Attribution

Theory
Unit- IV
Impression Formation
• Impression formation is the process by which individuals perceive, organize, and ultimately integrate information
to form unified and coherent situated impressions of others (Moore, 2015).

• Primacy effect refers to the condition in which early information has a stronger impact than later information.

• Recency effects is the condition in which later information is given more credence than early information.

Schemas: Holding our Impressions

• The information in a schema provides a representation of the way in which social world operates as well as
allowing us to categorize and interpret new information related to the schema.
Prototypes
• Prototypes are schemas that organise a group of personality traits into a meaningful personality type.

• The importance of prototypes lies in three directions:

• i) Prototypes allow people to recall more readily, recognise and categorise information about others.

• ii) Prototypes help us to organise the social world around us. By observing relatively few traits or behaviours,
we are able to categorize people into certain prototypes and this in turn allows us to form expectations
about others’ behaviours.

• iii) Prototypes allow people to plan behaviour in social interactions more readily.
Attribution Theory
• Attribution is understanding the reasons behind peoples’ behaviour.

• Attribution theory is concerned with how individuals interpret events and how this relates to their thinking
and behaviour.

• Attribution theory aims at explaining how individuals determine the causes of an event or behavior, as well
as the consequence of such attribution on their subsequent behavior.

• Originally introduced by Heider (1958), the main theoretical frameworks have been developed by Kelley
(1967, 1973); Weiner et al. (1971); and Weiner, Nierenberg, and Goldstein (1976).
 Kelly’s Model
• According to Harold H. Kelley (1973), when observing another person’s behavior in front of a specific stimulus at a
specific moment, one can attribute such behavior to three different causes: the person itself, the stimulus (referred
to as the ‘‘entity’’), and/or the circumstances of the moment (referred to as ‘‘time’’).

• This type of attribution is made through the principle of covariance: ‘‘an effect is attributed to the one of its
possible causes with which, over time, it covaries’’ (Kelley, 1973).

• Kelley (1967) suggests that there are many possible cause and effect relationships inherent in a situation that
provides a possible explanation for a behaviour.

• The covariation principle states that the cause that will be chosen to explain an effect is a cause that is present
when the effect is present, and absent when the effect is also absent.
 Covariation Principle
• According to the covariation principle, an observer can use one of the three specific types of causes to explain an
effect:

• Consistency is the degree to which people behaves the same way in other situations (does this person always
display the same behavior in front of similar stimuli at different moments in time),

• Consensus is the degree to which other people react similarly in the same situation (do other people behave in
the same way when confronted to similar stimuli), and

• Distinctiveness refers to the extent to which the same behaviour occurs in relation to other people or stimuli (does
this person display a similar behavior when confronted to different stimuli).

• Kelley suggests that people make attribution according to the levels of consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness,
either to dispositional factors (something about the person) or the situational factors (something about the target
person or the particular circumstances).
Weiner’s Model
• Weiner’s attribution model studies the way people explain their success or failure in achieving their goals or
fulfilling a task. Weiner identified two dimensions that describe potential causes of success/failure.

• The first dimension is called locus of causality. It defines the origin of the cause which can be internal (linked
to the person) or external (linked to the situation).

• Internal causes are the skills displayed by the person, as well as the effort this person invests in the task.

• External causes are the difficulty of the task, as well as the luck the person may have.

• The locus of causality determines the pride (or value) that the person will experience in the event of goal
achievement: higher value will be derived from an attribution to internal causes.
 Weiner’s Model
• The second dimension is called stability and defines the constancy of the causes. Causes can be considered as stable or
instable, according to whether they are likely to be recurrent or not.

• Stable causes are people’s skills and task difficulty; instable causes are the amount of invested effort and the luck
encountered.

• This second dimension determines the expectancy that people will develop regarding the probability of their success/failure
the next time they are exposed to the same situation.

• Attribution will impact on a person’s future behavior. If a person attributes a failure to a lack of effort (internal, unstable
cause), they may feel motivated to do better next time as this cause can be changed (unstable) and depends on them
(internal).

• Conversely, someone who attributes a failure to a lack of ability (internal, stable cause) may feel depressed and demotivated
as this cause would be seen as more difficult to modify.
 Differences between the two models

• Martinko and Thomson (1998) indicated that the vast majority of Kelley’s study deals with the way people
attribute causes to the behavior of other people, while Weiner’s studies are more interested in the way
individuals analyze the causes of their own behavior.

• Secondly, Kelley’s model is focused on the process of attribution (the psychological process explaining the causal
attribution), while Weiner’s model has a greater focus on the consequences of such causal attribution (i.e., if I
attribute my failure to my own responsibility or an external event, what will my behavior be the next time I am
exposed to the same task).

• Kelley and Michela (1980) differentiate between the two by referring to Kelly’s model as ‘‘attribution theories’’
that focuses on the process of cause of attribution and; referring to Weiner’s model as ‘‘attributional theories’’
that focuses on the consequences of the attribution process.
ERRORS IN ATTRIBUTION
The Fundamental Attribution Error
• People, when acting as raters of others, tend to attribute the behaviour they view as indicative of stable trait
dispositions but, when acting as self raters, they tend to perceive their own behaviour as more affected by
specific situational influences.

• Why we are apt to characterise others’ behaviour as due to dispositional causes, yet see our own as a
reflection of the situation?

• Part of the explanation relates to the nature of information that is available to us.

• When we view that behaviour of others, the most salient information is that which comes from the
individual; typically, the environment is static and unchanging, while the person moves about - making the
person the focus of attention.
Halo Effects: Assuming Consistency
within a Person
• The halo effect is the phenomenon in which the initial familiarity, that a person has positive traits, is used to
infer other uniformly positive characteristics.

• The opposite is also true; observation of a single negative trait can be used to infer the existence of
uniformly negative traits. For example, finding that a person is friendly and clearheaded may lead us to
believe that he is also helpful and sociable. Although this may be true, it is not necessarily the case.

• Our assumption that good traits are found together reflects the implicit personality theory, which is people’s
notion of what traits are found together in an individual.

• The halo effect is sometimes seen in media portrayals of various prominent figures.
UNDERSTANDING ONE’S OWN
BEHAVIOUR
Social Comparison: Using others to
Understand Oneself
• According to Leon Festinger (1954), there is a basic drive to evaluate one’s opinions and abilities - a need for
social comparison.

• According to Festinger, a person will probably turn to social reality to satisfy his/her needs for evaluating
one’s own ability.

• Social reality refers to understanding that is derived from how other people generally think, feel and view
the world.

• Festinger suggests that the people with whom we compare ourselves will be similar to us.
Knowing Our Emotions
• Another important outgrowth to understand one’s own behavior is that we evaluate our abilities
and opinions by comparing them with those of others; the way we identify our emotional states
might also be influenced by comparison with others.

• In fact, a classic experiment of two-factor theory of emotion by Stanley Schachter and Jerome
Singer (1962) found evidence for how we label our emotional experiences may be largely based
on the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
• Self-perception theory represents one of the most influential theories of how self knowledge unfolds.
Developed by social psychologist Daryl Bem (1972) self-perception theory consists of two basic claims.

• a) First, the theory claims that people come to know their own attitudes, beliefs, and other internal states by
inferring them from their own behaviour and the circumstances under which they occur.

• b) Second, the theory claims that when internal cues are weak, the individual is in the same position as an
outside observer who must rely upon the external cues of their behaviour to infer their own inner
characteristics. Thus, people simply use their behaviour and the circumstances in which it occurs to infer their
own beliefs and attitudes.
Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance
Theory
• Cognitive dissonance theory explains how behaviour shapes self-knowledge (Festinger, 1957).

• Cognitive dissonance theory assumes that people are motivated to maintain consistency between self
beliefs and experience an unpleasant state of dissonance when they hold two inconsistent beliefs about
the self.

• The most direct way to resolve dissonance is to change the prior belief to align with the behaviour. That
is, the person can resolve dissonance by making their initial attitude more favourable and, hence,
consistent with their behaviour.
Differences between cognitive dissonance
theory and self-perception theory
• Self-perception theory explains the creation of new self-knowledge following behaviour that does not conflict with clear
initial self-views whereas cognitive dissonance explains change in existing self-knowledge following freely chosen
behaviour that does conflict with clear initial self-views.

• Unlike cognitive dissonance theory, self-perception theory does not assume that any motivational state is necessary for
change in self-knowledge. In fact, self-perception theory only requires people’s willingness to infer their own attitudes
and beliefs by considering the environmental and dispositional causes for their own actions for changes in self-
knowledge to occur.

• Self-perception theory claims that people can use their own behaviour to infer self-knowledge when the internal cues of
prior beliefs are ambiguous or weak, whereas cognitive dissonance theory assumes that people adjust self knowledge
only when the internal cues of prior beliefs are clear and conflict with their freely chosen behaviour.
END OF SLIDE!!!