Attributions are inferences that people make about the causes of events and behavior. People make attributions in order to understand their experiences. Attributions strongly influence the way people interact with others.
Types of Attributions
Researchers classify attributions along two dimensions: internal vs. external and stable vs. unstable. By combining these two dimensions of attributes, researchers can classify a particular attribution as being internal-stable, internal-unstable, external-stable, or external-unstable
Internal vs. External
Attribution theory proposes that the attributions people make about events and behavior can be classed as either internal or external. In an Internal, or dispositional, Attribution, people infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings. In an External, or situational, Attribution, people infer that a person’s behavior is due to situational factors.
Example: Maria’s car breaks down on the freeway. If she believes the breakdown happened because of her ignorance about cars, she is making an internal attribution. If she believes that the breakdown happened because her car is old, she is making an external attribution.
Stable vs. Unstable
Researchers also distinguish between stable and unstable attributions. When people make a Stable Attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to stable, unchanging factors. When making an Unstable Attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to unstable, temporary factors.
Example: Lee gets a D on his sociology term paper. If he attributes the grade to the fact that he always has bad luck, he is making a stable attribution. If he attributes the grade to the fact that he didn’t have much time to study that week, he is making an unstable attribution.
Attribution Bias
When people make an attribution, they are guessing about the causes of events or behaviors. These guesses are often wrong. People have systematic biases, which lead them to make incorrect attributions. These biases include the fundamental attribution error, the self-serving bias, and the just world hypothesis.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
The Fundamental Attribution Error is the tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to internal factors such as personality traits, abilities, and feelings. The fundamental attribution error is also called the correspondence bias, because it is assumed that other people’s behavior corresponds to their personal attributes. When explaining their own behavior, on the other hand, people tend to attribute it to situational factors.
Example: Alexis falls asleep in class. Sean attributes her behavior to laziness. When he fell asleep in class last week, however, he attributed his own behavior to the all-nighter he pulled finishing a term paper.
The Self-Serving Bias
The Self-Serving Bias is the tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to situational factors. This bias tends to increase as time passes after an event. Therefore, the further in the past an event is, the more likely people are to congratulate themselves for successes and to blame the situation for failures.
Example: Chad wins a poetry competition but fails to get the poem published in a magazine he sent it to. He attributes his success in the competition to his talent. He attributes his failure to get it published to bad luck.