Attribution Flashcards
What is an attribution?
A process used by individuals to explain the causes of behaviours and events
Attribution Theory - Heider (1958)
- People are motivated by two primary needs
- The need to form a coherent view of the world
- The need to gain control over the environment
- To satisfy these needs we act as naive scientists
Models of attribution
- Correspondence inference theory
- Co-variation model
Correspondence inference theory
- Jones & Davis (1965)
- Internal/dispositional attributions provide valuable knowledge for making predictions, and are therefore preferred
Co-variation model
- Kelley (1967)
- Causality is ascribed to those causes which covary with the behaviour they are viewed as causing
- For something to be the cause of a behaviour it has to be present when the behaviour is present and absent when it is absent
We make dispositional attributions by considering 3 different types of information…
- Social desirability
- Choice
- Non-common effects
Covariation principle
For something to be the cause of a particular behaviour, it must be present with the behaviour and absent when the behaviour is absent
Assessing co-variation
- Consensus information - extent to which others react to some stimulus
- Consistency information - the extent to which the person reacts to the stimulus in the same way on different occasions
- Distinctiveness information - the extent to which the person reacts in the same way to other, different stimuli
Accuracy of the co-variation model
- All three types of information are not equal
- We attend more to the actor rather than other actors in the context
- Although people follow these rules and deduce causality logically in some circumstances, a number of attributional biases and errors often occur
Attribution biases
- The fundamental attribution error
- The actor-observer bias
- Self-serving attributions
Jones & Harris (1967)
- Students read either pro- or anti-Castro essays
- Participants were told the authors had chosen the essay topic or were told to write it
- Choice condition people assumed the writer had those opinions
- They also thought the writer had those opinions in the no-choice condition
Why do people make the fundamental attribution error?
- The situation is not important when people make attributions for the behaviour of others, but the situation is important when making attributions for one’s own behaviour
- People excuse their own negative behaviour
Actor-observer bias
- Observers emphasise dispositional factors when explaining actors behaviour
- Actors emphasise situational factors when explaining their own behaviour
- Jones & Nisbett (1972)
Weiner’s Attributional Theory of Motivation (1986)
- Threatening or uncertain events motivate people to seek causal explanations
- Anger emerges from external attributions for negative events
- Guilt arises from internal attributions for negative events
- 3 basic attribution categories; locus of causality, stability and controllability
Heider believed that this desire for consistency and stability, the ability to predict and control, makes us behave like ___ _____
Naive scientists
What do naive scientists do?
Rationally and logically test hypotheses about the behaviour of others
Heider and Simmel (1944)
- Asked participants to describe the movement of abstract geometric shapes
- Found a general tendency to describe the movement in ways indicative of human intentions
Internal attribution
Cause is internal, eg. personality, mood, abilities, attitudes and effort
External attribution
Cause is external, e.g. actions of others, nature of the situation social pressures or luck
The absence of consensus information implies a ______ cause
Dispositional
The presence of consistency information implies a _____ cause
Dispositional
The presence of distinctiveness information implies a _____ cause
Situational
Fundamental attribution error
All other things being equal, we tend to make internal attributions even when there are clear possible situational causes (Ross, 1977)
Self-serving biases
- Olsen & Ross (1988)
- We are more likely to make internal attributions for our successes and external ones for our failures
- Maintains our self-esteem
Intergroup attributions
- Hewstone & Jaspars (1982)
- Like self-serving biases but in terms of a group e.g. sports team
Intergroup attributions can…
Serve to propagate prejudice and discrimination against minority groups in society
Social representations theory
- Moscovici (1961)
- Shared beliefs and understandings between broad groups of people
