The Importance Of The Attribution Theory

Trevor’s actions led his peers to label him as a constant threat, as well as the school “weirdo.” Everyone, even his parents, cautioned himself or herself around him. Trevor’s own actions categorized him as a threat to all. His peers would wonder about the causes for his actions. This led them to believe in false causes. A theory in this particular case, which is widely used in this concept, is the attribution theory. This explains and states the different types of processes we use to judge behaviors

Notably, the fundamental attribution error is a personal bias that is problematic in society. To emphasize, the fundamental attribution error is when individuals have the tendency to attribute people’s behavior to components of their character or personality, even when situational influences are producing the behavior (Textbook, page 171). An example of the fundamental attribution error operating in daily life is when a driver avoids hitting a pedestrian and causes an accident. In this

In the ways of the world it is easier to make assessments about people or objects based on a quick observation. For instance, almost everyone has heard the clique saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is a perfect scenario where looking at just what is holding the book together a decision is made on whether the book will be picked to read. In the same ways individuals tend to judge each other. Unfortunately, when quick judgments are snapped about a person or object the observer is missing out a bigger picture. This is defined as the fundamental attribution error. For example, a person kicking a vending machine over and over may not have an anger management problem. Although, the observer may make this assumption as they walk by not

The Fundamental Attribution Error occurs when a person’s personality is determined based on how they act in a certain situation, but not including the situation and outside influences when making that determination. The individual could be acting a certain way based on the particular situation or social circumstances, but in all actuality be completely different in another situation. Studies show that in most cases socially we want to fit in with a group, don’t want to be different, don’t want to be wrong, and in many instances act different than what our typical personality and values are based on influencing social factors. One of the main factors that often contributes to how we act in certain situations is to obey those in authority positions. The studies provided below are examples of the show how behaviors can change based on social factors.

Attribution theory focuses on our needs, as human beings, to make sense of our world, ask why? Why things happen the way they do, we need answers. Is someone to blame?

When we make situational attributions, we are identifying the cause of an action as something

Although people that are confident enough to take responsibility for their actions and choices know that they are also responsible for the consequences, most people are incapable of seeing what they did wrong and blame the outcome on other reasons. This blame can lead to unjust and immoral consequences that are not deserving of certain people, this can be seen in today’s society.

It can be said that fundamental attribution error is the tendency for observers to overestimate the influence of personal characteristics and to underestimate the influence of situational characteristics. When people are trying to understand and explain what happens in social settings, people tend to view behavior as a particularly significant factor and tend to explain behavior in terms of internal disposition (such as personality traits, abilities, motives, etc.) as opposed to external situational factors, which can be due to focus on the person more than their situation, about which we may know very little, and also know little about how they are interpreting the situation (Fundamental, n.d.). In an internal or dispositional attribution, people infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits,

The claim being made in this scenario is that of a hard determinist viewpoint. Hard determinism states that as actions are all caused or a product of biological and environmental factors. In relation to praise and blame, hard determinists would therefore argue for the viewpoint that praise and blame are pointless as we have no control over our own actions. (Young, R., 1975). The opposite to this would be the free will perspective.

Fritz Heider (1958) focuses on the internal and external attribution, which suggests why people behave a certain way according to their character or attitudes (external attribution) or the implication as to why an individual behaves a certain way due to the situation there in. “When we explain our own behavior, we are sensitive to how behavior changes with the situation” (Idson & Mischel, 2001). The significances of making a conclusion, gives direction and probability, which may help determine why a person may or may not act a certain way based on what the evidence shows. The implication of a certain behavior depends on the source to which it is attributed. For example: If Pat assumes that growing up isolated from her surroundings is normal, she won’t perceive it as non-normal. “The way we explain others’ actions, attributing them to the person or the situation, can have important real-life effects” (Fincham & Bradbury, 1993; Fletcher et., 1990). “A person must decide whether to attribute another’s friendliness to romantic interest “ (Myers, D. G.

The authors explain that “fundamental attribution error” is when people focus too much on individual traits rather than the “situational factors in affecting behavior.” What seems to be the case is that “fundamental attribution error” is main problem with Ross and Nisbett’s piece. They tried to focus too much on the logical side of things while entirely disregarding the human factor in their

The attribution process deals with how we judge the causes of people’s behavior. Internal attribution is the idea that the person caused the behavior. External attribution is the idea that a situation caused the behavior. The other manager’s attribution of Chen’s refusal to perform the Softdisk audit is viewed as an internal

The psychological phenomenon that the study centered around is the FAE, or the fundamental attribution error (also known as the attribution effect or the correspondence bias.) This phenomenon explains the inclination of people to place an emphasis on the internal qualities of a subject rather than external traits. This, however, does not explain or predict the participant’s own behavior or interpretation thereof. Unknowingly, each one of us experiences the FAE on a daily basis. While in traffic, we blame someone cutting us off on their “awful” personality rather than considering the situation or exactly why they were in such a rush. However, if we cut someone off in traffic, we blame it on the situation rather than our own internal habits and traits.

The reoccurring theory in all of the readings focused on personal perceptions and how they affect individuals and society as a whole. People are constantly searching for the meaning behind an individual’s or a group’s action. Personal perceptions of other’s actions often color the way we think and therefore act. These actions, then affect how others respond to us. Each person’s actions are irreversibly linked to the actions of others, and therefore; a continuum of behavior is formed.

The way we make meaning of others’ actions and behaviours has been a compelling inquiry in social psychology over the decades. In the early part of the 20th century Austrian Psychologist Fritz Heider published significant work on how people perceive or account for, others’ behaviours (Kimble & Wertheimer, 2000). This publication was further translated by Kelley (1973), who described what we now know as the Attribution theory. While there are many other contributing ideas about attribution, the most