Situational Biases in Teacher Impressions

S ummary . Teachers were given a lecture on misattribution in social reasoning, with special emphasis on a study by Jones and Harris (1967) showing that even when people know someone is only role‐playing elements of that role are still attributed to the person. They were then shown short videotapes which they knew to be of children merely acting out ‘good pupil' and ‘bad pupil’ roles. Even though teachers were thoroughly familiar with the mechanism of mis‐attribution from the lecture, and were repeatedly reminded that the children were only acting, reliable differences persisted between ratings of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ pupils. Findings are interpreted in terms of an automatic response component to behavioural cues which is not available to conscious correction

Attribution · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Misattribution of memory · Pupil · Situational ethics · Communication in Education and Healthcare · Psychology · Social Psychology