side of th
e spectrum (you hateelephants). Putting together strength and va
lence, you might have afairly weak positive attitude toward cats
and a very strong negativeattitude toward elephants. There is al
so a body of work on ambivalentattitudes—
attitudes that are simultaneously positive and negative (Armitag
e & Conner, 2000; van Harreveld, van der Plight, de Vries,Wen

neker, & Verhue, 2004).
When most of us think of attitudes, we probably think of how w
e feel about objects, people, or groups, but researchers have fou
nd thatconsciously known and reported attitudes are only part of
the attitude picture (Nosek & Smyth, 2007; Payne, Burkley, &
Stokes, 2008).The attitudes we report, those that rely on our kno
wledge and beliefs about an attitude object, are called explicit a
ttitudes. Implicitattitudes—
attitudes that we are unaware we hold—
are based on the automatic, unconscious reactions we have towa
rd an attitudeobject.
We learn implicit and explicit attitudes either through symbolic
representations of or through encounters with attitude objects. E
xplicitattitudes are based in language, logic, or some other symb
olic representation. Because of this, we can develop explicit atti
tudes relativelyquickly through simple communication. For exa
mple, if someone told you about a particular group you had not
known about before (e.g.,pygmies) and shared with you how mu
ch he or she liked this group, you might form a positive explicit
attitude toward the group. Implicitattitudes are learned as we e
ncounter the attitude object. For example, if you always encount
ered representations of a particular group(pictures of pygmies) t
hat were positive, you might develop a positive implicit attitude
toward them (Olson & Fazio, 2006; Rydell &McConnell, 2006;
Strack & Deutsch, 2004; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). T
his difference in the processing of implicit and explicitattitudes
allows for people to hold opposite explicit and implicit attitudes
. If people logically believe that a social group is good and repo
rta positive explicit attitude but society has a negative view of t
he group and that has been communicated with individuals, they
might holda negative implicit attitude.
Implicit attitudes are frequently communicated by society. The
particular social environment and culture people are exposed to
has alarge impact on their implicit attitudes (Shepherd, 2011). I
f representations of a particular racial or ethnic group in the me
dia are alwayspaired with violence or poverty, individuals in tha

t society tend to hold negative implicit attitudes toward these gr
oups. Because implicitattitudes are associations that occur outsi
de of conscious awareness, they are not subject to logic. For exa
mple, if you found out that anew friend is in a bowling league, y
ou would know logically that your friend may or may not have a
number of qualities that youassociate with people in bowling le
agues. Your explicit attitude toward this person would, at least f
or a while, still rely on what you knowabout your friend rather t
han her membership in this group. Your implicit attitude would,
however, not be ruled by logic but wouldautomatically assign t
he stereotypical characteristics of people in bowling leagues to
your friend (Ranganath & Nosek, 2008).
Figure 4.1: Implicit association task
An IAT might first prime you for "good" words, and then ask yo
u to match older faces with "good" words.
Based on Project Implicit® (2011). Four-category race-
gender IAT. Retrieved from https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit
Photo credit: Amos Morgan/Digital Vision/Thinkstock
Expand Your Knowledge: ImplicitAssociation Test
Information about implicit attitudes and the opportunityto take a
variety of implicit association tests can be foundat the Project I
mplicit website, http://www.projectimplicit.net/. You can read r
esearchpapers, take an Implicit Association Test, and participate
in ongoing research. Most of the research studies takeabout 10 t
o 15 minutes, and participants must registerbefore taking part in
research. Participants are providedwith a summary of their own
results at the end of theirparticipation. If you want to see what
your scores mightbe but do not want to be part of a research stu
dy orregister, you can take a demo test.
To assess implicit attitudes, researchers need to measure our aut
omaticreactions—
reactions we are not even aware of. Psychologists developeda te
st to look at implicit attitudes called the Implicit Association Te
st(IAT) (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Schnabel, Ase
ndorpf, &Greenwald, 2008). The IAT measures implicit attitude

s by evaluatingreaction times. Test-
takers match characteristics that are flashed in thecenter of a co
mputer screen to a category of words in the uppercorners of the
screen (see Figure 4.1). For example, if "good" is in theleft corn
er and "bad" in the right, a word like "joy" should be matchedto
the left corner and "evil" to the right. Attitude objects are place
d inthe same corners as those words, and respondents need to qu
icklymatch to words for the good and bad categories and words
or facesassociated with that attitude object. For a test looking at
implicitattitudes toward older adults, "old" might be assigned t
o the left cornerand "young" to the right. The respondent would
need to quickly switchfrom a word (joy) to a face (older adult) a
nd match each with thecorrect corner (left).
A person who has a negative implicit attitude toward older adult
s should take longer to match the picture of an older person wit
h the left"good" corner than to the right "bad" corner. This dela
y in matching an older person with a corner that also contains th
e category "good"provides evidence of a negative implicit attitu
de toward older adults.
Test Yourself
·
Can someone have an attitude toward a color? A day of the wee
k? Their right big toe? A concept like justice?
·
How is it possible to have a mismatch between an explicit attitu
de and implicit attitude?
4.2 Behavior and Attitudes
Our attitudes involve evaluations of other people, behaviors, an
d objects. Logically, these evaluations should affect how we beh
ave towardthese attitude objects (Allport, 1935; Droba, 1933). F
or example, if you have a favorable attitude toward exercise, yo
u should be morelikely to engage in physical activities than if y
ou had a negative attitude. LaPiere (1934) was one of the first t
o investigate the relation ofattitudes to behaviors. In the 1930s,
LaPiere traveled around the United States with some of his Chin

ese friends. In that time, manyAmericans held negative attitudes
toward the Chinese, and LaPiere and his friends were concerne
d about the service they might get asthey traveled. Despite this f
ear, they were treated well in all but one location. LaPiere was c
urious about this reaction, so several monthslater he sent questi
onnaires to the places he and his friends had visited, as well as
a number of hotels and restaurants they had notvisited. Almost u
niversally, these businesses reported they would not serve some
one who was Chinese. The negative attitude was presentbut, hap
pily, LaPiere and his friends found that behavior did not match t
hese attitudes.
Since the 1930s, a great deal of work has been done to sort out t
his problem. Researchers have identified factors that can strengt
hen andweaken the ability of attitudes to predict behaviors. Atti
tudes that are particularly accessible are more likely to determin
e our behavior(Fazio, 2000). Generally, if people respond quickl
y in reporting their attitudes, these attitudes are highly accessibl
e. If you respond quicklythat you hate blind dates, you are unlik
ely to find yourself on one. When relatively narrow attitudes are
assessed, then relatively narrowbehavior also needs to be asses
sed, but when broader attitudes are assessed, broad behaviors m
ust be assessed as well (Weigel &Newman, 1976). For example,
if you were asked about your attitude toward sports, your answ
er may not match well with yourattendance or lack thereof at th
e local high school football game. If we asked about your attitu
de toward the local high school footballteam, we may have bette
r luck predicting if we will see you at a game. Another factor is
whether the behavior is easy or difficult toperform (Wallace, Pa
ulson, Lord, & Bond, 2005). One might have a negative attitude
toward smoking but continue to smoke becausequitting is diffic
ult. The social pressure one has to join in or avoid a behavior is
also important. If a person feels a strong social pressureto engag
e in a behavior (wearing a seat belt), that person may engage in
the behavior despite a negative attitude (Wallace et al., 2005).
Explicit attitudes can predict consciously controlled behaviors,
but implicit attitudes are the best predictors of nonverbal behavi

ors. Thosewith a negative implicit attitude toward people of a p
articular racial group tend to show nonverbal behaviors that indi
cate dislike for amember of the group with which they are intera
cting, even when their verbal behavior is friendly and welcomin
g (Dovidio, Kawakami, &Gaertner, 2002). Therefore, negative i
mplicit attitudes can have an unconscious, adverse effect on our
interactions. In a study ofphysicians, those with negative impli
cit attitudes toward Black patients had more negative interactio
ns with Black patients. The clinicianstended to dominate the co
nversation, and the patients showed less confidence in and were
less trusting of the physician (Cooper et al.,2012).
In contrast, consciously controlled, deliberate behaviors are evi
dence of explicit attitudes (Jellison, McConnell, & Gabriel, 200
4; McConnell& Leibold, 2001; Rydell & McConnell, 2006). Bec
ause implicit attitudes are less consciously controlled, they are
better at predictingbehavior in situations where the ego is deplet
ed and behavior is more instinctual. For example, if you have a
negative explicit attitudeabout the healthiness of chocolate, whe
n you are trying to eat healthy and have not already exerted self
-
control, you would choose to eatfruit over chocolate. However,
when you are tired, you might automatically reach for the choco
late bar in the checkout lane, followingyour positive implicit att
itude toward chocolate (Friese, Hofmann, & Wanke, 2008).Test
Yourself
·
Has attitude research been a topic only recently for social psych
ology?
·
What makes explicit attitudes more likely to match with behavio
rs?
Theory of Planned Behavior
Behaviors may be difficult to predict from attitudes alone. The t
heory of planned behavior combines several factors to provide f

orbetter prediction (see Figure 4.2). According to this theory, if
we want to predict both intent to behave and actual behavior, w
e need toknow three things: (1) attitude toward that specific beh
avior, (2) subjective norms related to that behavior, and (3) perc
eived behavioralcontrol (Ajzen, 1991). Subjective norms involv
e people's beliefs about how other people in their environment p
erceive their behavior.For example, you might believe that peop
le in your social circle (friends, relatives) think healthy eating i
s a good idea, but yoga is silly. Perceived behavior control is yo
ur belief that you can engage in the behavior. For example, you
might think that eating a healthy diet isa lot of trouble, but goin
g to yoga class is easily accomplished. In this example, your per
ceived behavioral control would be high for yogabut low for hea
lthy eating. If someone has a positive attitude, positive subjecti
ve norms, and high perceived behavioral control, we canpredict
with some accuracy their intentions to engage in that behavior a
nd their eventual behavior. You might join a yoga program if yo
uhave a positive attitude toward yoga, if people in your environ
ment think it is a good idea, and if you foresee no problems in g
etting tothe studio for classes.Figure 4.2: The theory of planned
behavior
The theory of planned behavior relies on several factors forpred
icting behavior.
Reprinted from Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior
. OrganizationalBehavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2),
179–211. Copyright © 1991, withpermission from Elsevier.
The theory of planned behavior is an extension of an earlier the
ory calledthe theory of reasoned action. The theory of reasoned
action, developed byAjzen and Fishbein (1972), predicted behav
iors using just attitudes andsubjective norms. Ajzen (1991) later
added the element of perceivedbehavioral control to provide be
tter prediction of behavior. This additioncreated better forecasts
about behavior.
Some behaviors are difficult to control. For example, many peo
ple findquitting smoking a very difficult thing to do. Taking int

o account theamount of control people have for such behaviors i
s helpful to predictingbehavior. For behaviors like quitting smo
king, where a perceived lack ofcontrol interferes with actually e
ngaging in the behavior, assessingsmoker's beliefs about their c
ontrol makes predicting smoking cessationmore reliable (Madde
n, Ellen, & Ajzen, 1992). Since the addition ofperceived behavi
or of control to the model, the theory of planned behaviorhas be
en used to help explain an extremely wide variety of behaviors,
fromsmoking cessation (Norman, Conner, & Bell, 1999), to usin
g dental floss(Rise, Astrom, & Sutton, 1998), to composting (Ka
iser, Wolfing, & Fuhrer,1999). Evaluating these behaviors throu
gh meta-
analysis, Armitage andConnor (2001) found that this model can
accurately predict behavior, andthat attitudes, subjective norms,
and perceived behavioral control are allimportant to accurate pr
ediction.
This theory does not predict behavior perfectly; there are a few
factors that may make it more or less likely to lead to accuratep
redictions. Habitual behaviors, such as driving a car to work ins
tead of taking the bus, may not be well-
predicted by the model. However,habit may undergo a change if
circumstances change, such as when bus tickets become cheap
and a bus stop comes to one's street(Bamberg, Ajzen, & Schmidt
, 2003; Verplanken, Aarts, van Knippenberg, & van Knippenber
g, 1994). The theory of planned behavior alsoassumes that peopl
e make rational decisions about their actions. This may be true s
ome of the time, but at the moment of decision, one'sgood intent
ions may not be enough to deter behavior. In one study of risky
sexual behavior, anticipated emotions that would occur aftersex,
such as regret, were a strong predictor of actual sexual behavio
r (Richard, van der Plight, & de Vries, 1996). For some decision
s,emotions may rule the day. Overall, the theory of planned beh
avior does a better job of predicting behavior over which indivi
duals havesome control. The theory also is more accurate when
people are in the process of actually making decisions, rather th
an relying on habitsor other mindless behaviors to determine the

ir actions (Manstead, 2011).
Stockbyte/Thinkstock
Edward, a longtime smoker, wants to stop smoking,but has doub
ts that he will be able to do so.According to the theory of plann
ed behavior, thesedoubts might inhibit his actual behavior of qu
itting.
The theory of planned behavior may be particularly helpful to th
ose who want toencourage people to engage in healthy behavior
s by determining what might bestanding in the way of the health
y behavior. As noted previously, research using themodel has be
en done on a number of health-
related behaviors. Other researchers haveinvestigated exercise (
Spink, Wilson, & Bostick, 2012), fruit and vegetableconsumptio
n (Kothe, Mullan, & Butow, 2012), screening programs (Cooke
& French,2008), and risky drinking behavior (Collins, Witkiewi
tz, & Larimer, 2011). If anindividual believes eating lots of veg
etables is a good idea (positive attitude) andthose in his or her e
nvironment also think so (subjective norm), but this individualf
eels unable to buy or prepare vegetables, an intervention might
be targeted at theelement of perceived behavioral control—
the individual's belief in the inability toattain and prepare enou
gh veggies. An information campaign might be launched thatgiv
es hints where to find reasonably priced vegetables and provides
recipes forcooking vegetables. On the other hand, if people did
not see the value in eatingvegetables (negative attitude), but oth
ers in their environment were encouraging themto eat vegetables
(subjective norm) and vegetables
were easy to find and prepare(perceived behavioral control), a c
ampaign to change attitudes might be launched.Test Yourself
·
What are the three components of the theory of planned behavio
r?
Behavior and Attitude Mismatch

Imagine you have agreed to be part of a research study. You co
me to the study and are asked to do two boring, repetitive tasks
for anhour. As you finish, the researcher looks distressed; there
was supposed to be another student coming to introduce the task
s you justcompleted to the next participant. The researcher tells
you that the next participant is supposed to be told that these te
dious tasks youjust completed are fun and interesting, with the g
oal of measuring how expectations influence performance. The r
esearcher asks if youmight be willing to help him out and tell th
e next participant that what you just did was fun. He is willing t
o pay you $1 for your effort.You agree and tell the next particip
ant that the task was interesting and exciting. Afterward, you ar
e asked how interesting the tasks youjust did were and whether
you'd be willing to participate in similar types of studies in the
future. How would you have answered? Wouldyour answer be di
fferent if the researcher had given you $20?
A group of male college students faced exactly this situation in
a study by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959). In their study, one th
ird ofparticipants received $1 to tell the next participant that the
study they were about to participate in was fun and interesting,
another thirdreceived $20 to do so, and the final third, the contr
ol group, was not asked to say anything to a future participant a
nd was not given anymoney. Unbeknownst to the participants, t
he hesitant request was part of the experiment and the other part
icipant was working for theexperimenter. What the researchers
were really interested in was whether the different amounts of p
ay would affect how participants feltabout the study. According
to Table 4.1, which group thought the research was most interes
ting when later asked? Who was mostinterested in participating
in similar studies in the future?
Table 4.1: Results from Festinger and Carlsmith's (1959) study
of cognitive dissonance
Interview Question
Experimental Condition
$1Group

$20Group
ControlGroup
Were the tasks interesting and enjoyable? (rated from –5,
extremely dull andboring, to +5, extremely interesting and enjo
yable)
+1.35
–0.05
–0.45
Would you have any desire to participate in another similar
experiment? (ratedfrom –5, definitely dislike to participate, to
+5, definitely like to participate)
+1.20
–0.25
–0.62
From Festinger, L. & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cogintive conseq
uences of forced compliance. The Journal of Abnormal and Soci
al Psychology, 58(2), 203-210. doi:10.1037/h0041593.
As you can see, the participants who received $1 seemed to like
the study best. Festinger and Carlsmith proposed that those parti
cipantswho received $1 for lying to another person felt they had
insufficient justification for doing so. In other words, these par
ticipants liedfor a very small amount of money and could not ex
plain (justify) what they did by the monetary reward. These part
icipants were facedwith two things: knowledge that the research
was boring (the researchers had deliberately made it mind-
numbingly tedious) and abehavior that involved telling someone
else it was interesting. The gap between what they believed and
what they did created a type oftension known as cognitive disso
nance. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable because it indicat
es an inconsistency in what peoplethink or feel and do. People a
re motivated to reduce this tension. The participants could not g
o back in time and change what they haddone, so their only opti
on was to change how they felt about the study. In the $20 cond
ition, there was also a gap between what they didand how they t
ruly felt, but these people did not experience any tension. They
had sufficient justification for what they did: $20. Thepeople in

the $20 condition later reported that the study was boring becau
se they had no need to justify what they did. When thediscomfor
t of cognitive dissonance is felt, it results in an attitude change t
o reduce tension.
Cognitive dissonance can be reduced without changing one's atti
tude. For example, if you decided you needed to be on a diet but
thenwent to a dinner and had chocolate mousse, you could chan
ge your attitude toward the diet (maybe you do not really need t
o diet), butyou could also reduce that tension by doing other thi
ngs.Expand Your Knowledge: Attitude andBehavior Mismatch
Do your attitudes and behaviors always match? If you aresimilar
to most people, you see distracted driving asdangerous, but als
o engage in the behavior.
A post on this issue can be found here. The authordescribes a st
udy in California in which almost 60% ofparticipants listed talki
ng on the phone as a seriousdistraction for drivers while almost
46% admitted tomaking a driving mistake while talking on the p
hone.
One option would be to minimize the importance of one of theel
ements (Festinger, 1957). You could say that dieting is not thati
mportant to you or that chocolate mousse is not a big deal. Anot
heroption would be to reduce your perceived choice (Beauvois
& Joule,1999; Wicklund & Brehm, 1976). You might tell yourse
lf it would havebeen rude if you had not eaten your host's desser
t. You might also addthoughts that support or explain your beha
vior. You could tell yourselfthat chocolate mousse is healthy; af
ter all, chocolate containsflavonoids that are good for your healt
h.
The principle of cognitive dissonance can be helpful in understa
ndingor promoting behavior change. Researchers have found tha
t differencesbetween attitudes about dating aggression and beha
viors resulted in adecrease in dating aggression over time (Schu
macher, 2004). In a studyinvolving high school students at risk
for eating disorders like anorexiaor bulimia, researchers induce
d behavior change by creating dissonance (Stice, Rohde, Gau, &
Shaw, 2009). The students were part of aprogram where they w

ere asked to engage in behaviors that went against their unhealt
hy attitudes toward their bodies and food. Forexample, they wer
e asked to write a letter to a young girl about the dangers of the
thinness ideal, to share what they like aboutthemselves, and to p
ractice what they would say to others to challenge the thinness i
deal. This intervention decreased risk factors in theparticipants
for an eating disorder.
Cognitive dissonance has different manifestations across culture
s (Hoshino-
Browne et al., 2005). Individuals in independent cultures likethe
United States are more concerned about their own individual id
entity and attributes. Therefore, internal consistency is the prim
arygoal for someone in an independent culture. For example, if
Alice had a positive attitude toward children and disliked her ne
ighbor's 4-year-
old, she would know these two things were inconsistent. Even if
she never told anyone of about her dislike of the child, she wou
ldstill feel guilty because her attitudes and feelings were incons
istent. Individuals in interdependent cultures, like that found in
Japan, aremore concerned about how they fit with the expectatio
ns of others—
in particular, others that are part of their own group. The approv
alof others is, therefore, of great importance.
For interdependent cultures, internal consistency is not as impor
tant as consistency between attitudes or behaviors, especially w
henothers are going to be appraised of one's behavior. In a study
by Shinobu Kitayama and colleagues (Kitayama, Snibbe, Marku
s, & Suzuki,2004), Japanese and American college students wer
e asked to make judgments that revealed the amount of cognitiv
e dissonance they felt.The Japanese college students showed gre
ater dissonance when they were aware of potential public scruti
ny of their choices. When therewas no potential of others being
made aware of their choices, dissonance did not appear to come
into play. When this study was done onAmerican college studen
ts, the results showed that the potential for public scrutiny did n
ot matter. Because the American students wereattempting to be i

nternally consistent, they showed a similar degree of dissonance
in both situations. The amount of dissonance theAmerican stud
ents showed was not as high as that shown by the Japanese stud
ents who thought their choices would be public, but washigher t
han that of the Japanese students who believed others would not
know of their choices.Test Yourself
·
Why did the $1 group in Festinger and Carlsmith's study say the
y enjoyed the boring study while the $20 group didnot?Social Ps
ychology in Depth: Cognitive Dissonance, Children, and Monke
ys
Where does cognitive dissonance come from? In investigating th
e origins of cognitive dissonance social psychologistsinvestigat
e whether children feel cognitive dissonance, or if it develops la
ter in life. We may also want to know if cognitivedissonance oc
curs in nonhuman primates, or if it is unique to humans. This w
ould help us understand the potentialevolutionary origin of the p
henomenon.
Egan, Sanatos, & Bloom (2007) investigated cognitive dissonan
ce in children and in monkeys. For both populations, theycreate
d cognitive dissonance by having the child or monkey make a ch
oice between two alternatives, two different stickersfor the chil
dren or two different M&M candies for the monkeys. Frequently
, when faced with two equally good options, wewill reduce our
cognitive dissonance by increasing our liking of our chosen opti
on, and decreasing our liking of the optionwe did not choose.
In this study, the participants made an initial choice and were th
en asked to make a second choice. The second choiceincluded th
e option not chosen on the first trial and a new option. Presuma
bly, if cognitive dissonance was at play, theparticipants would h
ave decreased their liking of their un-
chosen option and be less likely to choose that option in theseco
nd trial. For example, if children originally rated stickers with a
flower, a bird, and a rainbow equally, they mightinitially be as
ked if they wanted the flower or the bird sticker more. Having c

hosen the flower, they would then be asked tochoose between th
e bird (the option not chosen in the previous trial) and the rainb
ow. If cognitive dissonance is in play,they should choose the rai
nbow. The initial choice would have created cognitive dissonan
ce, leading the children to discounttheir liking of the bird sticke
r to reduce that dissonance. Even though the participants initiall
y liked all three optionsequally, the results showed that after ma
king a choice, they were less likely to choose the option they ha
d not chosen on thefirst trial. The authors proposed that due to t
he fact this effect is found among young children (4-year-
olds) and monkeys,cognitive dissonance may be impacting us be
fore we have much experience in making choices; language and
socializationmay not be necessary precursors to cognitive disso
nance.
What Is my Attitude?
If attitudes help determine our behaviors, do behaviors ever hel
p us define our attitudes? If you were wondering about your atti
tudetoward sushi, one place you could look to determine your at
titude is your behavior. If you have chosen sushi restaurants ove
r those thatdo not serve sushi and order sushi when you get the
chance, you are likely to conclude that you have a positive attit
ude toward sushi. Ifyou have spent a lot of time making fun of p
eople who eat sushi, you might conclude, looking at these actio
ns, that your attitude towardsushi is negative. This sense that w
e can figure out our attitudes by looking at our behaviors is the
basis of self-perception theory (Bem,1967). Self-
perception theory explains how we might form or enhance partic
ular attitudes, while cognitive dissonance theory explainshow o
ur attitudes change.
Hemera/Thinkstock
An example of self-
perception theory is when youassume that you don't like the ne
ws just because yourepeatedly change the channel when a news
reportcomes on TV.

To evaluate the extent to which our actions influence our attitud
es, Zak, Gold,Ryckman, & Lenney (1998) asked 64 dating coupl
es to come to their lab. Eachmember of the couple was asked to
provide information on how much they trustedtheir partner. The
couples were separated and told one of three things. The first th
irdof participants were told that their partner would be dancing
with a researchassistant to a Debbie Gibson or Madonna song. T
hese participants were asked if thatwas okay with them—
if they trusted their partner to dance with someone else. Thenext
third of participants were told they would be dancing with a res
earch assistantto a Debbie Gibson or Madonna song. The researc
hers told them that their partnerhad been asked if that was all ri
ght, and their partner had said yes, they trusted theirsignificant
other. The final third of participants, the control group, were tol
d that theirpartner would be listening to music.
The researchers wanted to measure whether acting in a trusting
manner, that is,telling the researcher that they trusted their part
ner to dance with someone else,would increase trust. When the r
esearchers assessed levels of trust at the end of thestudy, they f
ound that both the participants who acted in a trusting way and t
hosewho were trusted showed an increase in trust when compare
d to the control group.The biggest change, however, was with th
e participants who acted in a trusting matter.The act of trusting,
it seems, increases trust.
Behavior can be affected in more subtle ways by our self-
observations, such as withour relationship to certain colors. The
color black is often associated with bad things.This fact is evid
ent in our language. For example, people might be blacklisted o
rblackmailed, or their reputation might be blackened. Even dark
colored chocolate cakeis called devil's food cake. Would memb
ers of sports teams in black uniformstherefore observe themselv
es in that bad color and be more willing to engage inaggressive
behavior? Frank and Gilovich (1988) investigated whether what
we arewearing has an impact on our actions. They found that in
dividuals who donned black were more willing to engage in agg
ression,measured by their choice of aggressive games over nona

ggressive games, than those who were asked to wear white. Nati
onal HockeyLeague teams wearing black were more aggressive
on the rink than those wearing other colors; that is, members of
teams wearing blackspent more time in the penalty box than tea
ms wearing other colors. A similar result was found in online ga
ming with people whoseavatars were wearing black (Yee & Bail
enson, 2009).Test Yourself
· Of self-
perception theory and cognitive dissonance theory, which is mor
e focused on attitude change rather thanattitude formation?
.3 Explaining the Behavior of Others
Our daily lives present us with situations where we need to expl
ain the behaviors of others. At work, you might want to know if
yourboss intended her behavior as encouragement to pursue a ra
ise or as a clue that your job might be in danger. Attributing yo
ur friend'slate-
night phone call to concern will affect the relationship different
ly than attributing it to rudeness. Attributions are also involved
indeciding the proper punishment of a misbehaving child or a cr
iminal. Attributions—
our explanations of the behavior of others andourselves—
have been of interest to psychologists for a long time. In 1958,
Fritz Heider wrote a book on how we make judgments aboutone
another. According to Heider, and others who came after him, w
e generally explain others' behavior as due either to somethingi
nternal to the person or to something external to the person.
Imagine you are sitting in a coffee shop waiting for a date you
met online. Your date is late. If you decide that your date is inc
onsiderate,you have made an internal attribution for your date's
behavior. When you make an internal attribution, you blame per
sonality, attitudes,or some other dispositional factor for the acti
on. If, on the other hand, you think your date is late because of t
he traffic or someemergency at work, you have made an externa
l attribution. When you make an external attribution, you attribu
te situational factors forthe action. We do find differences in th

e patterns of attributions in different cultures. Generally, indivi
duals from more independentcultures make more internal attribu
tions while those in more interdependent cultures make more ex
ternal attributions (Triandis, 2001).For example, in the United S
tates, salespeople tend to attribute their performance to internal
factors—
their sales are due to their hardwork and wonderful people skills
. In more interdependent cultures, such as that found in India, at
tributions tend to be more external—
their sales are due to a good customer base (DeCarlo, Agarwal,
& Vyas, 2007).
Attributions can make a difference in how we treat people and d
eal with societal problems. For example, how crime is attributed
canimpact how we handle criminals. If a society and the people
within that society believe that criminals engage in crime becau
se it wastheir choice or because they have no morals, then that s
ociety will lock up its criminals and try to prevent them from ev
er getting out tooffend again. On the other hand, a society that b
elieves that lack of job opportunities, racism, or peer pressure is
primarily to blame forcriminal behavior is likely to offer rehabi
litation and education to criminals as well as work to eradicate s
ocietal ills (Templeton &Hartnagel, 2012; Unnever, Cullen, & J
ones, 2008).
4.4 Fundamental Attribution Error
Daily life offers many opportunities to make attributions. When
a neighbor fails to greet or wave at you while passing in the hall
way orstreet, you might declare your neighbor rude and unfriend
ly. Blaming a behavior on a dispositional factor, like rudeness,
may not beaccurate. Your neighbor might not have seen you bec
ause of the large bag of groceries you were holding, or been dist
racted by a fight shejust had with her child. When people attribu
te behavior to dispositional factors when there are clear situatio
nal factors at work, they areengaging in correspondence bias, al
so known as the fundamental attribution error (Gilbert & Malon
e, 1995; Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull,1988; Jones & Harris, 1967;
Ross, Amabile, & Steinmetz, 1977). See Figure 4.3 for an exam

ple.
Figure 4.3: The fundamental attribution error
Often when we attribute behavior to dispositional factors, we en
gage in the fundamental attribution error.
Based on Wade, C., & Tavris, C. (2004). Interactive lectures. In
Psychology, Media and Research Update (7th ed., Chapter 8). R
etrieved from http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_wade_psychology_7_
mru/21/5605/1434950.cw/content/index.html.
In Ross, Amabile, and Steinmetz's (1977) study on the subject,
participants were randomly assigned the role of questioner or co
ntestantin a quiz game. The questioners came up with questions
from their own storehouse of esoteric knowledge. Depending on
the backgroundof the questioners, they might develop questions
on geography or cars or breeds of cows or any number of other
odd topics. Contestantscompleted the quiz and rated the general
knowledge of the questioner. Given the freedom of the question
er to develop difficult questionsfrom any realm, most contestant
s did not do very well. When rating the general knowledge of th
e questioner, they overestimated thatknowledge. The contestants
overestimated the effect of dispositional factors (knowledge) a
nd underestimated the effect of the situation(freedom to ask any
question).
Various factors make the fundamental attribution error more lik
ely. People make the fundamental attribution error more when t
hey arehappy versus when they are sad. Because happy people p
rocess less information from their environment, they tend to ma
ke quick andeasy decisions about the cause of the behavior of ot
hers (Forgas, 1998). The attributions people make with the fund
amental attributionerror grow more situational over time. When
making an immediate attribution, we tend to show the bias towa
rd dispositionalattributions predicted by the fundamental attribu
tion error. When time has passed, our judgments take the situati
on into account to agreater degree (Burger & Pavelich, 1994; Tr
uchot, Maure, & Patte, 2003). Over time, then, the power of the
fundamental attribution errordiminishes. The likelihood of maki

ng the fundamental attribution error also diminishes from young
adulthood to middle age. After middleage, the likelihood of ma
king the error begins to increase again (Follett & Hess, 2002).
Fundamental Attribution Error
00:00
00:00
The nature of the fundamental attribution error.
Critical Thinking Questions
· Why do people assume that hosts are smarter thancontestants?
·
How have you seen the fundamental attributionerror play out in
your own life?
There are certainly times when behavior is due to rudeness, so y
our decisionthat your neighbor is inconsiderate could be approp
riate. The fundamentalattribution error is an error because we m
ake these kinds of decisions aboutsomeone's disposition even w
hen clear situational factors are at work. But youdon't make this
error, do you? Most people believe themselves to be lessvulner
able to the fundamental attribution error than others, even thoug
h we aregenerally similar to others like us in our tendency to ma
ke the error (Van Boven,Kamada, & Gilovich, 1999; Van Boven
, White, Kamada, & Gilovich, 2003).
One context where the fundamental attribution error is particula
rly likely is incommunication using a computer. Messages in on
e's email inbox provide fewcues as to the situation of the writer.
Without these cues, it is easy to misjudgedetails about the send
er and the message. For example, if you received a messagewith
a number of misspellings and grammar mistakes, it is likely yo
u wouldjudge the writer of that message as not very intelligent o
r competent. Withoutknowing the writer was pressed for time, d
istracted by a crying child, anddealing with a faulty computer k
eyboard, you may judge that dispositional, ratherthan situational
, factors were at work (Cramton, 2001). It is only when we arem

ade aware of some of these situational forces that we change our
judgments.One study found that when people are told that the s
ender of an email is from adifferent culture, the email recipients
are less harsh in their dispositionaljudgments for language erro
rs like misspellings, although dispositional judgmentsare still m
ade for etiquette errors (Vignovic & Thompson, 2010).
With a name like fundamental attribution error, one would assu
me that this error is common in all people in all cultures. Not so
. Whencomparing European Americans, researchers have found t
hat East Asians are more aware of situational constraints on beh
avior.
When situations are powerful or easily recognized, East Asians
are more likely to attribute behavior to those situational factors
(Choi,Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1999; Miyamoto & Kitayama, 200
2; Morris & Peng, 1994). When research participants were told t
hat the personwhose behavior they were evaluating had no choic
e in his behavior, and simply followed the directions of the expe
rimenter, Koreanparticipants were more likely to take into acco
unt the situational constraints on the person, whereas American
participants largelyignored the situational factors (Choi & Nisbe
tt, 1998). For example, someone raised in an East Asian culture
might say that a person isrude because his parents never taught
him manners rather than rude because it is part of his nature. Ea
st Asians also think moreholistically about the person (Choi, Ni
sbett, & Norenzayan, 1999). Even if someone's behavior is blam
ed on internal factors, these internalfactors are explained situati
onally. Although the phenomenon came to be known as the fund
amental attribution error because so manyresearchers found simi
lar results over a number of years (Jones, 1998), it turns out the
fundamental attribution error is not asfundamental as we though
t.
Hemera/Thinkstock
When a driver assumes the personwho cut him off is inconsidera
te andincompetent, even though they mayhave had to switch lan
es to avoid anaccident, it is an example of thefundamental attrib

ution error.
A related concept to the fundamental attribution error is the act
or-
observer bias. Thefundamental attribution error suggests that as
observers, people discount situational factorsand overestimate d
ispositional factors. The actor-
observer bias expands this tendency to explainour own behavior
as actors. Actors tend to make more situational attributions for
behavior(Jones & Nisbett, 1972). The situationally based explan
ations for our own behavior are strongerwhen we are explaining
negative rather than positive events (Green & McClearn, 2010).
Whenexplaining positive events, like doing well on a test, the se
lf-
serving bias leads us to account forour behavior using more disp
ositional explanations, such as our own intelligence.
Recent research has called into question the traditional
formulation of the actor-observer bias.In a meta-
analysis, Bertram Malle (2006) found that actors are not more li
kely to makesituational inference, and observers are not more li
kely to make dispositional inferences. Actorsand observers do,
however, explain behaviors differently.
Malle and colleagues (Malle, Knobe, &Nelson, 2007) proposed
an asymmetry in explanations
based in different desires and differentknowledge. Actors know
the reasons behind a decision and are motivated to present them
selves
as rational people. Imagine Jill cleaned out the work refrigerato
r and in the process threw outseveral people's lunches. She woul
d describe her action as due to the boss's request to clean therefr
igerator, the lack of clear markings on containers about who the
y belonged to, and heroverall helpfulness in keeping the office c
lean.
Observers can only guess at the reasons for a behavior and must
instead rely on their generalknowledge of situations and their a
bility to mentally simulate the thought process of the actor.
Observers have no particular need to present the actor in a posit

ive light. Jill's coworkers might explain her actions as irrational
, makingthe argument that the refrigerator did not need to be cle
aned and Jill should not throw out things that do not belong to h
er. Thecoworkers would describe Jill's actions as due to her rud
e and inconsiderate nature. Observers are more likely to distanc
e themselvesfrom an actor's actions by making note of a belief o
r motive rather than just the reason itself. Jill might say, "The f
ood in the refrigeratorwas old; that's why I threw it out." A cow
orker would say, "Jill believed the food in the refrigerator was o
ld; that's why she threw it out."Malle and colleagues' explanatio
ns for differences between actors and observers provide a more
nuanced approach to these differencesand help explain inconsist
encies in past research.
Test Yourself
·
Someone cuts in line in front of you at the grocery store. Descri
be some internal attributions for that behavior. Describesome ex
ternal attributions for that behavior.
Which of these people may have made the fundamental attributi
on error?
·
Janelle believes the clown she hired for her son's birthday party
is a happy and joyful person.
·
Kim attributes the store clerk's rude behavior toward her to the
crankiness of the customer in front of her.
·
Ted attributes his friend's service at the soup kitchen to his kind
and giving nature, not a requirement of the socialwork major hi
s friend is pursuing.
4.5 Explanations and our Behavior
As we make attributions day after day, we may develop patterns
for making these judgments. These patterns then influence how
weapproach others and react to events. Two of the major pattern
s investigated by researchers are those surrounding whether we

explainevents in an optimistic or pessimistic way and the extent
to which we expect hostility from others in our interactions. Th
e attributions wemake are influenced by our need to fit in with o
thers but also by our need to differentiate and stand out from th
e crowd. However, wetend to overestimate the amount we stand
out and are noticed by others. The behaviors we engage in are in
fluenced by these variouspatterns of attributions.
Optimistic and Pessimistic Explanatory Styles
Every day we interpret the actions of others and the events that
occur. As we do so, we may fall into a certain pattern of explan
ation. Onepattern of attributions is optimistic and leads us to ex
pect positive outcomes from our interactions. Another pattern is
more pessimisticand leads us to expect negative outcomes from
our interactions. Consider how you would explain these two ev
ents: your datecomplimenting you on your appearance
and your inability to find a job. According to researchers, you h
ave three decisions to make asyou interpret those events (Selig
man & Nolen-
Hoeksema, 1987; Seligman & Schulman, 1986). When you are e
xplaining a compliment youreceive, you could assume the other
person was just having a good day and complimented everyone.
On the other hand, you couldassume that the compliment was pr
ompted by your own appearance. In this case you are attributing
the compliment to either an externalcause, something about the
other person or the circumstance, or an internal cause, somethin
g about you. Your second
choice involveswhether you consider the compliment to be an e
vent that will likely never or rarely happen again, like a free ma
keover you just had, orsomething that will always be around, yo
ur attractive face. In this case, you are making an attribution tha
t is either unstable, meaningthat the cause is there rarely or only
some of the time, or stable, meaning that the cause is always th
ere. You need to decide whether thecompliment just applies to y
our present appearance at the mall where you got the makeover,
or whether you will likely get complimentsin all situations in yo

ter 5Making Judgments©2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLCNBCU Phot.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to ter 5Making Judgments©2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLCNBCU Phot.docx

Similar to ter 5Making Judgments©2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLCNBCU Phot.docx (17)

More from todd191

More from todd191 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

ter 5Making Judgments©2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLCNBCU Phot.docx