Attribution Theory Definition

ascription Theory Definition Attribution theory is concerned with how large number interpret events and relate them to their thinking and behavior. Its a cognitive perception which affects their motivation. This theory was first proposed in a book called, The Psychology of Inter mortalal dealing by Fritz Heider in 1958. According to Heider, men be hire as amateur scientists in social points. He also state that, we generally explain behavior in two ways either we ascribe the behavior to a person or a situation. Attribution literally convey a grant of responsibility. Albeit, the theory was first proposed by Heider (1958), later Edward E.J bingles (1972) and Harold Kelley (1967) developed a theoretical structure, which is now seen as an effigy of social psychology. The theory divides the behavior attributes into two parts, external or indwelling factors. Internal attribution When an internal attribution is made, the cause of the given behavior is within the person, i. e. the var iables which make a person responsible wish well attitude, aptitude, character and personality. External attribution When an external attribution is made, the cause of the given behavior is assigned to the situation in which the behavior was seen.The person responsible for the behavior may assign the causality to the environment or weather. In 1967, Kelley seek to explain the way people perceive internal and external attribution. He tried this, postulating the principle of co-variation. This cast was known as Covariation Model. The basic principle of the covariation model states that the effect is attributed to one of the causes which co-varies over time. It also means that the behavior at various occasions varies. The covariation model considers three major types of data to make an attribution decision and to observe a persons behavior.The three types of info are Consensus information This responds to the fact, how people with similar stimuli behave in similar situations. If most people behave a resembling, i. e. their reactions are shared by many, the consensus is gritty. But, if no one or scarcely a few people share the reactions, the consensus is low. Distinctiveness information This is about, how a person responds to different situations. There exists a real low strong point if the person reacts as well as in all or most of the situations.However, if a person reacts differently in different situations, it is said that the distinctiveness is high. Consistency information If the response of a person to different stimulus and in varied situations remains the same, then the congruity is high. But Kellys covariation model has some limitations. The most prominent being that, it fails to list between the intentional and unintentional behavior. Read more at Buzzlehttp//www. buzzle. com/articles/attribution-theory-of-social-psychology. html Kelleys Covariation Model Kelleys (1967) covariation model is the best known attribution theory.He developed a logical model for judging whether a contingent action should be attributed to some characteristic (internal) of the person or the environment (external). The term covariation simply meansthat a person has information from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an sight effect and its causes. He argues that in trying to discover the causes of behavior people act like scientists. to a greater achievement specifically they take into account three kinds of evidence. Kelley believed that there were three types of causal information which influenced our judgments.Low factors = dispositional (internal) attributions. * Consensus the extent to which different people behave in the same way in a similar situation. E. g. Alison smokes a tail when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If her friend smokes, her behavior is high in consensus. If only Alison smokes it is low. * Distinctiveness the extent to which the person behaves in t he same way in similar situations. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, her behavior is high in distinctiveness. If she smokes at any time or place, distinctiveness is low. Consistency the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, consistency is high. If she only smoke on one special occasion, consistency is low. Lets look at an exampleto help understand his limited attribution theory. Our subject is called Tom. His behavior is caperter. Tom is laughing at a comedian. 1. Consensus Everybody in the audience is laughing. Consensus is high. If only Tom is laughing consensus is low. 2. Distinctiveness Tom only laughs at this comedian. Distinctiveness is high.If Tom laughs at everything distinctiveness is low. 3. Consistency Tom always laughs at this comedian. Consistency is high. Tom rarely laughs at this comedian consistency is low. Now, if everybody laughs at this comedian, if they dont laugh at the comedian who follows and if this comedian always raises a laugh then we would make an external attribution, i. e. we assume that Tom is laughing because the comedian is very funny. On the another(prenominal) hand, if Tom is the only person who laughs at this comedian, if Tom laughs at all comedians and if Tom always laughs at the comedian then we would make an internal attribution, i. . we assume that Tom is laughing because he is the kind of person who laughs a lot. So what weve got here is people attributing causality on the basis of correlation. That is to say, we see that two things go together and we therefore assume that one causes the other. One problem however is that we may not have enough information to make that kind of judgment. For example, if we dont know Tom that well we wouldnt necessarily have the information to know if his behavior is consistent over time. So what do we do then?According to Kelley we fall back on past experience and look for eit her 1) ninefold necessary causes. For example, we see an athlete win a marathon and we reason that she must be very fit, highly motivated, have trained hard etc. and that she must have all of these to win 2) nine-fold sufficient causes. For example, we see an athlete fail a drug test and we reason that she may be trying to cheat, or have taken a banned substance by accident or been tricked into taking it by her coach. Any one reason would be sufficient.