L9: Attribution Dimensions PDF

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Stephen Drigotas...

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Attribution Dimensions- trying to explain why people do things ! • Stable: constant thing, predictable in the future! • Unstable: one time thing, unpredictable in the future! • Internal: give credit to yourself; trying to assign cause of someone’s behavior to the person! ◦ Stable- personality & traits: I get an A on the exam, give myself the credit and it was all my work! ◦ Unstable- temporary mood/motivation: Bad grade on an exam, because you woke up in a terrible mood that day and it affected your exam, something about yourself that you don’t expect to happen again! • External: give credit to something outside of yourself; trying to assign cause of someone’s behavior to the situation or external factors ! ◦Stable- re-occurring situation: I get a D on the exam, Professor’s fault, he is horrible, your failure is the result of something outside of you ◦ Unstable- unpredictable situation: I get a D on the exam, there was a distraction- the person sitting next to you is tapping and it drives you crazy! • Have a tendency to make internal attributions about other people’s behaviors- other people act they way they do because of something inside them so that we can predict their behavior in the future and so we don’t have to consider external factors (attribution bias)! • Attributions are complex ! ! Attribution Theories! • Heider’s Levels of Responsibility- make a strong internal attribution about somebody else’s behavior; can we make an internal attribution to a person’s behavior? kind of like building a legal argument and finding evidence! ◦ Association- see who could be associated with the behavior! ◦ Causation- decide which particular person caused a behavior! ◦ Forseeability- could this person foresee the effects of their behavior? ! ◦ Intentionality- did they intend to do something even if they understood the effects?! ◦ Justifiability- did they have any justification for their action? - allows for an external reason for their behavior ! ◦Scenario: Walking through breezeway and someone throws a snowball at you and hits you in the head so you want to figure out who did it! ‣ Association: Turn around and see 3 people - possible culprits! ‣ Causation: One of them is empty handed and shaking off the snow while the other 2 have snowballs in their hands and determine that the empty handed one is the cause! ‣ Forseeability: Could the culprit forsee the consequences?! • If he is laughing and pointing at you- you assume he was aiming at your head and wanted to hit you ! • If he is waving and apologizing, you assume he did not mean to hit you ! ‣ Intentionality: Did the culprit choose to accept the consequences?! • If he was laughing you assume he did it on purpose and is happy he hit you on the head and you say he’s an asshole! ‣ Justifiability: If the culprit is concluded to have done it on purpose, is there a justifiable reason? ! • Ex. you threw a snowball at him earlier so he was throwing one back for payback which does not make him an asshole ! ◦ Works for both positive and negative scenario! • Correspondent Inference Theory! ◦ Correspondent Inference- how you link a behavior with something inside a person, an attribution ! ◦ A behavior corresponds to something about a person internally - determine what this one attribute is ! ◦ Ability to compare actual behavior and other potential behaviors! ‣ there are common effects (similar aspects) that are common among all potential behaviors! ‣ the non common effects are unique among each potential behavior ! • Use this effect for making a clear internal attribution if there is only one! • Multiple non common effects makes it difficult to isolate cause of behavior! ◦ Wanting to make an internal attribution ! ◦ Based on what a person did and what they didn’t do ! ◦ Talks about how when we know how a person behaves we also know how a person could have behaved and acted! ◦ Ex. Professor Drigotas supporting Maine competitor in Miss Teen USA but the top 3 had common effects: all were attractive, intelligent and could sing, but the one non-common effect, the fact that she was from Maine influenced him, has to be only one non-common effect because you are more likely to make that the internal attribution for the reason you are deciding that ! ◦Ex. applying to colleges: similar ranks, med campus, city schools, but if you find out that one of your parents went to hopkins someone could assume that you when to hopkins because of your parent; when you compare colleges with many differences its hard for someone to make an internal attribution for the predominant reason for your behavior ! ◦ Personalism- Behavior directed at you by somebody else whether it is good/bad or positive/negative has a higher impact because it is directed at us - more likely to make a stronger internal attribution if the behavior is directed at us ! ‣ Ex. someone cutting you off on the highway- you make a strong internal attribution about their driving ability and who they are, but you don’t do that when you see someone else getting cut off and not you ! ‣ Ex. someone sends you flowers, you think the person is nice and must like you but when your friend gets flower you assume that the other person wants something; make a stronger assumption when the behavior is directed at you ! ◦ Hedonism- Making an internal attribution about a behavior that causes you pain or pleasure- behavior isn’t necessarily towards you; more likely to make a stronger internal attribution if the behavior causes us pleasure or pain but not necessarily directed at us ! ‣ Ex. walking down the street and you love dogs but your friend next to you doesn’t, owner comes out of store and hits the dog in the head, you and your friend make different attributions about the dog owner because it caused you pain because you love dogs while your friend is indifferent, behavior wasn’t towards you- he didn’t hit you but it caused you pain and so you make a strong internal attribution! ‣ Ex. Professor had 4-wheel drive and the card swipe to the parking lot wouldn’t work so when 5 other cars were stuck behind him, he decided to go over the curb and after he parked and old lady came and yelled at him, saying that they didn’t do that at hopkins - his behavior affected the old lady even though it wasn’t directed at her and she made an internal attribution about his behavior ! • Kelley’s Cube: 3 dimensions: Consensus, Consistency, Distinctiveness! ◦ Often have more information than we can use to decide whether we will make an internal or external attribution! ◦ Ex. Student walks in 10 minutes late ! ‣ Consensus (social desirability)- how everybody else is behaving in the situation; information about how other people behave in the same situation! If d i h l h h l f k i l ib i

• If everyone is 10 minutes late for some reason, professor will not make an internal attribution! • Social desirability- if action is socially undesirable you are more likely to make an internal attribution; if behavior is socially undesirable and outside the norm we make stronger internal attributions! ‣ Consistency- how person has behaved previously; information about the same person; helps us make internal attribution! • How often is he late? ! • If not a lot, professor assumes it was a one time thing and doesn’t make a strong internal attribution! • If it’s every day that the student comes in late, then the professor makes internal attribution ! ‣ Distinctiveness- how person behaves in similar situations, if the situation is distinct you are less sure of an internal attribution! • Is he late to other things in his life?! • If not, and is always on time to other things, then you conclude the reason is not maybe so much internal to him ! • If he is then you are more likely to conclude it is something about him and that he is a tardy person ! ‣ Not geared to make internal attribution, get a mixed bag of information! • Ex. always late to class but never to meetings but at the same time a lot of people are late to class -> fuzzy internal attribution because it has external factors also ! ‣ Hyder wants to conclude that it is something internal that is the cause just like CIT and personalism and hedonism, but Kelley wants to figure out all bits and pieces of information that makes attributes more complex ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !...