April 14th Blog Entry

Fundamental Attribution Error

By definition, the fundamental attribution error is the likeliness for people to place an inappropriate emphasis on your personality in order to explain someone else’s behaviour in a situation, rather than considering the situation’s external factors. In further explanation, when you meet a person for the first time, and they aren’t having a good day (because of other external factors), your immediate response may be that that person isn’t a fun person. Or perhaps you think they are sad or depressed. Often people come to this conclusion before examining the external factors that may be making them upset.


According to Simply Psychology, prejudice is “an unjustified or incorrect attitude (usually negative) towards an individual based solely on the individual’s membership of a social group”. For example, one person may not like another person solely because of their race, gender, religon, or sexuality.


A stereotype is a commonly held idea (usually negative) about specific groups of people. Common examples of stereotypes are that all women are bad drivers, all black men play basketball, and that all Asian’s do very well in school.


Discrimination is defined as “an action or a decision that treats a person or a group negatively for reasons such as their race, age or disability“. An example of discrimination is saying that you don’t like someone because of something they are a part of. In further examination, you could say “I don’t like that girl because she wears skinny jeans”.




Man Counselor Criminal Politician Canadian Plumber Girl Hockey Player

People’s one word responses

Tall Help Scary Talkative Eh Butt crack Innocent Strong
Strong Help Bad Stuck up Country Unmotivated Independent Passionate
Tall Weird Bad guy Rip offs Me Butt crack Pretty Mean
Mad man Helpful Smooth Greasy Me Pipes Pretty Awesome
Women Helpful Bad Sneaky Eh Butt crack Baby Sports
Husband Help Stealer Brad Wall Me Job Daughter Gretzgy
Tall Scary Childhood Brave Proud Gross Boy Contact
Work Problems Prison Trump Moose Poop Boy Puck
Women Annoying Bad Stupid Cold Van Little Cocky
Strong Psychologist Delinquent Liars Eh Butt crack Feminism Fast reflexes

Common Stereotypes

Throughout my survey, I thought that some answers were fairly stereotypical. Further more, I noticed how when I asked older people, they were less stereotypical compared to the younger peoples answers. I find this interesting because you can see that the age difference between two people makes them believe/think in two different ways. I asked more young people, compared to older individuals. For certain categories like “man”, it was most common for people to say things like strong, tall, tough, and big. Whereas when I asked the subjects about the word “girl”, they said less intimidating responses such as small, pretty, little and independent. Also, I think if I said “girl” in a different way, such as “woman” or “lady” the responses may have been different. I think those words seem  older and more professional. So the responses may have been more like independent, strong, feminine, and so on. The category that I found that was the least stereotypical was counsellor. But maybe that is because I am not sure what stereotypes would be associated with a counsellor. I think the most personal, the one that was most opinionated was the politician. Many people had different responses. Overall, I think the one with the most stereotypical response was plumber, because immediately, many of the participants said “butt crack”, which to some degree, didn’t surprise me.


The Six Grand Theories of Attitude


The psychoanalysis theory is based on a persons internal conflict with there id and super ego. Secondly, it is based on the stages that you go through as you grow up and experience new things. With experiencing new things and growing up, your brain develops and you find yourself and understand who you are and why. It is reasonable to assume that each Id Ego and Superegotheoretical perspective has different views. For example, psychoanalytic theorists may believe that attitude development is based off of how we ourselves, deal and present ourselves with the situations that we are in. A person may be in an uncontrollable external situation, but it is up to them, their attitude and behaviour to decide how they will react in that environment. A person can decide to let their inner “devil”, “angel” or you can choose to compromise on what you are going to do. So, I think that psychoanalytic theorists believe that your attitude development is highly dependant on your personal reaction to any situation you are put in. For this section, psychoanalytic theorists might believe that attitude development isn’t based off external forces, but rather your personal reaction to the external force.


Theorists that fall under the behaviourism category believe in conditioning and rewarding positive behaviour. It is associated with a learning process. These theorists believe that all behaviour is learned as a response to external stimuli. So, I think it is safe to say that these theorists believe that as a person, you develop your attitude from the external forces that you are exposed to. The way you react to situations is dependant on how you have seen other people react in those types of situations. Or just how those people react in any situation. External people that have the biggest influence to the person may be their friends, family, significant other, or people that they look up to. 


Cognitivism is a theory based off of personal growth in the cognitive mind and how culture influences our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. I believe that theorists that fall under the cognitivism section think that attitude development is due to how mature our cognitive mind is and how we let the world and cultures around us, influence us. Attitude development, in the eyes of cognitivism theorists, probably think that how you act is influenced by how old you act and how mature you are as a person. The older you get, the more cognitively mature you are (based on Jean Piaget’s 4 stages). Lev Vygotsky thinks that the culture around you is the biggest influence on who you are as a person, and therefor how you act as a person.

Ecological Theory

The ecological theory is a system that revolves around the world we live in. It is composed of yourself, the microsystem, and the exosystem. It is all about how you as an individual are influenced by the ecosystems that you are in the middle of. So, I believe that theorists that study the ecological theory may believe that your attitude development is due to the factors located in your ecosystem. So, in your microsystem, you may included your family, friends, significant other, classroom and job. I think that ecological theorists would believe that your attitude development would be heavily influenced on your ecological theory model that you have built for yourself. But most importantly, your attitude would be effected mostly by the people and factors in your microsystem.


The two theorists involved with humanism believe that people’s underlying wish is to be loved and respected. They also think that a person much achieve their basic needs, and then more complex parts of their life before they can achieve self actualization. Maslow, hierarchy of needswho believes in self actualization, would associate his theory to how our attitudes develop. I believe that he would say that you need to achieve at least the first three layers of his theory. Then you would use all the aspects from those sections to develop your attitude. You attitude develops more and more as you continue to climb up the pyramid, and eventually achieve self actualization. The other theorist for this section probably believes that your attitude development depends on whether you are love and respected or not. For example, if you aren’t very loved and not many people respect you, you may be frustrated, lonely, and struggle a lot. So therefor, your attitude would reflect on that. You would have a bad attitude and may not be as positive as someone who is loved and respected.


The evolutionary theory is based on attachment and the evolution of a person/thing. Specifically, Konrad Lorenz believes that as soon as something is born, it will immediately attach its self to the first thing it recognizes. Therefor, Lorenz may believe that your attitude development is based off of what you are immediately exposed to. You pick up the things that you are exposed to and reflect them in your behaviour and attitude. For example, if you are always exposed to happy people, your attitude may also be happy. So, for this section attitude development may be based on attaching to the first attitude that you are exposed to.



All About Attitude



Picture Credit

Section 1

An attitude is “a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols” (Hogg, & Vaughan 2005, p. 150). Every individual has a different attitude towards certain things in their life.  These attitudes are formed by experiences, how you were brought up (parents), who you hangout with and what you believe in. It is believed that attitudes may be described with three main components; affective, behavioural, and cognitive component. The affective part describes a persons feelings and emotions about the attitude object. Behavioural focuses on how our attitude influences how we act and behave. Lastly, the cognitive component involves the knowledge and believes a person has about an attitude object. Each of these components have a major influence on our attitudes towards things. Attitude may also be influenced by more practical things like what our friends, family and peers believe in, personal experiences, and media/mass marketing in the social world. Also who we surround ourselves with has an influence on how we carry ourselves. The formation and why we have a certain attitude have ties together. Both are heavily influenced by peers, family and who we look up to. I think that even more specific things influence our behaviour and attitude as well. Such as the type of music we listen to. Or the shows/movies we watch. Even things like how we see ourselves (confidence levels) and what we think others think of ourselves. Attitudes play a big part in our lives. I like to think that your attitude makes you more diverse/dimensional and adds depth to your character. Without attitude and a certain behaviour that you may give off, we would be bland and boring. Attitude adds individuality. It can also change and make us view people in certain ways. We have an attitude to let people know how we feel, what we like and don’t like, and so we are able to show others our characteristics and what we are like as a person. Attitudes can change at certain times in your life. For instance, if something occurs in your life to make you suddenly depressed, your attitude isn’t going to be as uplifting as it was before. So, it can change because of experiences, change in beliefs, change in character, and possibly even a change in outlook (positive or negative). In comparison to how attitudes can change, there is a difference in a males attitude compared to females. Biologically, females are more prone to be more sympathetic, caring and show more emotions (crying). This is because women don’t produce as much testosterone as men. Testosterone is a chemical in the human body that has effect on your emotions and attitude. It has the ability to make you show less emotions like crying and being sad. This is why guys tend to cry less then women, because there bodies produce more of this chemical. Women and men are also different when it comes to attitude because women have that natural sense to care, love and help others. Where as men are more likely to not show that as much. Overall, attitude plays a very big part in our everyday lives and without it we would be a very boring species.

Section 2

As I said before, it is very common for people to have diverse behaviours and attitudes. Specifically, people may have a negative or positive attitude. Behaviours that go hand in hand with a positive attitude are things like motivating yourself and others, being happy, 00enjoying your life, laughing and smiling, being proud of yourself and others around you, having hope for the future, being true to yourself, and being friendly. On the other end of the spectrum, a negative attitude may be characterized by things like having depression, having no hope for yourself or the future, being sad all the time, not being able crying-cat-faceto see the positive in things, negative comparison with others, having negative assumptions, duelling on the past, blaming others, and never or rarely being happy. I think that the attitudes of people around you rub off on to you. If you surround yourself with positive and motivated people, you are most likely going to be motivated and positive too. In comparison, I think that parents (to some degree) have a influence on their children’s behaviours and attitudes. For example, if a kids parents are constantly fighting, it is going to be difficult for that child to be happy and have a positive outlook. But I also believe that as that kid gets older, they will start to mature and are able to handle themselves. Therefor, they will be able to choose if they want to be sad or happy, positive or negative. The parental environment that a child is in may influence their current attitudes, and if that child’s parents motivate them or not may have an influence of if that child is a motivated person. Overall, I think kids are more likely to learn attitude from there parents and the people that are closest to them, but it is up to them to decide to act the same or not. That being said, I think people are attracted to people like themselves. People hangout with other people that share the same goals, attitudes, behaviours and interests. So, I think that friends do share common attitudes, and I believe this exhibits itself more as people grow up and discover who they are, what they like and so on. Lastly, I think that people who hangout in a certain”group” may share common attitudes and behaviours. I believe that the closer the group, the more likely of them to share common beliefs, behaviours and attitudes. For example, someone who hangs out with a group once a month, may not be as close as a AAA hockey team that spend time together every night and day. As I said before, people tend to be attracted to people that share the same interests and goals together. This same theory goes for people in groups and if they share the same beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.