What Is Attribution Theory????
Table of Contents
1. Attribution Theory.
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Attribution Theory:-
Attribution theory is
related to show how normal people explain the reasons of behavior and events.
It shows how people utilize information to clarify reasons of events. It
explains what information people collect and how they utilize information to
evaluate reasons.
This theory believes
human beings are psychologists of tomorrow. They will try to understand social
world. They try to find cause and effects relationships everywhere. This theory
explains two causes to shaping behavior and events.
(i).Internal causes:-
It includes internal
characteristics of people which can be controlled. When we explain behavior of others, we try to
find their permanent internal characteristics like personality traits,
emotions, motives and ability. For example, your friend got good marks in exam
and you think it is because he is laborious. Mostly internal causes are blamed
while analyzing other's behavior.
(ii).External Causes:-
It includes external situation which cannot be
controlled. It thinks showing certain behavior depends upon external
circumstances like other people, events, situation and luck. Generally external
causes are blamed while explaining our behavior. It is too easy to blame
outsider reasons than self evaluating. For example, getting lower performance
in branch and blaming manager for lower performance.
Steps in Attribution Theory:-
(i).Perception:-People must watch the behavior to make perception.
(ii).Evaluation:-People should believe that behaviors are disclosed with
intentions.
(iii).Attribute:-People must determine either behavior is shown due to
internal causes or external causes.
Covariance Model:-
This model decides
whether behavior depends upon internal causes or external causes. People get
information from various events at various conditions. They extract covariance
of various observations of causes and effects. This theory believes people try
to discover the causes of behavior. It suggests people observe three different evidences to show the
cause of certain behavior:
(i).Consensus:-How others behave in a similar condition. For example: If all
employees got failure in loan recovery in a bank it is thought it happens due
to external causes. It is highly consensus.
(ii).Distinctiveness:-The extent to which other people behave same in similar
situation. For example:- Just a specific employee got failure in loan recovery
and others did recovery properly, it is said that employee failed due to
internal causes. It is highly distinctiveness.
(iii).Consistency:- How frequently that individual shows same behavior every time similar
situation occurs. For example: An individual has been failing in loan recovery,
it is thought it happens due to internal causes and it is highly consistency.
If he fails in loan recovery sometimes, it is thought due to external causes.
Locus of control says human being have their control over events that influences their life. This concept is viewed as personality psychology. Locus is place where something is situated. So, locus of control is place of control. The result of our action depends upon internal causes i.e. what we do or external causes. According to this concept our behavior is guided by rewards and punishment. Result of our actions helps to shape our belief towards the results of our future behavior.
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Predicted result guides our behavior and attitudes. If a person got good results of his action in past and he was rewarded, he may try to achieve his objective. He starts thinking that he can achieve future success through his efforts. This theory has developed two types of locus of control they are such as:-
(i).Internal Locus of Control:-
If you believe that result of your action is under your control and it depends upon internal causes, then you have internal locus of control. People having this type of locus of control try to keep themselves healthy, become happy, enjoy being autonomous, try to achieve greater success, face challenges, always maintain self confidence, develop laborious habit, try to finish task in better way, get less influenced by others opinions, become ready to quit job than doing wrong thing and take responsibility of their tasks.
(ii).External Locus of Control:-
If you believe that result of your action is not under your control and it depends upon external causes, then it is external locus of control. People with external locus of control feel themselves helpless, think themselves powerless and desperate, avoid challenges, think they can't change their situation, give credit to luck for success and blaming external elements for anything.
No one is fully controlled either by internal locus or by external locus. Both locus of control influence them. Some believes that internal locus of control is better than external locus of control. Internal locus of control isn't always good and external locus of control isn't always bad.
External locus of control can be good when situation is not in control of person. For example: a person who got second position in exam though he was expecting to be in first position may become frustrated if he has higher internal locus of control. If he thinks it is my bad luck to be in competition with more laborious person than me, he may feel relaxed.
Employees having internal locus of control are better for an organization. They are easily influenced by financial and non financial reward. They like to enjoy delegated powers, facing challenges, autonomy and taking leadership. They enjoy decentralization of power. Oppositely, employees having external locus of control like centralization of power.
Other Attributions:-
1.Correspondent Inference Theory:-
This theory was introduced to explain how we make internal causes. It opines that people judge more voluntary behavior than accidental behavior. There is clear correspondence between personality and behavior to generate internal causes. We can base correspondence inference on five factors:
(a).Choice:-Voluntary behavior are more likely to be internal.
(b).Accidental or intentional behavior:-These behaviors are based on personality.
(c).Social desirability:-We are more sensitive to make socially unacceptable behaviors.
(e).Hedonistic relevance: Behavior whether provides us benefits or harm.
(d).Personalism:-If behavior direct influences us, then it is personal not situational.
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3.Multiple necessary causes:-
People show certain behavior due to multiple necessary causes. For example, person gets selected in army and he needs to have very fit, highly motivated and trained hard to be selected in army. He must have all these features.
4.Multiple Sufficient Causes:-
Sometime one reason is sufficient. For example, we see a person fail to be selected in army job in drug test, he may be trying to cheat or taken unknowingly. Just a single reason is sufficient to get failed.
5.Controllability:-Another attribution is controllability. Some attributions are controllable and some not. We can't control all our behavior. For employees, we can't control challenges and ability. We can only control our efforts in working environment.
6.Stability:-
The stability of attributions is its relative permanence. If we think ability is source of success, then success is stable. It means ability is stable in nature. If we think success depends upon efforts, so success in unstable. So, it means ability is unstable. So, efforts can vary and it should be renewed.
7.Locus of Control:-
Locus of control says human being have their control over events that influences their life. This concept is viewed as personality psychology. Locus is place where something is situated. So, locus of control is place of control. The result of our action depends upon internal causes i.e. what we do or external causes. According to this concept our behavior is guided by rewards and punishment. Result of our actions helps to shape our belief towards the results of our future behavior.
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