Attribution Theory, Attribution Process, and Attribution Biases - Essay Example

 Attribution Theory Abstract Attributions are those grounds of human personality, which distinguishes one individual from another. The theory refers to those personal traits for which an individual claims himself or herself to be successful in life. However, in situations where one feels that he or she has not succeeded in achieving his goals of life or situations which make the person feel like defeated, attribution process takes place. In such situations a person is subjected to various attribution biases and irrespective of the positive or negative influences of attribution, he or she follows self-serving bias. When the individual get use to personality traits influenced by biases, he starts practicing his personal traits in his professional or everyday life, which raises issues which go beyond bias like accuracy and correspondence. Attribution Theory Attribution theory aims at determining the hidden aspect in which people use to interact with each other in context with the understanding of others’ behaviors. This theory helps an individual on a personal as well as collective level to understand human behaviour in detail. For example the theory helps the various causes of interaction between humans, whether it be his or her own behaviour or someone else’s. Attribution theory is based upon those notions that people believe and want to know the reasons behind their understanding for the actions that they and others take. It helps them to attribute and analyze causes to different behaviours they see in their everyday lives rather than assuming and considering such behaviours while taking for granted. This phenomenon assists them in developing some feeling of control over their own behaviours and sometimes over situations they feel complex or critical to take appropriate decisions. The theory was actually proposed by Psychologist Fritz Heider (1896–1988) who believed that it is not important what people perceive about their believes is true or untrue, what matters is that people perceive what they are dictated by others’ acting or behaviours (Attribution, 2008a). At a personal level, attribution theory is central to the individual’s construction of a personal reality. Harvey et al (1978) believed that to a larger extent, the structure and meaning of the events experienced by an individual derive from attribution analyses that are often subtle and complex to understand. Logically, this notion seems to be true because such analyses may at times appear to be fully represented in the person’s consciousness. Such occasions usually focuses only on one end of the process since the other spectrum of the analyses seem to occur partially, if not entirely, out of conscious awareness. The meanings and consequent behaviours following from such analyses often indicate that a logical, rational integration of information has occurred. Attribution theory (AT) reveals about what our senses perceive of the other person whom we are interacting, while assisting that a person can correctly decide what is real and what is not, the theory judges his or her intentions. The theory also determines and analyzes the extent of mental illness, for example a person who attributes reality to things that are not real, or deny reality to things that are real, may be mentally not sound (Harvey et al, 1978, p. 5). AT is used in technical situations where there is a need to assess the sources and reasons of gender effects and their impact of arbitrators’ experience while taking decisions (Bemmels, 1991). It is among the popular theories of social psychology that deals with explaining the behaviour of decision-makers who must decide on a response to the behaviour of other individuals, such as managers responding to the performance of their subordinates and officials in the criminal justice system responding to individuals alleged to have committed an offense. Attribution Process Attribution is a three-stage process which is initiated by noticing and observing the behaviour of an individual. The second stage is fulfilled when the perceiver determines that the behaviour they have observed is deliberate, i.e., the person being observed must believed to have behaved intentionally. The third stage is when the observer attributes the observed behaviour to either internal or external causes; internal causes are attributed to the person being observed, while external causes are attributed to outside factors. For example, evidence suggests that parents are more willing to tolerate misbehaviour in a child with medically verifiable pain than in a child who presents with medically unverifiable pain or depression based on the attribution that misbehaviour on the part of the child with verifiable pain was caused by external rather than internal factors. Attributions are also considered as ‘biased’ in situations when habitual gamblers characteristically explain winning as ‘dispositional’ and losses ‘situational’. That means attribution biases refer to those critical conditions in which one ascribe winning to personal skill while in case of some loss due to bad luck, he or she blames the external factors. Bias conditions are dependant upon differential experiences that accounts for the development of lifestyle-maintaining biased attributions, such biases may also explain why some people are more willing to take risks than others (Walters, 2000, p. 63). Attribution Biases Attribution bias (AB), according to scientists represents certain kind of interaction based upon manifestations of fear. AB is subjected to people who are confronted to high fear of failure or who experience what is known as imposter fear, whereby they do not believe that they merit a particular status or job, attribute their success to external influences and accordingly suffer from low self-confidence. For example, those parents who are found guilty of abusing their children after confessing a bias attribute the positive actions of their children to external factors and the negative actions to internal characteristics. It is easy to see how attribution bias can maintain a pattern based on fear of failure or fear of physical punishment when the individual is locked in a pattern of self-handicapping behaviour and negativity, from which there seems to be no escape (Walters, 2000, p. 64). Self serving Bias Self-serving bias is the personal ability of an individual to relate positive outcomes to themselves whereas negative outcomes to external events. Theorists relate ‘Lifestyle theory’ to define and substitute the stability and globality dimensions for the locus dimension in explaining self-serving bias (SSB). SSB is influenced by those factors which are characterized by the positive outcomes as related to internal, stable, and global causes while negative outcomes are attributed to internal, unstable, and specific causes. However SSB does not relate to the stability and globality to be extreme, however, since self-organization is a perpetual process that requires continued input designed to promote change. SSB can be utilized positively whenever there is a need to achieve the specificity of self efficacy and the globality, this way general confidence is necessary if one’s goal is to achieve a dynamic balance of stability and self-organization. People usually possess a potent motivation to make sense of their social worlds, even if making sense of their social worlds sometimes leaves them feeling personally impotent, unmotivated, insensible, or unsociable (Kramer et al, 1999, p. 120). This is what related them to attribution biases. Such biases are often expressed in various forms in research on intergroup relations and stereotyping as well as on the self-concept. Example is that of research conducted on social dominance theory which suggests that members of stigmatized groups sometimes adopt attitudes that legitimize status hierarchies and social inequities rather than serve their own self-interest. In reviews of research on stereotyping, social cognition, and intergroup relations it is observed that these group disserving tendencies are highly pervasive and influence a wide variety of social judgments. Moreover, ‘false consciousness’ is the psychological condition that promotes such biases within an individual or we can say that when it comes to both personal and social identities, people appear to be strongly motivated to believe that their worlds are coherent, predictable, and controllable. Accuracy in Attribution Theory Accuracy deals with the degree to which people’s personal and social identities are psychologically distinct, the needs for positive regard and coherence should apply individually to both identities. Thus, regardless of people’s level of personal self-esteem, those who have formed clear evaluations of their groups should make judgments that are consistent with these group evaluations. However people view themselves personally, people who have come to view their groups unfavourably might be predisposed to view their fellow in group members in a relatively unfavourable fashion. Such established findings raise the concern for how low levels of self-certainty are associated with self-enhancement may have important implications for the pervasiveness of in-group favouritism in the minimal intergroup paradigm. The uncertain nature which is generated within groups present a clear picture before us to believe that people are so ready to make group-serving judgments about these groups. This raises questions concerning the relative likelihood that depends upon attribution biases and will be guided by expectations or affected by standard shifts. For example, when choosing between two objectively equal job applicants, one male and one female, will an employer who accepts traditional gender stereotypes be affected by his pro-male bias and hire the male, or will he be impressed that this particular woman has surpassed his (low) expectations for female competence and hire her? One factor that may determine which phenomenon occurs is the type of judgment being made. The status characteristics model focuses specifically on how target gender affects judges’ tendency to make an inference or attribution of ability (Lee et al, 1995, p. 106). The shifting standards model, on the other hand, has more to do with meeting minimum requirements or thresholds to qualify for a position or category label. Thus, the sexist employer might be more impressed by the female candidate, who has surprisingly exceeded his low expectations but may nonetheless be unlikely to make the attribution that her success is due to her ability. Fundamental Attribution Error Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) or correspondence bias suggests the notion that correspondence particularly complicates the question of stereotype accuracy when the apparently same content may not mean the same thing to actor and perceiver. While over estimating their internal factors and under estimating external factors, people with FAE continue with the same example of sociability, some people may see themselves as sociable even if they agree with statements such as they would prefer a quiet evening at home to attending a social event. According to the research conducted by Alicke (1996) the conditions under which dispositional generalizations are alleviated are associated with conducting two experimental paradigms. One is the attitude attribution while the other is the questioner-contestant paradigm. In order to evaluate the true accuracy about FAE, a target’s behaviour is constrained by random assignment (Alicke et al, 1996). “Despite knowing that targets were randomly assigned to express predetermined views or enact social roles, participants continue to ascribe attitudes consistent with the position targets advocated or the role they enacted” (Alicke et al, 1996). This finding has been named as correspondence bias or the FAE which does not depend upon participants’ personal attitudes, or the strength of the constraint. Self-fulfilling Prophecy Many psychologists believe that self-fulfilling prophecy starts from the point where self-esteem is considered to act like an independent variable from one point of view while a dependant variable from another point of view (Mruk, 2006, p. 94). Self-fulfilling prophecy (SFP) is a prediction that either appears to be true or false. However SFP upholds various definitions shaped by history among which the most common one says that it presents before us a false picture of the situation that evokes a new behavior by making the originally false conception come true (Jones, 1977, p. 4). The psychological aspect of SFP declares the hidden expectation behind an individual’s motive that leads to its own fulfilment. It is not limited to be applicable to expectations of negative events or to events with punitive consequences. Psychologists believe that SFP has something to do with interpersonal expectations that appear unconsciously, under many circumstances, to influence both the behaviour of the person holding the expectation and the behaviour of the person about whom the expectation is held. In thinking about all of the verbal and nonverbal cues and manoeuvre we employ that communicate to others, often unintentionally, what we expect of them refers to the totally purposeless interactions between people. Since people usually interact with each other for some purpose or reason, much of what is involved in the various interpersonal tactics and strategies, the assumption of roles and the attempts to maneuver others into complementary roles, the variations in self-presentation can be seen as attempts to achieve their own goals and purposes (Jones, 1977, p. 5). Thus, if individual goal attainment were an operative factor behind interpersonal self-fulfilling prophecies it is not beneficial to overlook those variables that influence individual goal-setting and goal-directed behaviour. The development of positive self-esteem is difficult under situations which follow prolong impression management, the continuity of impression management develops low self-esteem among individuals which increases sensitivity to threats or even increases possibility of threats. If remain untreated, SFP leads to more serious difficulties including the development of abnormal or pathological behaviour (Mruk, 2006, p. 147). In short, AT focuses on how people while utilizing their common sense, account for their own and others’ thoughts and actions while attribution biases concern with commonsense explanations of moral development (Thomas, 1997, p. 34). References Alicke D. Mark, Zerbst I. Jennifer & Loschiavo M. Frank, (1996) “Personal Attitudes, Constraint Magnitude and Correspondence Bias” In: Basic and Applied Social Psychology. Volume: 18. Issue: 2. Attribution, 2008a Accessed from Bemmels Brian, (1991) “Attribution Theory and Discipline Arbitration” In: Industrial & Labor Relations Review. Volume: 44. Issue: 3. Harvey H. John, Ickes William & Kidd F. Robert, (1978) New Directions in Attribution Research. Volume: 2: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ. Jones A. Russell, (1977) Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Social, Psychological, and Physiological Effects of Expectancies: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ. Kramer M. Roderick, Tyler R. Tom & John P. Oliver, (1999) The Psychology of the Social Self: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ. Lee Yueh-Ting, Jussim J. Lee & McCauley R. Clark, (1995) Stereotype Accuracy: Toward Appreciating Group Differences: American Psychological Association: Washington, DC. Mruk J. Christopher, (2006) Self-Esteem Research, Theory, and Practice: Toward a Positive Psychology of Self-Esteem: Springer: New York. Thomas R. Murray, (1997) Moral Development Theories Secular and Religious: A Comparative Study: Greenwood Press: Westport, CT. Walters D. Glenn, (2000) The Self-Altering Process: Exploring the Dynamic Nature of Lifestyle Development and Change: Praeger Publishers: Westport, CT. Read More