Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Attribution Theories
In general terms, attribution theories are a person's psychological response to a conflict in an effort to explain the cause of the contention. While these theories may apply to any given situation, they are often closely intertwined with more intimate, interpersonal relationships. People in such relationships may attempt to explain their own actions or the actions of the other person in terms that may mitigate their own culpability. The ability to explain why someone would act or behave in a certain way may help a person alleviate the stress associated with the conflict. There are several different types of attribution theories that people use to explain another's behavior but three of them in particular are often cited in relationship studies.
Many people in a relationship may attempt to attribute their counterpart's behavior to personal vs. situational causes. In this way, a person seems to believe that another person acted in a certain way because of his personal nature rather than the situation at hand. For instance, a woman...
A friend of mine always complained that her boyfriend was impatient and condescending towards her. Her justification for this was that, though he would never say anything directly to her, she could tell from "the look" he gave her that he was displeased. While she claimed that this was just "the way he is," she never made any attempt to attribute her own behavior to his displeasure. Perhaps he was upset with her for wanting to spend money they didn't have or because she wanted to go out with friends instead of him. In this case he may have been upset with the situation but she instead felt that he acted that way simply because of his personality.
Many people also make attributions about a person's behavior either being stable or unstable. Often during an argument, one person might become exasperated with the other and ascribe his behavior to a generally defective personality trait. If someone is forced to deal with this type of person,…
Attribution Theory Human behavior is a complex process and the attribution theories try to explain it by discussing the psychological processes going on. It discusses the causes as well as effects of the particular behavior under consideration (Attribution Theory, n.d.). The Attribution theory also tries to explain if a person behaves in a certain way due to internal or external locus of control. The types of attribution theories are common sense,
Attribution Theory Industrial organization Industrial organizational theory: The usefulness of attribution theory in a modern organization like Google Attribution theory Attribution theory attempts to explain how human beings attach meaning to their own behavior and the behavior of others. A presumption of the theory is that perception is not always reality. For example, an employee might perceive his or her boss to be aggressive or an employee might perceive all subordinates to be lazy. Attribution
The findings are expected to reveal interesting facts about the core motivations and external factors leading to juvenile delinquency. Parents and teachers will also be asked how they view their children, as well as suggestions on how the delinquency problem can be remedied. All the answers from all the interviews and questionnaires will be consolidated to form a statistical body of research. This will be analyzed in order to determine perceptions
Furthermore, the significance of this theory also extends to issues relating to health. This refers to the fact that the individual differences in attribution style and perception can lead to positive and negative implications for the individual. For example, "…differences in attributional style may lead to depression…and health problems with those who had a more pessimistic explanatory style. Baseball players with a pessimistic style died earlier than optimistic players (
Attribution Theory Covered in the Readings Human beings are naturally an inquisitive set of species; they are always wondering how and why things occur. For this reason, they create sciences, philosophies and religions as approaches of answering their questions. For decades, this curiosity has influenced their personal, interpersonal, cultural and societal lives in intricate ways. Much of this is observed in our daily lives through our conversations and mindset interactions
Attribution Bias: Personal Anecdotes One of the most common sources of conflict in relationships is incorrect interpretations of motivation. Because people are narcissistic and cannot always project themselves into the mindset of others, they focus on personality-based vs. situational reasons for behavior and misbehavior. A good example of this was a source of conflict during one of my years in middle school. My English class consistently ran late. Because it was