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According to the Fundamental Attribution Error, when making attributions about other people, we are more likely to make ______________ attributions, whereas when making attributions about ourselves, we are more likely to make ______________ attributions.

A Internal; internal
B External; external
C Internal; external
D External; internal

User Agstudy
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Final answer:

The correct response is C: Internal; external. The Fundamental Attribution Error leads us to attribute others' behavior to internal factors and our own behavior to external factors, which is related to the self-serving bias to maintain self-esteem.

Step-by-step explanation:

According to the Fundamental Attribution Error, when making attributions about other people, we are more likely to make internal attributions, whereas when making attributions about ourselves, we are more likely to make external attributions. The correct answer here is C: Internal; external.

The Fundamental Attribution Error describes the tendency for observers to attribute other people's behavior to their character or disposition while ignoring situational factors that might have influenced their behavior. On the other hand, when explaining our own behavior, especially in negative contexts, we tend to attribute it to situational factors rather than to our disposition. This contrast in attribution is due to self-serving bias, which helps to preserve our self-esteem by attributing successes to internal factors and failures to external situations.

Conversely, the actor-observer bias indicates that we are equally likely to give dispositional and external explanations for our own behavior, suggesting that we provide few internal explanations but many situational explanations for our own actions. This is contrasted with how we are inclined to interpret others' actions, often attributing them to the person's dispositions.

User AliR
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