Attribution (psychology)

Attributional are general approaches of psychology, that describe how individuals use information to make causal explanations for human behavior.

The term is to be distinguished from causal theories; the laity are explanations for the causes of feelings and moods.

As Attributionsstile one designates " habitual preferences with regard to the attribution of causes for events that have already occurred " - which also results in certain expectations may arise.

• 6.1 Freedom of choice
• 6.2 Social Desirability

Heider

Fritz Heider founded his major work The psychology of interpersonal relations ( 1958), the basis of all Attributional by distinguishing the first between internal and external attributions. People were " naive scientist" or "everyday psychologists " that the behavior of others tried to explain, owing to insufficient information itself. One arrives at the conclusion that the cause of the behavior is the acting person himself, so his character, his beliefs or other enduring personality traits, he calls this internal attribution. If one believes, however, that the situation has caused the behavior, he speaks of external attribution. Heider was convinced that we too often internal and external attributions rarely what Lee Ross later pointedly as fundamental attribution designated.

Attributional style and Partnership

According to studies by Frank Fincham and employees there is a correlation between the success of a partnership and the personal attributional: In happy marriages, he found significantly more often a dispositional, ie based on personality characteristics cause attribution of pleasant behaviors of the partner, while negative behaviors of the partner on a situational basis, so due to external circumstances, were founded. In unhappy marriages, it was exactly the reverse.

Kelley Kovariationsprinzip

According to the Kovariationsprinzip Harold Kelley man analyzed objectively and logically, three pieces of information, to access to an internal or external attribution. First, he asks about the consistency of behavior, therefore, is whether the behavior of the actors in similar situations across different time points occurs away and is not just an exception. The consistency is high when the behavior over different time points occurs across and low when the behavior occurs only a few times. Consistency is, therefore a pattern in front of the internal or external Attribution depends on two factors:

• Consensus: Describes how other people react in the same situation in the same way as the actor. The consensus is high when many other people with similar characteristics and low when few other people react.

• Distinctiveness: Describes whether the behavior is a response to a specific stimulus. The distinctiveness is high, if the person only in a few situations behaving and low when the person in many other situations is so.

Kelley assumes that man makes those causes responsible for a behavior that co-vary with the behavior (see table):

• At low consistencies, the behavior of the actor is classified as an exception.
• At high consistency is distinguished as follows: low consensus and low distinctiveness leads to internal attribution (the cause of the behavior would be in the player )
• High consensus and high distinctiveness leads to external attribution (the cause of the behavior would be in the situation )

Example: Someone in a restaurant is a high tip. In order to determine why the person does, the ascribing individual needs additional information, namely

• Whether that person is high tips regularly (if not, this was an exception), if yes:
• Whether other guests give high tips and
• Whether the person is high tips only in very specific situations.

The analysis of this information provides the desired causality attribution. Is the person in many situations high tips (low distinctiveness ) and give other guests no high gratuities (low consensus ), the cause of the behavior is most likely the person. Is it, however, so that the person regularly gives high tips only at this restaurant and do other people the same thing, probably the restaurant is the cause of the behavior.

Many studies have confirmed the theory Kelley. , However, consensus information is less weighted than the other two. Are parts of the required information is not available, they are replaced by conjecture. The fact that a doer more Distinktheits and consistency information is available as an observer contributes to the actor - observer divergence.

Seligman

Martin Seligman, known for his theory of learned helplessness, advanced Heider's model to two dimensions in order to explain the development of depression. In addition to "internal vs.. extern " he distinguishes causes that " stable vs. variable "and" general vs.. specific ", s.a. Learned helplessness in humans.

Example: How do I explain to me that I failed in an examination?

According to Seligman, a certain attributional promotes the development of depression, to be regarded as internally caused, stable and generally negative experiences:

• Intern: You will see ( in ) itself as the problem and not external circumstances.
• Stable: You see the problem as immutable and not temporary.
• Generally: You see the problem as pervasive and not limited to specific situations.

Attributing failure to external, variable and specific in performance tests, on the other hand is a sign of resilience.

Weiner

Much like Seligman and Bernard Weiner, who has been researching mainly on achievement motivation, a three-dimensional classification system has evolved into which can be categorized causes of success or failure:

• Location / locus (internal vs.. External causes)
• Stability (stable vs.. Variable causes)
• Controllability ( controllable vs. Uncontrollable causes)

In particular, the dimension stability is responsible for changes in expectations. Relatively stable causes lead to the expectation that past performance results are provided again in the future, whereas unstable causes suggest that future results may differ from past.

The dimension of controllability, however, is associated in particular with the evaluation of other people. Thus, an attribution to special effort is usually a high reward, while an attribution to laziness can lead to devaluation of the person.

The locus is associated in particular with the emotional impact of attributions. Thus, an attribution to obstruction by other aggression, on the other hand lead to a Attribution helping behavior of others gratitude.

Example ( see table): A football player whose penalty was (not ) kept investigating the cause.

Table: Example of the classification of the cause of success or failure on the three dimensions

In addition to its main application in the field of achievement motivation, the attributional theory of behavior in other areas plays a role. Bernard Weiner postulated, among other things, that the willingness to provide assistance is dependent inter alia on the extent to which the person in need has to answer for their plight itself, with yields responsibility in his opinion of three factors:

• The causal relationship between a cause and the act which led to the need for help,
• The controllability of this act,
• Extenuating circumstances, such as drugs, which has led to this very act.

The emotions of the person who could potentially provide assistance, plays a crucial role, as they have a mediating function between cognition and action. The probability increases to help the person, if compassion is felt for this, and decreases when anger is felt about the situation in which the person concerned has maneuvered. Compassion of a person is particularly felt when she has not held responsible for a predicament itself. Trouble is, however, felt when the vulnerability of the person is perceived as self- generated. There exists after Weiner accordingly no direct causal relationship of subjective responsibility on the willingness to provide assistance, as either inhibiting or stimulating effect on the perceived emotions helpfulness. Analogously, can be with this sequence model also explain the relationship, are in the cognition, emotion and aggressive behavior to one another.

Other areas in which the theory plays a role are loneliness, depression, learned helplessness and decisions of probation committees in prison.

Heckhausen

According to Heinz Heckhausen various events attributions can be different, so be explained by various reasons,

• Global: general ( " all hate me ");
• Specifically: relating to a person or thing ( " this teacher hates me ");
• Stable: it is always so ( " my whole life ... ");
• Variable: today, changeable;
• Internal: because of me, in me, from me, reason is in my person;
• External: on the outside, the surroundings, due not to my person.

If you keep getting attributions good experience internally and externally poor, it may be that you suffer from delusions of grandeur.

People with depression tend to always externally and bad always attributing good experiences internally.

When attributions good experience rather internally and negative experiences rather externally, this can be conducive to a good self-confidence.

Theory of corresponding inferences

Developed by Edward E. Jones and Keith Davis theory of corresponding inferences is an attribution theory from the field of social psychology and is concerned with how close observer of an action on a disposition of or the actors. The aim of the Attributionsprozesses is the determination of whether an observed behavior and intent that led to this behavior, corresponding to an underlying, stable property of the person. This process of inference involves two stages:

Thus, the observer can assume that the action was intended, he assumes that the consequences of the act were known and the ability ( eg physical strength ) was present.

Central influence the opinion of the observer, whether other people would act in a way that is, whether they act in terms of social desirability. The socially undesirable are the consequences, the greater fall of the conclusions. The observer attributions an intention behind the offensive behavior, which is due to a personal characteristic. However, only incite acts that are socially undesirable to assumptions about the actor.

The attribution is subject to a specific cause of a process which is divided into several steps:

Furthermore, there are other influences on the attribution process, such as the freedom of choice and social desirability.

Freedom of choice

If, at the alternatives no freedom of choice, the observer gains therefrom any information. If the freedom of choice, however, not restricted, so observers tend to the behavior shown stronger due to dispositions as would be the case when there is no freedom of choice.

Empirical evidence for this provided an experiment should evaluate an essay on Fidel Castro in the subjects. One group was told that the author was forced to write the essay and speak out for Fidel Castro. The other group was told that the author chose freely for his pro - attitude. The essay with the voluntary attitude was now seen as more extreme than the essay with the forced posture. Same evidence there was in an essay, who spoke out against Fidel Castro.

Social Desirability

If an act performed, because it is desirable in the situation as observers assess that action rather than less extreme setting of the actor. If the action but performed against social conventions, the disposition of the agent of observers is classified as extreme.

Again, there is some empirical findings. Reference is made to a trial with putative candidates as astronauts and submarine captains, should assess an alleged interview with the subjects and saw those candidates as extreme in their attitudes, who opposed a given role desired.