Attribution Theory (Weiner)
Weiner developed a theoretical framework that has become very influential in social psychology today. Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why people do what they do, that is, interpret causes to an event or behaviour. A three-stage process underlies an attribution:
Behaviour must be observed/perceived.
Behaviour must be determined to be intentional
Behaviour attributed to internal or external causes
Weiner’s attribution theory is mainly about achievement. According to him, the most important factors affecting attributions are ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Attributions are classified along three causal dimensions:
Locus of control (two poles: internal vs. external)
Stability (do causes change over time or not?)
Controllability (causes one can control such as skills vs. causes one cannot control such as luck, others’ actions, etc.)
When one succeeds, one attributes successes internally (“my own skill”). When a rival succeeds, one tends to credit external (e.g. luck). When one fails or makes mistakes, we will more likely use external attribution, attributing causes to situational factors rather than blaming ourselves. When others fail or make mistakes,
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Firstly, he / she can ascribe the reason for such barriers to the fact that his / her boss does not understand the language the employee speaks. This might sound sentimental and parochial but it just simply portrays a case of the employee deriving an external attribution. On the other hand, and quite rarely, the employee may decide to take full responsibility and ascribe the blame to him / her. Here the employee believes that that fact that there is a language barrier stems from the fact that the employee fails to understand the language of the boss. In such a case, the employee quickly makes adjustments and this particular communication problem is solved rather
The book defines Locus of control a reflection of whether people attribute the causes of events to themselves or to the external environment. Neurotic people tend to hold an external locus of control, meaning that they often believe that the events that occur around them are driven by luck, chance, or fate. Less neurotic people tend to hold an internal locus of control, meaning that they believe that their own behavior dictates events (Colquitt, J. A., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. 2017).
Thought processes can greatly influence people's social interactions, and the way that they live their lives. Cognitions develop how people perceive themselves and others on a daily basis. It is important to investigate how people attribute actions and behaviors exhibited, not only by themselves, but also those around them. These attributions shape the way an observer feels and reacts to others, and how people feel about themselves due to their own actions. The correspondence bias (fundamental attribution error) and the self-serving bias are two errors made in attribution by virtually every human being (Baron & Byrne, 2000). Both of these biases can be shown not only in adults, but also children (Guern, 1999). Even sport spectators display these biases when watching their favorite teams (Wann & Schrader, 2000). When the self-serving bias is absent in people's cognitions, they will show the self-defeating attributions. It is important to study people that demonstrate self-defeating attributions, because these individuals also show symptoms of depression (Wall & Hayes, 2000). Clearly, attributions are an imperative aspect of social cognition. Attributional bias is discussed by Marie Beesley. It is also important to investigate the factors that affect people's judgment biases in decision making and reasoning skills, which is explored by Amanda Wheeler. Because these two processes are so vital to the way in which people perceive themselves and others, and to the way a person chooses to behave, it is important to understand the factors that can cause inaccurate judgments. Judgment biases affect the way people form conclusions and make attributions about others, as well as abou...
Failure and learning have a complicated, yet important relationship with each other. In ‘A Nation of Wimps’, Hara Marano writes about through trial and error humans can become successful. An article by Robert I. Sutton of the Harvard Business Review, talks about a method of learning from failures. Dr. Everett Piper describes in the article ‘This is Not a Day Care. It’s a University!’ that students who do not repent their sins can not learn from them. In the speech ‘This is Water’, by David Wallace he explains how learning to think is in a way knowing what to think about. An article by Bob Lenz titled ‘Failure Is Essential to Learning’ addresses the notion that failure is a key importance in the process of learning. Failure is an essential and important step in the difficult process of learning.
Margaret Mead said in her quote that people recognize other people’s success from afar, but when people succeed who are close to the people who are recognizing the people’s success from afar, don’t typically recognize those close around them, and could see those people as threats. For example, during sports competitions, such as swimming. I may look at a swimmer like Ryan Lochte and recognize his success and have tremendous respect for him. On the other hand, if there was another swimmer that I swam against, and that particular swimmer won a race, I may not recognize that he won that race, I may view him as a threat. If I do view him as a threat, I may not like him and could possibly develop hatred towards him just because he beat me. Some may be shocked at how often this happens in sports. It seems that whenever someone that you don’t particularly know makes an accomplishment, more people tend to celebrate that accomplishment. Meanwhile, if someone locally makes an accomplishment some people may be reluctant to congratulate. Perhaps, people are more likely to celebrate someone else’s accomplishment from afar because that person may know that they will never see that person in their life, which is a very real possibility. Those who succeed locally, some may not recognize, based on the fact that oneself hasn’t accomplished that particular goal, which could cause
Attribution theory explains people motives by giving an option of disposition or situation, of which we decipher the motive to a behavior. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to link behaviors with personal characteristics, therefore if someone is murdered a suspect could be someone who really hates them because it gives them a motive. We can characterize a dispositional situation from a situational and come to a conclusion on why someone had a such behavior, and it helps to find a motive based on that. We can infer a motive from a behavior from things like external and internal attributions, so internal traits and responses to things.
In a situation where an individual lingers over how a consequence would have been different if they did things contrarily, is also known as upward counterfactual. It is where there is a higher intent to prepare, higher determination and overall enhanced performance. More so, this is a result of dissatisfaction with current performance and a motivation to improve outcome (Markman & McMullen, 2003), by coming up with new ways. It is often linked with an increment in self-efficacy through individual experiences that are usually tied with emotions of regret or disappointment. Contrariwise, downward counterfactual recognizes how a consequence may possibly be unpleasant and adverse than the actual outcome. It is where individuals identifies and are satisfied with what they have, knowing that it could have been otherwise (McCrea, 2008). This gives rise to emotions shifting from happiness to being at ease (Galinsky & Moskowitz,
After reading Failure is Not an Option by Nathan Wallace, we ponder whether failure is beneficial or not. However, after reading the passage, we stumble upon a quote where Wallace says “Failure is always an option. Failure can lead to great learning and progress when a specific failure is analyzed through the lens of a growth mindset.”
The self-serving bias is the tendency for an athlete to accommodate to factors that paint the athlete in a favorable light. In the athletic realm, individuals portray the self-serving bias to foster future, effective performance in a sport. Whereas an athlete will attribute positive events to the doing of themselves, an athlete will attribute negative events to the doing of others. Although an individual may be inaccurate when imputing a factor, the self-serving bias is a method by which an individual safeguards esteem. It is this protection of esteem that is paralleled in the attribution theory. For instance, an athlete uses the self-serving bias to attribute success as a byproduct of the team. On the other hand, the athlete uses the self-serving
It is important for us humans to know that we must take full responsibility for our actions and maturely deal with any consequences that those actions may lead to. According to Ryon and Gleason (2013), “the first conceptualization of control was developed in 1966 by Rotter,” which is currently referred to as locus of control. Rotter defined locus of control as “the degree to which an individual expects that a contingent relationship exists between one’s behaviors and outcomes” (Ryon & Gleason, 2013). Fournier and Jeanrie reference Rotter’s study by explaining the two types of locus of control: “external control” and “internal control” (as cited in Rotter, 1966, p. 1). The purpose of Rotter’s theory was to examine “what causes reinforcement” whether it be an intrinsic or extrinsic factor (Kormanik & Rocco, 2009). Rotter measured “people’s general control expectancies” by using what is known as the “Internal-External Locus of Control Scale” (Fournier & Jeanrie, 2003).
Analyzing that phrase you can assume that those individuals who have mastered in what they specify , whether its sports or academically related , have made many mistakes along the way. You should not be afraid of failure , as it helps one learn from past mistakes. Being able to recover from failure shows how dedicated
The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) is a concept within social psychology that assumes when someone is aggressive, it is due to a flaw in their personality as opposed to a reaction to their personal circumstances (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2015). However, there is typically a situational reason for the other person’s behavior that is not taken into account through the FAE (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2015). I have been guilty of making the FAE myself; for example, I can think of two situations where my frustration led me to believe that there were flaws in my antagonists’ characters. Recently, my mother wanted me to assist my brother in scheduling classes for the semester. Since I was annoyed that my mother was insisting that I assist him when
How the Attribution Theory in an attempt to assign meaning/understanding to events on the basis of eith...
The language barrier is potentially high in situations where cultures are widely differing and languages may not even share a common alphabet, for example between the West and China, making it extremely difficult for expatriates to acquire a high degree of language ability (Selmer, 2006)
Attribution theory suggests that when we observe an individual's behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused. That determination depends largely on three factors: distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency. Our perceptions of people differ from our perceptions of inanimate objects.
Festinger developed the theory after observing interactions among social groups while he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His observations led to his analyzes on how certain groups interact with one another and how individuals are influenced through behavioral norms and expectations. Festinger’s Social Comparison theory is a framework that provides