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Attribution Error Theory

1157 Words5 Pages

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been assumed roles and acted in certain ways do to social situations and external factors. Why do we as humans give in to authority so easily, or commit evil acts when they are given orders, despite knowing better? Psychologist believe that we as humans have the tendency for people to believe their behavior is influenced by inherited dispositions and several social factors. This is called the fundamental attribution error theory. One social factors that psychologist that plays apart in our behavior in certain situations is the presence of an authority figure. In a controversial study done by Stanley Milgram in 1963 at Yale University, had people ask questions with a person of higher authority to a …show more content…

It simply means that humans will fall in line of what a group or crowd of people are doing or not doing. In a study done by John Darley and Bibb Latane's in 1968 was conducted a scene similar to a murder during 1964. They based their experiment Catherine Susan Genovese was murdered near her apartment building while and the 64 residents of the building did not notify the police of her pleas for help. Darley and Latane created a similar situation where they invited a group of college students into a room where they had a conversation, then the person over the intercom began to sound like he was having a seizure. The bigger the group of people, the less of the percentage of people went to help the person over the intercom. Although one can counter this by saying that no too many people are required to help a single person. In a second experiment, they had the students fill out a questionnaire with one of the group being larger than the other. The rooms with the students had black smoke was released into the room until the room was filled with it. Just as the first experiment, the larger the group of people, the less people left the room (Darley, J. M. and Latane (1968). This can also be found online as well as well in the real world. In 2015, a study was done showing that people will go to help or defend others in smaller group rather than the bigger groups (Machackova, H., Dedkova, L., & Mezulanikova, K.

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