1.

Based on the readings in your textbook (Stangor, 2010), define, in your own words, the following
terms: fundamental attribution error, cognitive dissonance, and diffusion of responsibility. Provide
at least one example for each of those terms.
Fundamental Attribution Error This is the tendency for us to judge people behaviour and
conclude that it is due their personality (in the way we know) rather than looking at the situation in
which such a behaviour happened and try to link it to the behaviour.
For example, concluding that a drunkard lost control of his car hitting into a pole because he was
drunk! However on further analysis we discover that the drunkard lost control because he was
avoiding a small girl who had run into the road chasing her ball!
Cognitive Dissonance This is the ill feeling or discomfort we get when we do something we
consider as inappropriate and later on try to justify to ourselves why we did it in order to remove
that ill feeling or discomfort from our conscious!
For example, a very friendly woman shouting obscenities in public at a particularly irritating man
for having touched her bosom. Later on when the woman discover that the man had actually done
so by accident, she feels bad but convinces herself that the man is bad and actually deserved what
she served him!
Diffusion of Responsibility This is when something happens which requires us to act and we
would react under normal circumstances, but due to the fact that their other people around we
expect them to react to the situation but they also do not expecting some else to react in the end
causing no one to react.
For example, while walking down a crowded street, we see a man fall to the ground. Under normal
circumstances we would rush to him and ask him what is wrong, but because it is a crowded street
we assume that another person would go to the aid while everybody else is also thinking the same
thing we are. In the end the man does not receive the assistance he requires!
2. Describe a personal experience that illustrates one of the three terms mentioned above and how
you responded to the situation.
At one point one of our particularly irritating tenants at our family property made a fundamental
attribution error when he called my sister at about 3am shouting at her accusing her of having cutoff their power. The tenant assumed this because he had not yet paid his rentals and knowing my
sister as a no nonsense person assumed having been cut-off from power. The next morning I
checked for the problem and discovered the cable had been cut the previous night after the rain
storm. The tenant tried to justify himself by mentioning some of the actions my sister had carried
out in the past, claiming that those actions are the ones which made him assume what he assumed!
After I had a lengthy talk with him however and showed him his wrong, he finally apologized to my
sister!
3. The last 20 years have generated a lot of discussion that violence in the media makes children
violent. Should parents restrict their children from watching violent movies and shows, and from
playing violent video games? Please explain your answer.
Yes! Parents should definitely restrict their children from watching violent movies and shows, and
from playing violent video games. This is because various research projects done by several
different individuals has time and again shown that watching or participating in violent media tend
to make the majority of people more violent than they previously were! The Columbine High

School shootings were attributed mostly due to assailants watching or playing violent media
including video games, movies and Charles Manson! Furthermore according to abcnews website,
four public health heavyweights amongst them APA in a joint statement to Congress, flatly stated
that watching violent entertainment can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and
behaviour, particularly in children.
Even if the lines on this subject have not been clearly drawn with other researchers claiming that the
major cause of violence is mostly personality and upbringing and the situations in which assailant
are raised e.g. poverty, most of the researchers still point out that violent media does have a negative
effect on people, more especially children!
Therefore, since decades of research have been conclusive; parents should restrict their children
from watching violent movies and shows, and from playing violent video games at all costs! At
least until they are old enough to understand the difference between reality and fantasy.

Bibliography
1.Stangor,

C. (2010). Introduction to psychology. Irvington, NY: Flatworld

Knowledge.
2.Schorr, M. (n.d.). Consensus Near on Violent Media Effect's. Retrieved
February 24, 2015, from http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117978
3.Violent video games: They may make kids think in more aggressive
ways. (2014, March 24). Retrieved February 24, 2015, from
http://time.com/34075/how-violent-video-games-change-kids-attitudesabout-aggression/