Sometimes people seem to be motivated by something inside them – their personality, their character, their habitual ways of acting. Other times they seem to be motivated more by something outside of them – events or the influence of other people. The attribution concept is a concept in psychology which posits that we judge other people based on whether we think their behaviro was caused by internal or external factors.
We want to know why people do the things they do. However, we don’t have perfect information about other people’s motivations. We have to make judgments based on inferences. The attribution concept focuses on one aspect of these judgments: whether we think people are motivated by external or internal factors.
When we observe someone behaving in a particular situation the way other people typically act in that situation, we are likely to attribute that person’s behavior to the situation itself. But if we see someone behaving differently from others in the same situation, we are likely to attribute the behavior to that person’s individual traits such as character, personality or abilities, rather than to the situation.
The judgments we make about external versus internal factors are not always accurate. Researchers found that people attribute behavior too often to internal factors and not often enough to external factors. We seem to want to assign fault to individuals even when the situation is to blame.
Examples of the attribution concept: Jane runs a marathon and sets a new world record, beating the former record holder by a wide margin. We are likely to attribute her record-breaking run to internal factors, assuming that Jane trains hard, is motivated to win, and has a good runner’s physique. Say that a month later, Jane runs in another marathon on a stormy day. This time, she falls far short of her previous record, though she still wins because the other runners were also slower than usual. We are likely to attribute Jane’s disappointing performance in the second marathon to the external factor of the weather.
For more information:
AllPsych: Our View of Self and Others http://allpsych.com/psychology101/attribution_attraction.html
University of Twente: Attribution Theory http://www.cw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Interpersonal%20Communication%20and%20Relations/attribution_theory.doc/
