How do we attach meaning to other's behavior or our own?
This is called
attribution theory. For example, is someone angry because they are bad-
tempered or because something bad happened?
“Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses information to
arrive at causal explanations for events. It examines what information is
gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment” (Fiske, &
Taylor, 1991)
Attribution theory is concerned with how and why ordinary people explain
events as they do.
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.
1. Internal Attribution
The process of assigning the cause of behavior to some internal characteristic,
rather than to outside forces. When we explain the behavior of others we look
for enduring internal attributions, such as personality traits.
For example, we attribute the behavior of a person to their personality,
motives or beliefs.
2. External 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 person’s behavior appears to be
directly intended to benefit or harm us.
5. Personalism: If the other person’s 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 (internal) of the person or the environment
(external).
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.
report this ad
References
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York:
McGraw-Hill
Heider, F. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York:
Wiley.
Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965) From acts to dispositions: the attribution
proces in social psychology, in L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in experimental
social psychology (Volume 2, pp. 219-266), New York: Academic Press
Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine
(ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Volume 15, pp. 192-238).
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
How to reference this article:
McLeod, S. A. (2010). Attribution theory. Retrieved from
https://www.simplypsychology.org/attribution-theory.html
report this ad
report this ad report this ad
