Social Cognition

ATTRIBUTION OF CAUSALITY

Theories of attribution

Theory of naïve psychology: Heider (1958)

Commonsense or naïve ‘theories’ about behaviour are based on two sources:

• the person – internal or dispositional factors, such as a person’s beliefs

• the situation – external or situational factors, such as social norms or luck.

Dispositional attributions are preferred (fundamental attribution error, FAE).

Research evidence

Heider and Simmel (1944) found that participants described objects (e.g. triangles) in a film in anthropomorphic terms, indicating our tendency to infer ‘personalities’ even when no causation could possibly be involved.

Ross et al. (1977) demonstrated the FAE. Observers rated questioners (quiz participants who made up the questions) as superior to answerers, a dispositional attribution even when situational factors were clearly involved.

Evaluation

• Not a true theory of attribution but inspired others to formulate theories.

• FAE is not universal 

Correspondent inference theory: Jones and Davis (1965)

We infer that an individual has a corresponding disposition when a behaviour is: intentional, unusual, low in social desirability, has personalism and/or hedonic relevance.

Research evidence

Jones and Harris (1967) showed that participants judged an essay writer’s opinion to be the same as expressed in their essay (pro- or anti-Castro) even if the raters knew the essay was written under no-choice conditions.

Evaluation

• Attribution may be more complex in real life. Jones and Nisbett (1971) gave additional information about essayists’ opinions affecting judgements.

• Some behaviours are not intentional (e.g. clumsiness) but seen as dispositional.

• Some behaviours confirm expectations (e.g. stereotypes) but they lead to correspondent inferences.

Covariation model: Kelley (1967)

Kelley proposed that attributions are based on covariations:

• consistency – e.g. John always laughs at this comedian (high consistency)

• distinctiveness – e.g. John laughs at just this comedian (high distinctiveness)

• consensus – e.g. everyone laughs at this comedian (high consensus).

External attributions are made when there is sufficient evidence of all three. Internal attributions occur when distinctiveness and consensus are low and consistency is high.

Research evidence

McArthur (1972) used sentences with information (high or low) about all three axes.  Participants attributed external/internal causes predicted.

Evaluation

• The evidence is based on artificially created situations. Real-life is different.

• Possible to explain the results differently, e.g. attending to salient features.

• We often have rather incomplete information.

Causal schemata: Kelley (1972)

Causal schemata (heuristics) provide rapid interpretation of ambiguous social data:

• multiple necessary causes – a group of behaviours are jointly necessary   

• multiple sufficient causes – attributions are made on the basis of only one instance of behaviour using, e.g. the discounting principle (select most obvious potential cause) or the augmenting principle (a behaviour ‘against the odds’ is given greater weight).

Evaluation

• Can explain how attributions are made when information is incomplete.

• However, the model lacks empirical support.

Three-dimensional model: Weiner (1980)

• Locus: external or internal (E or I).

• Stability: stable or unstable (S or U).

• Controllability: controllable or uncontrollable (C or U).

Evaluation

• Includes other dimensions than just the internal/external.

• The model has interesting applications such as attribution retraining.