Lecture notes Social Psychology: Attribution (PY1118)
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Course
Social Psychology (PY1118)
Institution
Aston University, Birmingham (Aston)
This document provides well-organized detail about attribution theory.
Attribution: the process by which people use information to make inferences about the causes of their own and other people’s behaviour.
1. Internal attributions: locates the cause as being internal to the person e.g. p...
The Naïve scientist – use scientific explanations to understand behaviour e.g. conducting
experiments and test hypotheses
Heider 1958 – people are motivated by two primary needs
- The need to from a coherent view of the world
- The need to gain control over the environment
To satisfy these needs we act as a naïve scientist: we rationally and logically test hypotheses about
other people’s behaviour
We try to attribute causes to the effects we observe in the social world
Attribution: the process by which people use information to make inferences about the causes of
their own and other people’s behaviour
Heider and Simmel (1944) – demonstrated attribution and naïve scientists
Showed his participants an animation
- 1 participant out of 34 described the film in geometrical terms e.g. a large triangle enters the
rectangle and moves around
- All of the others described the shapes and movements as animate beings (mostly humans)
- Example response: ‘ A man has planned to meet a girl and the girl comes along with another
man. The first man tells the second to go. The second man shakes his head. Then the two
men have a fight.’
Casual attributions help us make sense of a chaotic world. Understanding the causes of behaviours
make it easier for us to predict how people will behave in the future
BUT: this is difficult because people’s behaviour changes in the light of a situation e.g. behaviour
changes depends on context
When making attributions it is important to take account the situation. This means recognise that
any specific behaviour can have an internal cause (disposition) or an external cause (situation)
1. Internal attributions: locates the cause as being internal to the person e.g. personality,
mood, attitudes, abilities or effort
2. External attribution: locates the cause as being external to the person e.g. luck,
circumstances, actions of others
^ 2 ways you can explain someone’s behaviour
Example – Donald Trump makes a weird/rude comment
It can be because of two reasons
Internal attribution: He is a creep. External attribution: he mis-spoke
Example – Toni is late for a meeting
Internal attribution: Toms a bad time-keeper External attribution: There must have been a traffic jam
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