Attribution is a concept which is widely used in social psychology. It refers to how people describe causes of behavior and events. Attribution Theory is defined as “the theory that argues people look for explanation of behavior, associating either dispositional (internal) attributes or situational (external) attributes”. As per this theory, success or failure is in the mind of the person, governed by the content of his/her thoughts.
Fritz Heider, an Austrian psychologist, was the first to develop a theory related to attribution. Heider taught at the University of Kansas. His balance theory is considered to be the starting point of attribution theory. Bernard Weiner, a cognitive psychologist, created the framework which psychologists use today in terms of achievement. American social psychologist Harold Kelley has also contributed to this subject.
In his book “The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations” (1958), Fritz espoused the concept of “naive psychology” or “common sense”. According to him, an individual observes, analyzes and explains behaviors. He grouped explanations into two categories: internal (personal) and external (situational) attributions.
When an internal attribution is made, the cause of the stated behavior is assigned to the person’s characteristics like mood, attitudes, ability, efforts, personality and disposition. When an external attribution is made, the cause of the stated behavior is assigned to the situation in which the behavior was displayed (like luck and the nature of work).
According to the three dimensional model of attribution of Bernard Weiner, an individual’s perceptions and attributions determine the amount of effort he/she will engage in activities in the future. According to Weiner, people exert their attribution search and cognitively evaluate causal properties on the behaviors they experience. Weiner’s achievement attribution has three categories: stable theory (stable and unstable), locus of control (internal and external) and control (controllable and uncontrollable).
People try to find reasons of behaviors. However, most of the time they fall into many traps of various errors and biases. Fundamental attribution error, culture bias, spotlight effect error, actor/observer difference, dispositional attributions and self-serving bias are some examples of attributional errors and biases.
When an individual tries to make attributions about another individual’s behavior, he/she focuses on the individual. External factors which may influence the person’s behavior are usually overlooked. However, while the same individual tries to make attributions about his/her own behavior, it is the other way round.
Some people criticize the attribution theory as being reductionist and mechanistic. According to them the theory assumes that people are rational and logical. According to some critics, the theory fails to address the social and historical factors that shape attributions of cause. In spite of these criticisms, the theory is used in various fields like education.
