Term
| What is Self Serving Bias (type of Self Perception) |
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Definition
| When self-perceptions are distorted in ways to protect our self-esteem. We want to think of ourselves as moral, and it is not moral to endanger the lives of innocent children. We also want to think of ourselves as rational, liked by others and successful. |
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Term
| What are you falling for if you believe that the reason why you drive riskier is different from the reasons as to why your friends drive riskier? |
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Definition
- If you believe there is somewhat different reasons, there is a good chance you are being biased.
- Instead of answering that question absolutely objectively, you are answering in two different perspective: view ourselves as an actor, and view others as an observer.
- When we view our own behavior, we view it differently to what we view other people’s behavior, even if it is identical.
- Chances are that your behavior, and your firend’s behavior is driver for the same reasons. |
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Term
| How self-serving biases can cause us to view our own behaviour differently from the behaviour of others |
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Definition
| When we observe ourselves, we are motivated to think of ourselves as good, moral and rational people, so we tend to view all of our behavior through this bias in mind. However, we tend to see other people’s behavior with nothing phasing our opinions. |
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Term
| What was the Harré, Houkamau & Brandt (2004) Study? |
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Definition
An Examination of the Actor-Observer Effect in Young Drivers’ Attributions for Their Own and Their Friends’ Risky Driving.
- Study in the attributions of young drivers, about why they and their friends took risks on the road.
- Participants – 70 Year 12 drivers (39 male, 31 female) from Auckland secondary school
- Asked how often then take risks: 1 – Never, 5 - Always |
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Term
| STATISTICAL RESULTS - Harré, Houkamau & Brandt (2004) Study |
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Definition
- Risk-taking self: 2.69 (SD .94),
- Risk-taking friends: 3.03 (SD .82)
Significant difference (t-test) p<.001 |
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Term
| RESULTS - Harré, Houkamau & Brandt (2004) Study |
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Definition
| Mean response in terms of themselves was lower than the mean of their friends. Theoretically it is possible that they had friends who were risk takers and not themselves, but in all likelihood their friends would have been included in the study from the one school. |
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Term
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Definition
An explanation for the cause of an event or behaviour
- Its not what really caused behavior, but what we think caused the behavior |
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Term
| What is an Internal attribution? |
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Definition
An explanation of someone’s behaviour that focuses on the person’s preferences, beliefs, goals or other characteristics; also called dispositional attribution.
- Something absolutely about you that made you do that e.g. personality, taste, disposition
- Focused clearly on the person. Either yourself or the person you are engaged in |
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Term
| What is an External attribution? |
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Definition
An explanation … that focuses on the situation, also known as situational attributions.
- Looking outwards e.g. the context, another person |
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Term
| Example of an Internal Positive attribute |
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Definition
| A person does well in a test because they are smart |
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Term
| Example of an Internal Negative attribute |
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Definition
| A person did well in the test because they cheated |
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Term
| Example of an External Positive attribute |
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Definition
| A person did well in the because it was easy |
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Term
| Example of an External Negative attribute |
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Definition
| A person did bad in a test because it was hard |
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Term
| In depth analysis of whether Attributes in study are intentional or not |
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Definition
- Showing off is always context-dependent .You can’t show off with no one to see, and the realization of this may have led the verification participants to be somewhat moderate in the degree to which they attributed it to the person.
- Although the only strictly unintentional cate- gory was the little used “Not paying attention, inexperience”
- It could be argued that the other three categories considered dispositional-“Fun, adrenalin buzz,” “Showing off, acting cool,” and “Angry or upset-all indicated a greater degree of intention to take risks than did “In a hurry, late” and “Peer pressure,” which appear to suggest some reluctance to do so.
- Of these somewhat more intentional attributions, “Fun, adrenalin buzz” is perhaps the most intentional as it is the only one in which the risk taking appears to be solely for its own sake, rather than to gain an external reward |
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Term
| Results when asked ‘For each of these categories, is the reason more to do with the person, or the situation they are in?’ |
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Definition
- It is of note that over half (41) of the 70 participants used the attribution “Showing off, acting cool” for their friends and that over half (41) used the attribution “In a hurry, late” for themselves.
- 60 of the 70 participants gave at least one dispositional explanation for their friends’ risky driving, with 33 giving at least one situational explanation for their friends’
- Found that the first four (fun, showing off, angry, intentitive) as more to do with the person, and the last two (hurry, peer pressure) had more to do with the situation they were in.
- The one that makes us look least bad is that we are ‘in a hurry’, and it’s the one that we favoured for ourselves
- The one that makes you look the worst is ‘showing off’, which we internally attributed it to our friends
- While they more often considered themselves in a hurry than they believed their friends to be, they also used the most dispositional category somewhat more (although not significantly so) when answering from the actor’s perspective than when they were observers.
- We suggest that it is reasonable to take a few risks when you are late and rather daring to go after an adrenalin buzz, but it is just plain childish to show off. |
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Term
| What is Correspondence Bias or Fundamental Attribution error? |
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Definition
We have a general tendency towards internal attributions of others behaviour (p. 478).
- Called an error, because it is not necessarily a solid truth
- This is because when you are looking at the person, you have a perceptual bias to think that the cause of something is what we are attending to.
- What the researchers argue is that we do attend to a person, rather than the context that they’re in.
- Less willing to look at the overall context |
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Term
| Correspondence Bias example |
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Definition
e.g. Study involved someone body confessing to doing a crime. Two groups of people got to watch the confession on tape which were identical (identical person and identical confession). The difference was that some people got to see a one shot of just the person confessing to the crime, and the other group got to see a broader shot of the person confessing and the detective. Then they were asked if the confession was genuine.
- Researchers found that if the person saw the single shot, people tended to say that it was a true confession. If the person saw the wide shot scenario, they were much less sure. |
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Term
| Correspondence Bias in Study |
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Definition
- The frequent use of “Showing off, acting cool” to describe friends’ behavior certainly supports the idea that young people are viewing their friends’ driving in a particular context.
- Blaming friends' negative behaviour of risky driving to internal attributes |
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Term
| Self-Serving Bias in Study |
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Definition
| Attributed our risky behaviour to external factors i.e. being late and peer pressure as we have the tendency to think of ourselves as moral. Being risky or dangerously driving is not a moral thing. |
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Term
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Definition
| Instead of answering that question absolutely objectively, you are answering in two different perspective (bias): view ourselves as an actor, and view others as an observer. When we view our own behavior, we view it differently to what we view other people’s behavior, even if it is identical. Chances are that your behavior, and your friend’s behavior is driver for the same reasons. |
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Term
| Greater feeling of being “at risk” in study |
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Definition
Greater feeling of being “at risk” when not driving and so not in control (encourages negative bias toward friends). If we are in charge we tend to feel less at risk and more in control.
- As has been argued previously by Harre (2000), passengers have considerably less control over driving choices than does the driver.
- Feeling less in control may increase the sense of being at risk (Slovic, 1994), which may lead in turn to negative judgments about the driver. |
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Term
| Greater knowledge of the diversity of our own driving experiences than our friends in study |
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Definition
- exacerbates correspondence bias
- You don’t see others in another context so you tend to think they are like that all the time, whereas you know you are different in specific scenarios (e.g. driving your grandma to the doctors). |
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Term
| What is Above average effect? |
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Definition
- A type of self-serving bias.
- The tendency of people to consider themselves better than others.
- The above average effect is usually measured on a population basis and is indicated by a skewed distribution. |
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Term
| Defect of the Above Average Effect in relation to the normal distribution |
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Definition
- If asked how friendly a person thinks they are, most people would put themselves as average to above average on this characteristic
- In theory however, should fall in normal distribution
- Most people would be a bit below and above average, a few people who were extremely friendly and a few as not at all friendly
- Results would show a negatively skewed distribution, which means that it is not quiet matching the likely reality of the situation |
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Term
| Reasons for the above average effect |
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Definition
- The above average affect has been found in individualist cultures, as people from individualist cultures are motivated to think of themselves as better than others, as this is part of the cultural definition of status.
- In our culture we don’t mind talking about how good we are, and people are supposed to celebrate their achievements. Huge pressure to be great.
- Other cultures are more modest |
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Term
| Characteristics of an Individualist Culture |
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Definition
“independent construal of self”
- Treat people in individualist cultures as able to make their own decisions e.g. can chose what job, if and who you marry, gender
- Freedom people have
- Whatever mistakes you make are your own fault e.g. you chose to move out, so if it goes bad it is your fault |
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Term
| Characteristics of a Collectivist Culture |
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Definition
“interdependent construal of self”
- Duty of the person, do what your parent say e.g. arranged marriages, have to live at home until a certain age, have to do the career their parents say. |
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Term
| Individualist vs Collectivist Culture young woman study example |
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Definition
| One study looked at people from India vs people from the USA. They told them a scenario in which a girl to food to her mother. The Americans said the young woman did that because she was kind, whereas the people from India tended to say that the would woman did that because it is a young woman’s duty to do that for her mother. |
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Term
| Markus and Kitayama (1991) Study - Individualist/collectivist cultures |
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Definition
American and Japanese students were asked to rate their abilities in several areas
- 70% of American students rated themselves as above average on each trait
- 50% of Japanese rated themselves as above average
- Does not pinpoint who was right or wrong in their ratings, but indicates that Japanese students had a more modest idea of where they might fit, whereas Americans had a more bias and inflation of those goods characteristics showing the Above Average Effect. |
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Term
| Reasons for the effect Above Average Effect in Individualist Cultures vs Collectivist Culture |
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Definition
1. People from individualist cultures are motivated to think of themselves as better than others, as this is part of the cultural definition of status. Also due to the Perceptual Bias.
2. Due to being very selective with our memories: so we remember more easily the occasions on which we did well than the occasions on which we did badly. Look at the scenarios where we were friendly whereas ignore the scenarios where we were not, which amounts to a good picture of ourselves in terms of these qualities. Something people in individualistic cultures are more inclined to do.
3. The meanings of the traits are often ambiguous, so allow us to interpret the evidence in a way that puts us in the best possible light. E.g. what is true friendliness? What is kindness? They aren’t clear, definitive traits that we can clearly state, can interpret the way you wat to. |
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Term
| Positive effect of the Above Average Effect |
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Definition
Positive effects in terms of happiness and persistence at tasks, because you have resilience that makes you keep going.
Sometimes it is the persistence that leads to success in the end, not how good you are at the task in the first place. |
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Term
| Negative effect of the Above Average Effect |
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Definition
| Negative effects in terms of complacency and risk-taking e.g. if I am really intelligent, then I don’t need to study for the test; young drivers had a high sense of how good they are at driving. |
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Term
| Reason For Study - Harré, Foster & O’Neill, 2005 - Crash-risk Optimism |
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Definition
- Risk perception is considered one of the key factors involved in driving decisions and has been a target of national advertising campaigns in Australia and New Zealand
- There is an important difference between people understanding that something is risky, and acknowledging that they are personally at risk
- Studies have found that young people may be aware that their peer group is at higher risk for crashes compared with drivers in general, but rate themselves as if they are not part of this group
- Evidence that drivers who believe, incorrectly, that they are safer than average, also tend to think injury prevention campaigns do not apply to them |
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Term
| Results of driving study with technical institute students |
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Definition
[image]
- In theory, we should have a bigger neutral bar, and two bars either side that are equal size
- Massive bias in all categories
- Showed strong evidence for self-enhancement biases on all the items on which the participants were asked to judge themselves relative to others of their age.
- The items formed two factors, one that appeared to reflect participants’ judgment of their driving ability relative to their peers, and the other reflected their judgment of their relative driving caution
- These factors and the item concerning relative luck in avoiding crashes significantly predicted crash-risk optimism
- No other items were correlated with crash-risk optimism. |
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Term
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Definition
| The items tended to cluster together into two groups, indicating different patterns in perceived superiority. A cluster around driving ability, and a cluster around riving caution. Could be high on both cluster, or low on both clusters, but tended to rate themselves in these clusters similarly. |
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Term
| Driving ability - Crash-risk Optimism Study |
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Definition
| Some people rated themselves as superior in driving ability – judgment, reflexes, skills and experience (tended to rate themselves highly in all of these categories) |
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Term
| Driving caution - Crash-risk Optimism Study |
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Definition
| Some people rated themselves as superior in driving caution – (not) being as risky, obey rules, safe |
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Term
| Gender Difference Results- Crash-risk Optimism Study |
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Definition
- Men showed more self-enhancement on driving ability. Masculine ideal is to be a great driver who can handle a car with great reflexes
- Women showed more self-enhancement on driving caution. More about being safe and cautious.
- Men showed considerably greater self-enhancement on driving ability, and women showed somewhat greater self-enhancement on driving caution. |
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Term
| Method - Body-size (Donaghue, 2008) |
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Definition
Thirty Australian women and 30 men aged 18-88 years were photographed in profile.
- Asked people to go through them and judge the body size, attractiveness and sexiness, including their own. |
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Term
| Results - Body-size (Donaghue, 2008) |
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Definition
- Both women and men judged themselves as larger than others judged them.
- However, both women and men judged themselves as more attractive and sexier than others judged them (consistent with what we’d expect with the above average effect) |
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Term
| Reason for results - Body-size (Donaghue, 2008) |
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Definition
- Body size judgements may be due to the inability to generally compare ourselves with others, but most of the other naked people that we see are models on billboards or in porn
- So our form of comparison is skewed, and we are judging ourselves negatively in that regard |
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