Individualism versus collectivism (IDV)
a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Cultural dimensions of behaviour
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
1. What is the difference between dispositional factors and situational factors?
Dispositional factor is the assumption that a person's behavior reflects his internal dispositions like his personality, beliefs, attitude etc. Situational factor is the assumption that a person's behavior is influenced by an external influence from the environment or culture.
2. Explain and give an example of the fundamental error of attribution.
When you observe that there is a student in the class that has been very quiet during the entire term. You conclude that the student is a very quiet and shy person. In this example, it is possible that we may wrongly assume that the student's quiet behavior reflects his or her personality, and we may fail to adequately consider some situational factors that could explain the student's behavior. For example, we may not consider that the person may find the course very boring, or the person is experiencing difficulty and does not feel like talking in class.
3. Explain and give an example of the self-serving-bias error of attribution.
A self-serving bias occurs when people attribute their successes to internal or personal factors but attribute their failures to situational factors beyond their control. For example, a student attribute the reason to get a high score of test is that he/ she is clever and talented. However, when he/she fail the test, he/she maybe think it's that the test room is clond or teacher did not teach well.
4. Explain two possible explanations for these errors.
Salience of the actor. We tend to attribute an observed effect to potential causes that capture our attention. When we observe other people, the person is the primary reference point while the situation is overlooked as if it is nothing but mere background. So, attributions for others' behavior are more likely to focus on the person we see, not the situational forces acting upon that person that we may not be aware of.(When we observe ourselves, we are more aware of the forces acting upon us. Such a differential inward vs. outward orientation accounts for the actor-observer bias.)
Lack of effortful adjustment. Sometimes, even though we are aware that the person's behavior is constrained by situational factors, we still commit the fundamental attribution error. This is because we do not take into account behavioral and situational information simultaneously to characterize the dispositions of the actor. Initially, we use the observed behavior to characterize the person by automaticity.We need to make deliberate and conscious effort to adjust our inference by considering the situational constraints. Therefore, when situational information is not sufficiently taken into account for adjustment, the uncorrected dispositional inference creates the fundamental attribution error. It also explains that people commit to fundamental attribution error more when they have no motivation or energy (i.e. under cognitive load) to process the situational information.
Dispositional factor is the assumption that a person's behavior reflects his internal dispositions like his personality, beliefs, attitude etc. Situational factor is the assumption that a person's behavior is influenced by an external influence from the environment or culture.
2. Explain and give an example of the fundamental error of attribution.
When you observe that there is a student in the class that has been very quiet during the entire term. You conclude that the student is a very quiet and shy person. In this example, it is possible that we may wrongly assume that the student's quiet behavior reflects his or her personality, and we may fail to adequately consider some situational factors that could explain the student's behavior. For example, we may not consider that the person may find the course very boring, or the person is experiencing difficulty and does not feel like talking in class.
3. Explain and give an example of the self-serving-bias error of attribution.
A self-serving bias occurs when people attribute their successes to internal or personal factors but attribute their failures to situational factors beyond their control. For example, a student attribute the reason to get a high score of test is that he/ she is clever and talented. However, when he/she fail the test, he/she maybe think it's that the test room is clond or teacher did not teach well.
4. Explain two possible explanations for these errors.
Salience of the actor. We tend to attribute an observed effect to potential causes that capture our attention. When we observe other people, the person is the primary reference point while the situation is overlooked as if it is nothing but mere background. So, attributions for others' behavior are more likely to focus on the person we see, not the situational forces acting upon that person that we may not be aware of.(When we observe ourselves, we are more aware of the forces acting upon us. Such a differential inward vs. outward orientation accounts for the actor-observer bias.)
Lack of effortful adjustment. Sometimes, even though we are aware that the person's behavior is constrained by situational factors, we still commit the fundamental attribution error. This is because we do not take into account behavioral and situational information simultaneously to characterize the dispositions of the actor. Initially, we use the observed behavior to characterize the person by automaticity.We need to make deliberate and conscious effort to adjust our inference by considering the situational constraints. Therefore, when situational information is not sufficiently taken into account for adjustment, the uncorrected dispositional inference creates the fundamental attribution error. It also explains that people commit to fundamental attribution error more when they have no motivation or energy (i.e. under cognitive load) to process the situational information.
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