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In this article we will discuss about Attribution. After reading this article you will learn about: 1. Meaning of Attribution 2. Bias in Attribution Process.
Meaning of Attribution:
Attribution refers to the processes through which people in a society try to determine the causes behind other’s behaviour. Why a person behaves in this way and not in that way, why he changes his perception of the same person from time to time and such related questions come under the purview of the process of attribution. In a society we interact and live with other people because man is gregarious by nature.
Therefore we often think about other people whom we know, whom we like or dislike. We try to find out why he behaved like this, why he is so moody or emotionally unstable. Is he a very dishonest person? Why he insulted his son in front of so many persons? He must have less E.Q. (Emotional quotient) and so on.
Will this person make a good colleague and so on. All these thinking are about other persons around us are called Social thought.
Attribution is an important aspect of social thought and influences social perception. Once I was standing in a queue to pay my telephone bill when all of a sudden a lady pushed me to the back and stood in front of me to pay the bill. She even did not regret for what she did.
Initially I was very angry and also wanted to give her a push. But then I thought probably she must be in a hurry to go somewhere else urgently, that’s why she did this and so I checked my anger and remained silent.
Thus, one perceives the causes of another person’s behaviour by attributing several reasons i.e., whether she is actually like this or her behaviour has been triggered by some external factors. The way we attribute the cause of one’s behaviour, determines our social perception about that person. So it is not just what the lady did matters, but my perception as to why she did this matters.
The process through which people try to find out the causes of others behaviour, why people behave or react differently in different situations and at different times is popularly known as attribution. Attribution is quite an orderly and systematic process because through it we find out the genuine causes behind other’s behaviour and on the basis of these causes we arrive at a decision about the person.
In order to find the genuine causes, we have to first find out if his behaviour is determined by Internal or External causes. Internal causes of behaviour are one’s own personality traits and characteristics, intentions and motives.
External Causes refer to factors beyond one’s control such as lack or pressure from the environment. To know if one’s behaviour is determined by external factors or internal factors the social psychologist has to find out whether other people also behave in the same way in a similar situation as X behaved, which is known as consensus, whether this behaviour of ‘X’ is repeated on several other times, which is known as Consistency and whether ‘X’ behaves in the same manner in different situations, it means distinctiveness. The consensus is said to be low if very few people act like ‘X’.
The consistency is high if ‘X’ behaves in the same manner in different situations. In such a situation it can be concluded that the behaviour of ‘X’ is influenced by internal causes or his behaviour is determined by his personality factors.
If a person always and with everybody behaves roughly arid it is not a normal reaction to the situation, it is concluded that by nature he is rude and uncivilized. On the contrary, if all the three factors are high in a person we will conclude that his behaviour like this is due to external causes for which he is not responsible or he has no other choice, but to act like that in that situation.
Bias in Attribution Process:
The process of attribution is subject to several kinds of errors. However experiences and evidences show biases in the process of attribution. It is a general tendency not to see faults with the situation, but with the person while trying to trace the causes of actions of another person.
It is a major bias in social perception, where too much importance is attached to the behaviour and its effects and too little to its situational context.
This is why events that are really externally controlled are seen as under the person’s own control and so he is made responsible for his behaviour and not the situation which made him to behave like that. An antisocial person tried to rape a woman. She fought a lot to save herself, but when could not, she killed the man.
Now the woman is blamed for the murder and punished. But under what circumstances she was pressurised to murder, why such an innocent person without any previous bad record murdered the rapist etc., nobody cares to know. This is because of the error in attribution process.
Major Sources of Bias Found in Attribution Process:
1. The Correspondence Bias:
It is the tendency to attribute behaviour to internal causes to a greater extent than is actually justified. It is known as the fundamental attribution error which refers to our strong tendency attributed to internal (dispositional) causes to explain one’s behaviour even in the presence of clear external causes (situational).
This may be by nature we do not give more emphasis to external factors, but blame the internal characteristics of the person. This tendency to emphasize internal personality qualities as the cause of a behaviour is universal or is it determined by cultural factors? Many research findings show that it is determined by culture.
It is viewed that in individualistic cultures which emphasize individual freedom like in Western Europe or North America correspondence bias is more prevalent than in collectivistic cultures which emphasize conformity, group membership and interdependence.
In a study conducted by Choi and Nisbett (1998) it was found that U.S. students showed the correspondence bias more strongly while the Korean students showed correspondence bias to a much lesser degree. This proves the role played by cultural factors in producing bias in attribution.
2. The Self Serving Bias:
It is our tendency to attribute positive outcomes to our qualities and traits (internal causes) but negative outcomes to external causes (factor beyond our control). We often think that we the in-group can never do any wrong, but they the “out-group” can never do right. This attitude is called the self serving bias which may be caused due to cognitive and motivational factors.
Suppose you secured a C grade in exam and you blame the teacher “he is partial to me because I pointed out his mistake”. You blame your parents for note sending you to coaching class. Thus the external factors are blamed.
But when you get a ‘A’ grade, you say that it is because of your talent and your efforts that you got such a high grade. This attitude is commonly found in most individuals though there are a few who do not come under this group. Here internal causes are given the credit.
This type of attributional error is called the self serving bias. Thus it is the general tendency of people to take credit for positive results and put the blame on others for negative outcomes. Some psychologists hold that this tendency may be due to our need for self protection and improvement of self esteem and self image.
Thus the role of motivation is emphasized here. Findings of some studies provide greater support to the motivational view.
This attitude “I m right, you are wrong” is not congenial for good inter personal relationship and may create friction. Is this bias a universal human tendency or varies from culture to culture as found in correspondence bias?
Evidences indicate that the self serving bias is more culturally determined i.e., it is more commonly observed in many western countries (which represent individualistic societies), which emphasize and encourage individual performances more than in collectivistic societies like many Asian and African countries, which emphasize collective or group performances.