Speaker 1: Well, today we're going to be talking about attribution theory
Speaker 1: and social cognition processes. So attribution theory explains how people
Speaker 1: assigned causes to behavior, either internally with traits or externally
Speaker 1: with situations. Fundamental attribution areas a tendency to overvalue personal
Speaker 1: traits and undervalued contexts and explaining others behaviors. And you'll
Speaker 1: see where the problem lies with these types of attribution
Speaker 1: theory issues actor observer bias. This is where it flips
Speaker 1: around fundamental attribution bias and others' behaviors disposition our own
Speaker 1: as Situational self serving bias protects self esteem by attributing
Speaker 1: successes internally and failures externally. Cognitive dissonance occurs when beliefs
Speaker 1: and actions conflict. People reduce it by adjusting attitudes or
Speaker 1: behavior schema. As we'll talk about those, They organize expectations
Speaker 1: and shape perception. Confirmation bias reinforces them by leading us
Speaker 1: to focus attent selectively the information that supports our pre
Speaker 1: existing beliefs. So remember, we don't just observe or perceive
Speaker 1: the world, we actually interpret it. When we walk by
Speaker 1: somebody that doesn't say hi to us in the morning,
Speaker 1: we may explain why someone is rude, why we failed
Speaker 1: the test, or why maybe we're not rude, and we'll
Speaker 1: look at some of the ways we do that. So
Speaker 1: the attributionary for instance, again it looks at how people
Speaker 1: assign causes to behavior, always asking the question why did
Speaker 1: that happen? And they can fall into two main types
Speaker 1: internal again dispositional. The cause lies within the person, so
Speaker 1: if they walk by you they don't say hi, we
Speaker 1: can contribute that to rudeness, or the cause lies in
Speaker 1: the context. Maybe they didn't see me, maybe they don't
Speaker 1: feel good, maybe something happened. We evaluate behavior across three dimensions.
Speaker 1: When this is based on Kelly's covariation model, we value
Speaker 1: it on consistency. Does the behavior happen regularly? Distinctiveness does
Speaker 1: it happen only in this particular situation? And consensus do
Speaker 1: others behave this way within way in the same situation.
Speaker 1: When all three of these are high, we tend to
Speaker 1: attribute the behavior to external factors. Conversely, when a consistency
Speaker 1: is high but distinctiveness and consensus are low, we are
Speaker 1: more likely to attribute the behavior to internal traits. One
Speaker 1: of the most reliable cognitive biases in psychology is what
Speaker 1: they call fundamental attribution error. It's when a person overemphasizes
Speaker 1: internal traits when explaining others' behaviors and underestimates external forces.
Speaker 1: For instance, when a client arrives late, you assume they're
Speaker 1: careless or disorganized or don't care about the therapy. You
Speaker 1: don't immediately consider traffic, child care, anxiety. Same thing, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you get cut off on the freeway, to immediately
Speaker 1: think that the person is a jerk, rude, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, don't consider anything else. This error is usually
Speaker 1: automatic and asymmetric. We do it more with strangers than
Speaker 1: with ourselves. Now. Speaking of that, we also make different
Speaker 1: attributions depending on who's doing the behavior. As actor I
Speaker 1: miss the meeting because the directions were unclear, an observer
Speaker 1: he missed the meeting because he's unmotivated or irresponsible. This
Speaker 1: is an extension of the fundamental attribution error, but with
Speaker 1: an added twist. We give ourselves more situational credit, especially
Speaker 1: in failure. So a therapist may label a client's sciences resistance,
Speaker 1: but the client uses it as fear without checking the lens.
Speaker 1: Miss aitomic can occur. This is one of the blames
Speaker 1: that they put on psychodynamics or psychoanalytic therapists. Really remember,
Speaker 1: dynamic therapist consists of everything from Freud, Young Adler, object
Speaker 1: relations and moving forward. So that's interesting because that's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest knocks against psychoanalysis is that they we
Speaker 1: can be psychoanalysts, can fall prey to act or observer bias,
Speaker 1: self serving bias. This one protects self esteem success, that
Speaker 1: was me failure, that was the situation we know a
Speaker 1: lot of times if you see it the other way around,
Speaker 1: it's associated with depression. So I did great on the
Speaker 1: interview because I am smart, or I didn't do well
Speaker 1: on the interview because the way the teacher taught the material.
Speaker 1: Of course, this seems like evolutionarily adaptive, but when it
Speaker 1: exaggerated it causes denial and blocks accountability and can of
Speaker 1: course fuel eventually hopelessness in the former in the diagnosis
Speaker 1: of depression. Just world hypothesis is the belief that often
Speaker 1: people believe the world is fair and predictable. Bad things
Speaker 1: happen to bad people, good things happen to good people.
Speaker 1: This creates a moral buffer. Some may even argue the
Speaker 1: old saying of being too polyannish. If I act right
Speaker 1: I'll be safe. But it also leads to victim blaming
Speaker 1: if someone suffers and must be their fault. Clients who
Speaker 1: blame themselves for trauma often carry a distorted just world belief,
Speaker 1: belief that life events always reflect moral deservingness. After an outcome,
Speaker 1: we believe we knew it all along. This is called
Speaker 1: hindsight bias. I should have seen that breakup coming. Of
Speaker 1: course the relapse happened. He missed last week. Hindsight bias
Speaker 1: is a big problem. Think about it with somebody as
Speaker 1: certain behaviors. Oh, I knew they were had substance use.
Speaker 1: After you find out, this bias distorts learning, It creates
Speaker 1: a false confidence and reduces empathy. Cognitive dissonance theory is
Speaker 1: another one. When beliefs and behavior clash, we experience what
Speaker 1: they call cycle logical tension or discomfort. We are motivated
Speaker 1: to resolve that tension, and three main strategies has changed
Speaker 1: the behavior. So let's look at smoking. To quit smoking.
Speaker 1: Change the belief smoking is not that dangerous. Add a
Speaker 1: new belief I exercise, so I cancel out the harm.
Speaker 1: I've seen this a lot, especially with people who use alcohol.
Speaker 1: Dissonance increases when the belief is central to identity, the
Speaker 1: behavior was freely chosen and the consequences are significant. Motivational
Speaker 1: interviewing works by surfacing the dissonance, helping clients confront the
Speaker 1: gap between values and behavior without shame. The next is
Speaker 1: schema therapy theory. Schema are mental frameworks that organize how
Speaker 1: we perceive the world to help us make sense of people, events,
Speaker 1: and patterns. The schema for a therapist might include expectations
Speaker 1: of warmth, insight, and learning and listening. A client with
Speaker 1: the negative schema about authority may expect udgement or punishment
Speaker 1: from a therapist. Schemas affect the tension. What we notice, memory,
Speaker 1: what we recall, an interpretation, how we explain it. When
Speaker 1: schemas are rigid or distorted, they feed cognitive distortions and
Speaker 1: emotional distress. Another one is called the availability heuristic. We
Speaker 1: judge likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind.
Speaker 1: You hear about three plane crashes and assume flying is unsafe.
Speaker 1: If therapists recalls several clients with trauma and overdiagnosis PTSD,
Speaker 1: this is something they call diagnostic creep or diagnostic overreach.
Speaker 1: So if you have a special niche you tend to
Speaker 1: see that particular diagnosis in a lot of different areas.
Speaker 1: So yes, you're an expert in a particular diagnosis, but
Speaker 1: then you could start seeing it everywhere. And this is
Speaker 1: what you tend to see with a lot of authors
Speaker 1: that write special books on particular diagnosis, they see a
Speaker 1: little bit more than it is out there. Lastly, as
Speaker 1: confirmation bias, we seek interpret and recall information in ways
Speaker 1: that confirm what we already believe. If therapist who assumes
Speaker 1: that client is resistant might notice every mishomwork assignment but
Speaker 1: overlooks genuine engagement in session. Clinical applications depression and anxiety
Speaker 1: depressed clients often show a negative attributional style, internal stable
Speaker 1: global attributions for bad events. Anxious of clients focus on
Speaker 1: threat due to attentional biases and interpret ambiguous cues negatively.
Speaker 1: Therapy will focus on using cognitive restruction through CBT, thought records,
Speaker 1: socratic questioning. All these are CBT techniques. Relationship conflict. Couples
Speaker 1: in distress often use bias attributions. He forgot dinner because
Speaker 1: he doesn't care. This is a dispositional attribution. There, I
Speaker 1: snapped or got angry because I was tired, so it's situational.
Speaker 1: Double's therapy helps reframe these patterns that rebuild mutual relationships
Speaker 1: and understanding and empathy. Therapists prices. By the way, we're
Speaker 1: not immune either. As therapists. Attribution areas can shape diagnostic impressions,
Speaker 1: count of chance for inst and treatment planning. This is
Speaker 1: why I believe understanding your counter transference is so important. Oh,
Speaker 1: you need to be having bad bias awareness exercises, case
Speaker 1: consultations is the biggest thing. I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the more important factors to be able to help you
Speaker 1: in your practice. Next time when we come back, we'll
Speaker 1: be looking at group dynamics and social influence processes. So
Speaker 1: we're heading over to the world of social psych a
Speaker 1: little bit. That's it for now