Attribution Theory & Motivation – Comprehensive Study Notes

Learning Outcomes

• After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
  • Explain the basic premises of attribution theory.
  • Distinguish between optimistic, pessimistic, and hostile attribution styles.
  • Describe how attributions, emotions, and expectations influence employee motivation.
  • Apply managerial techniques that encourage accurate and motivational attributions.

Core Definition: What Is an Attribution?

• An attribution = a causal explanation for an event/behaviour.
• People constantly (often automatically) create attributions for both their own and others’ outcomes.
• Purpose:
  • Repeat desirable results by understanding their causes.
  • Avoid undesirable results by identifying their causes.
• Classic view: All humans are "naïve psychologists" (Heider, 1958).

Key Attribution Dimensions

• Locus of Causality
  • Internal vs. External causes.
  • Internal undesirable → guilt, shame.
  • External undesirable → anger, resentment.
• Stability
  • Stable (unlikely to change: intelligence, laws) vs. Unstable (effort, mood, illness).
  • Influences future expectations.
• (Other scholarly dimensions—intentionality & controllability—mentioned but not expanded in text.)
• Combining dimensions yields four prototypical categories:
  • Internal & Stable (e.g., intelligence).
  • External & Stable (e.g., organisational policies, governmental laws).
  • Internal & Unstable (e.g., effort).
  • External & Unstable (e.g., temporary resource shortage).

The Attribution–Emotion–Behaviour Chain

1. Outcome occurs.
2. Person forms an attribution (internal/external, stable/unstable).
3. Attribution triggers an emotional response (self- or other-focused).
4. Emotion drives behavioural motivation.

Attribution Styles (Trait-Like Biases)

• Definition: Consistent tendency to assign causes to particular types of factors.
• Optimistic Style
  • Positive outcomes → internal (often stable).
  • Negative outcomes → external (often unstable).
  • Leads to self-confidence, but may foster entitlement & future disappointment if inaccurate.
• Pessimistic Style
  • Negative outcomes → internal & stable.
  • Positive outcomes → external & unstable.
  • Promotes low confidence, potential depression, learned helplessness.
• Hostile Style
  • Negative outcomes → external & stable.
  • Fosters anger toward external agents; linked to aggression & workplace violence.
• Key nuance: Styles exert influence mainly when causal information is ambiguous.

Motivational States & Their Attributional Roots

Undesirable States

Learned Helplessness

• Definition: Passivity & low motivation after repeated failures/punishments, even when circumstances improve (Overmier & Seligman, 1967).
• Attribution pattern: Internal & stable explanations for failures, external explanations for successes → feelings of futility.
• Organisational antecedents: Unfair managers, restrictive policies, lack of recognition.
• Danger: Persisting low motivation even after barriers removed.

Aggression

• Two forms:
  • Instrumental aggression: Goal-oriented (e.g., theft to compensate perceived underpayment).
  • Hostile aggression: Harm-oriented (e.g., physical attack to inflict pain).
• Triggered by external & stable attributions for negative events, especially when responsible party is perceived as controllable/intentional.
• Employees with hostile attribution style more likely to perceive supervisors as abusive and retaliate.

Desirable States

Empowerment

• Definition: Heightened motivation driven by optimistic effort–reward expectations (Conger & Kanungo, 1994).
• Attribution pattern:
  • Successes → internal (skill, effort).
  • Failures → either internal & controllable (effort) OR external & unstable/uncontrollable (time, incomplete info).
• Optimistic style can foster empowerment, but accuracy is essential.

Resilience

• Definition: Staunch acceptance of reality, strong values, ability to improvise/adapt (Coutu, 2002).
• Promotes accurate (non-biased) attributions, buffering against both over-internalising and over-externalising.
• Low resilience → greater attribution errors → vulnerability to pessimism or hostility.

Managerial Techniques to Promote Motivational Attributions

1. Screening for Resilience
   • Use resiliency scales or interview questions about past hardships.
   • Critical in high-stress contexts (e.g., hospitals).
2. Attributional Training
   • Formal: Assess employees’ attribution styles (e.g., Causal Dimension Scale) and debrief them.
   • Informal: Discuss causes of each success/failure; expand employees’ causal search.
3. Immunisation (Early Successes)
   • Assign manageable tasks first → establish internal, unstable (effort-based) success attributions → seeds of confidence.
4. Increase Psychological Closeness
   • Ensure managers have first-hand experience with subordinates’ tasks.
   • Internal promotions & periodic role-shadowing reduce observer bias.
5. Multiple Raters (e.g., 360^{\circ} feedback)
   • Offsets any single rater’s attribution bias; yields a balanced causal picture.

Ethical & Practical Implications

• Optimistic distortions may inflate self-view yet demotivate subordinates (entitled leaders).
• Hostile biases pose safety risks; early identification and intervention critical.
• Accurate attributions align rewards, corrective actions, and development plans with true causes, safeguarding fairness & morale.

Numerical & Statistical Highlights (LaTeX-formatted)

• Classic theory: Heider 1958; Weiner’s achievement model 1985, 1995.
• Attribution Style Self-Assessment scoring: Internal/External cut-point 28 out of 56 on each dimension.
• Research examples: Douglas & Martinko 2001 (workplace aggression); Spreitzer 1995 (empowerment outcomes).

Connections to Broader Concepts

• Reinforcement Theory: Attribution influences perceived contingency between behaviour & outcome.
• Social Information Processing: Attributions filter cues → shape emotion (anger, guilt) → guide action.
• Psychological Contract: Perceived fairness of outcomes (raises, recognition) hinges on attribution legitimacy.

Illustrative Scenarios & Cases

• Nurse misperceiving colleague’s skill deficiency.
• Manager allocating equally small raises: Different explanation frames (internal vs. external; stable vs. unstable) alter employee motivation.
• Physicians altering paperwork study (Harvey et al., 2005): Higher justification when cause = external & stable.

Formulas & Key Constructs (LaTeX)

• Empowerment expectation: E(\text{Success})=f(\text{Effort},\text{Attribution}).
• Learned helplessness probability increases when: P(\text{Failure}|\text{Effort}) \approx 1 and attribution =\text{Internal, Stable}.

Study Checklist

• Memorise the four attribution categories and example causes.
• Practise diagnosing someone’s attribution style from statements.
• Be able to map a given attribution pattern to one of the four motivational states.
• Review managerial techniques and match each to the bias/problem it addresses.

Potential Exam Prompts

• Provide a workplace example that would elicit instrumental vs. hostile aggression; explain the attributions, emotions, and expected behaviours.
• Evaluate a leader with an optimistic style: benefits vs. risks to team motivation.
• Design an attributional training intervention for a department plagued by learned helplessness.