Attribution Theory Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of Social Psychology

📚 Quick Study Guide

• 🧑‍🏫 Attribution theory deals with how people explain the causes of events and behaviors.
• 🧠 Internal Attribution: Explaining behavior as due to internal factors (e.g., personality, intelligence).
• external Attribution: Explaining behavior as due to situational factors (e.g., luck, other people).
• 🧭 Kelley's Covariation Model: Considers consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency to determine attributions.
• 🤝 Consensus: Do other people behave the same way in the same situation?
• ✨ Distinctiveness: Does the person behave differently in different situations?
• 🕰️ Consistency: Does the person usually behave this way in this situation?
• 🎯 Fundamental Attribution Error: The tendency to overestimate the role of personal factors and underestimate the role of situational factors in explaining others' behavior.
• 🎭 Actor-Observer Bias: The tendency to attribute our own actions to external causes while attributing other people's behaviors to internal causes.
• 🙋‍♀️ Self-Serving Bias:** The tendency to attribute our successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.

🤔 Practice Quiz

1. Question 1: According to attribution theory, what is an internal attribution?
   1. A) Explaining behavior as due to luck.
   2. B) Explaining behavior as due to personality traits.
   3. C) Explaining behavior as due to the actions of others.
   4. D) Explaining behavior as due to situational constraints.
2. Question 2: Which of Kelley's covariation dimensions refers to whether a person behaves differently in different situations?
   1. A) Consensus
   2. B) Distinctiveness
   3. C) Consistency
   4. D) Stability
3. Question 3: What is the fundamental attribution error?
   1. A) Overemphasizing situational factors in explaining others' behavior.
   2. B) Underemphasizing personal factors in explaining our own behavior.
   3. C) Overemphasizing personal factors in explaining others' behavior.
   4. D) Ignoring both personal and situational factors.
4. Question 4: What is the actor-observer bias?
   1. A) Attributing our own actions to internal causes and others' actions to external causes.
   2. B) Attributing our own actions to external causes and others' actions to internal causes.
   3. C) Ignoring the causes of our own and others' actions.
   4. D) Attributing all actions to situational factors.
5. Question 5: What is the self-serving bias?
   1. A) Attributing our successes and failures to external factors.
   2. B) Attributing our successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.
   3. C) Attributing our successes to external factors and our failures to internal factors.
   4. D) Attributing all outcomes to luck.
6. Question 6: According to Kelley's Covariation Model, if a student consistently fails a particular subject, displays low distinctiveness (fails other subjects too), and other students also fail the subject (high consensus), what type of attribution is likely?
   1. A) Internal (to the student)
   2. B) External (to the teacher)
   3. C) External (to the subject)
   4. D) A combination of internal and external.
7. Question 7: You see someone trip and fall. If you commit the fundamental attribution error, what are you most likely to think?
   1. A) The sidewalk was uneven.
   2. B) The person is clumsy.
   3. C) Someone pushed the person.
   4. D) The person was distracted by their phone.