Role Attribution Theory Plays in How Perceptions About Others Are Formed in the Workplace Anyone who has ever worked in an organizational setting can readily attest to the need to understand others in order to facilitate personal interactions and achieve optimal job performance. Attribution theory holds that people tend to develop perceptions about others based on their empirical observations which are then used, consciously or subconsciously, to form perceptions about their behaviors. In some ways, this process of applying attribution theory is intuitive and ongoing but there are some aspects of attribution theory that require explanation in order to better understand how and why people are motivated in this fashion. To this end, this paper reviews the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature in order to evaluate the role attribution theory plays in how perceptions about others are formed in the workplace. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings about attribution theory are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

Introduced in the mid-1940s (Cabanis & Pyka, 2013) and refined in the late 1950s by Fritz Heider (Sirin & Villalobus, 2011), attribution theory has been the focus of a growing body of scholarship and some authorities argue that it has transcended the theoretical stage to become a legitimate field of study (Gaier, 2015). In sum, attribution theory maintains that people attempt to make sense out of the workplace by assigning causality to the behaviors of their coworkers, and such attributions tend to affect perceptions of their behaviors in the future (Zamani & Giaglis, 2015). Attribution theory is based on the so-called "theory of mind," a term that is used to describe the awareness humans have of the existence of minds in other people and how to explain and interpret their thought processes as well as their own (Herman, 2011).

There are two basic assumptions involved with attribution theory that account for this process as follows: (a) people want and need to make sense of their environment as well as themselves; and (b) people are motivated to better understand the reasons behind the behaviors of others as well as their own behaviors (Gaiter, 2015). In addition, attribution theory also includes the adaptational implications of these interpretations about the behaviors of other (Tasman & Kay, 2008). In most cases, people tend to apply attribution theory to observed behaviors by asking "Why?" and then developing the most logical answer as the reason (Chadee, 2011).

Interestingly, some authorities maintain that the tenets of attribution theory are operative irrespective of whether people are aware of it or not. In this regard, Christian (2009) reports that:

The fundamental attribution theory, greatly simplified, says that we tend to 'blame' someone's behavior on internal factors (their disposition, their personality) rather than external factors (their circumstances, the unique situation). This theory is among a handful of cognitive biases that affect our thinking whether we realize it or not. (p. 28)

The foregoing means that people tend to apply attribution theory in the workplace to account for the behaviors of others and to formulate perceptions concerning how they can reasonably be expected to behave in the future, especially under similar circumstances (Christian, 2009). Likewise, attribution theory holds that people tend to make these sorts of observations and interpretations in an effort to gain more control over their environment (Cagney, 2012).

Although all humans tend to apply the tenets of attribution theory to explain and understand the behaviors of others in the workplace, the process can have severe consequences when attribution errors are allowed to interfere with the accurate interpretation of observed behaviors, particularly when they are made by supervisors (Cagney, 2012). Conversely, employees may tend to explain and interpret the behaviors of their supervisors based on incomplete information in ways that detract from the quality of their relationships with them, further eroding employee morale and job performance. Therefore, it is vitally important to better understand just how automatically people tend to use attribution theory in an effort to make sense of their workplace environment and the limitations that the process entails.

A risk exists, though, that observed behaviors may be misinterpreted in ways that overlook the true motivation behind such behaviors. For example, someone might observe a co-worker unaccountably swerve his car in the parking lot and almost hit another vehicle and attribute this behavior to the co-worker being a poor or inattentive driver. What the observer did not see, though, was the stray dog n the parking lot that the co-worker swerved to avoid hitting (Christian, 2009). Similarly, a supervisor surreptitiously observes a subordinate appear to not be working because...

What the supervisor did not know or understand, though, was that this subordinate was thinking about the best alternative available to recommend to the supervisor, a process that requires some serious thought. These types of misinterpreted observations are alternatively termed "attribution errors," "attribution asymmetry" and "self-serving biases" which, left unresolved, can adversely affect the ability of individuals to develop accurate perceptions about others in the workplace (Cabanis & Pyka, 2013). In addition, self-serving biases tend to compel people to misinterpret behaviors in ways that are favorable to themselves but are detrimental to those being observed (Farmer & Pecorino, 2010). For instance, an employee may observe a group of co-workers at a separate table in the company cafeteria casting glances her way and erroneously assume they are gossiping about her latest affair. The employee makes up her mind that she will somehow get even with each and every one of them and makes a mental note as to who was involved. What the employee did not realize at the time, though, was that her co-workers were planning a surprise birthday party for her. Similarly, employees may observe their supervisor leaving work an hour early every day and assume she is abusing her position of authority and become increasingly resentful as a result. What the employees did not realize was the supervisor had made arrangements to come in an hour early every day so she could leave an hour early in order to care for her elderly mother.
Such misinterpretations of observed behaviors are almost always due to incomplete information or erroneous assumptions (Cabanis & Pyka, 2013). In some cases, these types of attribution errors can be especially damaging when they are allowed to form the basis for performance evaluations or other positive career development opportunities. Because supervisors tend to subconsciously apply attribution theory to the behaviors of their subordinates, inaccurate or uninformed observations may also result in inaccurate performance evaluations or other career development decisions that can have life-altering outcomes (Cagney, 2012).

Indeed, the potential exists for supervisors to engage in discriminatory practices based on their misinterpretation of observed behaviors (Randle & Mathis, 2012). A good example of this potential is a supervisor who unconsciously devalues the contributions of an overweight worker due to misperceptions concerning the causation of the condition rather than the actual facts that are involved. Such misperceptions can negatively affect hiring decisions, promotions and layoffs irrespective of the worker's actual job performance (Randle & Mathis, 2012). In addition, race -- and gender-related stereotypical thinking can also result in attribution errors in the workplace (Bastounis & Minibas-Poussard, 2012). For example, a male supervisor may observe a female subordinate crying in the copier room, apparently out of frustration over being unable to operate such a complicated device as a Xerox machine without realizing she had just been informed about the death of her father on the telephone. Such attribution errors can likewise result in discrimination based on misinterpretations of observed behaviors that can adversely affect management decisions concerning performance evaluations or other career-development opportunities (Bastounis & Minibas-Poussard, 2012).

Similarly, it is also possible that such attribution errors can result in management decisions that positively affect employees. For example, a supervisor observes an employee's car in the parking lot each morning when she arrives, and assumes he is working extra hard to overcome his known shortcomings. What the supervisor did not realize, however, was that the employee was coming to work early each day to play World of Warcraft on the company's computer, a practice that frequently extended into normal business hours and was the proximate cause of the employee's poor performance. Likewise, an employee may be promoted ahead of her peers due to her supervisor observing her working through her lunch hour while the employee in question is really selling off company office equipment on Craig's List.

What these unwarranted and frequently undesirable outcomes share in common is the fundamental limitation of the human condition in accurately interpreting everything that is observed in the environment and making perfect sense of it. This is not to say, of course, that everyone misinterprets everything they observe, only that the process has its constraints that must be taken into account in order to better understand how and why people reach the decisions they do, an issue that assumes special importance in the workplace where people's livelihoods and careers are concerned. Certainly, everyone has their own…