Causal Attribution
Causal Attribution
One of the basics in social thinking involves trying to understand and explain the “causes” of behavior we observe in others and ourselves.
It is an attempt to make sense of the world. Why???
One definition of causal attribution is it is the scientific study of why questions
Attribution theory - A theory that describes how people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior.
Attributions can be made about the self or another person.
As with perceptions, making accurate attributions is critically important; however, certain biases or errors can reduce the accuracy of attributions.
Fritz Heider is considered the father of attribution theory.
First suggested the concept in 1927
“The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations” Fritz Heider (1958)
“Naïve or Commonsense Psychology” Believed that people are like “amateur scientists”
We try to understand other people’s behavior by piecing together information until they arrive at a reasonable cause.
Heider believed that people are motivated by two primary needs that leads to this search for causes
Need to form a coherent view of the world (make sense)
Need to gain control of the environment (predictive control)
Assumptions
1. People attempt to assign causes for events
2. The assignment of causes or attributions is systematic (patterns)
3. Have “consequences” for our feelings and behaviors
Heider - 2 basic types
• Internal or dispositional causes - explanations that locates the cause as being internal to the person such as personality traits, mood, attitudes, abilities or effort
• External or situational causes - explanations outside the person such as the actions of others, the nature of the situation, or luck
When do we make internal vs. external attributions?
Heider believed that we are more likely to use internal causes to explain other peoples behavior
Internal or dispositional causes make more sense to us and give us more of a feeling of control and stability
Correspondent Inference Theory
Jones and Davis’ (1965) - Describes how people use others’ behavior as a basis for inferring their stable dispositions
What factors are considered important in this process?
Behavior is freely chosen
Behavior yields noncommon effects —effects produced by a particular cause that could not be produced by any other apparent cause
Behavior is low in social desirability (or unusual).
Discounting Principle - We assign less weight to a given cause of behavior if another plausible cause is also present (Kelly, 1972)
Often we fail to discount if the other plausible cause is situational
Castro Study
Jones and Harris (1967) asked college students to read another student’s speech that either (IV) praised or criticized Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
A second IV was added (Choice).
Some P’s were told that the writer freely chose a pro or anti essay while others were told the speech topic (pro vs. anti) was assigned.
The Task (DV) was to guess the writer’s real attitude toward Castro.
The Correspondence Bias - The tendency to infer that people’s behavior corresponds to (matches) their disposition (personality).
Jones & Harris called it the observer bias
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) - The tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person’s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors.
Less likely when people take time before making their judgments
are highly motivated to make careful judgments
are suspicious
Causes for FAE
• Predictive control- dispositional attribution give us a sense of predictive control
• Lack of awareness of situational constraints or the tendency to underestimate the power of the situation
• Invisibility problem- behavior is easy to see, but situations are not
• Unrealistic expectations for how a person will behavior in a situation
• Incomplete corrections of dispositional inferences
Seeing is Believing - Daniel Gilbert traces this bias to the 17th century philosopher Spinoza’s view of perception and inference
Spinoza believed that there is a natural human tendency to accept what one sees or hears before one engages in any tendency to assess or correct this judgment or “SEEING IS BELIEVING”
Attribution Process
Daniel Gilbert and Patrick Malone (1995) suggests that part of problem is HOW we make attributions
Early theorists assumed that people survey all the information and then decide on an internal or external attribution
Attribution involves several steps
Two-step Process
• First step is rapid & automatic
• Second step is slower & controlled
Cross-cultural differences
The Actor/Observer Difference
The tendency to see other people’s behavior as dispositionally caused, but focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one’s own behavior.
Reasons
• Perceptual Salience – we attend to difference information when making attributions about others
• Information availability
• Self-serving attributions
Self-serving attributions are explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors.
Protect or enhance our self-esteem
Protect our public image
Self-Serving Bias in Sports
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