Theory That People Are Intuitive Scientists - Essay Example

It is true that people look for causes, both internal and external and that it is true that the more we believe that the causes are internal, the more we think that they are not external. Nevertheless, considering the fact that people have a tendency to show cognitive or motivational bias, then there is therefore the general tendency for people to make mistakes when determining not only whether the cause is internal or external but also when determining the actual cause (Buchanan et al. 2013). Just like Heider’s theory, Kelley also assumes the rationality of man but it falls short because of the biases inherent in him.

Kelley also has a point when he proposes that generally people systematically assess a situation and its cause using three variables: “consistency, distinctiveness and consensus” (Buchanan et al. 2013). . 2013). For example, based on Kelley’s theory, where a person asks himself whether other people would do the same in the following situation, an optimistic person would normally think that almost all people would help a wounded person in the street, yet this might actually be far from reality.

In the same way, a person with a pronounced judgemental bias and tendency towards availability heuristic would rather think that there are more examples of people in the past or in his past experience who did not help those who were wounded for fear of getting themselves involved in whatever it is that is happening. Thus, one’s biased perceptions would naturally interfere with one’s rationalization, and there seems to be no way to be completely rationally objective about any situation. 2.

2 Arguments Against the Theory One argument against the idea that people are indeed intuitive scientists and that they use logic and reason to make sense of their social environment is the fact that people are naturally biased in their assessment of situations. The experiments presented in Chapter 7 of the book somehow all prove that the claim under investigation is indeed far from true. The vignettes used in experiments of social psychology, for example, have a very clear disadvantage: “Reading a vignette in the laboratory is clearly quite different from observing an event or behavior in the course of everyday life” (Buchanan et al. 2013). This means that social psychologists like Heider and Kelley cannot possibly conclude that a person is rational and logical in his search for the cause of an event because what he is like in the laboratory is entirely different from what he is like outside in the real world.

He may be rational and logical in the laboratory but entirely the opposite outside.
Moreover, based on the study by Storms in 1973, “Actors tended to favor situational explanations of their behavior, whereas observers tended to favor dispositional explanations of the same behavior,” which then naturally translates as strong scientific evidence for FAE (Buchanan et al. 2013). Moreover, in the study by Lau and Russell in 1980, they found out that “there was a greater tendency to attribute wins to internal factors than to external factors” (Buchanan et al. 2013). This means that instead of rationally and logically determining the cause of a win or loss, an ordinary person tends to be biased. This also means that basically and even in controlled laboratory conditions, human subjects tend to commit the FAE in determining the cause of an event. This is indeed far from being rational and logical.

Lastly, the optimistic bias would naturally interfere with the way one perceives something. In the study by Taylor et al. in 1992, where beliefs of men regarding AIDS were examined, those who were HIV positive were more optimistic about not developing the disease than those who were HIV negative. Thus, people’s perception of HIV, which is normally supposed to be pessimistic or negative, tends to vary depending on one’s situation in the context of the disease. This is indeed far from being irrational.

3.0 CONCLUSION
People are not intuitive scientists, and they do not construct logical and rational theories to make sense of their environment. Although the theories of Heider and Kelley are somehow plausible and may be demonstrated by a number of people, the overwhelming amount of scientific data says otherwise. This means that people generally tend to have biases in their judgments of events and in their search for the cause of these events. Social psychologists may be able to account for rationality and logic inside the laboratory but reality may be entirely different from this. Moreover, committing the FAE and the optimistic bias are backed by scientific evidence.