What is attribution theory? Explain attribution errors.
Concept of Attribution Theory
Attachment of cause and affect explanation by a human to their behavior is termed as attribution. The perception of people depends on whether he attributes the observed behavior to internal causes or external causes. In this regard attributions theory has been proposed to develop explanations of the ways in which we judge people differently, depending on what meaning we attribute to a given behavior. Basically, the theory suggests that we observe an individual's behavior; we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused.
Attribution Errors
An attribution error refers to the tendency of taking credit for success while blaming others or the environment for failures Attribution error mainly occurs from the tendency of rater to judge behavior of others strictly and Judges him loosely. Attribution errors are mainly classified into three types.
- Fundamental attribution error: The fundamental attribution error is also called the correspondence bias. It is the tendency to attribute other people's behavior to internal factors such as personality traits, abilities and feelings.
- Self-serving bias: The self-serving bias is the tendency for individuals to attribute their own success to internal factors and failures to situational factors: Self-serving bias tends to increase as time passes after an event.
- Optimistic bias: Optimistic bias is the tendency for individuals to view themselves as relatively more successful than others. Moreover, they believe that cause of their success will remain consistent, stable and expand.
