Causal Attribution: The Psychology of Interpersonal Perception

The human psyche is extremely complex. Therefore, it is not surprising that failures occur from time to time. One of them is causal attribution. Almost everyone has experienced it. Remember the situations when you made a conclusion about a person by one of his actions or even a single word. Why does it happen?

What is causal attribution? Causal attribution in psychology is a phenomenon of interpersonal perception, in which a person comes up with motives and reasons for the actions of those around him. In Latin, causa means "reason" and attributio means "attribution."

The individual explains other people's actions using his logical reasoning. He doesn't have enough facts and he is guided solely by observations that cannot give a complete picture. As a result, a person simply draws it in his head.

The term was introduced as early as the 1920s by the Gestalt psychologist Fritz Heider. In his writings, he tried to find out how people perceive and interpret the information received. The phenomenon was studied and supplemented by other scientists.

Varieties of causal attribution

Fritz Heider said: "Our perception of causality is often distorted by our needs and some cognitive distortions." Depending on these distortions, 6 types of causal attribution are distinguished in psychology.

Fundamental mistake

A person explains the actions of other people by internal reasons, and his own - by external ones. For example, he accuses someone of being boring. He explains his similar actions by incorrect circumstances. This is how the fundamental error of such judgments manifests itself.

reason

Unequal opportunities. A person ignores the features that are determined by the role-playing game.
False Consent. The individual considers his own behavior correct, and someone else's erroneous.
Trusting not the opinions, but the facts.
Rejection of the value of what did not happen. A person analyzes behavior based on what people have not done.

Here is an example of a fundamental mistake in causal attribution. For clarity, imagine that your friend and you are taking the same test. A friend couldn't pass it. First you note that he has always had poor knowledge of the subject. After that, you conclude that he is lazy, irresponsible, pays attention to everything, except for studying. It is wrong to think so. You did not take into account that he may have learning problems, for example, it may be difficult for him to remember information. Or there may be family circumstances interfering.

You can give another example from life. Let's say you meet a man whose car breaks down in the middle of the road. Of course, your first impulse will be to help him. You gave him some advice, but the stranger rejected it or simply ignored you. What will be your reaction? You will get angry; consider him a rude person who is unable to accept sincere help. But in fact, perhaps the driver knows that these tips will not help him. Or maybe he's just in a bad mood.

These examples show how the internal disposition manifests itself. The outside one looks different. You explain the failed exam not with bad knowledge, but with a difficult ticket. And you put the blame for the car that didn’t start on the person getting up to you with inappropriate advice. This style of behavior is not necessarily bad. You do not feel guilty and do not spoil your mood. But a constant external disposition is a direct path to the degradation of the personality.

Cultural bias

A person looks for the reasons for the behavior of others in their culture, origin, beliefs. Thus, many people believe that individualism dominates in the West. Whereas in Asia, almost everyone considers themselves collectivists. And how not to mention well-known jokes about Jews.

Difference between participant and observer

According to the theory of causal attribution, a person plays 2 roles: an observer and a participant. And in each of them he sees the current situation differently. When viewed from the outside, everything looks completely different.

Dispositional attribution

The reasons for the behavior of a person are attributed to the properties of his personality, character, abilities. Let's say a waiter is rude to you in a cafe. Surely you will think that he has a bad temper and decide that he is ill-mannered.

In this situation, you are amenable to dispositional attribution, that is, you do not take into account the influence of external factors that can provoke rudeness.

Self-serving attribution

If an individual has received a new position, he attributes the achievement solely to his abilities. If the job was given to someone else, he believes that the boss underestimates him.

Scientists thought it was a way to protect one’s self-esteem. However, later they found out that people tend to attribute all successes and achievements to the influence of internal factors.

Defensive attribution hypothesis

In social psychology, the phenomenon of protective causal attribution is the beliefs that a person needs to protect himself from anxiety. With their help, he justifies himself in those cases when he encounters failures.

Defensive attribution is manifested not only in relation to oneself. In relation to the people around, it looks something like this: “Good things happen only to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.” This conviction helps us become less vulnerable when we cannot control what is happening around us.

Often with this type of causal attribution, a person falls into extremes. For example, if there was a car accident, he decides that the driver was drunk or simply bought his license. At the same time, the individual thinks that this will definitely never happen to him.

The listed types of causal attribution can be compared with cognitive dissonance, the theory of which was proposed by Leon Festinger. This is a psychological discomfort caused by a clash in the human subconscious of conflicting ideas, values, and reactions.

2 reasons

When discomfort appears, a person tries to reduce its manifestation, to reduce the conflict between two inconsistencies.
The individual tries to avoid situations in which he may experience discomfort.

Think back to that exam situation. Let's say you didn't pass it. And do you feel uncomfortable about it. Why receive it also because you are not prepared?

How are causal attribution and locus of control related?

What is the locus of control? Locus of control is the property of the human personality to attribute successes and failures to the influence of external and internal factors. And it has something to do with causal attribution. In both cases, the individual does not want to see the true causes of what is happening.

But there are some differences between the concepts. With causal attribution, double standards work. Locus of control, on the other hand, encourages you to determine your own reaction to what is happening around you.

And again, let’s remember the example with an exam. Here the locus can manifest itself in 2 ways:

You blame yourself for a bad assessment. You understand that you were poorly prepared, were inattentive, irresponsible. Plus, you're ready for the fix.

You blame everything: the teacher, the subject, the wrong ticket.

Another difference between the locus of control and causal attribution is the presence of willpower in the second phenomenon. Plus, it can be changed. It is enough just to get rid of the victim complex, to learn to take responsibility.

Relationship between causal attribution and learned helplessness

Causal attribution helps explain the development of learned helplessness. In psychology, this expression is understood as a state in which a person does not want to solve his problems, even if he has such an opportunity. This happens when previous attempts to deal with them have ended in failure.

Psychologist Martin Seligman proved this statement. In his opinion, failures make a person think that with subsequent attempts to change something, the same thing will happen. According to the theory of causal attribution, people do nothing in order to maintain their self-esteem. Otherwise, they will attribute all the mistakes to themselves.

Theories of causal attribution

There are only two of them.

Jones and Davis' correspondence theory

In 1965, scientists Jones and Davis suggested that intentional actions play an important role for people. At the same time, rash or spontaneous behavior is practically of no value. This theory helps understand how the intrinsic type of causal attribution comes about.

Internal attributes provide information that allows you to make a prediction about how a person will behave. Scientists have called this phenomenon "correspondent inference." This is a state in which an individual thinks that the behavior of others is determined by the properties of their personality.

Why do people make "correspondent conclusions"?

Choice. Traditionally, it is believed that actions depend on internal factors.
Spontaneous or intentional behavior. The first is connected with external factors, circumstances. The second one is related to personality.
Social desirability. Example: You saw a person sitting on the floor. There are many free chairs in the room. There is some inconsistency, isn’t it? But such behavior is a manifestation of individuality.
Hedonic relevance. This is a condition in which a person purposefully either harms you or benefits you.
Another reason is personalism. The individual believes that the behavior of another person must somehow influence him. At the same time, he believes that it is dictated by the personal characteristics of the opponent, and not by external factors.

Kelly covariation model

The Kelly covariation model was discussed in the 1960s. It is considered to be the most popular theory of causal attribution. The scientist tried to figure out whether actions should be determined by internal motives or external factors.

The word “covariation” itself means that a person has information from several sources at once. He received observations at different time periods and in different situations. This helps him see both the effect itself and its causes.

3 types of evidence

1. Consensus. It is a measure of the degree to which people act in the same way in similar circumstances. Imagine two friends. The first one, going to dinner with the second one, always smokes. If the second one also does this, this is a high consensus in his behavior. Otherwise, the consensus is low.
2. Distinctiveness. It is also a measure of the degree to which a person's behavior does not change in similar situations. Let's go back to the example with two friends. If the first man smokes only in the company of his friends, he has high distinctiveness. If he always does this, then it is low.
3. Consistency. A degree indicating that a person behaves the same way whenever he finds himself in a certain situation. If the man in the example smokes only in the presence of his friends, the agreement is high. If he does this only under special circumstances – it is low.

Let's take some examples of Kelly covariation models. Imagine a group of young people who have gathered to watch a comedy show. The hero's name is Andrew. He laughs at the jokes of the show members. Consensus will be high if the rest of the company is also laughing. High distinctiveness - Andrew likes the jokes of an individual comedian. High consistency - the hero constantly laughs at the stories of his favorite comedian.

external attribution

the hero is the only one who likes the comedian;
if he laughs at the jokes of all the speakers;
he is constantly laughing at the jokes of a certain comedian.

So, it turns out that Andrew just likes to have fun.

There is one nuance. It is not always possible to draw such conclusions. You may not have all the information you need to understand the real reason for a person's behavior.

Let's say that you are practically unfamiliar with Andrew described above, but you got into the same company with him. You cannot be sure of the consistency of his behavior. And in this situation, a person behaves in 2 ways. The first way is increasing the number of reasons that are needed to explain someone's behavior. The second one – when the number of sufficient reasons increases.

Imagine that an athlete has failed a doping test. There can be 2 reasons for this: either he accidentally took a prohibited drug, or he wanted to cheat. But you can add one more reason for what happened: the athlete was deceived himself.

Conclusions

So, causal attribution helps assess the motives and causes of the behavior of people around. But it has one trick. You can attribute false qualities to a person, present him not as he really is. To avoid this, you need to study the situation from all sides. Make a decision and draw conclusions only after all the details are taken into account.