attribution

Attribution

the explainations people give for the causes of behaviour/events

how people make judgements and why we believe people act a certain way

Heider

naive psychology, argued people had 2 primary needs - form coherent view of the world and gain control over the environment

1944- used film, moving shapes, some described movements as social planning and interaction, 1 described it as moving triangles and circles

Correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis 1955)

people tend to infer that a person’s behaviour reflects their stable internal characteristics or personality

factors- was behaviour chosen, did it produce consequences/non-common effects and was is socially desirable?

Covariation model (Kelley 1967)

people explain behaviour by examining what factors consistently occur together

consistency does this person always do this in this situation? distinctiveness does this person do this in other situations? consensus do other people do this in the same situation?

high consistency and low D and C results in internal attributions

disposition- personality, attitudes, abilities, beliefs

situations- actions of others, nature of situation, mood, luck

Configuration Kelly 1972

explains how people make attributions when there is limited information, using prior beliefs or “causal schemas” about how causes usually work together

causal schema- a general conception a person has about certain causes interacting to produce a effect

this kicks in when info is missing or not worth collecting

Attribution biases - fundamental attribution error/correspondence bias

tendency to attribute to internal dispositional causes over situational causes

Jones & Harris 1967- ·when P were aware speakers had no choice whether they made pro/anti-Castro speech, internal attributions were made. The bias only went away when P were told the writer copied the essay from a pre-written essay. (correspondence bias)

Miller 1984- americans increase internal attributions with age. indians increase external attributions with age

Lassiter & Irvine 1986- videos of prisoner confessions from 3 camera views: on suspect, interrogator and both. Prisoner was least coerced when watching the prisoner and most coerced when watching the officer. Showing perspectives can change.

Attribution biases - actor observer effect

more likely to attribute others behaviour to internal causes and own behaviour to external causes

Attribution biases- self serving bias

Olson & Ross 1988- tendency to attribute own success to internal factors and failure to external factors

self enhancing- taking credit for success, attributing internally

self protecting- deny responsibility for failure, attribute externally

self handicapping- publicly making external attributions for anticipated failure

Malle 2006

Meta-analysis of 173 attribution studies (1971–2004) involving around 14,000 participants.

P explained behaviour in scenarios, interactions, and tasks using ratings of personality, attitudes, mood, and situational causes.

Found only a very small actor–observer effect. mainly occurred when: events were hypothetical, negative, actors were unusual and explanations were free-response.

Reverse effect found for positive events.

Classic attribution theory proposes a stable cognitive bias in explaining behaviour. Malle found attribution patterns are more flexible and context-dependent.

Ratcliff 2006

Investigated illusory causation and whether causal attributions are driven by visual attention rather than reasoning. 85 participants watched a videotaped police interrogation filmed from either: a suspect-focused camera angle, or a detective-focused angle.

P either: memorised the victim’s face (perceptual interference condition), or rehearsed an 8-digit number (conceptual interference condition). P rated whether the confession was voluntary on a 9-point scale.

Suspect-focused videos led participants to judge confessions as more voluntary (camera perspective bias). Bias disappeared in the perceptual interference condition.

Suggests dispositional biases (e.g., FAE) may result from visual attention/perception rather than deliberate attributional reasoning. Attribution may begin during initial perceptual processing, not only through conscious cognitive judgement.

Choi 1999

whether the FAE occurs equally across cultures. Western cultures use an analytic view (behaviour reflects internal traits), whereas East Asian cultures use a holistic view (behaviour reflects social context and relationships).

American and South Korean students read a capital punishment essay. choice condition → writer freely chose their position, no-choice condition → writer was assigned the position. Participants rated the writer’s true beliefs.

Initially, both groups showed correspondence bias/FAE. In a second study, situational constraints were made more salient by asking participants to write essays opposing their own beliefs. American students continued showing correspondence bias. Korean students reduced dispositional judgements when contextual factors became clearer.

Suggests FAE may not be a universal cognitive bias. Attribution is influenced by culture and attention to situational context. Western participants viewed behaviour as reflecting personality, whereas Korean participants were more responsive to contextual explanations.