That is, the person would attribute the behavior of the observed (say, winning a hockey tournament) to good fortune or some other external event. How do these three factors interact to influence whether one’s attributions are internal or external? As seen in Figure 6.2, under conditions of high consensus, high consistency, and high distinctiveness, we would expect the observer to make external attributions about the causes of behavior. Low distinctiveness exists when the person acts in a similar manner in response to different stimuli high distinctiveness exists when the person varies their response to different situations. Distinctivenessĭistinctiveness is the extent to which you believe that the person being observed would behave consistently when faced with different situations. High consistency exists when the person repeatedly acts in the same way when faced with similar stimuli. That is to say, the extent to which you believe that the person being observed behaves consistently-in a similar fashion-when confronted on other occasions with the same or similar situations. The second factor influencing whether attributions are internal or external is the consistency of the behaviour. High consensus exists when the person’s actions reflect or are similar to the actions of the group low consensus exists when the person’s actions do not. The first factor is consensus – the extent to which you believe that the person being observed is behaving in a manner that is consistent with the behavior of his or her peers. Image: Rice University & OpenStax, Organizational Behavior, CC BY 4.0. Adapted from Nyla Branscombe and Robert A. Kelley’s conclusion, illustrated in Figure 6.6, is that people actually focus on three factors when making causal attributions: Figure 6.3 Causes of Internal and External Attributions. Internal causes include ability and effort, whereas external causes include luck and task ease or difficulty. He examined how people determine-or, rather, how they actually perceive-whether the behavior of another person results from internal or external causes. Internal and External Causes of Behaviorīuilding upon the work of Heider, Harold Kelley attempted to identify the major antecedents of internal and external attributions. Figure 6.2 The General Attribution Process. In other words, the way in which we perceive and interpret events around us significantly affects our future behaviors. On the other hand, if an individual concludes that the promotion resulted primarily from chance and was largely unrelated to performance, a different cognitive structure might be created, and there might be little reason to continue exerting high levels of effort. In some cases, the individual may decide to continue exerting high levels of effort in the hope that it will lead to further promotions. Based on this new structure, the individual makes choices about future behavior. For instance, an individual may infer that performance does indeed lead to promotion. This process may lead to the conclusion that the promotion resulted from the individual’s own effort or, alternatively, from some other cause, such as luck.īased on such cognitive interpretations of events, individuals revise their cognitive structures and rethink their assumptions about causal relationships. Specifically, attribution theory suggests that particular behavioral events (e.g., the receipt of a promotion) are analyzed by individuals to determine their causes. This process is diagrammed in Figure 6.2. If individuals can understand these causes, they will then be in a better position to influence or control the sequence of future events. The underlying assumption of attribution theory is that people are motivated to understand their environment and the causes of particular events. Hence, if employees perceive that their success is a function of their own abilities and efforts, they can be expected to behave differently than they would if they believed job success was due to chance. Following the cognitive approach of Lewin and Tolman, he emphasizes that it is perceived determinants, rather than actual ones, that influence behavior. Heider argues that behavior is determined by a combination of internal forces (e.g., abilities or effort) and external forces (e.g., task difficulty or luck). 193).Īttribution theory is based largely on the work of Fritz Heider. Specifically, “ attribution theory concerns the process by which an individual interprets events as being caused by a particular part of a relatively stable environment” (Kelly, 1980, p.
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