Chapter 16: Social thought and behavior Attribution: Trying to determine what causes people’s behaviors.     Internal attribution: The behavior is caused by something in the person.     External attribution: The behavior is caused by something in the environment When making attributions we generally rely on three kinds of information:     Consensus: Do other people generally behave that way?        High consensus: Yes, people generally behave that way.        Low consensus: No, people do NOT generally behave that way.     Consistency: Does the person generally behave that way in this situation?        High consistency: Yes, the person generally behaves that way in this situation.        Low consistency: No, the person does not generally behave that way in this situation.     Distinctiveness: Does the person generally behave that way in other situations?        High distinctiveness: No, the person does not generally behave that way in other situations.        Low distinctiveness: Yes, the person generally behaves that way in other situations. We generally make internal attributions if the consistency is high and both the consensus and distinctiveness are low. We generally make external attributions if the consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness are all high. Fundamental attribution error: Tendency to explain other people’s behaviors with internal causes. This is probably due to the self-serving bias. Self-serving bias: Tendency to attribute positive outcomes to internal causes and negative outcomes to external causes, in order to protect self-esteem and look good to others.