...Attribution Theory is concerned with the ways in which people perceive and think about the behaviors of themselves or others, exploring how people attempt to make inferences about the causes of observed behavior. The tendency to overestimate the role of personal factors while underestimating the impact of situational factors when attempting to understand or explain the behavior or others is referred to as Fundamental Attribution Error (e.g., a person cuts me off and I immediately assume they are a jerk without considering situational factors, such as disruptive children or car problems). While the focus is more on personal attributions when explaining the behavior of others, we are more likely to make situational attributions when explaining our own behavior (referred to as the Actor-Observer Effect). While the actor-observer effect tends to hold true when explaining personal failures, successful behaviors usually lead to a Self-serving bias, whereby one is more likely to make dispositional (personal) rather than situational attributions. The 3 original and 2 additional dimensions to Weiner's taxonomy in his Attributional Theory of Motivation and Emotion are as follows: Original: internal/external, stable/unstable,...
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...Application of Theories Vignette #2 Social Cognition – Psych 6201-2 December 28, 2013 The two attributions theories I have chosen for this paper are Heider’s “Naive Psychology Theory” And Kelley’s “Covariation Model.” The vignette I chosen is number two, James, 35-year-old African-American male. Heider’s Attribution Theory: The Naive Psychology of Traits. Heider founded the study of how ordinary people think about each other. In 1958 Heider contributed to two central ideas in which the idea of studying how regular people make sense of each other. The first study is how people think about other people which can keep these two meaningful data for scientific analysis. We shall make use of the unformulated or half –formulated knowledge of interpersonal relations as it is expressed in our everyday language and experience -- this source shall be referred to as common -sense or naïve psychology (Heider). Heider made a suggestion that we should listen to what people say about how they think about other people during gathering, peoples every day theories. In order to be able to do that one must talk to ordinary people which are a good source of information. Heider had a very great deal of respect for ordinary people, even to the fact that Heider invented the term naïve psychology. Heider’s second major proposal argued that psychologists have to customize every data from people’s everyday experience, making them more precise, coherent, and scientific (Fiske, 2012). Heider’s...
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...Attribution Theory The attribution theory focuses on how individuals perceive and interpret events and how they relate these events to their thinking and behavior. There are two different types of attributions: dispositional and situational. Dispositional attributions are those that play off of internal motives. They are driven by the emotions of the person. Situational attributions are those that play off of external motives, or those that can be attributed to environmental factors (Myers, 2010). Self-serving biases also play a part in the attribution theory. Most successes are attributed to the internal, dispositional nature of people while failures are attributed to the external, environmental factors. Individuals are faced with decisions that need to be made every day. In the above scenario, the woman is faced with whether or not to cheat on her husband. This woman more than likely desires an emotional connection or validation from another person, suggesting that she is not emotionally satisfied in her relationship with her husband. While she may have moral guidelines that tell her not to, there are many factors that are possible that may have attributed toward her decision making. Using the attribution theory, the factors can be divided into dispositional and situational categories. The dispositional attributes that possibly had an effect on her choice to cheat on her husband are: She feels neglected in her marriage. She may have a lack of respect for her husband...
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...Topic: Attribution theory. I chose this topic because it interests me a lot. I have always had many difficulties when giving feedback to my students, writing reports is the most difficult thing for me to do. I never find the appropriate words, I don´t know how to motivate my students and how to tell them to improve without hurting their feelings. In unit 2 we talked about different topics but this is the one that called my attention. I would like first to summarize what this theory is about. It is widely know that people perceive events in different ways, not only at school but in their everyday lives, when something bad happens to us we generally blame someone or something else for the outcomes but when we do something right or something good happens to us we usually say it is because we for example put a lot of effort in the task, because we are lucky and so on. But, to what do we attribute our failures and success? Many theorists state that we attribute them to four factors, effort, ability, luck and task difficulty. The former factors are said to be internal and the latter external. On the other hand we can categorize them according to stability, in that case effort and luck are unstable and ability and task difficulty are stable. But what does internal, external, stable and stable mean? Internal means from within a person, external the opposite. Stable means that we can control it and unstable means the opposite. For example, a student is sad because he failed in an...
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...Final Project Optimistic / Pessimistic Attribution Theory Introduction There are many theories in the field of social psychology that can be used to explain, predict, or forecast behavior. As events occur throughout history, patterns can be analyzed and attributed to known theories that were birthed by educated scholars in this field. However, no theory s absolute in its outcome. As society changes, the applicability of each theory also changes. “Social Darwinism” was coined by Richard Hofstadter to label theories created around 1870 and primarily addresses survival and creation, as it was known in that era (Leonard, 2009). It is well known that Charles Darwin theorized that only the fittest members of society would ultimately survive. Modern science and technology has expanded to depths far beyond that of the 1800s. Research and real-time information has provided an outlet which allows scholars access to information that was not available during this period. The result of this influx of data allows current day researchers – and students – the ability to expound and expand older theories to fit modern culture. Whereas Darwin’s theory may have specifically defines mortality and the ability to thrive as it pertains to life and death, survival of the fittest can now be applied to a plethora of modern day situations, such as the stock market (only those who are savvy in the art of trading will be successful), technology (on the applications...
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...INTRODUCTION TO ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Chapter 1 People are the basic building blocks of organisation Organisations do well when people work hard…. Individually And Collectively Creating success in organisation requires Respect for their needs, talents, and aspirations What Managers Do Managerial Activities • Make decisions • Allocate resources • Direct activities of others to attain goals Where Managers Work Management Functions Planning Organizing Management Functions Controlling Leading Management Functions (cont’d) Management Functions (cont’d) Management Functions (cont’d) Management Functions (cont’d) Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles (cont’d) Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles (cont’d) Management Skills Effective Versus Successful Managerial Activities (Luthans) 1. Traditional management • Decision making, planning, and controlling 2. Communications • Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork 3. Human resource management • Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training 4. Networking • Socializing, politicking, and interacting with others Allocation of Activities by Time Enter Organizational Behavior Organisational Behaviour… is the study of individuals and groups in organisation Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d) Contributing Disciplines...
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...Deindividuation and Attribution Theory Southern Illinois University Carbondale Deindividuation and Attribution Theory Theory One of social psychology theories that describe human behaviors is attribution theory. Attribution theory is the theory of how individuals explain others’ behaviors (Myers, 2008). Deindividuation is the situation where anti-normative behavior is released in groups in which individuals are not recognized as individuals (Festinger, 1952). Many people are a part of this deindividuation process and don’t even realize it. Many people fall into deindividuation because they don’t want to ridiculed or be consider an outcast. Something that is an example of deindividuation is a cult. In a cult people are no longer an individual and there is no uniqueness to them. They become just like everyone else in the group. Another example of this is a fraternity or sorority. They go from being an individual person to becoming a part of a group where they are considered one big group versus being their own person. Being in the military is also an example of deindividuation. They are to fight and defend themselves against anyone who is considered a threat. They also have a uniformed look. Everyone has to go through training and every guy has to shave his hair. Social Issue Deindividuation can be both desirable and undesirable depending on the circumstances (Spivey & Prentice-Dunn, 1990;...
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...Perception and Attribution Theory Understanding how people form perceptions and attributions is a necessary skill in order to succeed in communications and long lasting business relationships. In the study of social psychology person perception is defined as the process in which humans form impressions of one another which encompasses the perceptions and judgments people develop every day. A new acquaintance is encountered everyday especially when one works in the business arena and impressions are created due the persons attire, language, body language, and especially how well they communicate. Based on all these characterisis conclusions are drawn even tough not much is known about the other. Learning how people can form perceptions of one another can prevent a business professional from having their customers from forming negative impressions which may jepordize future relationships or even prevent a business transaction from occurring. Attributions the keys in understanding how an individual perceives the cause of events and behaviors of others. A persons actions are questioned at times and often times explications are necessary. Negative events and behaviors are associated with negative perceptions of an individual. For example when a person answers his cellphone during a meeting with an important client he is automatically perceived as a person who is irresponsible and disrespectful, even though his close friends and coworkers see otherwise. People often try to related...
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...Kelley’s Attribution Theory Essay In this essay, readers will be presented with the literature review of Kelley’s attribution theory (1967), which was developed after the research done by Fritz Heider on attribution theory (1944, 1958). Moreover, a real world example relating to the theory will also be discussed along with the limitations and the three elements of the theory, which are consistency, distinctiveness and consensus. With that, recommendations will be given on how my experience can be improved with the chosen theory. There have been a great number of research done on perception over the last decade and social psychology had been primarily focused, perceiving causes of a person’s behavior (Kelley and Michela, 1980). In Kelley (1973), it is mentioned that Heider (1958) research has played a major role in contributing to the origination of attribution theory and it is still the major source cited in publications. Kelley’s attribution theory was also built onto Heider’s (1958) theory with an understanding that humans are “naïve psychologists” determining behaviors based on causes and effects (Hewstone and Jaspars, 1987). In Kelley (1973), it was mentioned that the central idea of attribution theory is the causal concept where human’s behavior relies on either the characteristics of the person (internal attribution) or the environment (external attribution). To determine whether a person’s behavior is caused by internal or external attribution, Kelley’s theory requires...
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...Attribution Theory and Depression Mike E. Calderin Christopher Newport Attribution Theory and Depression Baron, Branscombe, and Byrne (2009) explain the attribution theory as not wanting to just know how ourselves and others act, but why we and others act that way. People assign attributes or reasons to why something happens to better perceive, justify, and understand why people act the way they do. The Attribution Theory can be applied to many different areas of peoples’ lives. In recent years the attribution theory has been applied to different areas including Depression (Baron, Branscombe, & Byrne, 2009). According to the Mayo Clinic Staff depression is defined as, “a medical illness that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest” (2013). Depression affects how you act and how you think. It is long-term and not just a momentary feeling. A variety of factors are linked to causing depression and a great deal of variance exists amongst the different variables (Mayo Clinc, 2013). Many different variables are linked to depression and treatment works different for different individuals. Depression covers a wide spectrum in both causes and treatment. The Attribution theory relates to how we see others’ behaviors in an effort to understand people’s motives, goals and intentions (Baron, Branscombe, and Byrne, 2009). The attributions we assign to others may be bias or misinformed based on other variables. Attributes can be stable...
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...behaviour come from making attributions. Attributions are when we assign a causal meaning behind behaviour (Michael A. Hogg, 2014). For example, someone may attribute being given a compliment to dispositional factors such as them looking good or to external factors such at the other person being friendly. Attribution theories are not necessarily the actual cause of behaviour, but scientific theories behind what humans perceive to be the cause of behaviour (Försterling, 2013). Throughout our life we will construct our own, naive reasons for other peoples’ behaviour in order to gain a stable and predictive view of the world around us. While they are prone to...
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...accuracy of stereotypes. 4. Describe the attribution process and two attribution errors. 5. Diagram the self-fulfilling prophecy process. 6. Discuss three types of diversity initiatives. 7. Explain how the Johari Window can help improve our perceptions. 8. Identify the ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. 9. Discuss the psychological dimensions identified by Jung and measured in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Perception and personality in organisations Why do so few women opt for careers in Engineering and Information Technology? •Sex-role stereotyping •Fewer role models •Low self-confidence •Image of industry Perceptual process model Environmental stimuli Feeling Hearing Seeing Smelling Tasting Selective attention Organisation and interpretation Emotions and behaviour © Ian Cugley/News Limited Selective attention • Characteristics of the object –size, intensity, motion, repetition, novelty Perceptual organisation/interpretation • Perceptual grouping principles –trends –similarity/proximity –closure • Perceptual context • Characteristics of the perceiver –values and attitudes –perceptual defence –expectations − condition us to expect events • Mental models –broad world-views or ‘theories-in-use’ –can blind people to potentially better perspectives 1 Social identity theory ACME widget employee Employees at other firms People living in other countries Graduates from other schools Social identity theory features • Comparative process –compare...
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...most decision making in organizations are not completely rational. Person perception is the main issue in organizational behavior and decision making for the fact that based on M.J. Martinko et al.’s (2007) assertion the limited information or immediate impressions of employee performance could result in an inaccurate perceptual judgment made by the employers. In an attempt to explain the ways in which people form perceptions about each other, this essay will examine the influence of the attribution theory towards decision-making and illustrate three common biases and errors that distort the attribution formation through the application of three mini-case. This essay will also discuss the importance of attribution theory in relation to organizational behavior as well as decision-makers in organizations. Attribution theory is concerned with how individuals perceive and infer causality (Robert E. Ployhart and Crystal M. Harold, 2004). Johns et al. (2007) also state that the attribution theory is an attempt when individuals observe behavior to determine whether it is internally or externally caused. Internally caused behaviors refer to the behaviors which are under individual control while externally caused behaviors are the result of outside causes (Johns et al. 2007). To distinguish whether the behavior is one’s own outcomes or others’ actions, Robert E. et al. (2004) applied three pieces of information which originate from the Kelly model to infer causality: first of all...
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...examines causal reasoning, applying the theories to financial reporting. Causal reasoning involves diagnosis (determining the cause of an effect) and prediction (vice versa). These are important and commonplace amongst analysts, investors and management regarding company earnings and share prices. However, there is very little recent research employing causal reasoning theories to this field. Attribution theory describes how causes are attributed to past events. This may be dispositional (attributed to a person) or situational. In a single instance of an outcome, correspondent inference theory suggests diagnosis is based on choice, expectations and intent. Expected, freely chosen behaviour is considered to be dispositional, whereas unexpected, forced behaviour is attributed to situation. Attributing intent is simplest when considering behaviour with only one positive effect. When an outcome occurs numerous times, covariation theory describes possible cause attribution. This involves looking at cases where the suspected cause is present/absent and matching them to instances where the outcome is present/absent, utilising information on consensus (how others behave), distinctiveness (how the individual behaves in different circumstances) and consistency (how the individual has behaved in similar circumstances). Consistency should be high to make a good attribution judgement. When consensus and distinctiveness are also high, the attribution is likely to be situational whereas if...
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...Expectancy Theory As we constantly are predicting likely futures, we create expectations about future events. If things seem reasonably likely and attractive, we know how to get there and we believe we can 'make the difference' then this will motivate us to act to make this future come true. Motivation is thus a combination of: • Valence: The value of the perceived outcome (What's in it for me?) • Instrumentality: The belief that if I complete certain actions then I will achieve the outcome. (Clear path?) • Expectancy: The belief that I am able to complete the actions. (My capability?) Of course you can have an unpleasant outcome, in which case the motivation is now one of avoidance. Expectancy Theory is also called Valence-Instrumentality-Expectancy Theory or VIE Theory. Attribution Theory We all have a need to explain the world, both to ourselves and to other people, attributing cause to the events around us. This gives us a greater sense of control. When explaining behavior, it can affect the standing of people within a group (especially ourselves). When another person has erred, we will often use internal attribution, saying it is due to internal personality factors. When we have erred, we will more likely use external attribution, attributing causes to situational factors rather than blaming ourselves. And vice versa. We will attribute our successes internally and the successes of our rivals to external ‘luck’. When a football team...
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