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Attribution Theory
Devshree Singh
devshreesingho cial@gmail.com

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Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses the information to
arrive at causal explanations for events. It examines the information gathered
and how it is combined to form a causal judgment (Fiske and Taylor, 1991).

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Heider (1958) highlighted people tend to see cause-and-e ect relationships,

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even where there is none! He gave two main ideas that became in uential:

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dispositional (internal cause) vs situational (external cause) attributions.

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● Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal
characteristic of a person, rather than to outside forces.
When we explain the behavior of others we look for enduring internal
attributions, such as personality traits. This is known as the
fundamental attribution error.
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For example, we attribute the behavior of a person to their personality,
motives, or beliefs.
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● Situational 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.
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When we try to explain our own behavior, we tend to make external

attributions, such as situational or environmental features.
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Theories

Psychologists have also introduced several di erent theories to help further

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understand how the attribution process works.

Correspondent Inference Theory

In 1965, Edward Jones and Keith Davis suggested that people make inferences
about others in cases where actions are intentional rather than accidental.
When people see others acting in certain ways, they look for a correspondence
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between the person's motives and their behaviors. The inferences people then
make are based on the degree of choice, the expectedness of the behavior,
and the e ects of that behavior.
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Heider's 'Common Sense' Theory

In his 1958 book, "The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations," Fritz Heider

suggested that people observe others, analyze their behavior, and come up
with their own common-sense explanations for their actions.

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Heider groups these explanations into either external attributions or internal

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attributions. External attributions are those that are blamed on situational
forces, while internal attributions are blamed on individual characteristics and
traits.

Types

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Why do we make internal attributions for some things while making external
attributions for others? Part of this concerns the type of attribution we will
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likely use in a particular situation. Cognitive biases often play major roles as
well.
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The main types of attributions you may use in daily life include the following:

Interpersonal Attribution
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When telling a story to a group of friends or acquaintances, you are likely to

tell the story in a way that places you in the best possible light.
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Predictive Attribution

We also tend to attribute things in ways that allow us to make future

predictions. If your car was vandalized, you might attribute the crime to the
fact that you parked in a particular parking garage. As a result, you may avoid
that parking garage in the future.

Explanatory Attribution

We use explanatory attributions to help us make sense of the world around us.
Some people have an optimistic explanatory style, while others tend to be
more pessimistic.
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People with an optimistic style attribute positive events to stable, internal,

and global causes and negative events to unstable, external, and speci c

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causes. Those with a pessimistic style attribute negative events to internal,
stable, and global causes and positive events to external, stable, and speci c

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causes.

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

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attributed to some characteristic (dispositional) of the person or the

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environment (situational).

The term covariation simply means that a person has information from
multiple observations, at di erent times and situations, and can perceive the

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covariation of an observed e ect and its causes.
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He argues that in trying to discover the causes of behavior people act like
scientists. More speci cally they take into account three kinds of evidence.
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● Consensus: the extent to which other people behave similarly in a
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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
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Alison smokes, it is low.

● Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves similarly in
similar situations.
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E.g., 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.
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● Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like this every
time the situation occurs.
E.g., If Alison always smokes when she is out with friends, consistency is
high. If she only smokes on one special occasion, consistency is low.

People attribute causality based on correlation, i.e., 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.
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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 t, highly motivated, have trained hard

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etc., and that she must have all of these to win.

2) Multiple su cient causes. For example, we see an athlete fail a drug test,
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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 su cient.

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Culture Bias in Attribution

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Culture bias is when someone makes an assumption about the behavior of a
person based on their own cultural practices and beliefs.

An example of cultural bias is the dichotomy of "individualistic" and

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"collectivistic cultures." People in individualist cultures, generally
Anglo-America and Anglo-Saxon European, are characterized as societies that
value individualism, personal goals, and independence. People in collectivist
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cultures are thought to regard individuals as members of groups such as

families, tribes, work units, and nations and tend to value conformity and
interdependence.
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In other words, working together and being involved as a group is more

common in certain cultures that view each person as a part of the community.
This cultural trait is common in Asia, traditional Native American societies, and
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Africa. Research shows that culture, either individualist or collectivist, a ects

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how people make attributions.
People from individualist cultures are more inclined to make a
fundamental-attribution error than people from collectivist cultures.
Individualist cultures tend to attribute a person's behavior due to their
internal factors, whereas collectivist cultures tend to attribute a person's
behavior to his external factors.

Research suggests that individualist cultures engage in self-serving bias more

than do collectivist cultures, i.e., individualist cultures tend to attribute
success to internal factors and to attribute failure to external factors. In
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contrast, collectivist cultures engage in the opposite of self-serving bias i.e.,

self-e acing bias, which is: attributing success to external factors and
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blaming failure on internal factors (the individual).

Augmentation Principle

The augmentation principle is the attributional tendency to assign more

signi cant in uence to a particular cause or rationale of behavior if there are

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other factors present that normally would produce a di erent outcome.

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Internal attributions are augmented (altered) when factors are unexpected and
would normally be a constraint. When an action or behavior has limits or
constraints on it, the individual's motive must be stronger than the constraints

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or inhibitions present.

For example, you learn that a person just ran a marathon. That is a remarkable
feat, but you then learn the person had previously had a stroke and had been
completely paralyzed the year before. The augmentation principle would
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present itself, and your internal attributions may shift, and your perception of
the marathon runner would increase from being generally impressed to
extreme admiration and awe.
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