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Marketing Dictionary:

attribution theory

The theory that consumer assumptions about a product or situation are derived from the consumer's experience, personality, or attitudes. For example, a consumer who has had poor experiences with domestic automobiles and a good experience with an import might attribute the quality of the import to the fact that it is not U.S.-made. Such a consumer will be predisposed toward products that emphasize their foreign origin. Similarly, a product endorsement by a celebrity who is perceived to be unethical will be attributed to the money being paid for the endorsement and not to the celebrity's honest assessment of the product.

 
 
Philosophy Dictionary: attribution theory

The theory that attempts to explore the factors governing the ways in which people explain the doings of others and themselves. The way people attribute behaviour to external causes, is itself subject to social circumstance, or personality factors, and often designed to preserve self-esteem, diminish one's own responsibility, exaggerate the malevolence of others and so forth.

 
Sports Science and Medicine: attribution theory

causal attribution theory

A theory of motivation, which postulates that individuals make common sense explanations of their own behaviour that can affect future behaviour. Inherent in the theory is the belief that an athlete is not a passive performer, but actively processes information about a performance and constantly reflects on why he or she is losing or winning. The attributions that athletes select to explain their performance outcomes may reveal much about their motivation. Attribution theory assumes that athletes postulate reasons for their success or failure in a performance that influences their future level of performance. These reasons or attributions may be arranged on several scales, including attributions that are internal or external to the athlete (see locus of control), and causes that are stable (such as ability) or unstable (e.g. effort). It is generally agreed that successful athletes tend to attribute success to relatively stable, internal causes. See cognitive theory.

 
Wikipedia: Attribution theory

Attribution theory is a social psychology theory developed by Fritz Heider, Harold Kelley, Edward E. Jones, and Lee Ross.

The theory is concerned with the ways in which people explain (or attribute) the behavior of others, or themselves (self-attribution), with something else. It explores how individuals "attribute" causes to events and how this cognitive perception affects their motivation.

Internal vs. External

The theory divides the way people attribute causes to events into two types.

  • "External" or "situational" attribution assigns causality to an outside factor, such as the weather,
  • whereas "internal" or "dispositional" attribution assigns causality to factors within the person, such as their own level of intelligence or other variables that make the individual responsible for the event.

Self-serving bias or Fundamental Attribution Error

People often make self serving attributions. So, if something good happens to themselves or someone they like, they tend to see it as a result of their own, stable dispositions (i.e. "I managed the test because I'm so intelligent") and when bad things happen to themselves or people they like, they are more likely to make external unstable attributions ("I did badly on the test because it was so hard, and I had a headache"). Similarly, they will attribute good things happening to a person that they do not like to a situational factor (they got lucky) and something bad happening to a dispositional factor (they are stupid). This is also known as fundamental attribution error.

An example of this, in politics, could be the collapse of the Soviet Union. U.S. leaders attributed it to something dispositional about themselves (we were strong and steadfast, democracy persevered). Also, failing Third World economies are often attributed to corrupt leaders and other dispositional attributions rather than a situation attribution, such as the international system.

There seem to be features that people look for when making attributions, such as universality ("does everyone do this, or just the person I'm watching?") and uniqueness ("do they do it this way every time, or was this just an aberration?").

There is evidence from people like Srull and Wyer and John Bargh that when people see an act, they automatically make personality attributions, and start mentally cataloging that person by that label. Dan Gilbert has a theory of attribution which says that, when you see people do something, you make an automatic fast attribution to their personality, and that, if circumstances warrant, you can then slowly "discount" the attribution to a feature of the environment ("whoa, he's not a coward, even I would run away if a bear started gnawing on my arm like that").

Attributions for events can change a person's behavior, and many theories such as cognitive dissonance rely on it. So, for example, in a classic dissonance paradigm, if a person believes that they did something counterattitudinal (say, a student writing an essay in favour of raising tuition prices), because they chose to do it (i.e. they make an internal attribution), then they tend to change their mind and believe that they really do support higher tuition. If, however, they write that same counterattitudinal essay but they believe they were forced to write it (i.e. they make an external attribution for their behaviour), then they are unlikely to change their attitude. Similarly, if someone is paid for a job, they attribute the fact they are doing the job to the fact they are making money for it, rather than to intrinsic factors, such as enjoyment, and subsequently they will actually think that they enjoy the task less, and will be less likely to spontaneously choose to do it again in the future. Studies have shown that adding an external reward to a task previously rewarded only internally makes people less intrinsically motivated to perform that task.

However, in some circumstances, extrinsic factors can cause positive changes in behaviour. If an individual believes that they have earned the reward or punishment for intrinsic reasons, then that might effect a positive change in behaviour. It is when the reason for the reward is attributed to external factors that the behaviour change might not be in the desired direction.

See also

References

  • Heider, Fritz. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-36833-4

External links


 
 

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Copyrights:

Marketing Dictionary. Dictionary of Marketing Terms. Copyright © 2000 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Philosophy Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Sports Science and Medicine. The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine. Copyright © Michael Kent 1998, 2006, 2007. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Attribution theory" Read more

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