The Covariation Model, By Harold H. Kelley

Noteworthy due mostly to the work of Albert Bandura, social learning theory attempts to explain behavior through the interaction of three variables: the environment, the behavior, and psychological processes. With his model, Bandura stepped away from strict behaviorism and opened the doors for the cognitivist movement. His premise is that human behavior and learning is influenced by a complex network of observations made about the behaviors, beliefs, and emotional responses of those in our

Everyday people have the tendency to make inferences about the causes of behavior seen in society. Social psychologists have found that everyday people often commit personal attributional biases from inferences without considering the outcomes. The fundamental attribution error is a personal attribution bias everyday people commit in society. As everyday people commit the fundamental attribution error, they fail to acknowledge how harmful it is to those affected. Everyday people can become more aware of and plan to reduce the harmfulness the fundamental attribution error presents through message complexity and attention.

Zatrow, C. &.-A. (210). Understanding human behavior and social enviornment (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

The Fundamental Attribution Error occurs when a person’s personality is determined based on how they act in a certain situation, but not including the situation and outside influences when making that determination. The individual could be acting a certain way based on the particular situation or social circumstances, but in all actuality be completely different in another situation. Studies show that in most cases socially we want to fit in with a group, don’t want to be different, don’t want to be wrong, and in many instances act different than what our typical personality and values are based on influencing social factors. One of the main factors that often contributes to how we act in certain situations is to obey those in authority positions. The studies provided below are examples of the show how behaviors can change based on social factors.

Fritz Heider (1958) focuses on the internal and external attribution, which suggests why people behave a certain way according to their character or attitudes (external attribution) or the implication as to why an individual behaves a certain way due to the situation there in. “When we explain our own behavior, we are sensitive to how behavior changes with the situation” (Idson & Mischel, 2001). The significances of making a conclusion, gives direction and probability, which may help determine why a person may or may not act a certain way based on what the evidence shows. The implication of a certain behavior depends on the source to which it is attributed. For example: If Pat assumes that growing up isolated from her surroundings is normal, she won’t perceive it as non-normal. “The way we explain others’ actions, attributing them to the person or the situation, can have important real-life effects” (Fincham & Bradbury, 1993; Fletcher et., 1990). “A person must decide whether to attribute another’s friendliness to romantic interest “ (Myers, D. G.

The authors explain that “fundamental attribution error” is when people focus too much on individual traits rather than the “situational factors in affecting behavior.” What seems to be the case is that “fundamental attribution error” is main problem with Ross and Nisbett’s piece. They tried to focus too much on the logical side of things while entirely disregarding the human factor in their

The attribution process deals with how we judge the causes of people’s behavior. Internal attribution is the idea that the person caused the behavior. External attribution is the idea that a situation caused the behavior. The other manager’s attribution of Chen’s refusal to perform the Softdisk audit is viewed as an internal

In social psychology, the phrase person perception has historically referred to the perception of others that leads to judgments of traits and dispositions. Fritz Heider proposed that people can attribute the behaviors of others to factors that are internal (personality, dispositions, etc.) or external (situational constraints), but that people are prone to make internal attributions (Ickes, 2000). These basic observations affected decades of research and provided an important foundation for two related theories, in particular. Harold Kelley’s covariation model, for example, described how people discern the attitudes of others based on simple factors surrounding observed behaviors (Sadalla et al, 1994). Similarly, Edward E. Jones

The theoretical and practical implications of inconsistent and consistent information in the Psychology of Stereotypical Behavior differentiates in two ways. With consistent information, a group is known for certain behaviors (negative or positive), and the subject who is analyzing the behavior may lose interest since the known behavior is consistent with the stereotype. However, when a group shows inconsistencies of the perceived stereotypical behaviors, then the analyzer will question the inconsistencies, and give specific attention to the group.

Former research is an explicit indicator of how one's behavior can be a product of the situation that person is present in. Experiment one of "Automaticity of Social Behaviour: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action that trait concepts and stereotypes" by John A. Bargh, Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows of New York University provides an experiment analyzing that behaviour through an experiment which will form the basis of critique in this paper.

Since the covariation model is when attributions about a behavior are formed by noting the presence or absence of possible causal factors, Seth would use consensus information to anylyze Bruno’s behavior to explain the situation. In this case, Bruno’s behavior would be considered to be low in consensus because Seth normally gets along well with dogs and it seems to only be Bruno that reacts negatively to him.

One of the biggest problems we have in society today is the division between blacks and whites. Though the United States has come a long way in this separation, we still see major disparities in every social institution; blacks being on the negative end in each. Between the prison system, school, and the work place, there hasn’t been enough, if any, programs or laws to change that. The reason is, there are a lot of people who think the problem is not with the systems, but just a problem with the individuals. This is referred to as the Fundamental Attribution Error. This theory explains that when a person is evaluating another person’s behavior, they typically overestimate the personal disposition impact and underestimate the impact of the situation.

With or without realizing it, every human being’s behavior is influenced one way or another by the environment that he or she is in. Everyone has their own backpack that is filled with different aspects that essentially make them who they are. These backpacks can also be referred to as one’s “cultural backpack.” It ultimately dictates the make up of every individual on the face of this planet. The concept of this “cultural backpack” makes up an individual’s social identity. This social identity can affect an individual both negatively and positively. Majority of the time one’s social identity is negatively affected and reinforced by stereotypes. A stereotype is a type of identity contingency and/or an assumption that is made about others due to an aspect of their identity. That’s when stereotype threat comes into the picture. Stereotype threat is the idea of a situational predicament being a contingency of a group’s identity and a real threat of judgement or treatment in the person’s environment that goes beyond any limitations within. (Steele, 59) It is a psychological phenomenon that gives rise to one’s fear that ultimately

Clatterbuck (1979) tested the hypotheses derived from the axioms of uncertainty reduction theory in order to offer a means of operationalizing uncertainty in initial interactions through measures of attributional confidence. The process of reducing uncertainty is divided into two interactive processes: retroactive attribution (explanation) and proactive attribution (prediction). When individuals have adequate information which

Social psychology, the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to another, can be used to explain many situations and phenomena that happen in the world. For instance, it can be used to explain why and how people react the way they do when they perform poorly in an act that they’re usually good at, also known as self-serving bias. It is blaming external factors when bad things happen, but contributing internal factors to the reason why good things happen.