ATTRIBUTION THEORY&

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Attribution Theory- “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you place the blame”

Attribution TheoryHistory and Orientation• Heider (1958) was the first to propose a psychological

theory of attribution

• Heider discussed what he called “naïve” or “commonsense” psychology. In his view, people were like amateur scientists, trying to understand other people’s behavior by piecing together information until they arrived at a reasonable explanation or cause.

(Attribution theory assumes that people draw upon their past experiences when facing a new situation-ex- Product experience)

Core Assumptions and Statements

• Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why people do what they do.

• A person seeking to understand why another person did something may attribute one or more causes to that behavior.

• According to Heider, a person can make two attributions: 1) Internal attribution

2) External attribution

Internal Vs External Attributions• He fell down because he is clumsy (internal

attribution). I fell down because the furniture was haphazardly arranged (external attribution).

• She is always late to the class. She is very tardy.(Here we use internal, i.e., personality/ dispositional factors to explain others' behavior)

• I was late to the class because of the chaotic traffic.(explain our behavior in terms of external or situational factors)

Jones and Davis’ Theory• Jones and Davis’ theory helps us understand

the process of making an internal attribution. • Dispositional (i.e. internal) attributions provide

us with information from which we can make predictions about a person’s future behavior

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.

People draw on following 5 Sources of information to infer:1. Choice2. Accidental vs. Intentional Behavior3. Social Desirability4. Hedonistic Relevance5. Personalism

Kelley's Covariation Model

• 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).

• Kelley believed that there were three types of causal information which influenced our judgments: 1. Consensus

2. Distinctiveness 3. Consistency

Scope and Application• Attribution theory has been used to explain the

difference in motivation between high and low achievers.

• Understanding Market and Strategy formulation.• Purchasing Context and shaping Product

Perception ( Price is one factor in attributing value, as some consumers may attribute poor quality to a product with an exceptionally low price)

• Fall back on past experience and look for either reasons(Ex: Sports)

Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors.

• This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance etc.

• For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition).

How Attitude change take place?

• change one or more of the attitudes• acquire new information• reduce the importance of the cognitions (i.e. beliefs,

attitudes)Various factors that have been identified which may be important in attitude change. This research can be divided into three main areas:• Forced compliance behavior• Decision-making,• Effort.

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