Attribution Theory

 

The development of attribution theory

The origins of attribution theory can be found in the work of Heider (1944, 1958), who argued that individuals are motivated to see their social world as predictable and controllable – that is, a need to understand causality. Heider didn’t so much develop a theory himself as emphasize certain themes that others took up. There were two main ideas that he put forward that became influential: dispositional (internal cause) vs situational (external cause) attributions.

● Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal characteristic of a person, rather than to outside forces. For example, we attribute the behavior of a person to their personality, motives or beliefs.

● Situational attributes, the process of assigning the cause of behavior to some situation or event outside a person's control rather than to some internal characteristic. When we try to explain our own behavior, we tend to make external attributions, such as situational or environment features.

Kelley’s (1967) covariation model is the best-known attribution theory. He developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic (dispositional) of the person or the environment (situational).

The term covariation simply means that a person has information from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its causes. He argues that in trying to discover the causes of behavior people act like scientists. More specifically they take into account three kinds of evidence.

● Consensus: the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation. E.g., Alison smokes a cigarette when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If her friend smokes, her behavior is high in consensus. If only Alison smokes, it is low.

● Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, her behavior is high in distinctiveness. If she smokes at any time or place, distinctiveness is low.

● Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, consistency is high. If she only smokes on one special occasion, consistency is low.

Let’s look at an example to help understand his particular attribution theory. Our subject is called Tom. His behavior is laughter. Tom is laughing at a comedian.

1-Consensus If everybody in the audience is laughing, the consensus is high. If only Tom is laughing consensus is low.

2-Distinctiveness If Tom only laughs at this comedian, the distinctiveness is high. If Tom laughs at everything, then distinctiveness is low.

3-Consistency If Tom always laughs at this comedian the consistency is high. If Tom rarely laughs at this comedian, then consistency is low.

Now, if everybody laughs at this comedian, if they don’t laugh at the comedian who follows and if this comedian always raises a laugh, then we would make an external attribution, i.e., we assume that Tom is laughing because the comedian is very funny. On the other hand, if Tom is the only person who laughs at this comedian, if Tom laughs at all comedians and if Tom always laughs at the comedian, then we would make an internal attribution, i.e., we assume that Tom is laughing because he is the kind of person who laughs a lot.

So, what we’ve got here is people attributing causality on the basis of correlation. That is to say, we see that two things go together and we, therefore, assume that one causes the other. One problem, however, is that we may not have enough information to make that kind of judgment. For example, if we don’t know Tom that well, we wouldn’t necessarily have the information to know if his behavior is consistent over time. So, what do we do then?

According to Kelley we fall back on past experience and look for either:

1) Multiple necessary causes. For example, we see an athlete win a marathon, and we reason that she must be very fit, highly motivated, have trained hard etc., and that she must have all of these to win.

2) Multiple sufficient causes. For example, we see an athlete fail a drug test, and we reason that she may be trying to cheat or have taken a banned substance by accident or been tricked into taking it by her coach. Any one reason would be sufficient.

Attributions for health-related behaviors

Attribution theory has been applied to the study of health and health related behaviors. The beliefs and attributions that people hold can influence their health in one of two main ways: first, by affecting their behavior, such as attendance at a screening program; the food they eat; whether they take prescribed medication; and secondly, more directly by affecting a physiological system, such as the immune or cardiovascular systems. These two modes of influence are not mutually exclusive. A patient’s health may also be influenced by the beliefs and attributions of health professionals. These may affect patient outcomes in one of two ways: first, by affecting staff decisions about which medical procedures or treatments to use, and secondly by influencing patients’ cognitions. Although there is general agreement among psychologists that health beliefs and attributions are important in explaining and predicting health behaviors and health outcomes, there is less agreement about which beliefs and attributions are important, and how much of the variance in outcomes they predict.