Chap 7: Attribution Theory

-Focuses on the ways in which people infer the cause of their own and others' behaviors. For ex: Why did I do that? Why did he/she do it? Why did we/they do it? -We do that so we feel comfortable that we know what is going on.

Heider, Kelley

-People are "naïve scientists." -In everyday activities, people engage in a relatively unsophisticated version of the observation and analysis that social scientists use when conducting lab experiments. -Based on such observation and analysis, people attempt to assign causation and meaning to the actions of others as well as of themselves.

(1) Situational causes (being affected by the environment) (2) Personal causes (influencing things personally) (3) Ability (being able to do something) (4) Effort (trying to do something) (5) Desire (wanting to do) (6) Sentiment (feeling like it) (7) Belonging (going along with something) (8) Obligation (feeling you ought to) (9) Permission (being permitted)

Causal attributions or inferences that we make about others' behaviors influence how we behave toward others.

Jae laughed out loud so much in the middle of conversation. Why did he do that? -We try to explain the behavior based on, for example, clues from earlier observations interaction Possible explanations or causal inferences -He has a sense of humor / He is a guy who always tries to draw attention from people. =>(a person attribution) -> Affects how we respond to Jae! -His friend or story was really funny. => (a stimulus attribution) -The circumstance under which the conversation took place was hilarious. => (a circumstance attribution)

An assumption in attribution theory is that people are logical and systematic. But research also found that people are often illogical and biased in their attributions. 1/Fundamental attribution error 2/Ultimate attribution error 3/Ego-defensive, self-serving bias 4/Negativity effects

A tendency to attribute the cause of events to personal qualities/dispositions.

(1) People are not always objective when making inferences about themselves and others. (2) People often make swift judgments based on overt clues and emotional factors (3) People generally feel insensitive to circumstantial factors/contexts that cause events when considering others' behavior (observer - "taken out of context"). (4) People generally are sensitive to circumstances when considering their own behavior (actor)

Intercultural communicators are particularly likely to commit the "ultimate attribution error." We view negative acts committed by outgroup members as a stable trait of the outgroup, and view positive acts committed by outgroup members as exceptions to normal behavior. -While fundamental attribution error is about an individual, ultimate attribution error is about a group of people.

People with ultimate attribution error tend to see members of other races or religions as genetically and/or dispositionally inferior or flawed, while people from their own racial or religious ingroup, upon committing the same negative behaviors, are good people who are dealing with specific situations the best they can. Conversely, people who commit this error see positive acts from outgroup members as exceptions to the rule, or attribute these positive actions to unfair advantages, by which the outgroup member is "privileged" (e.g., affirmative action).

-We tend to attribute our successes to internal sources (e.g., ability and motivation) and attribute failures outward to such factors as bad luck or unusual task difficulty. -We make these biased attributions in order to preserve a positive image of ourselves.

-When presented with both positive and negative information about a person, the negative information assumes an inordinate weight in the formation of an overall impression of the person. -Since people expect positive things to occur in everyday lives, negative instances tend to stand out more. -People are also sensitive to potential threats in their environments for purposes

Attribution is influenced by schemata and heuristics that are sensitive to language and culture. (1). Culture provides structures of expectations (often in the form of frames, scripts, and schemata). (2). We derive our inferences of self and other's behaviors based on these structures of expectations. (3). Different cultures provide different structures of expectations. Therefore, our inferences of self and other's behaviors are influenced by culturally different structures of expectations. -Thus, the same phenomenon can mean something different to two observers, depending on the "biases" they use to interpret the information.

High-context culture (HCC) members are, for example, predisposed toward situational features and situationally based explanations.

Low context culture (LCC) members are predisposed toward dispositional characteristics and dispositionally based explanations.

IVs: Ability in attribution Accuracy/bias in attribution DVs: Appropriateness in response Being Comfortable