Attribution theory The SCLOA Think James boss has

Attribution theory The SCLOA

Think! James’ boss has called him in for a meeting. He is not getting through is workload as quickly as some of the others on his team and the boss wants to get to the bottom of things. Make a list a 5 dispositional causes and 10 situational causes.

Attribution refers to. . . �the way in which people interpret and explain events in the social world �how people come to understand the reasons why other people behave as they do �the beliefs about why people behave as they do

Internal and external attributions �Dispositional attributions: Sometimes we believe that the way a person has behaved is caused by factors which are specific to them as a person, their personality or other internal and generally unchanging characteristics. �Situational attributions: Sometimes we assume that someone’s behaviour is dependent upon their current circumstances or situation; the cause of their behaviour is seen to be external to the individual, e. g. circumstances or luck.

Attribution: Logical or illogical? �Fritz Heider (1958) believed we make logical and systematic attributions much like ‘naive scientists’ formulating hypotheses and drawing conclusions. �In reality, research suggests that people make attributions quickly and often based on very little information. �They also show tendencies towards certain types of explanations and these have become known as attributional errors and/or biases.

Fritz Heider � Heider and Simmel (1944) demonstrated the strength of the human tendency to explain behaviour in terms of intentions. � He believed that members of a certain culture share a ‘code’ for making sense of each other’s behaviour. � Bennett (1993) explains that without understanding this code, social life would hardly be possible.

Jones and Davis Correspondent Inference Theory �we make correspondent inferences whereby behaviour and intention are linked to some underlying dispositional trait. �Both the behaviour and intention can be described in the same way, i. e. aggressive, � If some-one gives up their seat on the train to a pregnant woman we might infer that they were. . . � If someone donated some money to charity we might infer that they were. . . � If someone began shouting at another driver on the road who pulled out in front of them we might infer that they were. . .

Correspondent inferences are made only if. . . �The actor is seen as capable of producing the observed effects �The actor must know the effects the behaviour would produce (intention)

Analysis of uncommon effects � When a person chooses a particular option from several, the defining features of the choice that they have made are often used to infer dispositional traits of that person. � If the chosen option has some costs involved for the individual, then we are likely to infer that the benefits that this option presents must be things that are really important to the individual. � e. g. If a person was buying a new car and they saw three or four options one of which was more expensive but had a bigger boot but was otherwise very similar, we might infer that the size of the boot is something really important to that person. �

Conditions affecting the ‘uncommon effects’ rule �The less the options differ, the more likely a dispositional attribution is to be made �The more negative qualities the chosen option has, the more likely a dispositional attribution is to be made and the more sure we can be about some-one’s intentions

Other factors that determine whether we make a dispositional or situational attribution � choice: if seen as having a choice more likely to make dispositional judgement � social desirability; if behaviour goes against over-riding social norms, more likely to make dispositional attributions � conventional behaviours often seen as simply being the product of the need to fit in; � deviant behaviours are more likely to be punished and therefore are more costly and if they are therefore enacted regardless, we assume this must be due to some quality of the person � out-of-role behaviour: when people behave according to their role it tells us little about their disposition as they are’ just doing their job’ � how well we know a person is also important; if we know the person well then we will know how typical the behaviour is of the person; if the behaviour is seen as atypical (unusual) it could seen as more likely down to situational factors

Kelley’s Covariation Model � Kelly argues that we use a basic scientific notion; that causes co-vary with effects; � to determine whether A (the comedian) causes B (Clare’s laughter) we should consider how often B occurs in the presence of A and whether it ever occurs without the presence of A. � This makes sense but the principle can only be employed if a person has evidence from multiple observations. � If two events repeatedly occur together we are more likely to assume that they are causally related. Logically, if they rarely occur together we are less likely to think this � Kelly believes that there are three factors which affect the attribution process. � Consensus; the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a given situation � Distinctiveness: the extent to which the actor behaves in the same way in other similar situations, particularly when there is no-one around! � Consistency: the extent to which the actor behaves in the same way every time the situation arises

Support from research evidence Mc. Arthur (1972) � Experiment with independent measures � Pps given 16 behavioural descriptions and asked to rate the extent to which they believed the descriptions to be due to something about the person (disposition) or something about the environmental circumstances (situation). � Two groups; one group only received the behavioural descriptions while another group received the descriptions and information relating to consensus, consistency and distinctiveness. � Findings: � Distinctiveness was most important when making dispositional attributions. � Consistency was most important when making situational attributions � Consensus was not very important when making person attributions and this is not predicted by the model

Evaluation � Replicated by Major (1980) -consistency was given highest priority and consensus lowest; results are reliable � Nisbett and Borgida (1975) consensus information given very weak priority when Pps made attributions about a student in a psychology experiment. � The Pps were told that the student had tolerated high electric shocks in an experiments and despite being told that 16/34 Pps also tolerated shocks of a high voltage, they were no more likely to give situational attributions than those given no consensus information at all; t � he vivid information presented about one real concrete person was more influential than abstract base-rates relating to a group of unknown others. � Consensus information is sometimes influential but only when people are doing the opposite to what you might expect. (Wells and Harvey, 1977) � Cross cultural studies suggests that consensus information may only be disregarded by American or western Pps from individualist societies � E. g. Cha and Nam (1985) Korean Pps made effective use of consensus information and thus were more likely to make situational attributions.