Psychology2016

Social Psychology 479

didn’t understand? Chances are you were going through a number of possible expla-
nations in your head: “Maybe he’s sick, or maybe he sees something I can’t see,” and
so on. It seems to be human nature to want to know why people do the things they do
so that we know how to behave toward them and whom we might want to use as role
models. If no obvious answer is available, people tend to come up with their own rea-
sons. People also need an explanation for their own behavior. This need is so great that
if an explanation isn’t obvious, it causes the distress known as cognitive dissonance.
The process of explaining both one’s own behavior and the behavior of other people is
called attribution.

CAUSES OF BEHAVIOR Attribution theory was originally developed by social psy-
chologist Fritz Heider (1958) as a way of not only explaining why things happen but
also why people choose the particular explanations of behavior that they do. There are
basically two kinds of explanations—those that involve an external cause and those
that assume that causes are internal.
When the cause of behavior is assumed to be from external sources, such as the
weather, traffic, educational opportunities, and so on, it is said to be a situational cause.
The observed behavior is assumed to be caused by whatever situation exists for the per-
son at that time. For example, if John is late, his lateness might be explained by heavy
traffic or car problems.
On the other hand, if the cause of behavior is assumed to come from within the
individual, it is called a dispositional cause. In this case, it is the person’s internal per-
sonality characteristics that are seen as the cause of the observed behavior. Someone
attributing John’s behavior to a dispositional cause, for example, might assume that
John was late because his personality includes being careless of his and other people’s
time.
There’s an emotional component to these kinds of attributions as well. When peo-
ple are happy in a marriage, for example, researchers have found that when a spouse’s
behavior has a positive effect, the tendency is to attribute it to an internal cause (“He
did it because he wanted me to feel good”). When the effect is negative, the behavior is
attributed to an external cause (“She must have had a difficult day”). But if the marriage
is an unhappy one, the opposite attributions occur: “He is only being nice because he
wants something from me” or “She’s being mean because it’s her nature to be crabby”
(Fincham et al., 2000; Karney & Bradbury, 2000).

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

But what else determines which type of cause a person will use?

For example, what determines how people explain the behavior

of someone they don’t already know or like?

The best-known attributional bias is the fundamental attribution error, which
is the tendency for people observing someone else’s actions to overestimate the influ-
ence of that person’s internal characteristics on behavior and underestimate the influ-
ence of the situation. In explaining our own behavior, the tendency to use situational
attributions instead of personal is called the actor–observer bias because we are the
actor, not the observer. In other words, people tend to explain the actions of others
based on what “kind” of person they are rather than looking for outside causes, such
as social influences or situations (Blanchard-Fields et al., 2007; Harman, 1999; Jones &
Harris, 1967; Leclerc & Hess, 2007; Weiner, 1985). (For example, people hearing about
Milgram’s “shock” study tend to assume that something is wrong with the “teach-
ers” in the study rather than explaining their behavior within the circumstances of the
situation.)

fundamental attribution error

the tendency to overestimate

the influence of internal factors

in determining behavior while

underestimating situational factors.

situational cause

cause of behavior attributed to

external factors, such as delays, the

action of others, or some other aspect

of the situation.

dispositional cause

cause of behavior attributed to

internal factors such as personality or

character.

attribution

the process of explaining one’s own

Dehavior and the Dehavior of others.

attribution theory

the theory of how people make

attriDutions.