Theories of causal attribution: definition and authors

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 on how we explain our own behavior and that of others, as well as the events that happen to us; these models are known as "theories of causal attribution".

• Related article: "What is social psychology?"

Heider's theory of causal attribution

The 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 obtaining a sense of control over the environment. However, we tend to make simple causal attributions that take into account mainly one type of factor.

Heider's attributional model distinguishes between internal or personal and external or environmental attributions

. While the ability and motivation to carry out behaviors are internal factors, luck and the difficulty of the task stand out among the situational causes.

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

• Related article: "Fundamental Attribution Error: pigeonholing people"

Jones and Davis Corresponding Inference Theory

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 other people's behavior in the future based on how we have explained his previous behavior.

Fundamentally, 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, first of all it is necessary that we can affirm that the person had the intention and the capacity to carry out the action.

Once the intention attribution 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 others. behaviors that could have occurred, if it is frowned upon socially, if it affects the actor in an intense way (hedonic relevance) and if it is directed at the person making the attribution (personalism).

Kelley configuration and covariation model

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

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

They highlight the scheme of multiple sufficient causes, which is applied when an effect may be due to one of several possible causes, and that of multiple necessary causes, according to which several causes must concur for a effect. The first of these schemes is usually applied to common events and the second to more infrequent ones.

On the other hand, when we have information from different sources, we will attribute the event to the person, to the circumstances or stimulus based on consistency, distinctiveness and consensus around the conduct.

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

Weiner's causal attribution

Bernard Weiner's 1979 theory of causal attribution proposes that we distinguish causes based on three bipolar dimensions: stability, controllability, and locus of control. Each event would be located at a certain point in 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 they can be situated somewhere in between in this dimension. By last, locus of control refers to whether the event is mainly due to internal or external factors; this dimension is equivalent to Heider's attribution theory.

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

• You may be interested: "What is the locus of control?"

Attributional biases

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

• Related article: "Cognitive biases: discovering an interesting psychological effect"

1. Fundamental attribution error

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

2. Differences between actor and observer

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

3. False consensus and false quirk

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

There is another complementary bias, that of false peculiarity, according to which we tend to believe that our positive qualities are unique or infrequent even if they are not.

4. Egocentric attribution

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

5. Pro-self bias

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

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