Theories of causal attribution: definition and authors

These theoretical proposals describe the way in which we seek causes for everything we observe.

Social psychology attempts to describe the laws that regulate the interaction between people and their influence on behavior, thought and emotion.

From this branch of psychology, theories have been formulated about how we explain our own behavior and that of others, as well as the events that happen to us; these models are known as "causal attribution theories"..

Heider's theory of causal attribution.

Austrian Fritz Heider formulated in 1958 the first theory of causal attribution to explain the factors that influence our perception of the causes of events..

Heider believed that people act like 'naive scientists': we connect events with unobservable causes to understand the behavior of others and to predict future events, thus gaining a sense of control over the environment. However, we tend to make simple causal attributions that take into account mostly one type of factor.

Heider's attributional model distinguishes between internal or personal attributions and external or environmental attributions.. While ability and motivation to perform behaviors are internal factors, luck and task difficulty stand out among situational causes.

If we attribute our own behavior to internal causes, we take responsibility for it, whereas if we believe that the cause is external, this does not happen.

Jones and Davis's theory of corresponding inferences.

The attribution theory of Edward E. Jones and Keith Davis was proposed in 1965. The central concept of this model is that of "corresponding inference," which refers to the generalizations we make about how other people will behave. generalizations we make about how other people will behave in the future based on how we have explained their behavior. based on how we have explained their previous behavior.

Essentially, Jones and Davis argued that we make corresponding inferences when we believe that certain behaviors of a person are due to the way they are. To make these attributions, we first need to be able to assert that the person had the intention and ability to carry out the action.

Once the attribution of intention has been made, there will be a greater probability that we will also make a dispositional attribution if the evaluated behavior has effects that are not common with other behaviors that could have occurred, if it is socially frowned upon, if it strongly affects the actor (hedonic relevance) and if it is directed at the person making the attribution (personalism).

Kelley's model of covariation and configuration

Harold Kelley formulated a theory in 1967 that distinguishes between causal attributions based on a single behavioral observation and those based on multiple observations.

According to Kelley, if we have made only one observation the attribution is made on the basis of the configuration of possible causes of the behavior. For this we use causal schemasbeliefs about the types of causes that bring about certain effects.

The multiple sufficient causes scheme, which is applied when an effect can be due to one of several possible causes, and the multiple necessary causes scheme, according to which several causes must concur for an effect to occur, stand out. The first of these schemes is usually applied to usual events and the second to more infrequent ones.

In contrast, when we have information from a variety of sources, we will attribute the event to the person, circumstances or stimulus based on consistency, distinctiveness and consensus about the behavior.

Specifically, we more readily attribute an event to the actor's personal dispositions when consistency is high (the person reacts the same in different circumstances), distinctiveness is low (he behaves the same way in the face of multiple stimuli) and consensus is low (other people do not perform the same behavior).

Weiner's causal attribution

Bernard Weiner's causal attribution theory of 1979 proposes that we distinguish causes according to three bipolar dimensions: stability, controllability and locus of control. Each event would be located at a certain point of these three dimensions, giving rise to eight possible combinations.

The stability and instability poles refer to the duration of the cause. Likewise, events can be totally controllable or uncontrollable, or be located somewhere in between in this dimension. Finally, locus of control refers to whether the event is primarily due to internal or external factors; this dimension is equivalent to Heider's attribution theory.

Different people may make different causal attributions for the same event; for example, while for some people failing an exam would be due to a lack of ability (internal and stable cause), for others it would be a consequence of the difficulty of the exam (external and unstable cause). These variations have a key influence a key influence on expectations and self-esteem..

• You may be interested in, "What is locus of control?"

Attributional biases

Very often we make causal attributions in a logically flawed way. This is largely due to the presence of attributional biases, systematic distortions in the way we process information when interpreting the causes of events. when interpreting the causes of events.

1. Fundamental attribution error

The fundamental attribution error refers to the human tendency to attribute behaviors to factors internal to the person performing them, ignoring or minimizing the influence of situational factors.

2. Differences between actor and observer

While we tend to attribute our own behaviors to circumstances and environmental factors, we interpret the same behaviors in others as a consequence of their personal characteristics.

3. False consensus and false peculiarity

People think that others have opinions and attitudes more similar to ours than they really are; we call this the "false consensus bias".

There is a complementary bias, the false peculiarity bias, whereby we tend to believe that others have opinions and attitudes that are more similar to ours than they really are.This is where we tend to believe that our positive qualities are unique or uncommon even when they are not.

4. Egocentric attribution

The concept 'egocentric attribution' refers to the fact that we overestimate our contributions in collaborative tasks. Also We also remember our own contributions more than those of others..

5. Pro-self bias

The pro-self bias, also called self-serving or self-sufficiency bias, refers to our natural tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external causes.refers to our natural tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external causes.

The self-serving bias protects self-esteem. It has been found to be much less marked or to occur in a reverse direction in people with a tendency to depression; this is the basis of the concept 'depressive realism'.