ATTRIBUTIONS

Attribution It is the processes by which individuals explain the causes of behavior and events. It explains how people act, determining how people react to the actions of others as well by indicating a cause.

Types of attribution 1. Personal attributions - Explanations in terms of personal characteristics 2. Situational attributions - Explanations in terms of situational factors

ATTRIBUTION THEOR It is concerned with how individuals interpret events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior. Process by which people ascribe causes to the behavior they perceive. It assumes that people try to determine why people do what they do. It is considered a motivational theory looking at how the average person constructs the meaning of an event based on his /her motives to find a cause and his/her knowledge of the environment.

1) !ORRESPON"ENT IN#EREN!E THEOR $HEI"ER AN" %ONES& - state that people make inferences about a person when his or her actions are freely chosen, are unexpected, and result in a small number of desirable effects.
2) !O'ARIATION (O"E) $Harol* +elley&

- states that people attribute behavior to the factors that are present when a behavior occurs and absent when it does not. Thus, the theory assumes that people make causal attributions in a rational, logical fashion, and that they assign the cause of an action to the factor that co varies most closely with that action
3) ,EINER-S (O"E) O# A!HIE'E(ENT ATTRIBUTIONS

Individuals have initial affective responses to the potential conse!uences of the intrinsic or extrinsic motives of the actor, which in turn influence future behavior. That is, a person"s own perceptions or attributions as to why they succeeded or failed at an activity determine the amount of effort the person will engage in activities in the future.

!o..on Attribution Errors #hen people make attempts to determine the causes of other people$s behavior, errors commonly happen. These errors may be classified into the following types% #UN"A(ENTA) ATTRIBUTION ERRORS It is also known as /orrespon*en/e bias or attribution effe/t. This is the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors in the behavior of others. in other words it is the tendency to see the person rather than the situation as the main cause of that person$s behavior.

SE)#-SER'IN0 BIAS That type of attribution error whereby people tend to attribute their achievements to their good inner !ualities, whereas they attribute their failures to adverse factors within the environment.

#a/tors T1at Influen/e Attribution

1. "ISTIN!TI'ENESS the consideration given to how consistent a person$s behavior is across different situation. 2. !ONSENSUS refers to the measure of whether an individual responds the same way across time. It is the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation. 2. !ONSISTEN! the measure of whether an individual responds the same way across time
INTERNAL ATTRIBUTIONS Behavior is attributed to internal factors

re!uentl" #$i%h consistenc") CONSISTENCY $o& often the 'erson did act this &a" in the 'ast( Seldo) #lo& consistenc")

re!uentl" #lo& distinctiveness) DISTINCTIVENESS $o& often does the 'erson acts this &a" in another settin%s( Seldo) #hi%h distinctiveness)

Seldo) #lo& consensus) CONSENSUS $o& often do the other 'eo'le act this &a" in si)ilar situations( re!uentl" #hi%h consensus)

E*ternal attribution Behavior is attributed to e*ternal factors

SHORT!UTS USE" IN #OR(IN0 I(PRESSIONS O# OTHERS 1. SE)E!TI'E PER!EPTION happens when a person selectively interprets what he sees on the basis of his interest, background, experience and attitudes 2. HA)O E##E!T occurs when one attribute of a person or situation is used to develop an overall impression of the person or situation. It is a cognitive bias in which one"s &udgments of a person$s character can be influenced by one"s overall impression of him or her 2. !ONTRAST E##E!T '. PRO%E!TION attributing one$s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another. It is likely to occur in the interpretation stage of perception 3. STEREOT PIN0 refers to the &udging someone on the basis of one$s perception of the group to which that person belongs.