Chapter 17 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chapter 17 - Assignment Example On the other hand, when a person has a high external locus of control, he would probably perceive his achievements and disappointments as caused by luck or fate or any other environmental factor. Stability simply means whether causes vary over a period of time. In controllability, there are causes and factors that a person can control such as abilities as opposed to causes that cannot be manipulated such as fate, chance, and actions done by others. In relation to the attribution theory, we judge people in different ways because we give meaning to their behavior, whether it was caused internally or externally A good example is when a friend does not reply to your text messages. You might feel hurt, confused, or even angry thinking that she is doing it out of her own volition and avoiding you on purpose. What you might not know is that her phone’s battery might have died down, or that her phone got stolen. There are always two sides to everything and we make a mistake when we tend to look and pay more attention to one side than the other. More often than not, the first thing that we learn about someone tends to be our basis or plays the major role in giving attributes to that person commonly known as â€Å"first impression†. This tendency gives rise to perceptual errors such as self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping. In self-fulfilling prophecy, when other people expects highly of you, you tend to rise up to tha t level. For example in a basketball team, when the coach thinks highly of its players, the likely result is that the team will be one of the strongest in the league. In stereotyping, we pass judgment on a person depending on the group he belongs in. Just like in the movie â€Å"Mean Girls†, if you joined the Math Club, they considered it social suicide because of the notion that its members are geeks and nerds. Because of these misconceptions,