Causal attribution: what it is in simple words, examples

Attribution is the endowment by one individual of another with characteristics and qualities that cannot be seen in the direct field of perception. With the help of attribution, one person analyzes and reflects on the reasons for the behavior of the other, evaluates his personality. Attribution in psychology is a mechanism for explaining personal behavior. It arises because the information coming from direct observation is not enough to adequately interact with the environment. Therefore, people often “make up” facts that they were unable to find out or could not directly perceive. One person observing the actions of another comes to his own conclusion about the potential causes of behavior. The observer bases his conclusions on situational factors (conditions, environment) and subjective ones (efforts, abilities).

Social psychologists have developed attributional theories that explain the rules people use when judging the behavior of others, thereby determining attribution styles.

Attribution is rarely objective, and it is also not always an accurate process; it is hampered by certain attributive distortions (attitudes, goals, motives). These distortions affect the way a person evaluates his own behavior and the actions of others.

They often talk about causal attribution, which means the interpretation of the interlocutor’s behavior through making certain assumptions about the possible intentions, reasons, motives of a person’s behavior, with their further assignment to the communication partner.

Causal attribution most determines the social perception of a person if there is not enough information and it needs to be learned from somewhere. Insights gained from the attribution process can contribute to the creation of social stereotypes and patterns. This allows the person himself to more easily perceive and get to know other people, and contributes to the development of prejudices regarding representatives of different social categories and groups (ethnic, age, professional).

Defensive attribution

The defensive attribution hypothesis is a social psychological term that refers to a set of beliefs held by an individual with the function of protecting himself from anxiety. As a rule, defensive attributions occur if a person witnessed a particular disaster. In such situations, attribution of responsibility and drawing of one's own conclusions will depend on the severity of the outcome of the failure and the levels of personal and situational similarity between the person and the victim. An example of a defensive attribution is the well-known hypothesis “good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.” Everyone believes this because they feel vulnerable in situations they cannot control. At the same time, it leads to blaming the victim even in a tragic situation. After all, when people hear that someone died as a result of a car accident, they assume that the driver was drunk at the time of the accident, and try to convince themselves that the accident would never happen to them. However, oddly enough, some people believe that positive events happen to them more often than to others, and negative ones, accordingly, less often. For example, a smoker believes that he is less likely to get lung cancer than other smokers.

Varieties

Attribution in psychology is divided into three types. It is worth considering the types of attribution in more detail.

• Personal attribution means that a person is looking for the culprit of a particular situation. More often than not, the cause is a specific person.
• Comprehensive - in this case, a person is not interested in specific culprits; he is looking for the reasons for what is happening in external factors.
• Stimulus - a person blames an inanimate object. This happens more often if he himself is to blame. For example: the glass broke because it was standing on the very edge of the table.

The causal attribution effect helped reveal some facts. If an individual has to explain the good fortune of a stranger or his own personal problems, then incentive attribution is used.

But if there is a need to analyze the success of the individual himself and the failure of an outsider, then personal attribution is used. This indicates a peculiarity of the psychology of any person - we treat ourselves much more loyally than others. Such examples of attribution very clearly prove this fact.

Also of interest is the fact that usually, when talking about success, a person indicates himself as the main reason. But in unsuccessful business, circumstances are always to blame. The individual believes that he has achieved everything because he is very smart and hardworking, and if any failure occurs, then the reason for this was factors beyond the control of the individual.

We recommend: Accommodation in psychology

However, if a person talks about the successes of another person, then everything is the opposite. The other one was lucky because he is a suck-up, a weasel, and is on good terms with his bosses. But he is unlucky because he is lazy and not smart enough.

Social causal attribution is very clearly visible among organizational leaders when they need to characterize subordinates. There are long-standing biases at play here, and they are often formulaic. If management is asked to tell about the reason for an ineffective result, then the causal factor will always be internal. Always and everywhere, ordinary workers will be to blame for the decline in production.

And few will point out that the reason for the decline in production was insufficient funding or improper organization of labor. In such cases, there is a tendency to underestimate situational factors and greatly overestimate the capabilities of individual ones.

It can also be noted that managers most often do not take responsibility for any failures. When asked why they are so ineffective in their place, they will point to low financial support as the reason, but not their own oversight. However, if we are talking about success, then management, as a rule, takes full credit for this achievement.

Attribution when evaluating subordinates

Conflicting attribution biases are typical in any organization. This mainly concerns different situations, namely, existing prejudices.

If managers are asked to talk about the reasons for the ineffectiveness of their subordinates, they mainly cite internal factors as the reasons. They consist of a lack of effort and ability. At the same time, they mention external factors, such as insufficient support, much less often. Thus, there is an overestimation of the influence of individual factors in the behavior of other people. These results indicate a tendency to underestimate the influence of situational factors and exaggerate the influence of individual factors.

Lee Ross experiment

The subject of this study, conducted in 1977, was the perception of others' intelligence. It turned out that we tend to overestimate it under conditions of social pressure.

Lee Ross recreated the events of his own life in an experiment. The exam he once had to take ended in failure for him: the examiners bombarded him with questions in which they themselves were obvious “experts.” Ross was in despair at his “ignorance” and in admiration at the “genius” of the examiners.

Six months later, he himself became a teacher and got the opportunity to “bring down” his students in the same way. One of them admitted that he experienced the same feelings during the exam as Ross did when he acted as the examinee.

After this, the psychologist decided to conduct a quiz experiment. The participants were divided into three groups: presenters, players and spectators. The first step was to ask the most difficult questions.

By the way, each of us can come up with such questions, based on our specialization. However, the quiz participants came to a different conclusion: they considered those asking questions to be much more erudite than those answering. Subsequent experiments showed that even very smart people are prone to similar conclusions.

A similar “halo effect” can be observed in life situations when we have to evaluate the intelligence of an interlocutor endowed with power. Usually such a person, be it a teacher, a boss or a high-ranking official, conducts a dialogue and asks “tricky” questions. We often attribute to him an outstanding intellect and feel an involuntary reverence for him.

Ross's experiments led to the following conclusions:

• people tend to attribute non-existent qualities to others based on individual aspects of behavior;
• It is impossible to form a correct judgment about a person based on one or more actions.

Fundamental attribution error

We usually attribute our successes to our own personal qualities, and our failures to external circumstances. When we judge others, exactly the opposite happens. If a friend achieves success, we tend to attribute this to fortunate external circumstances. And we will attribute the problems in our friend’s affairs to his personal qualities.

Only a few people think differently. Explaining a failure in a partner’s performance by circumstances, recognizing his talent, hard work, dedication, putting him on the same level with you, or even higher, is a task that is too difficult for many. Most of us overestimate ourselves and underestimate others.

This is understandable: if you don’t blame unfavorable situations, you will have to roll up your sleeves and work hard to improve yourself. And there are never too many people who want to “plow” - even for themselves. Thus, the attributional theory considers exaggeration of one’s own importance to be the main error of perception.

For clarity, let's consider a specific situation. A modest young man dares to talk to a beautiful girl on the street. However, the stranger was not delighted with either his stylish suit or his wit and sharply rejected his attempt to start a relationship.

The guy was shocked by the discrepancy between the girl’s “antics” and his expectations and cultural norms. After this failure, he will probably program himself with negative attitudes such as “all women are bitches”, “they are only interested in moneybags”. But the girl may have just been in a bad mood.

This example shows how important a correct explanation of the other person's motives is for the formation and maintenance of a relationship. Far-fetched reasons can be radically different from the true ones

Therefore, in a situation with a clear lack of information, it is better to once again clarify some details or ask again than to rely on your own imagination.

application

Attribution theory can be applied to juror decision making. Jurors use attributions to explain the reason for the intentions and actions associated with a defendant's criminal behavior. The attribution made (situational or dispositional) can influence a juror's punitiveness toward the defendant. When jurors attribute a defendant's behavior to a dispositional attribution they tend to be more punitive and more likely to find the defendant guilty and recommend the death sentence compared to life imprisonment.

How it works

There are 2 types of attribution for explaining the behavior of other people. First, we can explain the action of one person in relation to another. Secondly, behavior in relation to the situation. For example, if a student behaves quietly and modestly on the first day of school, we can conclude that shyness is the reason for this behavior of the person. This is a dispositional attribution (towards a person). Or we can assume that the cause of shyness is lack of sleep or personal problems of the student (situational). So, attribution in psychology is the conclusions that people make about the causes of events and the actions of other individuals. People make them to understand and explain certain processes. And these conclusions, in turn, influence interactions with others.

In clinical psychology

Attribution theory has had many applications in clinical psychology. Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale developed the depressive attributional style theory, arguing that people who tend to attribute their failures to internal, stable, and global factors are more vulnerable to clinical depression. The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) was developed to assess whether individuals have a depressogenic attributional style. However, the ASQ has been criticized, with some researchers preferring to use a method called Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanation (CAVE), in which an individual's routine work is analyzed to assess how vulnerable he/she is to a depressive attributional style.

learned helplessness

The concept of learned helplessness originated from animal studies in which psychologists Seligman and Stephen F. Mayer discovered that dogs had a classically conditioned reflex to an electric shock that they could not escape; subsequently, by not trying to escape they could avoid shock in a similar situation. They argued that learned helplessness applied to human psychopathology. In particular, people who attribute negative consequences to internal, enduring, and global factors reflect a view in which they have no control over the situation. It is suggested that this aspect of not trying to improve the situation worsens the negative mood, and can lead to clinical depression and related mental illnesses.

Content

• 1 Prerequisites
• 2 Perceived locus of causation
• 3 types of attribution 3.1 External
• 3.2 Internal

4 Theories and models

4.1 Common sense psychology

4.2 Corresponding conclusion

4.3 Covariance model

4.4 3D model

5 Bias and errors

5.1 Basic attribution error

5.2 Cultural bias

5.3 Difference between actor and observer

5.4 Dispositional attribution

5.5 Self-serving bias

5.6 Defensive attribution hypothesis

6 Application

7 In marketing communications

8 In clinical psychology

8.1 Learned helplessness

9 Perceptual significance

10 Criticism

11 See also

12 Links

13 Further reading

Problems of mutual understanding

Trying to explain to ourselves the actions of people around us, to predict their behavior, we attribute our individual vision to their actions. We judge other people from the perspective of personal experience and level of culture. This is the phenomenon of causal attribution. The first word in this phrase is translated from Latin as “cause”, the second is “attribution”.

Scientifically speaking, causal attribution is the basis of interpersonal perception, which consists in interpreting the behavior and internal state of another person in the absence of real information about him. From this point of view, any dialogue is a process of mutual persuasion, a mutual imposition of opinions.

The luminary of the theory of causal attribution is considered to be the American psychologist F. Heider. A great contribution to the development of the problem of interpersonal perception was made by his colleagues - Americans F. Fiedler and G. Kelly, as well as Canadian Lee Ross.

Perception of importance[edit]

Main article: Perception of salience

When people try to make attributions for someone else's behavior, their information becomes focused on that person. Their perception of this person lacks most of the external factors that could influence him. Whitespace is typically skipped and attribution is made based on the most relevant perceptual information. The most important perceptual information dominates a person's perception of the situation. [39]

For individuals who define themselves behaviorally, the situation and external environment are of great importance, but their own body and behavior are less important. This leads to a tendency to make external attributions for one's own behavior. [40]

Attribution theory

It attempts to explain how and why ordinary people reach certain conclusions, as well as how they explain events and their causes.

1. Fritz Heider (1958) believed that people are naive psychologists trying to understand the social world, they tend to see cause-and-effect relationships even where there are none. However, nevertheless, the scientist put forward two main theories of the emergence of attribution:

• when we explain the behavior of others, we try to build on internal attributions, such as personality traits, for example, we associate a person’s behavior with his naivety or reliability;
• When we try to explain our own behavior, we tend to rely on external (situational) attributions.

2

Edward Jones and Keith Davis (1965) believed that people place special emphasis on intentional behavior (as opposed to random or mindless behavior). This theory explains the process of creating internal attribution

That is, in their understanding, attribution is the commission of certain actions due to the connection between the motive of a person’s behavior and the behavior itself.

3. Harold Kelly's (1967) covariance model is the most famous attribution theory. He developed a logical model for assessing a particular action, which should be attributed to one characteristic: a person - to the internal one, and the environment - to the external one. The term “covariation” means that a person has information from several sources, which he received at different times and in different situations, as a result of which he draws a conclusion about the observed event and its causes. Kelly believes that there are three types of causal information that influence our judgments:

• consensus;
• distinctiveness;
• subsequence.

So we see two events happening at the same time, and therefore we believe that one causes the other. This explanation of the causes of events is called nothing less than social attribution. Each of us can observe this phenomenon in everyday life.

Links[edit]

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Background

Gestalt psychologist Fritz Heider is often described as the early 20th century "father of attribution theory".

In a 1920s dissertation, Heider addressed the problem of phenomenology: why do perceivers attribute properties such as color to perceived objects when these properties are mental constructs? Heider's answer is that the perceptual attribute that they "directly" sense—vibrations in the air, for example—to an object, they interpret as conditioning those sense data. "The perceiver is confronted with sensory data and thus sees the perceived object as 'there' because they attribute the sensory data to underlying causes in the world."

Heider extended this idea of ​​attributions about people: "motives, intentions, feelings... basic processes that manifest themselves in overt behavior."

What is attribution

In psychology, attribution is the cognitive process of explaining the behavior of other people and one's own actions. It is mainly expressed in explaining the actions of others through one’s own judgments, since many qualities cannot be perceived directly by social perception through direct observation, but are attributed to them.

Attribution is an attempt to interpret some object, its actions, to understand the motives of behavior in the conditions of a lack of information using conjecture. Attribution is a cognitive process that occurs in the lives of millions of people and is studied by social psychology. In attributional studies, compared with studies of one person’s perception of another, there is an increase in the level of intelligence of the phenomena being mastered.

The simplest classification of attributions is divided into dispositional and situational.

There is such a psychological term as the defensive hypothesis, it refers to a system of beliefs belonging to an individual who has the function of protecting himself from external anxiety. Defensive attributions usually occur when a person witnesses a horrific scene. Attributions of responsibility in such situations, drawing personal conclusions, will relate to the level of severity of failure and the degree of internal and situational similarity between the person and the victim.

Many people know examples of defensive attribution, for example, the well-known hypothesis that says that good things happen only to good people, bad things happen to bad people. There are people who believe in this because they feel vulnerable and unable to control the situation completely. This leads to reproaches from others, even in the case of the tragic situation of the victim herself.

So, people may hear that someone was beaten by hooligans, they begin to think that if he had not walked where he shouldn’t, or given a reason, he would have been safe. Or they heard the news about a car accident, they begin to attribute all the blame to the driver (for example, he was drunk), while making them assure themselves that this will not happen to them.

People often believe that positive events happen to them more often than others, and therefore negative events happen less often.

Examples of attribution: a heavy smoker thinks that he has a much lower chance of getting cancer than other smokers.

Examples of causal attribution

Any of us feels discomfort if we cannot explain something to ourselves. A holistic picture of the world collapses if at least one event is left without interpretation:

• “Well, why has he been gone for so long?” - the young lover suffers;
• “What does he want from me?” — the subordinate is tormented over the solution to the boss’s remark;
• “What will they do this time?” - the teacher thinks with caution when going to a lesson in a “difficult” class.

The hero of each of these situations tries to imagine what is on the other person's mind. The problem is always the same - a lack of facts. And then the imagination turns on - thinking through, completing the picture, bringing it to logical comprehension.

The main assistant in this process is personal life experience.

Research by psychologists has shown that people’s reactions to habitual and non-standard patterns of behavior are ambiguous. If, for example, students expecting a new geographer teacher are presented with him as a good specialist, they are unlikely to tune in to an interesting lesson. If the children are warned that their future teacher is a tourist, a bard and a master of sports in rowing, then the children will gather in the classroom during recess in anticipation of an unusual lesson.

Casual attribution in psychology. Attribution Examples

This phenomenon exists because everyone wants to see the whole picture, to imagine all the events. But the problem is that the facts are not always known. And then the person begins to finish drawing, to think out the picture, bringing it to a logical conclusion. This process is carried out in accordance with existing life experience. Psychology has noted the diverse reactions of society to stereotypical and deviant behaviors. Let's look at an example.

The students are waiting for a new teacher to teach them history. If you ask them to describe their history teacher, then most likely the classes will be boring and uninteresting. And if you introduce them to another teacher, having previously described his teaching style (he uses visual models, arranges skits, does everything to make the lessons interesting), then the opinion about the person will be non-standard, different from the common habitual judgment.

Locus of control

This concept is inextricably linked with causal attribution. Within it, a person attributes his failures or successes exclusively to external or exclusively to internal factors. This results in a kind of double standard. For example, a student received a low grade on an exam. Within this situation, locus of control can manifest itself in two ways:

1. I didn't prepare much for the exam, didn't think much about it, and that's why I got a low grade. I will definitely improve and start learning tickets right now.
2. The teacher who disliked me from the very beginning is to blame for the low grade. And the ticket was the most difficult of all. I don't deserve a low rating

How can you get rid of locus of control? The only advice: take full responsibility for everything that happens to you. Even if external factors really influenced the result.

Locus of control is the characteristic ability of an individual to attribute his or her successes to

To change your locus of control, you must first get rid of the victim syndrome. Take full responsibility even if external factors really greatly influenced the result.

See also[edit]

• Psychological portal

• Abductive reasoning is a form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely explanation.
• Attribution bias is the systematic errors people make when evaluating their own behavior and the behavior of others.
• Living pedagogical theory - a method of pedagogical research
• Naive realism
• Psychological projection is a psychological defense mechanism that involves blaming one's impulses, qualities, and actions on others.
• Trait attribution bias
• Locus of control

Attribution Types

1. Interpersonal relationships. When you tell a story to a group of friends or acquaintances, you probably want to tell it as interesting and engaging as possible. For what? So that your friends will draw a positive conclusion about you.
2. Forecasting. If your car was totaled, you may be able to attribute the crime to the car being in the wrong place. As a result of this event, you will not leave your car in that same parking lot to avoid further vandalism.
3. Attribution of cause (so-called explanatory) helps us understand the world around us. Some people tend to have an optimistic explanation of events, while others tend to be more pessimistic.

This is the fundamental fallacy of causal attribution. Common mistakes in the attribution process

Theoretical and empirical studies of causal attribution have identified several different tendencies in the field of this process that are characteristic of most people who make causal attributions. These tendencies have been called typical causal attribution errors.

In addition to the principles of amplification and devaluation highlighted by G. Kelly (see paragraph 3.2.), the following typical errors of causal attribution are distinguished:

The fundamental error of causal attribution is the dependence of causal attribution on the position of the observer: when explaining someone else’s behavior, the reasons for the behavior are more often attributed to circumstances (situational causation), when explaining one’s own behavior, the reasons are more often attributed to personal characteristics (personal causation). The reasons for the fundamental errors of causal attribution include the following factors: The use of personal causation makes the behavior of others more understandable and predictable, which corresponds to the motives of causal attribution; The reason for the behavior is attributed to the object of perception and attention: “For the observer, the external environment is constant and stable, but the actions of the author are changeable and incomprehensible, which is why he pays attention to them first of all. For the author, his actions are planned and constructed, and the environment is unstable, therefore it concentrates his attention on itself.” Those

the fundamental error of causal attribution is associated with the characteristics of mental processes (perception and attention), namely with the psychological characteristics of the perception of “figure” and “ground”; “The illusion of control” is a person’s exaggeration of his own role in the situation in which he finds himself involved, due to the fact that the very fact of participation in some event makes us feel (often without reason) our ability to influence its course and results.

Egocentric, or projective attribution error, or error of false agreement - when explaining the behavior of others, a person often proceeds from his own needs and motives: projecting the behavior of another onto himself, he is guided by how he himself would act in such a situation. “The error of false consent also manifests itself in cases where one’s own meanings are invested in the actions of another person: if I acted this way, it would only be for the reason...” The egocentric attribution error is associated with the phenomenon of projection, if we use the terms of the psychoanalytic school, or generalization, if follow the terminology of behaviorism. In paragraph 4.3. the identification mechanism will be described, which is a consequence of projection (generalization) and serves as the basis for the egocentric error of causal attribution. Defensive causal attribution error. This typical mistake manifests itself in situations of explaining the reasons for obtaining the results of any activity. A person interprets unsuccessful results of his activities as external and unstable factors, and successful ones as stable and internal ones. When explaining the achievements of others, on the contrary, the reasons for positive performance results are attributed to circumstances, and the reasons for other people’s failures are attributed to personality characteristics. “If we are talking about me personally, then success is the result of my personal titanic efforts and abilities, and failure (happens to everyone!) is a consequence of unfortunate circumstances. If we are talking about something else, then minor success can be attributed to him personally - he deserved it, and great success - a coincidence of circumstances, luck... Only if it is known how much effort a person spent to achieve the result, the trend can change slightly.” The counter-defensive causal attribution error is a phenomenon that is essentially the opposite of the defensive attribution error. Counter-defensive attribution manifests itself in conditions of publicity: the reasons for one’s own achievements and other people’s failures are attributed to circumstances, and one’s own failures and other people’s achievements are explained by the influence of personal factors.

Defensive and counter-defensive errors of causal attribution are associated with psychological defense of the individual and the need for self-esteem. Defensive attribution allows you to maintain a positive self-esteem as such, and counter-defensive attribution prevents criticism from the outside, and thereby also serves to maintain a positive attitude towards yourself.

Research objectives and possibilities of using the phenomenon of casual attribution

As mentioned earlier, the first studies concerned social causal attribution. The study of this phenomenon made it possible to establish the degree of responsibility that each member of the team assumed for their joint activities. And also evaluate and correlate this with the real contribution to the work for possible forecasts of the prospects and success of employees.

However, now the theory of attribution is used within the framework of pedagogical, developmental, and sports psychology. And attribution errors help practicing psychologists pay attention to some life attitudes and possible problems.

In addition, obvious biases towards one or another type of attribution may indicate unprocessed childhood fears, which, in turn, can lead to various psychological characteristics of behavior or, even worse, personal problems. So, if you are interested in something or some point in the article is not completely clear to you, do not hesitate to talk about it with a psychologist.

Lapshun Galina Nikolaevna, Master of Psychology, psychologist I category

Even (or precisely for this reason) such a complex device as the human psyche “jumps”—it is subject to cognitive distortions. Some of them are obvious, so it’s easy to fight them; it’s enough to be aware of them. But others are confusing and you can’t figure them out quickly. One of these complex phenomena is causal attribution, a phenomenon of human perception.

Gestalt psychologist Fritz Heider is considered the “father” of causal attribution, which he wrote about back in the 1920s. In his dissertation, Haider addresses the problem of information perception and how a person interprets it. After him, many scientists began to study the phenomenon in more detail. We will talk about their theories later, but first we will deal with the concept itself.

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The structure of interaction with another person, and ultimately the success of communication with him, largely depends on the adequacy of the understanding of actions and their motives. Often, attempts to form an idea about other people and explain their actions end up speculating about the reasons for their behavior due to the absence or lack of information. In such cases, past experience (comparison with the behavior of another person in a similar situation), which has a large role in the interpretation process, can play a negative role.

In social psychology, the explanation of the methods used to determine the causes of social behavior is carried out within the framework of the theory of causal attribution.

Attribution is a process of interpretation by which an individual attributes certain causes to observed and experienced events or actions. First of all, it occurs when a person’s behavior has no logical explanation.

The emergence of interest in the property of attribution is associated with the works of the outstanding American psychologist Fritz Heider (1950s).

Thus, in accordance with Heider’s ideas, the observer, possessing only information about the content of the action, can explain the action either by personal characteristics or by the influence of the external environment. In his opinion, the construction of attributions is associated with the desire to simplify the environment and try to predict the behavior of other people. Thus, attribution performs the most important mental function - making events and phenomena predictable, controllable and understandable.

According to Harold Kelly, each person has his own habitual explanations for other people's behavior.

• personal attribution - people in any situation tend to find the culprit of the event that happened, attribute the cause of what happened to a specific person, but not to themselves.
• circumstantial attribution - they blame circumstances without trying to identify a specific culprit.
• stimulus attribution - a person sees the cause of what happened in the object to which the action was directed or in the victim himself.

Attribution errors and their impact on the process of intercultural communication.

There are two types of reasons leading to erroneous conclusions:

1) differences in available information and observation position;

2) motivational differences.

1. The first class of reasons is based on different perceptions of the situation by those who act and those who observe it. That. attribution of causes occurs differently for the “actor” and the “observer.” The actor is better informed about the reasons for the action than the observer. He also knows the desires, motives, and expectations from this action, but the observer, as a rule, does not have this information.

American researchers have suggested that when people explain the reasons for their own, for example, negative behavior, they refer to circumstances, and when explaining someone else’s behavior, they refer to the fact that he is “the way he is.” Positive actions of others are often not noticed, viewed as a “rare event,” a lucky coincidence, or the result of extreme efforts. This overestimation of one’s own personal efforts and underestimation of situational factors is called the “fundamental attribution error.”

“Error of illusory correlations” - a priori attitudes and expectations (past experience, stereotypes, upbringing, age and personal characteristics) influence the perception of the situation. A child is crying - he wants to eat, teeth are cutting, etc., a student looks down on a test - he is cheating, but the real reason may be different.

Everyone will have their own illusions, therefore, the attributions will be different.

“Error of false consent” - the behavior of other people is viewed from the standpoint of egocentrism. One’s own behavior is considered the norm, someone else’s behavior that differs from it is considered a deviation from the norm. The commonality and prevalence of one's behavior is overestimated.

2. The essence of motivational bias is that people tend to perceive successes as their own achievements, and failures as a consequence of certain circumstances. The motivational attribution error is aimed at maintaining a person’s self-esteem, i.e. the results of a person’s actions should not contradict his ideas about himself (personal identity).

However, even in cases where the real difference in attributions is large, it can be consciously leveled out by communicants if they have common goals of activity.

Attribution errors are especially important in intercultural communication, since the motives and reasons for the behavior of representatives of other cultures are understood and assessed by a person, as a rule, inaccurately and incompletely. In this type of communication, the behavior of participants can be determined by ethnic, cultural, racial, status and many other reasons that remain hidden and unknown to the partner.

The best advice for representatives of different cultures is the words of the American scientist Harry Triandis: “The wisdom of intercultural interaction is not to rush to conclusions when people do, in your opinion, something strange. Play along with them until you understand the culture.” More specific recommendations are:

1. learn to extract information from everything and analyze it competently.

2. don’t be afraid to ask again and find out what you don’t understand.

3. do not ignore the context of communication (place, time, use of certain means of communication), it always carries a semantic load.

4. when communicating in a foreign language, pay special attention to linguistic units that have different semantic content (hand), interlingual paronyms (words of the same phonetic design, but different meanings (grandmother - babushka (bandana, head scarf, pasta - macaroon - macaroons), words that have different connotations (the English “bear”, in addition to the literal meaning of “bear”, also has a slang meaning - “policeman” - in relation to a person - “loving order”, in our case - “lump”, “ignorant”. In the French tradition, a monkey is associated with love, and in English and German with drunkenness - to carry the monkey, to suck the monkey, to have a monkey on the back, einen Affe haben (to have a monkey), sich einen Affe kaufen (to buy a monkey ) are united by one meaning: “to be drunk”, “to be tipsy”, “under the fly”.

Sources used:

• https://psydeal.com/psihologiya/obshhaya/fundamentalnye-oshibki-atributsii/
• https://cosmeton.ru/otnosheniya/kauzalnaya-atribuciya.html
• https://studopedia.ru/15_59486_atributsiya-v-mezhkulturnoy-kommunikatsii.html

Causal attribution theories

There are only two of them.

Jones and Davis Correspondence Theory

In 1965, scientists Jones and Davis proposed that intentional behavior plays an important role in people. At the same time, thoughtless or spontaneous behavior is of practically no value. This theory helps to understand how the internal type of causal attribution arises.

Internal attributes provide information that allows one to make predictions about how a person will behave. Scientists call this phenomenon “correspondent inference.” This is a state in which an individual thinks that the behavior of others is determined by the properties of their personality.

Why do people make “correspondent conclusions”? Jones and Davis identified several reasons:

1. Choice. It is traditionally believed that actions depend on internal factors.
2. Spontaneous or intentional behavior. The first is related to external factors and circumstances. And the second is with personality.
3. Social desirability. Example: you saw a man sitting on the floor. There are many free chairs in the room. Inconsistency, isn't it? But such behavior is a manifestation of individuality.
4. Hedonic relevance. A condition in which a person purposefully either harms you or benefits you.

Another reason is personalism. The individual believes that the behavior of another person should somehow affect him. At the same time, he believes that it is dictated by the personal characteristics of the opponent, and not by external factors.

Kelly covariance model

People started talking about Kelly covariance in the 60s of the last century. It is considered to be the most popular theory of causal attribution. The scientist tried to figure out whether actions should be determined by internal motives or external factors.

The word “covariation” itself means that a person has information from several sources at once. He obtained observations at different time periods and in different situations. This helps to see both the effect itself and its causes.

According to Kelly, in the process of searching for the reasons for the behavior of people around him, a person uses 3 types of evidence:

1. Consensus. It is a measure of the extent to which people act similarly in similar circumstances. Imagine two friends. The first, going to lunch with the second, always smokes. If the second one also does this, there is a high consensus in his behavior. Otherwise, consensus is low.
2. Distinctiveness. It is also a measure of the extent to which a person's behavior does not change in similar situations. Let's go back to the friends example. If the first man smokes only in the company of friends, he has high distinctiveness. If always, then low.
3. Consistency. A degree that shows that a person behaves the same way every time he finds himself in a certain situation. If the man in the example smokes only in the presence of friends, consistency is high. Under special circumstances - low.

Let's give an example. Imagine a group of young people who have gathered to watch a comedy show. The hero's name is Andrey. He laughs at the participants' jokes. Consensus will be high if the rest of the company laughs too. Highly distinctive - Andrey likes the jokes of an individual speaker. High consistency - the hero constantly laughs at the stories of his favorite comedian.

If everyone in the company laughs at the same participant in the show as Andrey, this is external attribution. People are having fun because the comedian is performing really well. Internal attribution occurs when:

• the hero is the only one who likes the comedian;
• laughs at the jokes of all the speakers;
• constantly laughs at a certain comedian's jokes.

It turns out that Andrey just likes to have fun.

There is one caveat. It is not always possible to draw such conclusions. You may not have all the information you need to understand the root cause of a person's behavior.

Let’s say that you practically don’t know Andrey described above, but you find yourself in the same company with him. You cannot be sure of the consistency of his behavior. And in this situation, a person behaves in 2 ways. The first is that the number of reasons needed to explain someone's behavior increases. Second, the number of sufficient reasons increases.

Imagine that an athlete fails a drug test. There may be 2 reasons for this: either he accidentally took a prohibited drug, or he wanted to deceive. But we can add one more reason for what happened: the athlete himself was deceived.

Theories and models[edit]

Psychology of common sense[edit]

From the book “Psychology of Interpersonal Relations”

(1958) Fritz Heider attempted to explore the nature of interpersonal relationships and supported the concept of what he called "common sense" or "naive psychology". In his theory, he believed that people observe, analyze and explain behavior through explanations. Although people have different explanations for human behavior events, Heider has found it very useful to group explanations into two categories; Internal (personal) and external (situational) attribution. [9]When internal attribution is made, the cause of a given behavior is attributed to characteristics of the person, such as abilities, personality, mood, effort, attitudes, or dispositions. When external attribution is made, the reason for a given behavior is assigned to the situation in which the behavior was observed, such as the task, other people, or luck (that the person producing the behavior did it because of the environment or social situation). These two types lead to very different perceptions of an individual's behavior. [10]

Relevant conclusion[edit]

Main article: Correspondence theory of inference

Related findings state that people make inferences about a person when their actions are freely chosen, unexpected, and result in few desired effects. [2] According to Edward E. Jones and Keith Davis's related inference theory, people make appropriate inferences by analyzing the context of behavior. It describes how people try to figure out a person's personal characteristics based on behavioral evidence. People make conclusions based on three factors; the degree of choice, expected behavior, and consequences of someone's behavior. For example, we think we can make stronger assumptions about a person who gives half of his money to charity than about someone who gives $5 to charity. The average person will not want to donate as much as the first person because he will lose a lot of money. By donating half of your money, it's easier for someone to understand what the first person's personality is like. The second factor influencing the correspondence between the action and the intended characteristic is the number of differences between the choice made and previous alternatives. If there are not many differences, the guess made will be consistent with the action because it is easy to guess the important aspect between each choice.[11]

Covariance model[edit]

Main article: Covariance model

The covariation model states that people attribute behavior to factors that are present when the behavior occurs and absent when it does not. Thus, the theory assumes that people make causal attributions in a rational, logical manner and that they attribute the cause of an action to the factor that is most closely related to that action. [12] Harold Kelly's covariance model of attribution considers three main types of information on the basis of which an attribution decision can be made about a person's behavior. The first is consensus information

or information about how other people behave in the same situation and with the same stimulus.
The second is distinctive information
, or how a person responds to different stimuli.
The third is information about consistency
, or how often a person's behavior can be observed with similar stimuli but in different situations. From these three sources of assertion, observers make decisions to attribute an individual's behavior as internal or external. There have been claims that people do not use consensus information enough, although there has been some debate about this. [13]

There are several levels in the covariance model: high and low. Each of these levels influences the three criteria of the covariance model. High consensus is when many people can agree on an event or area of ​​interest. Low consensus is when very few people can agree. High discriminability is when the event or region of interest is very unusual, whereas low discriminability is when the event or region of interest is quite common. High consistency is when an event or area of ​​interest continues for a long time, and low consistency is when an event or area of ​​interest disappears quickly. [13]

3D model [edit]

Bernard Weiner proposed that individuals have initial affective reactions to the potential consequences of an actor's intrinsic or extrinsic motives, which in turn influence future behavior. [14] That is, a person's own perception or attribution as to why he succeeded or failed in an activity determines the amount of effort the person will put into the activity in the future. Weiner suggests that people conduct attribution searches and cognitively evaluate the contingent properties of the behavior they experience. When attributions produce positive affect and a high likelihood of future success, such attributions should lead to greater willingness to approach similar achievement tasks in the future than those attributions that produce negative affect and a low likelihood of future success.[15] Ultimately, these affective and cognitive appraisals influence future behavior when people encounter similar situations.

Attribution for Weiner's achievements falls into three categories:

1. stable theory (stable and unstable)
2. Locus of control (internal and external)
3. controllability (controlled or uncontrolled)

Stability influences people's expectations about their future; control relates to people's persistence in accomplishing the mission; Causality influences the emotional reaction to the outcome of a task.

Goals and results of causal attribution research

The goal of research into the mechanisms of causal attribution is to increase the effectiveness of interaction between people and the effectiveness of personal growth. The first presupposes the most accurate determination of the motives of certain actions. And the second shows options for influencing motivation, activity, emotions, etc. What most fully helps to understand the study of this phenomenon is the indication of the moment of assigning or accepting responsibility for specific actions. And a comprehensive consideration of the current result. That is, the goal of research is to find an accurate definition of the actual motives of behavior.

Errors of perception

It is known that a person treats himself more softly when assessing than other strangers. A person attributes someone’s successes and his own failures to situational attribution. But, describing other people's failures and his own successes, he turns to personal attribution. In these cases, a person tends to consider the cause of what happened to be either the prevailing circumstances or the person himself, according to the final result.

Usually a person explains success by his hard work, willpower, and his uniqueness. But failure is always associated with the situation. And if you analyze the actions of another person, then all of the above applies in reverse order. If a person achieves success, it is because the circumstances have developed that way. And if he failed, then it was his own fault. And few people think differently

Few will pay attention to the situation and focus on it. After all, if you explain the result of a person’s activity in a different way, then this means recognizing it at your level, or even better

This means comparing him to yourself.

Therefore, people tend to protect their self-esteem in this way. It is easier to blame the circumstances, the object of the action, than to force yourself to work, to improve yourself. Causal attribution is applicable everywhere: in everyday life, at work, in relationships. And this principle of opposites operates everywhere.

When the reasons for another person’s behavior are unknown, a means of explaining behavior (and a social phenomenon in general) is attribution, i.e., a kind of completion of information is carried out. Attribution is the process of perception by a “naive psychologist” of the causes of behavior and its results, allowing a person to give meaning to the environment. Introduced the term and researched causal attribution F. Haider. According to causal attribution, a person's perception of the behavior of others is largely determined by what he believes to be the cause of that behavior. The causes of behavior are usually explained by individual (personal) characteristics or the situation in which the behavior was manifested, or a combination of both.

Dispositional (personal, internal, internal) attribution emphasizes certain aspects (abilities, skills, motives) of the individual, and situational (external, external) attribution emphasizes the influence of the external environment on behavior (being late for work can be explained by snow drifts on the road). Thus, we evaluate the behavior of others based on our perceived motives and intentions. Heider's work provided the conceptual basis for a more general approach known as attribution theory. Modern theories of attribution, dealing with problems of social perception, actually try to explain (understand, know) how they attribute characteristics and qualities to other people. The act of attribution is the attribution or endowment of some characteristics (or traits, emotions, motives, etc.) to oneself or another person. The term represents not so much a formal theory as a general approach in social and personality psychology in which behavior is studied in the light of this concept. Using the Gestalt psychology proposition that information acquired through the observer's past experiences plays an important role in the processing of new data, attribution theories argue that in social situations the following sequence is observed: a person observes the behavior of another person, making a logical inference about the intentions of this a person, based on the perceived data, and then attributes to him some hidden motives that are consistent with this behavior. There are many variations on this theme, including self-perception theory, which views a person's self-image within this theoretical approach.

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency of people to ignore situational reasons for actions and their results in favor of dispositional (personal) ones. This error is not absolute (it is not universal, it does not always appear, not under all circumstances, it can be taught to recognize and eliminate) (4.1). Conditions for a fundamental attribution error to occur are:

• “False agreement” is an overestimation of the typicality of one’s behavior (one’s feelings, beliefs, beliefs), expressed in the fact that the observer considers his point of view to be the only correct (“normal”) one, which should be characteristic of all people, and any deviation from it associated with the personality of the observed (actor).

• “Unequal opportunities” is the failure to take into account the role position of the acting (observed) person. Each person plays many roles, and some of their roles make it easier to express themselves and bring out positive qualities. It is this mechanism that is activated during attribution in manager–subordinate situations.

• “Ignoring the informational value of what did not happen.” Information about what “didn’t happen”—about what a person “didn’t do”—may be the basis for assessing behavior, but it is this information that is often omitted, since the observer superficially perceives only “what happened.”

• “More confidence in facts than in judgments.” The first glance is always directed to a “more salient” fact - to the person (“figure”), and the situation (“background”) still needs to be determined. This is where the “figure-ground” perception focusing mechanism comes into play.

• “Ease of constructing spurious correlations.” This phenomenon forms the basis of implicit theories of personality and consists in the fact that a naive observer arbitrarily connects any two personality traits as necessarily accompanying each other. Particularly often, an arbitrary combination of external traits and psychological properties is carried out, which speeds up and simplifies the attribution process (for example, all overweight people are kind, all short male managers are power-hungry, etc.).

4.1. Fundamental attribution error

• Some social norms in different cultures create a tendency towards a certain type of attribution (Western individualism - towards personal attribution, and Eastern collectivism - towards situational attribution).

• “Locus of control” (internal or external) influences how people (internals or externals) “see the world,” in particular the type of attribution they prefer: internals more often use personal attribution, and externals use situational attribution.

• The tendentiousness of the “actor-observer” is manifested in the significant difference in their perceptual positions, which are expressed in the fact that they: a) have different levels of information: the observer knows little about the situation, and the actor acts on the basis of his experience in a situation developing over time; b) have a different “angle of view” on what is observed, that is, they have a different perceptual focus: for the observer the background is the situation, and the actor is the figure, and for the actor the situation is the figure.

Attributions and errors in this process occur in predictable cases. Kelly's research on the attribution process identified three factors that influence the attribution process and determine behavior:

• consensus (unanimity) – how many people behave in the same way as a certain individual; we tend to attribute personal motives to unusual behavior and situational motives to behavior common to many;

• intentionality – how thoughtful or unusual the individual’s behavior is in a given situation; we tend to attribute personal motives to deliberate, calculated behavior, and situational reasons and motives to unusual, non-standard behavior;

• consistency - how consistent is the behavior of an individual throughout time and in terms of the sum of all actions. We tend to attribute consistent behavior of an individual to personal motives, and situational reasons that determined the behavior to isolated cases of behavior.

Attribution of the cause or motives of a given event to personal or situational factors also depends on the individual’s point of view, the appropriateness and possibility of choosing a given behavior, the nature of the consequences, the individual’s propensity for responsibility, and the individual’s personal concept (self-concept).

Any attributional process begins with a person’s motivation to understand (know) the causes and consequences of the actions of other people (and himself), and then predict their behavior in the future, i.e., understand the meaning of human relationships. Motivational attribution errors are represented by various kinds of “defenses” (protection of one’s own Ego, “I”-concept), biases (tendency to see oneself in a more favorable light, inflated self-esteem) and are caused by a person’s subjective interpretation of social reality, which inevitably includes bias (bias, partiality) many judgments.

Significant credit for the development of this problem belongs to B. Weiner. Its focus is on the locus (focus) of causation—the ways in which causes are attributed in situations of success and failure. He proposed to consider three dimensions in each cause: internal-external; stable-unstable; controlled-uncontrolled. Various combinations of these dimensions give eight models (possible combinations of causes) and are a motivated assessment (success or failure) of an event. When analyzing the performance of a task, four classic factors should be taken into account: ability, effort, difficulty of the task, success, on which, according to Weiner, the nature of any action depends (Table 2.4.1).

Table 2.4.1

Possible causal attributions for success and failure

For example, your attributions about failing an exam are likely to have an impact on your motivation and feelings. Failure in a management exam can be explained by unusual external disturbances if the student has previously performed well (i.e. failure is due to external factors), for example, he was bothered by the sneezing of a student sitting next to him (a stable and uncontrollable factor). The sick colleague may not appear at the next exam, or the student may sit further away from him.

Weiner's model is dynamic because it takes into account that people initially evaluate the success or failure of actions, and then experience corresponding positive or negative emotions. They then make causal attributions to the performance, which in turn produce more specific emotions (e.g., pride in one's performance) and increased performance expectations for future performance. Weiner supplemented his scheme (locus x stability x controllability) with the attribution of responsibility, which determines the emotional state of the subject and guides his behavior.

A modification of Weiner's general scheme can be presented as follows:

event (failure in an exam) => emotional reaction to the result => causal attribution => judgment of responsibility => emotional states (anger, sympathy) => behavior.

Manipulations with the two most studied types of causes (“internal-external” and “stable-unstable”) generate the majority of motivational errors. Attribution of internal or external causes depends on the status of what is perceived, and in the case of evaluating one’s behavior, on the level of self-esteem. The attribution of stable-unstable causes is closely related to the recognition of success-failure. Research has revealed the influence of the status of the observed, the level of ability, the situation of success and failure on the type of attribution used (see 4.2-2.4.4).

4.2. Influence on attribution of perceived status

4.4. Attribution of success-failure depending on abilities

People tend to explain the successes of other people and their own failures by situational attribution, and their successes and failures of other people by personal attribution. A manager in an organization needs to take into account the fact that such dependence may vary to some extent in different cultural environments.

Typical of any organization is the presence of conflicting attribution biases (especially success and failure) between managers and their subordinates, the discrepancies between which should be sought to be reduced through mutual efforts in attempts to explain and mutually understand behavior in the processes of interpersonal open communication to create productive joint activities.

The manager’s correct understanding of the situation and its causes significantly influences the effectiveness of his actions. When managers were asked to say what they saw as the reasons for their subordinates' ineffectiveness, they were more likely to name internal factors (lack of ability and effort) than external factors (for example, insufficient support). Such results indicate a possible attributional error - the tendency to underestimate the influence of situational factors and overestimate the influence of individual factors in assessing the behavior of other people. When managers were asked to identify the reasons for their own ineffectiveness, the overwhelming majority of respondents chose an external, situational factor - lack of support. And this result indicates the presence in the behavior of managers of some involuntary bias, an attributional tendency to deny their own responsibility for problems of effectiveness, but to accept responsibility for success.

This situation can be explained by the fact that human behavior is influenced by perception. A manager who believes that his subordinates are not performing well enough and sees the reason as a lack of effort is most likely trying to motivate them to do better. The possibility of changing situational factors (for example, eliminating coercion and providing better organizational support) is largely ignored. This attitude does not allow increasing productivity, since it shifts all responsibility to the personal factor. Interestingly, when assessing their own performance, managers noted how they would be more effective with improved support. It turned out that they did not consider their own ability and desire to work hard to be a significant factor, but in relation to their subordinates they took this into account. Highly empathic people are less prone to this mistake: they more easily “enter” into the position of another and therefore consider the behavior of other people as their own.

Knowledge of the laws of attribution and basic attribution errors (or attribution effects) will help the manager correctly correct the perception of himself and his employees.

Causal attribution and locus of control

It should be said that causal attribution is closely related to locus of control.

Locus of control is the characteristic ability of an individual to attribute his successes or failures only to internal or only to external factors.

In the case of causal attribution, there is a double standard. Whereas locus of control shows that a person chooses his own reaction. Having received a bad mark on an exam, he can manifest this locus in two different ways:

1. It's my own fault that I got a bad grade. I didn’t prepare much, I walked around, I thought about absolutely the wrong things. I'll fix it and start right now.
2. The ticket, the difficult subject, or the teacher are to blame. If it weren't for this, I would get what I deserve.

The difference between causal attribution and locus of control is the presence of willpower in the second case.

To change your locus of control, you must first get rid of the victim syndrome. Take full responsibility even if external factors really greatly influenced the result.

Causal attribution and learned helplessness

Causal attribution, interestingly enough, is often used to understand the phenomenon of learned helplessness.

Learned/acquired helplessness is a state of a person in which he does not make attempts to improve his condition (does not try to receive positive stimuli or avoid negative ones), although he has such an opportunity. This happens when he has tried several times to change the situation but failed. And now I’m used to my helplessness.

The father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, demonstrated in his experiments that people put less effort into solving a “solvable” problem after they had suffered a series of failures at “unsolvable” problems.

Seligman believes that people, having received unsatisfactory results, begin to think that further attempts will also not lead to anything good. But the theory of causal attribution says that people do not try to redouble their efforts in order not to lower their self-esteem, because otherwise they will attribute failure to their internal personal characteristics. If you don’t try, it’s much easier to blame external factors for everything.

Criticism [edit]

Attribution theory has been criticized as mechanistic and reductionist for its assumption that people think rationally, logically, and systematically. [41] The fundamental attribution error, however, shows that they are mentally stingy and motivated tacticians. It also does not take into account the social, cultural and historical factors that shape the explanation of causes. This issue has been widely addressed through discourse analysis, a branch of psychology that favors the use of qualitative methods, including the use of language, to understand psychological phenomena. Linguistic categorization theory, for example, demonstrates how language influences our attribution style. [42]

Is it so important to understand each other?

Explaining the reasons for one’s own and others’ behavior is the key to the most important questions of social existence: who am I? who's near me? Can I trust others? What determines actions: personal properties or situations?

Knowing the correct answers to these questions allows you to:

• get rid of unnecessary negativity: anxiety, suspicion, panic;
• protect yourself from betrayal, meanness, manipulation;
• manage different situations;
• make rational decisions;
• predict behavioral patterns of others.

Comprehension of another person's experience, as he himself understands it, is the main goal of interpersonal interaction. This is an indispensable guideline when choosing:

• qualified specialists;
• candidates for political office;
• business partners;
• life partners.

It is not surprising that the study of attribution has long gone beyond the scope of social psychology. Today, the art of understanding is relevant for teachers, athletes, managers, for each of us. It allows us to adequately evaluate each other, interact effectively, get along with a variety of people, count on leniency and sympathy.