ATTRIBUTIONS:EARLY THEORIES OF ATTRIBUTION
We said earlier that attributions are explanations for events and behaviour. Heider differentiated between two types of causal attribution – personal and situational. Personal attributions refer to factors within the person, such as their personality characteristics, motivation, ability and effort. Situational attributions refer to factors within the environment that are external to the person. For example, if we were discussing why a particular student has failed an important university examination, we would consider personal factors (such as her academic ability and how much effort she invested in preparing for the exam). But we might also look at situational attributions (such as whether she had good tuition, access to library facilities and sufficient time to study).Heider noted that we tend to overestimate internal or personal factors and nderestimate situational factors when explaining behaviour. This tendency has become known as the fundamental attribution error, which we’ll return to in the next section. In a similar vein, Jones and Davis (1965) found that we tend to make a correspondent inference about another person when we are looking for the cause of their behaviour. In other words, we tend to infer that the behaviour, and the intention that produced it, correspond to some underlying stable quality. For example, a correspondent inference would be to attribute someone’s aggressive behaviour to an internal and stable trait within the person – in this case, aggressiveness. Jones and Davis argued that this tendency is motivated by our need to view people’s behaviour as intentional and predictable, reflecting their underlying personality traits. But in reality, making correspondent inferences is not always a straightforward business. The information we need in order to make the inferences can be ambiguous, requiring us to draw on additional cues in the environment, such as the social desirability of the behaviour, how much choice the person had, or role requirements. Like Heider, Kelley (1967) likened ordinary onlookers to naïve scientists who weigh up several factors when attributing causality. Kelley’s covariation model of attribution states that, before two events can be accepted as causally linked, they must co-occur. The covariation of events and behaviour was assessed across three important dimensions:
1. consistency – does the person respond in the same way to the same stimuli over time?
2. distinctiveness – do they behave in the same way to otherdifferent stimuli, or is the behaviour distinctively linked to specific stimuli?
3. consensus – do observers of the same stimuli respond in a similar way?
Kelley argued that we systematically analyse people- and environment-related information, and that different combinations of information lead to different causal attributions. For example, while attributing causality for behaviour like ‘John laughed at the comedian’, we would run through the following considerations:
1. If John always laughs at this comedian, then his behaviour is highly consistent.
2. If John is easily amused by comedians, then his behaviour has low distinctiveness.
3. If practically no one else in the audience laughed at the comedian, then his behaviour has low consensus.
A combination of high consistency, low distinctiveness and low consensus would lead to a dispositional (internal) attribution for John’s laughter, such as ‘John has a peculiar tendency to laugh at all comedians; he must be very easily amused.’ In contrast, a combination of high consistency, high distinctiveness and high consensus would lead to an external attribution, such as ‘John likes this comedian, but he doesn’t like many other comedians, and other people like this comedian too; this comedian must befunny’ (McArthur, 1972).
We said earlier that attributions are explanations for events and behaviour. Heider differentiated between two types of causal attribution – personal and situational. Personal attributions refer to factors within the person, such as their personality characteristics, motivation, ability and effort. Situational attributions refer to factors within the environment that are external to the person. For example, if we were discussing why a particular student has failed an important university examination, we would consider personal factors (such as her academic ability and how much effort she invested in preparing for the exam). But we might also look at situational attributions (such as whether she had good tuition, access to library facilities and sufficient time to study).Heider noted that we tend to overestimate internal or personal factors and nderestimate situational factors when explaining behaviour. This tendency has become known as the fundamental attribution error, which we’ll return to in the next section. In a similar vein, Jones and Davis (1965) found that we tend to make a correspondent inference about another person when we are looking for the cause of their behaviour. In other words, we tend to infer that the behaviour, and the intention that produced it, correspond to some underlying stable quality. For example, a correspondent inference would be to attribute someone’s aggressive behaviour to an internal and stable trait within the person – in this case, aggressiveness. Jones and Davis argued that this tendency is motivated by our need to view people’s behaviour as intentional and predictable, reflecting their underlying personality traits. But in reality, making correspondent inferences is not always a straightforward business. The information we need in order to make the inferences can be ambiguous, requiring us to draw on additional cues in the environment, such as the social desirability of the behaviour, how much choice the person had, or role requirements. Like Heider, Kelley (1967) likened ordinary onlookers to naïve scientists who weigh up several factors when attributing causality. Kelley’s covariation model of attribution states that, before two events can be accepted as causally linked, they must co-occur. The covariation of events and behaviour was assessed across three important dimensions:
1. consistency – does the person respond in the same way to the same stimuli over time?
2. distinctiveness – do they behave in the same way to otherdifferent stimuli, or is the behaviour distinctively linked to specific stimuli?
3. consensus – do observers of the same stimuli respond in a similar way?
Kelley argued that we systematically analyse people- and environment-related information, and that different combinations of information lead to different causal attributions. For example, while attributing causality for behaviour like ‘John laughed at the comedian’, we would run through the following considerations:
1. If John always laughs at this comedian, then his behaviour is highly consistent.
2. If John is easily amused by comedians, then his behaviour has low distinctiveness.
3. If practically no one else in the audience laughed at the comedian, then his behaviour has low consensus.
A combination of high consistency, low distinctiveness and low consensus would lead to a dispositional (internal) attribution for John’s laughter, such as ‘John has a peculiar tendency to laugh at all comedians; he must be very easily amused.’ In contrast, a combination of high consistency, high distinctiveness and high consensus would lead to an external attribution, such as ‘John likes this comedian, but he doesn’t like many other comedians, and other people like this comedian too; this comedian must befunny’ (McArthur, 1972).
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