Introduction To Atttribution

Attribution = coming up with explanations for people’s behaviours

• Informs how we see the world & other people

Misattribution = wrongly interpreting the cause of someone’s actions

Key Terms:

Attribtution	The process of inferring the causes behind behaviours or events.
Internal Attribtution	Explaining behaviour as caused by personal traits, abilities, or feelings.
External Attribution	Explaining behaviour as caused by situational factors, luck, or outside influences.

Internal vs External Attribution

Internal Attribution	External Attribution
Believing behaviour is due to personality, abilities, choices. Can lead to bias, ignoring context and making harsh judgements about someone’s character.	Believing behaviour is due to external factors such as luck or circumstance. Helps avoid unfair judgements by taking into account context.

Theories of Attribution

Naive Scientist Model, Fritz Heider (1958)

Core Idea

Heider proposed that people act like “naive scientists.”
We naturally try to explain why people behave the way they do.

We assume behaviour is:

• meaningful
• intentional
• motivated by some cause

Even when behaviour is ambiguous, we automatically search for explanations.

Heider & Simmel Animation (1944)

In the famous animation:

• simple shapes move around a screen
• people still interpret them as having:
  • goals
  • emotions
  • personalities
  • intentions

Example:

• a small triangle may seem like it is “rescuing” the circle
• a large triangle may appear “aggressive” or “bullying”

This demonstrates how automatically humans assign meaning to behaviour.

Types of Attributions

Internal (Dispositional) Attribution

Behaviour is explained by:

• personality
• traits
• ability
• motivation

Example:

“She did well because she’s intelligent.”

External (Situational) Attribution

Behaviour is explained by:

• environment
• social pressure
• circumstances
• luck

Example:

“She did well because the test was easy.”

Misattributions

Although attribution helps us understand the social world, it is not always accurate.

People can make:

• incorrect assumptions
• biased explanations
• faulty interpretations of behaviour

These errors are called misattributions.

Correspondent Inference Theory, Edward E. Jones & Keith Davis (1965)

Core Idea

This theory explains how we decide whether behaviour reflects:

• a person’s true personality (dispositional cause)
  OR
• the situation they are in (situational cause)

We ask:

“Does this behaviour correspond to who this person really is?”

Correspondent Inference

A correspondent inference occurs when we conclude that:

• behaviour reflects stable personality traits or attitudes

Example:

• someone smiles at you
• you infer they are a friendly person

Alternative Explanations Reduce Correspondence

If there are other plausible reasons for behaviour, we become less confident that the behaviour reflects personality.

Example:

• later you realise they were smiling because they were listening to something funny through headphones
• now the smile no longer strongly suggests friendliness

So:

• more alternative explanations = weaker dispositional inference

Why We Prefer Dispositional Explanations

People often prefer personality-based explanations because they:

• make behaviour seem predictable
• help us anticipate future behaviour
• create a sense of control over the social world

If behaviour reflects personality:

we feel we can better predict what people will do next.

Covariation Model, Harold Kelley (1967)

Core Idea

Kelley argued that people use:

• multiple observations
• behavioural patterns
  to determine whether behaviour is caused by:
• the person (internal attribution)
  OR
• the situation (external attribution)

We examine whether behaviour:

• stays consistent
• changes across situations
• occurs in other people too

The Three Sources of Information

1. Consensus

Question:

Do other people behave the same way?

High Consensus

• many people behave similarly
• suggests a situational cause

Example:

Everyone loves the stats class.

Low Consensus

• few people behave this way
• suggests a dispositional cause

Example:

Only your friend loves the stats class.

2. Distinctiveness

Question:

Does this person behave this way in many situations?

High Distinctiveness

• behaviour occurs only in this situation
• suggests a situational cause

Example:

Your friend only raves about this one class.

Low Distinctiveness

• person behaves this way in many situations
• suggests a dispositional cause

Example:

Your friend raves about every class.

3. Consistency

Question:

Does the person behave this way repeatedly over time?

High Consistency

• behaviour happens regularly
• attribution becomes stronger

Example:

Your friend always raves about stats.

Low Consistency

• behaviour is unusual or temporary
• weaker attribution

Example:

This is the first time your friend liked a class.

Example of Kelley’s Model

Suppose your friend constantly praises their stats class.

You examine:

Information Type	Observation	Interpretation
Consensus	Nobody else likes the class	Low consensus
Distinctiveness	Your friend loves every class	Low distinctiveness
Consistency	They always praise this class	High consistency

Conclusion

The behaviour is likely caused by:

• your friend’s personality/tastes
• not the stats class itself

→ Internal attribution

Evaluation of Kelley’s Model

Strengths

• explains both:
  • dispositional attributions
  • situational attributions
• considers multiple observations over time
• supported by research

Limitation

People often ignore consensus information.

We focus more on:

• the actor’s behaviour
  than:
• how others behave in the same situation

This contributes to a bias toward:

• dispositional explanations
• internal attributions about personality and traits.

Attributional Biases

Attributional biases = systematic errors in how we explain behaviour

• Leads to stereotypes & unfair judgements

Fundamental Attribution Error

Fundamental Attribution Error = overestimating dispositional influences, underestimating situational influences when explaining behaviour

• We like to blame or credit a person instead of looking at broader context
• Correspondence bias = linking behaviour and character traits

Castro Essay Study (Jones & Harris, 1967)

• People read essays about Cuban Leader, Castro
• Even when people were told the writer was assigned a position, they thought it reflected his actual view
• We cling to internal explanations even when there is proof of situational factors

Quiz Show Study (Ross et al, 1977)

• participants assigned either as hosts or contestants
• Even though hosts made the questions and had an advantage, people rated them as more knowledgeable
• Demonstrates fundamental attribution error

Comparing ourselves vs others

Judging others: we attribute behaviour to personality, motives, abilities

Judging ourselves: we tend to blame behaviour on external factors

Actor Observer Effect

Actor- Observer Effect = attributing our own actions to external causes but others to internal traits, especially for negative events

Perspective Taking

Frank & Gilovich (1989)

• Pairs of people had a ‘get to know you’ conversation
• 3 weeks later they were asked to make attributions about their own behaviour
• Participants in observer perspective more likely to make dispositional (internal) attributions
• Participants in an actor perspective made more situational (external) attributions
• The perspective you take influences how you explain behaviour
  • Imagining ourselves in someone else’s place can affect attributions

Why does it happen?

Perceptual Salience

• When we see someone from the outside, they are the most salient part
• When we are the actor, we are more aware of environmental context

Informational Differences

• We have lots of knowledge about ourselves and our circumstances
• We lack background knowledge on others so we rely more on what we can observe -> their personality

Motivation for control

• Seeing other’s behaviour as explainable by their personality gives us a sense of predictability

Cultural Differences in FAE

Miller (1984)

• North America (individualistic culture) vs India (collectivist)
• North American adults more likely to attribute behaviour to dispositional factors
• Indians more likely to attribute to situational factors

Socioeconomic Status

• People from lower socioeconomic backgrounds less likely to make dispositional attributions
  • They have external challenges and so are more attuned to situational factors

The Just World Hypothesis

(Lerner, 1980)

• The belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people
• Causes us to overlook systemic & situational factors
• Reinforces social inequalities
• Shows how FAE impacts the broader world

Heuristics & Cognitive Shortcuts

Heuristic = mental shortcuts that help us make decisions quickly

Cognitive Bias = systematic error in thinking affecting decision making/ judgements

The 2 Systems of Cognition

(Epstein, 1991)

• Humans have 2 interacting cognitive systems: rational & intuition
• Rational system = analytical, slow, conscious
• Intuitive system = experiential, fast, automatic, emotion drievn

Intuition & Social Inference

• Helps us make quick judgements in complex social situations
• Judgements are top down, driven by prior beliefs
• Relies on heuristics
• Prone to bias
• Efficient, but not accurate

Confirmation Bias

• Favouring evidence that already supports what you believe
• Illusory correlation = a pattern being perceived despite there being no real association between the 2 variables

Wason’s Rule-Discovery Task (1960)

• Participants asked to identify a rule behind a pattern of numbers by creating their own sequence of numbers
• Most people formed a hypothesis and then only tested sequence confirming their hypothesis

Heuristics

The representativeness heuristic:

• Judging how likely something is based on how much it resembles our idea of what is typical
• Assuming a quiet person who loves math is an engineer
• Causes us to ignore background information

Misjudging randomness:

• Causes us to see patterns when it’s really just chance

The Availability Heursitic:

• When we judge how common something is based on how easily we can recall examples
• If something comes to mind quickly, we assume it’s com,on
• We hear about things in the media and overestimate how common those events are

Shortcomings In Judgement

The illusion of control

• When people overestimate their ability to control random outcomes
  • Choosing lottery numbers
• Happens when chance-determined tasks include features normally associated with skill
  • Personal choice
  • Familiarity
  • Involvement
  • Competition

Langer’s Research:

• People divided into 2 groups: 1 chose their own lottery ticket, the other was randomly assigned
• People given the choice to re sell their ticket
• Those who chose their own ticket demanded much higher price
• People felt that personal choice increased their chances of winning, thus the value of their ticket

The illusion of control & stress

• Friedland, Keinam, Regev proposed that stress undermines our sense of control causing them to seek situations that feel controllable

Study design:

• participants played a roulette-type game under high or low stress conditions (electric shock)
• Participants could choose between:
  • Option allowing active intervention (brake) but reducing chance of winning
  • Options involving no illusion of control but higher chance of winning

Finding:

• People experiencing stress had a preference for the option with an illusion of control
• People with lower stress preferred the choice with less illusion of control
• When under stress, people prioritise strategies that give a sense of control

Regression to the Mean

• The statistical tendency for extreme outcomes to be followed by more typical ones
• Feeling like life cycles between ups and down
• Leads to mistaken claims of causality
• Feels meaningful, but is just natural variability
  • Doing well in one test, and less well the next
  • Taking a remedy when you were already on the mend

Overriding Intuitive but Incorrect Responses

The Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT)

• Measures the tendency to override an intuitive but incorrect response and engage in deliberate reflection leading to a correct answer
• Success requires people to slow down and resist their initial response
• Moderate correlation (r=.42)
• People with lower CRT scores are more reliant on heuristics
• Shows us that pausing and thinking more carefully doesn’t come naturally, most people default to heuristics