Attribution

Lecture 5

Inferring causal relations

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Narrative/michotte-demo.swf

Baron Albert Michotte (University of Leuven): The perception of causality (1945)

Fritz Heider (1896-1988)

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Narrative/heider-simmel-demo.swf

People see causality everywhere: Fritz Heider & Mary Ann Simmel (mid-40s.)

Attribution

• Beginnings: Fritz Heider (1958) "Psychology of interpersonal relationships"

• Atribuere = to ascribe (e.g., to ascribe traits)• Here attribution = ascription of causes• Attribution theories = naive theories of

causality. How people explain own and others’ behaviors

ATTRIBUTION vs ATTRIBUTIONAL

theories

Antecedents Attributions Consequences

Information Behaviors

Beliefs Perceived

causes

Emotions

Motivation Expectations

Attribution theories

Attributional theories

Kelley i Michela (1980)

What do we mean when we ask the „why” question?

• Intentional (symbol – meaning)– What does one mean by that?

• Teleological (goal – means)– What does one try to achieve with it?

• Causal (physical causation) (cause – effect)– What caused it?

• Functional (function – structure)– What function does it play?

• Genetic (genesis – consequence)– How came?

• Nomothetic (law – example)– Which law can be applied?

Main attribution theories

• Fritz Heider’s theory (1958)• Correspondent Inference Theory - Jones &

Davis (1965)• Self-attribution theory- Daryl Bem• Harold Kelley’s attributional cube• Denis Hilton’s Abnormal Conditions Model• Theory of Arie Kruglanski

Fritz Heider (1896-1988)

Theory of naive causality

Consistency (balance) theory

Fritz Heider (1958)

• Initiated interest in naive theories of causality• Attribution as perception: inference from probablistic

cues• Distinction between internal (personal) and external

(situational) causes• Actions may be intentional or unintentional.

Attribution = understanding of intentions.• Attribution biases, including „fundamental attribution

error” (1921) “behavior fills whole perceptual field”

Correspondent Inference Theory Edward E. Jones & Keith Davis (1965)

• Attribution - finding correspondence between behavior and intentions

• Two stages in inference: – Intention identification– Attribution of dispositions– Dispositions inferred from attributed intentions

• Conditions necessary for inferring intentions:– Actor’s knowledge of behavior consequences– Actor’s freedom of choice

• Attribution of intentions attribution of disposition

Factors influencing strength of dispositional inferences

• Behaviors– Atypical: unconventional, inconsistent with

expectations– Negative

Experiment by E.E. Jones & Harris (1967)

• 60s, war between the US and Cuba• American students evaluate essays

(purportedly) written by other students on Fidel Castro

• Half – positive, half-negative • Essays of half of each group presented as

written under pressure, another half – free-willingly

Conditions

essay

pressurePro-Castro Anti-Castro

yes

no

Task

• Estimate person’s attitude toward Castro

Estimated attitude towards Castro

essay

pressurePro-Castro Anti-Castro

yes

no

44.1

59.62

22.87

17.38

Estimated attitude towards Castro

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

pro-Castro Anti-Castro

essay direction

estimated attitude

pressureno pressure

Attribution of responsibility 

• Hedonism principle: attribution of responsibility stronger when consequences have hedonic value

• Personalism principle – attribution of responsibility stronger when consequences are personally relevant 

Self-attribution theory Daryl Bem (1967)

• Own attitudes and motivations inferred from own behaviors

• Overjustification effect (Lepper, Greene i Nisbett): Information about external incentive lowers attribution to internal factores  

• External vs. internal motivation (Edward Deci)

• Valins effect– Sleeping pills and arousal 

• Walking over bridge and attraction

„Why do I date X?”

• Mark Zanna et als. study of experienced emotions– Couples– Rubin’s Love Scale

• Replying to one of two questions:– (a) „I date him/her because of....."– (b) „I date him/her in order to..."

• Again filling Rubin’s Love Scale• Results: drop in reported love in

(b)

Conditions for self-attributional effects?

• Attitude strength and self-attribution– Stronger effects for weak attitudes– Stronger effects for attitudes not yet formed

• Practical consequences: influencing people’s attitudes by making people aware of their own behaviors

Inferring own and others’ traits

• Karyłowski & Niewiarowski (2006)– Attribution of own traits based on introspective

information (do I feel honest, wise etc.)– Attribution of other people’s traits based on

observation of behaviors (does the person behave honestly, wisely etc.)

– Attribution of friends’ traits –in between (both internal states and behaviors)

Harold H. Kelley(1921-2003)

Harold Kelley’s attribution theory

• Two theories of attribution– For replicable events (the „cube”)– For unique events (theory of causal schemata)

ANOVA model in perception of causality

• Classification of causes

internal external

person object circumstances

Subject – object and interpretation if behavior

Subject Object

Behavior

circumstances

Attributional cube

• Subject - object - circumstances: three sides of attrubitional cube

Person circ

umst

ancsO

bje

ctt

Cause

• Person (perpetrator is guilty )• Object (victim is guilty)• Circumstances (circumstances made the behavior

easy)• Interaction between the factors

– Person-object (this perpetrator towards this very victim)– Person-circumstances (this perpetrator in these specific

circumstances)– Object-circumstances (this victim in these specific

circumstances)– Person-object-circumstances (this perpetrator towards this

very victim in these specific circumstances)

Three types of information

• consistency : – How consistent is actor’s behavior in different

times and situations

• distinctivenes:– Is the behavior object-specific or does it also apply

to other objects

• consensus– How common is the behavior in tthe population

Example:

After the first date Ann left Joe for somebody else

Consistency

Ann Joe Ann Joe

High Low

Ann did it several times with Joe

It was their first time

Distinctiveness

Ann

Bill

Joe

George

Bill

Joe

George

Ann

High Low

Ann had several steady boyfriendsbefore, only with Joe it happened like this

Ann always leaves herpartners after the first date

Consensus

Keith

Ann

Sarah

Joe Joe

Sarah

Ann

KeithHigh Low

All girls leave Joe after the first date

It happened only with Ann, other girls wanted to date Joe again

Atrribution to interaction person x object

Consistency- highDistinct – high

Consensus - low

Cause: Interaction of

traits of Joe & Ann

Attribution to person’s dispositions

consistency- highdistinct – low

consensus - low

cause: dispositionsof subject

(Ann)

Atrribution to object

Consistency – highDistinct – high

Consensus - high

Cause:dispositions

of object(Joe)

Attribution to circumstances

consistency - low

Cause: Properties of circumstances

(eg. Atmosphere,

customs)

Tests of Kelley’s model

• McArthur: unequal weights ascribed to the three information– consistency - 20% variance– distinctiveness - 10%– consensus - 3%

• Underestimation of consensus information (study by Nisbett, Borgida and others)

• Underestimation of consensus information – a universal phenomenon?

• Consequences?

Tests of Kelley’s model

• Other factors influencing attribution:– Evaluation of the outcome (positive or

negative)– Whose behavior is being explained (own or

other’s)– Content of behavior (morality or

competence)– Is behavior intentional or not?

Denis Hilton

Abnormal Conditions Model

Abnormal Conditions Model Denis Hilton

• Reanalysis of the factorial model of Harold Kelley

• Which information is missing?

Why did Ann leave Joe after the first date?

Factorial schema--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Person Ann Other girls--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Object Joe Other boys Joe Other boys------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Circumstances today other today other today other today other -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------cell--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 2 63 4 5 7 8

consistency

distinctiveness consensus ???

Typicality

Keith

Ann

Sarah

Joe Joe

Sarah

Ann

Keith

High

Low

Other girls leave their partners after the first date

Other girls do not leavepartners after the first date

Bill

George George

Bill

Attribution process according to Denis Hilton

• Only abnormal behavior is explained • Information about consistency,

distinctiveness and consensus – cues that help identify the causes of abnormal states – Low consensus: person– High distinctiveness: object– Low consistency: circumstances

Arie W. Kruglanski

Theory of causes according to Arie Kruglanski (1975)

• Four causes according to Aristotle:– Material – what is it made of?

– Formal – how is it made?

– Efficient – who or what made it?

– Final - what has it been made for?

• Different types of explanation: teleological vs. mechanistic

Arie W. Kuglanski

• ACTIONS versus OCCURRENCES• Actions:

– Endogenous – a goal in itself– Exogenous – instrumental with respect to the goal 

Attributions for „actions” and „occurrences” differ

• Actions – intentional• Occurrences – nonintentional• Occurrences – processed according to

Kelley’s model – Information on consensus – External attribution more frequent

• Actions – Focus on consistency– Endogenous actions – more internal attributions

than exogenous actions

X when driving, killed YX is a paid murderer

X did it ....

X did not notice Y X’ wife betrayed X with Y: X took revenge

Efficient cause Final cause (reason for)

Exo-

Endo-

Causes versus reasons

• Cause = why something was done (who or what did it)

• Reason = reason why the action was taken (what for)

• Distinction: A.R. Buss (1978)

• Locke & Pennington (1982): possible causes of behavior

Causes of behavior according to Locke & Pennington (1982)

causes

internal(1)

external

reasons

(3)psychological

(4)situational

(2) dispositions

Why did you clean your desk?

I was asked to

I am an orderly person

Could not find anything here

There was a mess

Attribution through communication

Brown & Fish (1983): action vs. state verbs

• Action verbs – point to the SUBJECT

• State verbs – point to the OBJECT

Action vs. state verbs

• Keith HELPS Joe (action verb) Keith is the cause

• Keith LIKES Joe (state verb) Joe is the cause

Action vs. state verbs

• Cause = the factor that better differentiates people• People differ more in willingness to act (e.g. help

others) that the disposition to be the recipient of the act (e.g. be helped)

• People differ more in the disposition to arouse emotions (e.g. be liked) than the disposition to experience emotion (e.g. liking others)

Use in manipulation

• Why do you vote for party X? – Cause: the voter

• Why do you like the party X– Cause: the party

Biases and errors in attribution

Assumptions of Kelley’s model

• That information on consistency, distinctiveness and consensus has equal weight

• That attributions do not depend on whose behavior is explained

• That attributions do not depend on the value of the behavior (positive or negative)

• That people can correctly estimate unconditional probabilities

Fundamental attribution error

• Attributing causes of behavior to dispositions („he is like that") and intentions („he intended to do this") instead of to a situation or to a target object– Gustav Ischeiser (1949): Misunderstandings in

human relations. A study in false social perception.

– Fritz Heider (1921) – oral information (1958): “Behavior fills the perceptual field”

– Lee Ross (1977): fundamental attribution error

Lee Ross

The fundamental attribution error

1977

Fundamental attribution error - causes

• Understimating the role of consensus information

• Quattrone: anchoring heuristics– Attribution anchored in the subject of

behavior, insufficiently corrected for situational information

Causes (cont)

• Daniel Gilbert & Malone: correspondence bias – Role of “cognitive business”:

Correspondence bias smaller when cognitive resources were not enaged

– Replication of the experiment by Jones & Harris

• Fundamental attribution error and cognitive development

Actor-observer asymmetry

• E. Jones i R. Nisbett (1972) – attributions different for actor and for observer 

• Own behavior explained with situational factors, others’ behavior with dispositions

• Number of internal attributions similar for oneself and others

• I have freedom of choosing my behavior, he/she is determined

Causes of the actor-observer asymmetry

• Number of information: more about determinants of own than others’ behaviors

• Perspective differences (figure - ground) – study by Storms– The asymmetry reverses with self-focused

attention (eg. mirror)

• Buss (1978), Locke i Pennington (1982) : causes vs. reasons– People explain own rather than others’ behaviors

with situational reasons

Language and attributional asymmetry

• Gun Semin & Klaus Fiedler: verbs vs. adjectives– Own behaviors – described with

help of verbs (I did this and that), others’ behaviors – with help of adjectives (he/she is this or that)

– Happy and unhappy couples

Klaus Fiedler

Gun Semin

Egotistic attributions – success-failure asymmetry

• Two components: – (a) attributing successes to own dispositions (self-

enhancement)– (b) attributing failures to situational factors (self-

protection)

• More empirical evidence for (a) than (b): attributions for successes more uniform than attributions for failures

0

1

2

3

4

5

6śr

edni

a

government myself

successfulmoderateunsuccessful

Attribution of successes and failures in the past year

Explanations of attributional egotism

• Egotism• Expectation of success – unexpectedness of

failure• Kruglanski: actions (successes) vs.

occurrences (failures)

Other cultures?

Shinobu KitayamaHazel Markus

H. Markus & S. Kitayama: attributing causes for successes and failures

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

abilities

effortdifficulty

luckgood form

successfailure

Ss = Japanese students

Attributional egocentrism

• Michael Ross:– My contribution to common work

bigger than contributions of others

– Concerns both positive and negative outcomes

Attributional egocentrism

• Explanations:– Differential access to information about

own and other’s contributions– Selective encoding of information– Selective retrieval of information – Motivational factors

 

Most evidence – third explanation

False consensus effect

• Ross, Greene i House (1977): Overestimation of own behaviors and attitudes in population

• Particularly visible if:– we are uncertain of the behavior value– The behavior is positive– we are in the minority

False consensus effect - explanations

• Different access to own and others’ behaviors and attitudes

• Salience and perceptual accessibility of wn attitudes and behaviors higher

• Validating own beliefs: – if I belive in it it must be true; – if it is true others have to believe in it as well

• Egotism – The more common behavior, the less negative 

Explanations (cont.)

• False consensus effect as statistical artifact– Regression to the mean:

overestimation of rare behaviors/attitudes, underestimation of frequent behaviors

– Robyn Dawes: justified heuristic – in the face of lack of information inferrring from own attitudes self-projection

Robyn M. Dawes

1989

Functions of attributions

• When do people spontaneously ask „why” question?– Negative events

– Unexpected events

• Functions of attributions– Control

– Prediction

– Self-esteem

Attributional theories

• Attributional theory of achievement motivation (Bernard Weiner)

• Attributional theory of emotions (Bernard Weiner)

• Attributional theory of depression (Seligman, Teasdale & Abramson)

• Attributional explanations of intrinsic motivation (E. Deci, R. Ryan)

• Attributional effects in attraction • Self-handicapping