It can be argued that attribution theory does no more than suggest that individuals see the world solely in the light of their own biases. To what extent does the research evidence suggest this satisfactory interpretation of attribution theory?

Erkan Pala- Social Psychology

An Australian psychologist called Fritz Heider is the founder of attribution theory which remained as one of the most crucial contribution in history to the field of social psychology. Attribution Theory describes the way people perceive their own and others behaviour. It is based on how people understand and attribute to situations that are taking place in their environment. Therefore it has a massive link with the way people make fundamental explanations to internal and external factors.

External Attribution is defined as a factor which is out of people’s control, where they have no control therefore this equally means that people’s behaviour is influenced. As a result people don’t feel responsible for the external factors that are beyond their control e.g. weather.

Internal Attribution is simply the opposite of external factor where it’s within peoples own control. People can decide however they want to behave which means that people do feel responsible for their actions. For instance our intelligence is a very common factor.

( Fritz Heider, 1958 )

COVARIATION MODEL

Kelley (1967) has developed a Covariation model which is considered to be a successful method that helps to explain people’s behavior. To narrow down a specific attribution the psychologists look at number of situations. The essential information’s which are gathered from the situation are:

Consensus information is the information regarding how other people besides the actor treat the target.
Distinctiveness information: about how the actor treats other people besides the target
And consistency information: how the actor treats the target across time and different situations. (Akert. R.,& Aronson, E., & Wilson, T. (2005). "Social Psychology” )

Covariation model specifies that people tend to make internal attributions when consensus and distinctiveness are low and consistency is high. And they tend to make external attribution when all the three information are high. It has been concluded that people are less sensitive to consensus information.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY- LEON FESTINGER 1956

Cognitive dissonance theory is defined as “people experience discomfort (dissonance) whenever they are confronted with cognitions about some aspect of their behavior that is inconsistent with their self- concept”. Festinger, L. (1957). In other words cognitive dissonance theory occurs when people learn something new that contradicts with what they already know. This puts them into uncomfortable position therefore people tend to change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors towards the issue in order to avoid stress.

A famous psychologist called Leon Festinger had came up with cognitive dissonance theory between 1950-1960. He carried ...

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COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY- LEON FESTINGER 1956

A famous psychologist called Leon Festinger had came up with cognitive dissonance theory between 1950-1960. He carried out numerous experiments to support his beliefs.

One of his experiments was about Aliens destroying the world which people deeply believed that it was going to happen. To make it more realistic he gave a date and a time. Eventually when the attack from aliens failed to happened, people believed that god prevented aliens from doing so. In this experiment Leon Festinger proved his definition of cognitive dissonance theory when people carried on believing that world was going to end. People altered and accepted new beliefs such as the world was saved because of God. Eventually the group became more passionate with this belief and carried on believing. (Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956).

Weiner’s Attribution Theory

Weiner’s explanation of attribution theory is more concentrated on peoples performance at work or at school and etc. For achievement he highlighted few factors as the most crucial attributions which are ability, effort, task difficulty and luck. He then classified attributions into three causal groups which are

Locus of control- internal and external locus of control
Stability- concerns whether if the cause change over time
Controllability- causes that can be controlled versus the causes that cannot be controlled. E.g. (skill, vs. mood, luck)

Weiner’s comprehensive research has evaluated that there is a correlation between self-concept and achievement. Weiner (1980) states that high achiever is motivated and determined to approach tasks rather than avoid which is related to success. “Causal attributions determine affective reactions to success and failure. For example, one is not likely to experience pride in success, or feelings of competence, when receiving an ‘A’ from a teacher who gives only that grade, or when defeating a tennis player who always loses...On the other hand, an ‘A’ from a teacher who gives few high grades or a victory over a highly rated tennis player following a great deal of practice generates great positive affect” (WEINER 1980)

In other words Weiner insists that failure doesn’t hurt people’s self-esteem because they relate failure to a bad luck or a poor exam, which is literally not their fault. Where as succession improves self-esteem and pride in people because it’s due to effort, energy and ability which the person has sacrificed to reach their goal of achievement.

Biasness

Unfortunately with attribution theory there are suggestions that this theory is not accurate due to biases. To understand the experimental errors more effectively I will firstly define the meaning of Bias: inclination or prejudice in favour of a particular person, thing, or viewpoint. (Online Oxford Dictionary)

There are number of sources of biasness in attribution theory which are named as:

Cognitive bias is defined as “distortions in the human mind that are hard to avoid and that lead to a perception, judgment, or reliability that deviates systematically, involuntarily, and rather distinct from the reality” ( Rudiger F.Pohl E.O). In other words it’s a process that our brains do by twisting our own view of reality. Bandwagon effect is a cognitive bias which we might be familiar with. This is because it’s the way people in a group adapts to others and follows the crowd of a particular thing they are doing. This also means that it plays a massive influence whilst making decisions in a group.

Self serving bias generally occur when people wrongly explain their success to internal factors but explain their failures to factors which are beyond their control ( external factors). The self serving bias had been pointed out by A.V Dicey as “A man’s interest gives a bias to his judgment far oftener than it corrupts his heart... He overestimates and keeps constantly before his mind the strength of the arguments in favor of, and underestimates, or never considers at all, the force of the arguments against "

A realistic example that supports this biasness is when a person passes their exam they might say that it’s because they are clever and worked hard to achieve it. However when a person fails a test, they might blame the teacher or any other contributing factor. But frankly they failed because they didn’t deserve to succeed due to lack of effort they submitted. It would be very ideal for people to learn from their mistakes and failures. In the test example a person could have asked the teacher for their weak points which the student could refer back to in order to improve and pass on the next time around.

It has been concluded that Western (individualistic) cultures are more prone to this bias than Eastern (collectivistic) cultures. (Hoffman 1986)

Fundamental experimental error is a very common biasness that people do in their lives. It’s the way people explain other people’s behaviour by heavily emphasising their own internal behaviour where as the observer should think about the external factors which might have forced other person’s actions. For example when a person bumps into another person in a busy street, they tend to think negatively about their actions and generally it ends with a criticism and an argument. In this case they don’t take into account the situation factor which might have caused this action.

Actor-observer bias occurs when the actors explain their own attitudes and behaviour to external factors but attribute others behaviours to internal factors. A study had been carried out by Niki Harre, (Department of Psychology, University of Auckland) where they have questioned 70 young drivers about risky driving. Then it was concluded that majority of the young drivers said ‘Showing off, acting cool’ for friends than for their own. And ‘In a hurry, late’ was said more for self than for friends.

CONCLUSION

There are many experimental errors in attribution theories. These errors are largely resulted from perspective. For example when we observe other people we can make unfair explanations because the observer is simply not at the right mood. There are so many factors which can impact on our decision making skills. In majority of situations we are not accurate about other people as much as we know how accurate we think we are. To avoid fundamental errors we could perhaps put ourselves in their shoes which would give us a better idea about our decisions. This would enlighten our views towards others and enable us to be more effective in reading people.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fritz Heider, 1958 - The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations

(Akert. R.,& Aronson, E., & Wilson, T. (2005). "Social Psychology” )- Chapter 4- Social Perception: How We Come to Understand Other People

Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Volume 15, pp. 192-238)

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press

(Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.)

Weiner, B. (1980). Human Motivation. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Page 362

Weiner, B. (1986). An Attributional theory of motivation and emotion. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Oxford Online Dictionary- definition of Bias :

Rudiger F.Pohl ( 2004).- Cognitive Illusions, page 2-3

Albert Venn Dicey, Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century, edited and with an Introduction by Richard Vande Wetering (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008