¶ … Attribution Theory Covered in the Readings
Human beings are naturally an inquisitive set of species; they are always wondering how and why things occur. For this reason, they create sciences, philosophies and religions as approaches of answering their questions. For decades, this curiosity has influenced their personal, interpersonal, cultural and societal lives in intricate ways. Much of this is observed in our daily lives through our conversations and mindset interactions with other people. For example, human beings tend to question why some people look the way they do. Eventually, they develop answers according to different situations like why some people do not have jobs while others wonder why other people went overseas (Bains, 1983). The process of developing questions and answers to a series of questions are fundamental such that it figures out the underlying causes of things that happen. Researchers have characterized this tendency as a justified basic human activity. A battery of theories has been advanced to give light on how and why things happen as they do. This family of concepts, collectively known as attribution theory seeks to explain and describe the communication and mental processes that form our daily explanations. In this study, I critically discussed the issues in Attribution theory covered in the readings and their related associations. I have also provided a critique of the usefulness of the theory in explaining processes on interpersonal communication (Buss, 1978).
Introduction
The attribution concept argues that people are able to make sense of their vicinity and surroundings. This is based on what these people consider as the cause and the effect of a given phenomenon. Attribution theory suggests that people observe their own experiences and behavior. They then attempt to figure out what caused these experiences and behavior. Therefore, the causes make people shape their future differently. This review critically discusses the issues found in attribution theory covered in the readings.
History of attribution theory
Charles Antaki in his book talks about the history of attribution theory. The history of the attribution theory starts with studying someone's perception. In the 1950s, individual perception theorists were greatly concerned with things that people think about one another. It is also based on how they would judge one another as well as how people are influenced by their desires and needs. The birth of the attribution theory started when theorists began directing more attention towards people's ascription of qualities and causes. Heider was responsible for the change rationale (Antaki, 1982).
Attribution theory is social psychology's core element. Over the past 40 years, a series of articles have been published in light of this theory. These include handbooks, journals and textbooks focusing on social psychology. According to Bernard Weiner the entire attribution theory as a body of research is easily distinguished into general approaches towards social psychological phenomena. Forming attributions are equal to giving explanations mainly on behavior. Heider further broke down ordinary explanations into two; these are environmental and personal causes. In his analysis, people explain actions by two means. One of them is through attributing the action and linking it with something that has to do with someone who performed it (Antaki, 1982). Another one is by attributing it to an external cause.
Analysis of Attribution theories
The readings have provided a set of examples of attribution theories including inference theories belonging to Jones and Davis. According to these readings, this theory enables people to understand the entire process of making internal attribution. This means that people tend to do other things as a correspondence between behavior and the motive. Dispositional internal attributions provide people with sufficient information from where to make predictions to do with someone's future behavior. According to Davis, using the term correspondent inference only applies when referring to the occasion. For example, when a specific observes infers that someone's behavior corresponds or matches with their personalities. This is another alternative to dispositional attribution (Weiner, 1980).
Kelley's Co variation model is well-known under attribution theories. Kelley came up with a logical model used in judging whether a given action must be attributed to internal characteristics of the environment or a person. The person's characteristics are internal while the environmental characteristics are external. According to him, three major types of causal information influence judgments. These include consistency, consensus and distinctiveness. People in their lives look back on their experiences and look into two main causes. The first one is multiple necessary causes. This includes high motivation in order to succeed. The second one is multiple sufficient causes....
Attribution Theory Human behavior is a complex process and the attribution theories try to explain it by discussing the psychological processes going on. It discusses the causes as well as effects of the particular behavior under consideration (Attribution Theory, n.d.). The Attribution theory also tries to explain if a person behaves in a certain way due to internal or external locus of control. The types of attribution theories are common sense,
Attribution Theories In general terms, attribution theories are a person's psychological response to a conflict in an effort to explain the cause of the contention. While these theories may apply to any given situation, they are often closely intertwined with more intimate, interpersonal relationships. People in such relationships may attempt to explain their own actions or the actions of the other person in terms that may mitigate their own culpability. The
Attribution Theory Industrial organization Industrial organizational theory: The usefulness of attribution theory in a modern organization like Google Attribution theory Attribution theory attempts to explain how human beings attach meaning to their own behavior and the behavior of others. A presumption of the theory is that perception is not always reality. For example, an employee might perceive his or her boss to be aggressive or an employee might perceive all subordinates to be lazy. Attribution
The findings are expected to reveal interesting facts about the core motivations and external factors leading to juvenile delinquency. Parents and teachers will also be asked how they view their children, as well as suggestions on how the delinquency problem can be remedied. All the answers from all the interviews and questionnaires will be consolidated to form a statistical body of research. This will be analyzed in order to determine perceptions
Furthermore, the significance of this theory also extends to issues relating to health. This refers to the fact that the individual differences in attribution style and perception can lead to positive and negative implications for the individual. For example, "…differences in attributional style may lead to depression…and health problems with those who had a more pessimistic explanatory style. Baseball players with a pessimistic style died earlier than optimistic players (
Attribution Bias: Personal Anecdotes One of the most common sources of conflict in relationships is incorrect interpretations of motivation. Because people are narcissistic and cannot always project themselves into the mindset of others, they focus on personality-based vs. situational reasons for behavior and misbehavior. A good example of this was a source of conflict during one of my years in middle school. My English class consistently ran late. Because it was
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