AP Psychology Lesson: Attribution Theory and Person Perception 

Unit: Social Psychology and Personality
Lesson: 1 of 6
AP Exam Weighting: 15–25%
Goal: Understand how people explain behavior, form impressions, and misjudge others — and apply these ideas to real-world situations.

Warm-Up: “Snap Judgments” Mini-Reflection

Purpose: Recognize how quickly we explain others’ behavior.
Write 1–2 sentences for each:

  1. Why might you assume someone is late because they’re irresponsible?

  2. How does your first impression of someone affect how you view their later actions?

  3. Have you ever been misjudged? What caused the misjudgment?

Key Concepts 

Attribution theory: Explores how people explain the causes of behavior.
There are two types of attributions:

  • Dispositional: Traits, personality, choices.

  • Situational: Environment, luck, external pressures.

Common Cognitive Biases in Attribution:

  • Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): Overestimating personality factors and underestimating the situation when judging others.

  • Self-Serving Bias: Success = internal (“I’m smart”), failure = external (“the test was unfair”).

  • Halo Effect: One strong positive trait influences all judgments (attractive = smart).

  • Horns Effect (NEW): One negative trait makes people assume other negative traits (messy = irresponsible).

Person Perception: The mental process of forming impressions using appearance, behavior, stereotypes, and expectations.

Example:
If a student is quiet, you may assume they’re shy (dispositional) rather than stressed about a test (situational).

Questions

Write in your own words:

  1. Define attribution theory: __________________________________

  2. Define fundamental attribution error: _________________________

  3. Define halo effect: __________________________________________

  4. Explain how the self-serving bias influences a behavior, using a specific example:

  1. Explain how person perception influences a behavior, using a different example:

  1. How does the fundamental attribution error affect social judgments?

  1. Why might cultural differences influence attribution styles?

  1. How could the halo effect impact a real-world decision, like hiring?

NEW CONTENT BOX: “Shortcut Thinking” in Real Life

Read the mini-examples and check the boxes that show which bias is happening:

Scenario FAE Self-Serving Bias Halo Effect Horns Effect
A coach thinks a slow runner is lazy, not noticing they’re injured. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
You say you aced the quiz because you studied, but failed another because “the teacher made it too hard.” ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
A manager thinks a stylish employee must be organized and responsible. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
A teacher assumes a student with messy handwriting is careless in all work. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

(Students fill in the check boxes)

Guided Activity 

Task 1: Scenario Analysis 

Scenario: A student assumes a teammate failed the group project because they’re lazy, ignoring that the teammate had a family emergency.

Your task: Explain how both the fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias shape this judgment.

Write your explanation:

Class Share: One point you’ll mention: ________________________

Task 2: Case Application 

Scenario: A teacher favors a well-dressed student, assuming they are hardworking and responsible.

Explain how person perception and the halo effect influence the teacher’s behavior.

Write your explanation:

Class Share: One point you’ll mention: ________________________

“Flip the Attribution”

Rewrite each sentence by flipping it from dispositional to situational — OR situational to dispositional.

Example:
“Jake forgot the homework because he’s careless.” → “Jake forgot because he was dealing with family stress.”

  1. “She failed the test because she’s not smart.”
    → ______________________________________________________

  2. “He snapped at me because he’s a rude person.”
    → ______________________________________________________

  3. “They cheated because they’re bad students.”
    → ______________________________________________________

  4. “I failed because the teacher hates me.” (Flip to dispositional)
    → ______________________________________________________

Class Assignment 

Study Summary 1:

People in individualist cultures make more dispositional attributions for failures than those in collectivist cultures.

Question 1:
How does this study show that culture affects attribution theory? What might explain these differences?

Your answer:

Study Summary 2:

Attractive individuals were rated as more competent in job interviews (halo effect).

Question 2:
Explain how the study demonstrates person perception’s effect on behavior AND identify one possible limitation.

Your answer:

Reflection

Answer the following:

  • Which bias do you think affects you the most in daily life? Why?

  • How can understanding attribution theory make you more fair when judging others?

  • Which example today surprised you the most?

AP Exam Connection: This practices analyzing and evaluating research, a key skill for FRQs.

AP Exam Practice

Instructions: Answer the question below. We’ll review answers as a class to learn exam strategies.
Free-Response Question (FRQ):
Explain how attribution theory, the fundamental attribution error, and the halo effect interact to influence a specific social behavior (e.g., forming impressions, conflict, or decision-making). Provide one example for each factor (attribution theory, fundamental attribution error, halo effect) and analyze how they interact to shape the behavior.

Closure

Instructions: Write a brief summary (2–3 sentences) of two key ideas you learned today about how attribution theory and person perception influence behavior.

Extended Practice

Instructions: Complete the tasks below based on today’s lesson to reinforce AP skills.

  1. Review your answers from this lesson.
  2. Write a detailed paragraph (5–7 sentences) applying today’s topic to a real-life behavior (e.g., how you judge a peer or make decisions). Include references to attribution theory, fundamental attribution error, and halo effect, and explain their interaction.
  1. Find a short article or study on attribution theory or person perception (e.g., via apa.org) and write 2–3 sentences summarizing its relevance to today’s lesson. Cite the source (e.g., website or article title).

Classic Experiments

1. Attitude–Behavior Consistency

Classic Study: Richard LaPiere’s Restaurant Study (1934)

  • Experimental Design: LaPiere traveled across the United States with a Chinese student couple for two years, visiting more than 250 hotels, inns, and restaurants. Severe racial discrimination existed in the US at that time; theoretically, these establishments would refuse to serve Chinese people. However, in practice, only one establishment turned them away, and the rest received them without issue.

Later, LaPiere mailed questionnaires to these establishments with the question: "Would you be willing to serve Chinese customers?" The result was that more than 90% of businesses answered "no".

  • Core Finding: There is a significant inconsistency between people’s verbal attitudes and actual behaviors. This study revealed that attitudes do not always predict behavior, and situational factors (e.g., social pressure of in-person service), attitude strength, and specificity all influence the consistency between attitudes and behaviors.
  • Subsequent Supplement: Fishbein and Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) further refined this research, proposing that "attitude + subjective norm + perceived behavioral control" jointly predict behavioral intention, which in turn predicts actual behavior.

2. Selective Exposure

Classic Experiment: Follow-up Research by Festinger and Carlsmith (1950s) (based on Cognitive Dissonance Theory)

  • Experimental Design: Researchers first had participants form a clear attitude toward a topic (e.g., a certain policy). Participants were then provided with a series of related information, half supporting their original attitude and half opposing it. They could freely choose which information to read.
  • Core Finding: Participants prioritized reading information that supported their original attitudes and actively avoided contradictory information.
  • Another Classic Study: Sears’ Election Study: During an election, voters were asked to choose campaign news to watch. The results showed that supporters were more willing to watch positive news about their favored candidates rather than reports about opponents, verifying selective exposure in real-world scenarios.

3. Confirmation Bias

Classic Experiment: Peter Wason’s "2-4-6 Task" (1960)

  • Experimental Design: Experimenters told participants there was a rule for number sequences (the actual rule was "any three increasing numbers") and provided the example "2-4-6". Participants needed to propose their own number sequences, which the experimenter would judge as conforming to the rule or not, to finally guess the rule.
  • Core Finding: The vast majority of participants repeatedly proposed sequences that fit their hypotheses (e.g., 4-6-8, 6-8-10) and rarely proposed sequences that negated their hypotheses (e.g., 1-3-2). In other words, they only sought evidence to support their guesses and ignored counterevidence, making it difficult to discover the true rule.
  • Extended Application: This experiment is a classic paradigm for confirmation bias in cognitive psychology and has since been widely used in social psychology to explain people’s persistence in their attitudes and beliefs.

4. Source Credibility

Classic Experiment: Carl Hovland’s Yale Persuasion Experiments (1950s)

  • Experimental Design: Hovland’s team divided participants into two groups, and both groups read the same article on "nuclear war defense".
    • Group 1: Told the author was J. Robert Oppenheimer, a renowned nuclear physicist (high-credibility source);
    • Group 2: Told the author was an ordinary newspaper reporter (low-credibility source).
  • Core Finding: The persuasive effect of a high-credibility source was significantly better than that of a low-credibility source, and participants were more willing to accept the expert’s viewpoint.
  • Subsequent Finding: The sleeper effect exists—over time, the effect of source credibility gradually weakens. People slowly forget who the source was and only remember the information itself, at which point the persuasive effect of a low-credibility source improves slightly.

5. Message Framing

Classic Experiment: Tversky and Kahneman’s Disease Decision-Making Experiment (1981) (based on Prospect Theory)

  • Experimental Design: Participants were told that a fatal disease had broken out in a region, expected to kill 600 people, and two treatment options were available, presented in a gain frame and a loss frame respectively:
    • Gain Frame: Program A will save 200 people; Program B has a 1/3 chance of saving all 600 people and a 2/3 chance of saving no one.
    • Loss Frame: Program A will result in the death of 400 people; Program B has a 1/3 chance of no deaths and a 2/3 chance of all 600 people dying.
  • Core Finding: Different frames led to completely different decision outcomes:
    • In the gain frame, most people chose risk-averse Program A;
    • In the loss frame, most people chose risk-seeking Program B.
  • Core Conclusion: People’s perception of gains and losses is asymmetric—pain from losses far outweighs pleasure from gains. The way information is presented (framing) significantly influences decision-making and persuasive effects.
Last modified: Wednesday, 21 January 2026, 12:29 AM