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Attribution Theory of Social Psychology

In order to understand what attribution theory explains, it is really important to know what socialpsychology is, what a psychologist studies and how it is relevant in the present scenario. Let me

put some light on the subject.

Social psychology is a vast subject. It includes Schemata theory, Self-verification theory, Socialidentity theory, Triangular theory of Love, Drive theory and various others. Attribution theory isone of the categories of social psychology which was put forward by Fritz Heider, Harold Kelley

and Edward E. Jones. This theory explains the way a person interprets the causes of events, thebehavior of himself and others too. gorge

Social PsychologySocialpsychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are

influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others (American psychologist,Gordon Allport, 1985).This, of course, does not mean that social psychology explains everysocial trouble; instead, there are various other ways to determine the social phenomenon. Bystudying people's perceptions and motives, we can comprehend why various social cults likeracism and sexism exist. Interestingly, by studying people's feelings and thoughts, we can tellwhy and what makes a person fall in love. These findings of socialpsychologists tend to be

empirical and laboratory based theories; rather than general and global. Some of the core issuesrelated to social psychology are:

y Social cognition: This involves the study of cognitive processes to understand others andourselves. It is basically the study of how people process, store and retrieve the sociallyavailable information, and apply the knowledge to various situations in everyday life.

y Self image: Self image in nothing but a mental picture of one's own self which is quiteresistant to change. This change is not only in terms of physical appearance, like height,weight, complexion, sex, etc., but also other aspects like; things learnt in the past eitherby one's experience and mistakes or by others.

y Intelligence quotient (IQ):Intelligence quotient or IQ, as it is generally known, is ascore inferred from certain standardized or psychological tests, to measure the cognitiveabilities of a person.

y Attitude: Attitude is involved in every phase of life; from social perception to discipline.Our attitude is different from our behavior. A perfect example for this would be, havingseen a worthless movie for $15 (our behavior) but still convincing ourself that the moviewas good (our attitude).

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Attribution Theory DefinitionAttribution theory is concerned with how people interpret events and relate them to their thinkingand behavior. It's a cognitive perception which affects theirmotivation. This theory was firstproposed in a book called, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations by Fritz Heider in 1958.According to Heider, men behave as amateur scientists in social situations. He also said that, we

generally explain behavior in two ways; either we attribute the behavior to a person or asituation. Attribution literally means a grant of responsibility. Albeit, the theory was firstproposed by Heider (1958), later Edward E. Jones (1972) and Harold Kelley (1967) developed atheoretical structure, which is now seen as an epitome of social psychology.

The attribution theory by Heider divides the behavior attributes into two parts, external orinternal factors.

y Internal attribution: When an internal attribution is made, the cause of the givenbehavior is within the person, i.e. the variables which make a person responsible likeattitude, aptitude, character and personality.

y External attribution: When an external attribution is made, the cause of the givenbehavior is assigned to the situation in which the behavior was seen. The person

responsible for the behavior may assign the causality to the environment or weather.

In 1967, Kelley tried to explain the way people perceive internal and external attribution. Hetried this, postulating the principle of co-variation. This model was known as Covariation Model.The basic principle of the covariation model states that the effect is attributed to one of thecauses which co-varies over time. It also means that the behavior at various occasions varies.The covariation model considers three major types of information to make an attribution decisionand to observe a person's behavior. The three types of information are:

y Consensus information: This responds to the fact, how people with similar stimulibehave in similar situations. If most people behave alike, i.e. their reactions are shared by

many, the consensus is high. But, if no one or only a few people share the reactions, theconsensus is low.

y Distinctiveness information: This is about, how a person responds to differentsituations. There exists a very low distinctiveness if the person reacts similarly in all ormost of the situations. However, if a person reacts differently in different situations, it issaid that the distinctiveness is high.

y Consistency information: If the response of a person to different stimulus and in variedsituations remains the same, then the consistency is high.

But Kelly's covariation model has some limitations. The most prominent being that, it fails todistinguish between the intentional and unintentional behavior.

Attribution Theory in EducationAlso, known as the Attribution Theory of Motivation, this theory describes how a person'sreasons, alibis and vindications about self or others influence motivation. One of the mostprominent psychologist who focused on The Attribution Theory of Education was BernardWeiner. Mr. Weiner said that all the factors influencing achievement or motivation can be

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classified as effort, ability, luck and level of task difficulty. These factors mainly provide detailsof the things which are under or beyond our control; effort, an unstable factor on which weexercise a great deal of control; ability, a stable factor on which we do not have much control;luck, an unstable factor over which we exercise little control and level of difficulty, a stablefactor which is beyond our control.

Usage and Applications of Attribution Theory of Social PsychologyThe theory helps in Criminal Law, i.e. to understand the psychology of criminals. The usage ofthis theory here is of utmost importance. In today's times, with the increase in crime, especiallyjuvenile crimes; understanding criminal psychology has become essential. This can helppsychologists to understand their thought process, help experts to prevent such crimes in futureand also to reform criminal's personality. It also helps in understanding cognitive bias.

Another major application of this theory is in marketing communication. Here, it explains thefact, that the consumer can attribute claim, either to advertiser's desire to sell product (called asone sided advertising) or to actual attributes of a product communicated by a honest advertiser.

Attribution theory of social psychology is a solution to many problems the world is facing today.We can hope of a better world, without crime, dishonesty and greed, only if the advancement inthe theory is possible.