the action of regarding a quality or feature as characteristic of or possessed by a person or thing.

Heider (1958) believed that people are naive psychologists trying to make
sense of the social world. People tend to see cause and effect relationships,
even where there is none!

Heider didn’t so much develop a theory himself as emphasize certain themes

that others took up. There were two main ideas that he put forward that
became influential: dispositional (internal cause) vs situational (external
cause) attributions.

Dispositional vs Situational Attribution

1. Dispositional Attribution

Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal

characteristic of a person, rather than to outside forces.

When we explain the behavior of others we look for enduring internal

attributions, such as personality traits. This is known as the fundamental
attribution error.

For example, we attribute the behavior of a person to their personality,

motives or beliefs.

2. Situational Attribution

The process of assigning the cause of behavior to some situation or event

outside a person's control rather than to some internal characteristic.

When we try to explain our own behavior we tend to make external

attributions, such as situational or environment features.

Jones & Davis Correspondent Inference Theory

Jones and Davis (1965) thought that people pay particular attention to
intentional behavior (as opposed to accidental or unthinking behavior).
Jones and Davis’ theory helps us understand the process of making an internal
attribution. They say that we tend to do this when we see a correspondence
between motive and behavior. For example, when we see a correspondence
between someone behaving in a friendly way and being a friendly person.

Dispositional (i.e., internal) attributions provide us with information from

which we can make predictions about a person’s future behavior. The
correspondent inference theory describes the conditions under which we make
dispositional attributes to the behavior we perceive as intentional.

Davis used the term correspondent inference to refer to an occasion when an

observer infers that a person’s behavior matches or corresponds with their
personality. It is an alternative term to dispositional attribution.

So what leads us to make a correspondent inference? Jones and Davis say we

draw on five sources of information:

1. Choice: If a behavior is freely chosen it is believed to be due

to internal (dispositional) factors.
2. Accidental vs. Intentional Behavior: Behavior that is
intentional is likely to be attributed to the person’s
personality, and behavior which is accidental is likely to be
attributed to situation / external causes.
3. Social Desirability: Behaviors low in sociable desirability
(non conforming) lead us to make (internal) dispositional
inferences more than socially undesirable behaviors. For
example, if you observe a person getting on a bus and sitting
on the floor instead of one of the seats. This behavior has
low social desirability (non conforming) and is likely to
correspond with the personality of the individual.
4. Hedonistic Relevance: If the other persons behavior
appears to be directly intended to benefit or harm us.
5. Personalism: If the other persons behavior appears to be
intended to have an impact on us, we assume that it is
“personal”, and not just a by-product of the situation we are
both in.
Kelley's Covariation Model

Kelley’s (1967) covariation model is the best-known attribution theory. He

developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be
attributed to some characteristic (dispositional) of the person or the
environment (situational).

The term covariation simply means that a person has information from
multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the
covariation of an observed effect and its causes.

He argues that in trying to discover the causes of behavior people act like
scientists. More specifically they take into account three kinds of evidence.

 Consensus: the extent to which other people behave in the

same way in a similar situation. E.g., Alison smokes a
cigarette when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If
her friend smokes, her behavior is high in consensus. If only
Alison smokes, it is low.
 Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves in
the same way in similar situations. If Alison only smokes
when she is out with friends, her behavior is high in
distinctiveness. If she smokes at any time or place,
distinctiveness is low.
 Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like
this every time the situation occurs. If Alison only smokes
when she is out with friends, consistency is high. If she only
smokes on one special occasion, consistency is low.

Let’s look at an example to help understand his particular attribution

theory. Our subject is called Tom. His behavior is laughter. Tom is laughing
at a comedian.

1. Consensus

If everybody in the audience is laughing, the consensus is high. If only Tom is

laughing consensus is low.
2. Distinctiveness

If Tom only laughs at this comedian, the distinctiveness is high. If Tom laughs
at everything, then distinctiveness is low.

3. Consistency

If Tom always laughs at this comedian the consistency is high. If Tom rarely
laughs at this comedian, then consistency is low.

Now, if everybody laughs at this comedian, if they don’t laugh at the comedian
who follows and if this comedian always raises a laugh, then we would make
an external attribution, i.e., we assume that Tom is laughing because the
comedian is very funny.

On the other hand, if Tom is the only person who laughs at this comedian, if
Tom laughs at all comedians and if Tom always laughs at the comedian then
we would make an internal attribution, i.e., we assume that Tom is laughing
because he is the kind of person who laughs a lot.

So what we’ve got here is people attributing causality on the basis of

correlation. That is to say,; we see that two things go together and we,
therefore, assume that one causes the other.

One problem, however, is that we may not have enough information to make
that kind of judgment. For example, if we don’t know Tom that well, we
wouldn’t necessarily have the information to know if his behavior is consistent
over time. So what do we do then?

According to Kelley we fall back on past experience and look for either

1) Multiple necessary causes. For example, we see an athlete win a

marathon, and we reason that she must be very fit, highly motivated,
have trained hard etc., and that she must have all of these to win

2) Multiple sufficient causes. For example, we see an athlete fail a

drug test, and we reason that she may be trying to cheat, or have taken a
banned substance by accident or been tricked into taking it by her
coach. Any one reason would be sufficient.
Emotional lability refers to rapid, often exaggerated changes in mood,
where strong emotions or feelings (uncontrollable laughing or crying, or
heightened irritability or temper) occur. These very strong emotions are
sometimes expressed in a way that is greater than the person's emotions.

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Interpersonal relationships are social associations, connections, or

affiliations between two or more people. They vary in differing levels of
intimacy and sharing, implying the discovery or establishment of common
ground, and may be centered around something(s) shared in common.
Self-perception theory posits that people determine their attitudes and preferences by interpreting
the meaning of their own behavior. Critcher and Gilovich looked at whether people also rely on the
unobservable behavior that is their mindwandering when making inferences about their attitudes and
preferences.

Attribution Theory attempts to explain the world and to determine the cause of
an event or behavior (e.g. why people do what they do).

Bias in Attribution
-Attributions may not be the correct explanations of events, which leaves the event subject to people’s point
of view and bias.

– Attributions ultimately represent guesswork about the causes of events, and people might even guess that
the cause of their own behavior incorrectly.

LET US LOOK AT SOME EXAMPLES OF BIASES IN ATTRIBUTION

Actor-Observer Bias
Your view of your own behavior can be different from the view of someone else’s who’s looking at you
 Fundamental Attribution Error: refers to observers’ bias in favor of internal attributions in
explaining others’ behavior.
 Example: If you get angry because money on your bank account is gone and look like your raging,
someone who is observing you will probably think their are internal attributions that cause you to do
that, like an easy temper. In reality, you could be a calm and caring person who’s having a bad day.
 Actors favor external attributions for their behavior, whereas observers favor the same behavior
internally.
Defensive Attribution
A tendency to blame victims for their misfortune, so that one feels less likely to be victimized in a similar way.

 Hindsight bias contributes to this tendency, but blaming victims also helps people maintain their belief
that they live in a just world, where they are unlikely to experience the same troubles.
 Defensive attributions can lead to unwarranted derogation of victims of misfortune.
 Examples: Burglary victims can be blamed for their carelessness of protecting their house; poor people
may be viewed as lazy.
Self-Serving Bias
 The self-serving bias in attribution comes into play when people attempt to explain success and
failure.
 The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute one’s successes to personal factors and one’s failures
to situational errors
 In explaining failure , the usual actor-observer biases become apparent because actors tend to make
external attributions, blaming their failures on unfavorable situational factors, while observers
attribute the same failures to the actor’s personal shortcomings.
 In the end each person makes their own personal agenda which makes them feel better (they are “self-
serving” themselves.)