Attribution 1: Theories

Dr Elizabeth Sheppard

C81IND
Individual in Society
 Attribution Theory
 Attribution theory - The conceptual framework within
social psychology dealing with lay, or common sense
explanations of behaviour.
 Through life we gradually construct explanations/theories
of why people behave in certain ways
 1.) Naïve psychologist (Heider, 1958)
 2.) Correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965)
 3.) Kelley’s model
Primary questions
1.) What are the main characteristics of
attributions?
2.) How are attributions are made?
 Naïve Psychologist
(Fritz Heider,1958)
 Sets out the foundations of attribution theory
“common sense psychology”
 Individual as a ‘Naïve Scientist’
 Two important contributions
1.) Proposed the idea of internal
& external causes of behaviour
2.) Perceivers ignore part or all
situational
factors when explaining behaviour.
 (Later theorists who expanded on and developed
Heider’s ideas: Kelley,1967; Jones & Davis,1965;
Weiner, 1979. )
 Correspondent inference
(Jones & Davis, 1965)
- When judging another’s behaviour we use
information to draw a correspondent inference
where the behaviour is attributed to a
disposition/personality characteristic
- Use various characteristics to do this including:
- Social desirability
- Non-common effects
- Important historically, but its impact has been
limited
Kelley’s Model (1967,1973)
 What information is used to arrive at a
causal attribution?
 Developed a logical model for judging
whether a particular action should be
attributed to some characteristic
(internal) of the person or the
environment (external)
What information is used to
arrive at a causal attribution?
1.) Covariation - Perceiver has info from
multiple observations, at different times
and situations, and can perceive the
covariation of an observed effect and its
causes

2.) Configuration - Perceiver is faced with a

single observation and must take account
of the configuration (i.e.the current info
available)
 Covariation: Multiple
observations
 Covariation Principle – An
effect is attributed to a
condition that is present
when the effect is present,
and absent when the effect
is absent. (e.g. donuts
disappear/ Homer)
o Based on statistical technique ANOVA.
o Examines changes in a dependent variable
(the effect) by varying independent variables
(the conditions).
Analysis of Variance Model of
Covariation
Does behaviour Possible single
generalise? causes
'J o h n L a u g h s a t c o m e d i a n '

T h e p e rs o n T h e c ir c u m s t a n c e s T h e e n t it y

O v e r p e rs o n s O v e r c ir c u m s t a n c e s O v e r e n t it ie s

C onsensus C o n s is t e n c y D is t in c t iv e n e s s

H ig h Low H ig h Low H ig h Low

Types
of info
(IV’s) 8 Information combinations 2 x 2 x 2
Analysis of Variance Model of
Covariation (McArthur e.g., 1972)
Does behaviour Possible single
generalise? causes
'J o h n L a u g h s a t c o m e d i a n '

T h e p e rs o n T h e c ir c u m s t a n c e s T h e e n t it y

O v e r p e rs o n s O v e r c ir c u m s t a n c e s O v e r e n t it ie s

C onsensus C o n s is t e n c y D is t in c t iv e n e s s

H ig h Low H ig h Low H ig h Low

Types
of info
(IV’s) 8 Information combinations 2 x 2 x 2
Analysis of Variance Model of
Covariation (McArthur e.g., 1972)
Does behaviour Possible single
generalise? causes
'J o h n L a u g h s a t c o m e d i a n '

T h e p e rs o n T h e c ir c u m s t a n c e s T h e e n t it y

O v e r p e rs o n s O v e r c ir c u m s t a n c e s O v e r e n t it ie s

C onsensus C o n s is t e n c y D is t in c t iv e n e s s

H ig h Low H ig h Low H ig h Low

Types
of info
(IV’s) 8 Information combinations 2 x 2 x 2
 Why did the students fall
asleep during the lecture?
 e.g. The majority of the
students fell asleep in Dr.
Sheppard’s lecture on theories
of attribution. They also fell
asleep during her other
lectures, but not lectures given
by other teaching staff.
 High consensus
Boring
 High consistency lecturer?
 High distinctiveness
 Why did the students fall
asleep during the lecture?
 e.g. The majority of the
students fell asleep in Dr.
Sheppard’s lecture on theories
of attribution. They never fell
asleep during her other
lectures, or in lectures given by
other teaching staff.
 High consensus
Day after formal
 Low consistency ball?
 High distinctiveness Hot lecture theatre?
But…
 Works well for person and entity
 No single clear pattern which can lead to
circumstance attributions. These seem to
be maximised when consistency is low
(Forsterling, 1989; Hewstone & Jaspars, 1987)
 This can be seen as a limitation to the
model
 Main criticisms of covariation
principle
1.) Doesn’t work well for circumstance attributions
2.) Covariation does not mean causality
3.) Participants are given “pre-packaged” info which
they might not seek or use in everyday situations
(model idealised/normative)
4.) Evidence suggests people are poor at assessing
covariation between events (Alloy & Tabachnik, 1984)
5.) It may appear that the covariation principle was
used, but the processing used may be completely
different (e.g. Nisbett & Ross, 1980)
6.) Requires multiple observations over time- which is
not always possible to do
 Configuration: Single
observations
 Causal Schemata – Preconceptions or
theories built up from experience about how
certain kinds of causes interact to produce a
specific effect (abstract-content free i.e.
general & apply across content areas)
 Allows one to interpret information quickly by
comparing and integrating it with a schema
 E.g. multiple sufficient cause schema – any
of several causes can produce the same
effect
 Configuration: Single
observations
 Each Schema is associated with a number
of principles set out by Kelley
 Discounting principle – if different causes
can produce the same effect, the role of a
given cause in producing the effect is
discounted if other plausible causes are
present

e.g. Why is your flatmate

doing the washing up?
Configuration: Single
observations
  Augmentation principle – The role of a
given cause is increased (augmented) if
an effect occurs in the presence of an
inhibitory cause.

e.g. Why did the man in the

chicken costume win the
race?
Main criticisms of causal
schemata (Fiedler, 1982)
 1.)   The existence and functioning of
causal schemata has not been
successfully demonstrated –
research supporting it is artificial –
can’t prove
 2.)   The idea of schemata is content
free and thus too abstract
 Can internal and external
attributions be distinguished?
 Statements implying internal attributions can be
rephrased to imply external & vice versa
 Students asked to write down why they had chosen
their degree subject at uni (Nisbett et al, 1973)
 Statements such as “I want to make a lot of money”
were coded as internal while statements such as
“Chemistry is a high paying field” were external
 Criticised internal/external categories for being very
broad and too heterogeneous (Lalljee,1981)
 Participants have difficulty understanding the
distinction (Taylor & Koivumaki, 1976)
 Can internal and external
attributions be distinguished?
 Other categorisations of attributions e.g.
multidimensional approach (Weiner, 1986)
 Locus – internal or external?
 Stability – is the cause a stable or unstable one (over time)
 Controllability – to what extent is future task performance
under the actor’s control?
Internal External
Stable Unstable Stable Unstable

Consistent Unusual
Controllable Typical Unusual
help/hindrance help/hindrance
effort effort
from others from others

Uncontrollable Ability Mood Task difficulty Luck

 Applications of attribution
theory
 Individual differences & attributional style
 Rotter (1966) argues people differ in terms of the amount of
control they believe they have over reinforcements &
punishments received – measures of locus of control
related to range of behaviour e.g. political beliefs,
achievement
 Internals – high personal control over destiny

 Externals – fatalistic, things occur by chance

 Attributional style questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982) –

sorts explanations on 3 dimensions: internal/external,
stable/unstable, global/specific
 Those who view aversive events as caused by internal,
stable, global factors = depressive attributional style
 Applications of attribution
theory
 Interpersonal relationships
 Most commonly used in relation to marital success
e.g. Fincham & O’Leary, 1983
 happily married individuals tend to credit partners for positive
behaviour by citing internal, stable, global & controllable
factors to explain them
 Negative behaviour is explained away by ascribing to
external, unstable, specific & uncontrollable causes
 Distressed couples do the opposite
 Women continuous engage in attributional thought
about relationships – men only do so when
dysfunctional!!
 Summary
 Theories of attribution claim we aim to
attribute behaviour to either internal
(person) or external (situation) causes
 Kelley proposed models of covariation
(data driven) & configuration (theory
driven)
 In reality these may interact i.e. our
expectations (schemata) may influence
what data are processed i.e. what
observations made
References
 Hewstone & Stroebe (2001) Introduction
to Social Psychology, Chapter 7.
 Fraser & Burchell (2001) Introducing
Social Psychology, Chapter 11.