Attribution Theory (46-47)

Look at the pictures on the board. Write down in the boxes below why you think the person highlighted is behaving in that way.

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Highlight the above in two different colours for reasons that were due to the personality of the person, and reasons that were due to the situation that the person was in.

Attribution is the process of explaining the behaviour of other people. When we observe other people’s behaviour, we unconsciously try to find explanations for it.

For example: your friend gives you some money. How do you interpret their behaviour?

You have made an inference about your friend’s personality and/or motives based purely on their behaviour. However, you cannot directly observe personality. The process of drawing inferences about people is so ingrained in us; we even attribute personality to inanimate objects (“My computer hates me!”)

Heider and Simmel (1944)They showed a group of participants a short film starring two triangles and a circle. One group was asked to just describe what happened, the other was asked to interpret the movements. Watch the film, and interpret the behaviour of the shapes.

Those who were asked to interpret the movements described the big triangle as aggressive, dumb, stupid etc. This shows that we are predisposed to attribute personality traits to even inanimate objects!

Attribution theory is a collection of various theories that aim to explain how and why we make attributions about others based on their behaviour. It is an applied cognitive theory, as it is using cognitive principles to understand an important social process (attribution).

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTIONS (pg 46)

This was the first of the attribution theories, and was developed by Heider (1958) after the study with Simmel above. He suggested that humans are always trying to find explanations for people’s behaviour, piecing together information from two sources; the people and the situation. These two sources cause us to make two types of attribution:

Come up with a dispositional and situational attribution for the following situations

Behaviour Dispositional SituationalA man gives money to charityA woman shouts at her sonA young man drives too quicklyA student does not hand in his homework

According to Heider, we are predisposed to making __________________ attributions about people. He called this the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). It is a fundamental error that all people make. For example, if we are served by a shop assistant who is rude, we are more likely to assume that he is a rude person (dispositional), rather than that he has had a bad day (situational).

Evidence for the FAE: Ross (1977): Observers watched contestants giving answers to a quiz and were asked to rate their ability. They rated the contestants who go the most

Dispositional attribution:

Situational attribution:

answers right even though they knew they had made up some of the questions themselves!

COVARIATION THEORY

Kelly (1960) built upon attribution theory by taking into account situations where we make inferences not just on one isolated incident, but by having access to more information such as the person’s past behaviour, and other’s behaviour in similar situations.

Kelly proposed that there were three factors that determine attributions.Example

Consistency

Behaving the same way all the time in a given situation

High: John always laughs at Friends

Low: John sometimes laughs at Friends

Distinctiveness

Behaving the same way in different situations

High: John only ever laughs at Friends

Low: John laughs at most American TV shows

Consensus Whether other people also act this way in this situation

High: Everyone laughs at Friends

Low: Only some people laugh at Friends

If behaviour is high in consistency, but low in distinctiveness and consensus, then we make an internal attribution. In the example above, we would say that “John always laughs at Friends, but he laughs at most American TV shows, and not everyone laughs at Friends. Therefore, it’s John’s sense of humour that makes him laugh.”

If behaviour is high in consistency, consensus and distinctiveness we make an external attribution. “John always laughs at Friends, John only ever laughs at Friends and everyone laughs at Friends. Therefore, Friends is a funny show and that’s why John laughs.”

(There are 8 ways in which the three traits can be combined, and these predict what type of attribution people make. However, you don’t need to know all of them for the exam; the two above will be enough. If you are interested in knowing more, ask your teacher!)

Scenario: Lee always does poorly in his maths testsWhat would make you attribute an internal cause to his behaviour?_________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________

What would make you attribute an external cause to his behaviour?_________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Evidence for the Covariaton theory: McArthur (1972) gave participants 12 scenarios that contained information about consistency, consensus and distinctiveness. The participants’ attributions reflected that as predicted by the theory.

Example: Neil always falls asleep in lectures. Neil falls asleep in all his lectures and also cafes, pubs, shops, while watching TV, during sports matches etc. No-one else falls asleep during Professor Brown’s lectures. Your attribution: _____________________________________________

ERRORS IN THE ATTRIBUTION PROCESS Aside from the FAE, there are two other errors in the attribution process.

The actor/observer bias

The self-serving biasWe take credit for our successes and disassociate from our failures. In other words, we make an internal attribution when we do something successful and an external attribution when we fail. Jones (1968) arranged for participants to teach two pupils. When the pupils succeeded, the participants attributed it to their teaching, and when they failed, it was the fault of the pupils.

Going further...Research how attribution theory has been used help patients with insomniaAre there cultural differences between how often the FAE occurs? What is the difference between individualist and collectivist cultures?Next time you make an assumption about someone, stop and think whether you are making a fair attribution. Could you be falling for the FAE?