Question
According to Bem's (1972) self-perception theory:
- people experience discomfort (dissonance) when their behaviors are not consistent with their attitudes, beliefs, or values.
- people enhance their own sense of self-worth by associating or identifying with others who are successful.
- people tend to attribute their successes to dispositional factors and failures to situational factors.
- people infer their own attitudes and emotions by observing their behaviors and the circumstances in which those behaviors occur.
The Correct Answer is D.
Bem's self-perception theory predicts that when people aren't certain about their own attitudes and feelings, they make inferences about them based on their behavior, in the same way that they determine the states of other people.
Answer A: This relates to cognitive dissonance theory, not self-perception theory.
Answer B: This is not a prediction made by self-perception theory.
Answer C: This answer describes the self-serving bias.