It Is an Attempt to Make Sense of the World. Why

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