Attribution theory

Attribution Theory

Attribution theory is related to the causes of judging others based on certain factors. The social psychologists Fritz Heider, Harolf Kelley, and Bernard Weiner focused in their attribution theory on the causes of individual attributes to emotions, thoughts, and behavior.

Attributions can be categorized as internal attribution and external attribution in attribution theory

Internal attribution

Internal attribution indicates the cause of behavior, thinking, and emotions  which are the internal factors that are under control. These internal factors consist of the traits, characteristics, way of thinking and perceptions towards event or behavior.

Examples

1. If someone wins a race in a sport, there may be an internal attribution such as that individual who win the race have the required skills and intelligence to win the race. It may be considered as that individual has taken enough efforts to win the race.
2. When an individual qualifies for an examination then the attribution created is internal attribution based on the factors such as intelligence, efforts taken by an individual, and knowledge of an individual. Here the attribution says that the individual is intelligent and has made hard efforts to qualify for the examination
3. When an employee gets promoted to a higher position and gets an increase in salary attributed the facts such as employee better performance Obama intelligence, creativity, etc

External attribution

External attribution in the attribution theory indicates the cause of the behavior is or are the external factors that are beyond the control of one individual. External factors may consist of other persons’ behavior or incidence etc.

Example

1. When a person attempts an examination and fails in the examination may be Factors such as the question paper of the examination is tougher than it has to be, the person’s health is not well during the examination, Questions in the examination are out of syllabus ETC.
2. When a person fails to win in a sports competition may be attributed the various factors that are beyond their control such as unfair competition, improper judgment ETC. H  
3. Employees when not rewarded financially for the performance given then the attribution from the perspective of employees considered as the employer is not implementing justice. Or it may be unfair performance appraisal.

Attribution theory describes some of the key factors that are responsible for internal attribution and external attribution. These key factors consist of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.

Consensus

This key factor of attribution theory indicates the specific type of behavior of the majority in a specific situation contributes to external attribution. In this factor, the external attribution is considered as the causeway of behavior. L e

Example

1. In the examination now UG student when the majority of the students fail the examination then the causes of the failure of a maximum number of students may be considered as external factors. This external attribution indicates the factors such as question paper being wrong or more tough or out of syllabus due to which this majority of students failed.
2. If two students of UG in the class or fail in the university examination then the causes of their failure are considered as internal attribution factors which are under the control of the students. Such factors consist of the student’s study, lack of effort students have taken, and lack of intelligence or effort.

In the above examples, one belongs to external attribution where the consensus is high and in another example, the internal attribution is considered to have low consensus.

Distinctiveness

The distinctiveness factor of attribution theory indicates the cause of behavior or perception that is influenced by the degree of distinctiveness. If an individual’s behavior is influenced by internal factors and the same in different environments indicates low distinctiveness whereas it or he behaves differently in different environments and shows high distinctiveness. Low distinctiveness indicates internal attribution whereas high distinctiveness indicates the external attribution first off.

Examples

An employee in the organization may behave very narrowly and that to the limited people they interact with. This situation indicates low distinctiveness attribution in which internal attribution is the causeway of behavior.

If an employee in the organization behaves with a very open mind when interacting with social groups maybe friends or family members external attribution is the causeway of the behavior.

Some people behave differently in different environments increases the high degree of distinctiveness whereas if these people behave the same in different environments indicates a low degree of distinctiveness.

Consistency

Consistency is the key factor of attribution theory indicates that similar types of behavior are causes of behavior in all situations consistently if the behavior of an individual is consistently the same in all the situations indicates high consistency whereas if it behaves differently indicates the low consistency.