Causal attribution and its errors. Causal attribution as a socio-psychological phenomenon

In the process of interacting with each other, people need mutual understanding. If there are not enough facts to explain the behavior of another person, then observers tend to attribute different motives. The same applies to the object of discussion itself: he is also trying to find the reasons for his result. This phenomenon is called causal attribution - attributing causes without knowing for sure the content of what happened. It began to be studied in Western social psychology. Haider is considered to be the founder.

Casual attribution in psychology. Attribution Examples

This phenomenon exists because everyone wants to see the whole picture, to imagine all the events. But the problem is that the facts are not always known. And then the person begins to finish drawing, to think out the picture, bringing it to a logical conclusion. This process is carried out in accordance with existing life experience. In psychology it was noted diverse reactions of society to stereotypical and deviant behaviors. Let's look at an example.

The students are waiting for a new teacher who will teach them history. If you ask them to describe their history teacher, then most likely the classes will be boring and uninteresting. And if you introduce them to another teacher, having previously described his teaching style (he uses visual models, arranges skits, does everything to make the lessons interesting), then the opinion about the person will be non-standard, different from the common habitual judgment.

Fundamental Causal Attribution Error

This error lies in different points of view, different focuses. As a rule, there are two observation positions: the participant in what is happening and the observer from the outside. Here, for the first, the figure of judgment is circumstances, and for the second, the personality itself. So it happens advance viewing of what has happened or is happening from different positions. This is in psychology and is the fundamental attribution error.

Types of causal attribution

Depending on the angle from which the situation is viewed, the resulting result is determined. The following types are distinguished::

Personal attribution. Attributing the causes of failure directly to the individual;
Circumstantial. Blaming the circumstances;
Object. The reason is in the object itself.

It is interesting that a person’s position determines the direction of his thinking. The participant himself most often blames the circumstances. The observer sees the motive for failure in the individual (participant). This happens because neither one nor the other imagines a completely plausible picture. It turns out that attribution is a subjective, and therefore often erroneous, opinion.

One more example. A shy guy finally decided to meet a girl. I thought about everything in advance, even rehearsed my speech. In general, he also raised his self-esteem. He meets her on the street, but for some reason she refuses the opportunity to meet her. The guy immediately builds all sorts of hypotheses. He thinks: “maybe it’s just me, maybe she doesn’t like me; maybe she’s just not in the mood,” etc. These thoughts can be either separately or come one after another.

In the same time a correct understanding of the reasons for a person’s actions is very important for maintaining relationships between people. Contrived motives for behavior can be very different from real motives. But it turns out that sometimes a person cannot ask, clarify some points and therefore is forced to use his imagination.

Goals and results of causal attribution research

The goal of research into the mechanisms of causal attribution is to increase the effectiveness of interaction between people and the effectiveness of personal growth. The first presupposes the most accurate determination of the motives of certain actions. And the second shows options for influencing motivation, activity, emotions, etc. What most fully helps to understand the study of this phenomenon is the indication of the moment of assigning or accepting responsibility for specific actions. And a comprehensive consideration of the current result. That is, the purpose of the research is finding an accurate definition of the actual motives of behavior.

It is known that a person treats himself more softly when assessing than other strangers. A person attributes someone’s successes and his own failures to situational attribution. But, describing other people's failures and his own successes, he turns to personal attribution. In these cases, a person is inclined to consider the cause of what happened to be either the prevailing circumstances or the person himself, according to the final result.

Usually a person explains success by his hard work, willpower, and his uniqueness. But failure is always associated with the situation. And if you analyze the actions of another person, then all of the above applies in reverse order. If a person achieves success, it is because the circumstances have developed that way. A if he failed, then it is his own fault. And few people think differently. Few will pay attention to the situation and focus on it. After all, if you explain the result of a person’s activity in a different way, then this means recognizing it at your level, or even better. This means comparing him to yourself.

Therefore, people tend to protect their self-esteem in this way. It is easier to blame the circumstances, the object of the action, than to force yourself to work, to improve yourself. Causal attribution is applicable everywhere: in everyday life, at work, in relationships. And this principle of opposites operates everywhere.

Why do people need causal attribution?

For various reasons, people strive to find an explanation for the reasons for their actions.

Here are some of them:

Understanding what is happening around allows a person to avoid unwanted consequences;
The desire to feel safe;
Understanding what is happening is necessary to make rational decisions.

Causal attribution.

Causal attribution(English attribute - to attribute, to endow) - the subject’s interpretation of his perception of the reasons and motives of the behavior of other people, obtained on the basis of direct observation, analysis of performance results and other things by attributing to an individual, a group of people properties, characteristics that were not included in the field of perception and how would be conjectured by them.

Each of the participants in the interaction, assessing the other, strives to build a certain system of interpretation of his behavior, in particular its reasons. In everyday life, people often do not know the real reasons for another person’s behavior or do not know them enough. In conditions of a lack of information, they begin to attribute to each other both the reasons for behavior and sometimes the patterns of behavior themselves or some more general characteristics. Attribution is carried out either on the basis of the similarity of the behavior of the perceived person with some other model that existed in the past experience of the subject of perception, or on the basis of an analysis of one’s own motives assumed in a similar situation (in this case, the identification mechanism may operate). But, one way or another, a whole system of methods for such attribution (attribution) arises. Thus, the interpretation of one’s own and others’ behavior through attribution (reasons, motives, feelings, etc.) is an integral part of interpersonal perception and cognition.

A special branch of social psychology, called causal attribution, analyzes precisely these processes (F. Heider, G. Kelly, E. Jones, K. Davis, D. Kennose, R. Nisbet, L. Strickland). If at first the study of attribution was only about attributing reasons for the behavior of another person, then later methods of attributing a wider class of characteristics began to be studied: intentions, feelings, personality traits. The phenomenon of attribution itself arises when a person has a deficit of information about another person: it is necessary to replace it with the process of attribution.

The measure and degree of attribution in the process of interpersonal perception depends on two indicators, namely on the degree:

uniqueness or typicality of an act (this refers to the fact that typical behavior is behavior prescribed by role models, and therefore it is easier to interpret unambiguously; on the contrary, unique behavior allows for many different interpretations and, therefore, gives scope for attributing its causes and characteristics);

its social desirability or undesirability (socially “desirable” is understood as behavior that corresponds to social and cultural norms and therefore is relatively easily and unambiguously explained, however, when such norms are violated, the range of possible explanations expands significantly).

The structure of the causal attribution process

The following aspects of interest to attribution researchers are highlighted: characteristics of the subject of perception (observer), characteristics of the object and the situation of perception.

An interesting attempt to construct a theory of causal attribution belongs to G. Kelly. He showed how a person searches for reasons to explain the behavior of another person. In general, the answer sounds like this: every person has some a priori causal ideas and causal expectations.

A causal scheme is a kind of general concept of a given person about the possible interactions of various causes, about what actions, in principle, these causes produce. It is built on three principles:

§ the principle of depreciation, when the role of the main cause of an event is underestimated due to the overestimation of other causes;

§ the principle of amplification, when the role of a specific cause in an event is exaggerated;

§ the principle of systematic distortion, when there are constant deviations from the rules of formal logic when explaining the causes of people’s behavior Kelly G. The process of causal attribution // Modern foreign social psychology. Texts. M., 1984 C 146..

In other words, every person has a system of causality schemes, and every time the search for reasons that explain “other people’s” behavior, one way or another, fits into one of these existing schemes. The repertoire of causal schemas that each personality possesses is quite extensive. The question is which causal scheme will work in each particular case.

In experiments, it was found that different people demonstrate predominantly completely different types of attribution, that is, different degrees of “correctness” of the attributed reasons. In order to determine the degree of this correctness, three categories are introduced: 1) similarity - agreement with the opinions of other people; 2) differences - differences from the opinions of other people; 3) correspondence - the constancy of the action of the cause in time and space.

The exact relationships have been established in which specific combinations of manifestations of each of the three criteria should give a personal, stimulus or circumstantial attribution. In one of the experiments, a special “key” was proposed, with which the test subjects’ answers should be compared each time: if the answer coincides with the optimum given in the “key,” then the reason was assigned correctly; if a discrepancy is observed, it is possible to establish what kind of “shifts” are characteristic of each person in the choice of the reasons predominantly attributed to them. Comparisons of the test subjects' responses with the proposed standards helped to establish at the experimental level the truth that people do not always attribute a cause “correctly,” even from the point of view of very simplified criteria.

G. Kelly revealed that depending on whether the subject of perception himself is a participant in an event or an observer, he can preferentially choose one of three types of attribution:

personal attribution, when the reason is attributed personally to the person committing the act;

object attribution, when the cause is attributed to the object to which the action is directed;

circumstantial attribution, when the cause of what is happening is attributed to circumstances.

It was found that the observer more often uses personal attribution, and the participant is more inclined to explain what is happening by circumstances. This feature is clearly manifested when attributing reasons for success and failure: the participant in the action “blames” the failure primarily on the circumstances, while the observer “blames” the failure primarily on the performer himself. The general pattern is that, as the event becomes more significant, subjects tend to move from circumstantial and objective attribution to personal attribution (that is, to look for the cause of what happened in the conscious actions of a particular person). If we use the concept of figure and ground (Gestalt psychology), then the attribution process can be explained by what comes into the observer’s field of vision as a figure. Thus, in one experiment, subjects watched a video recording of a suspect giving testimony during interrogation. If they saw only the suspect, they perceived the confession as true. If a detective also came into view, then the subjects (observers) were inclined to believe that the suspect was forced to confess. Myers D. Social psychology St. Petersburg: Peter Kom, 1998. P. 163.

In addition to errors that arise due to the different position of the subject of perception, a number of fairly typical attribution errors have been identified. G. Kelly summarized them as follows:

1st class - motivational errors, including various types of “defense” [predilections, asymmetry of positive and negative results (success - to oneself, failure - to circumstances)];

2nd class - fundamental errors, including cases of overestimation of personal factors and underestimation of situational ones.

More specifically, fundamental errors manifest themselves in errors:

“false consent”(when a “normal” interpretation is considered to be one that coincides with “my” opinion and is adjusted to it);

related to unequal opportunities for role behavior(when in certain roles it is “easier” to demonstrate one’s own positive qualities, and interpretation is carried out by appealing to them);

arising from more trust in specific facts, than to general judgments, due to the ease of constructing false correlations, etc.

In order to justify the identification of this particular type of error, it is necessary to analyze the causality patterns that a person possesses. In offering descriptions of these schemes, G. Kelly puts forward four principles: covariation, discounting, amplification and systematic distortion. The first of these principles (covariation) operates when there is one cause, the other three when there are many causes.

The essence of the covariance principle is that an effect is attributed to the cause with which it is covariant in time (coincident in time). It should be remembered that we are always talking not about what the actual cause of an event is, but only about what reason a certain “naive” ordinary person actually attributes to an event or action. In other words, the reasons put forward in everyday psychology are explored here. This is clearly demonstrated in the analysis of the following three principles named by Kelly.

If there is more than one reason, then the person is guided when interpreting:

* or the principle of amplification, when priority is given to a cause that encounters an obstacle: it is “strengthened” in the consciousness of the perceiver by the very fact of the presence of such an obstacle;

* or the principle of depreciation, when, in the presence of competing reasons, one of the reasons is disavowed by the very fact of the presence of alternatives;

* or the principle of systematic distortion, when in a special case of judgments about people, factors of the situation are underestimated and, on the contrary, factors of personal characteristics are overestimated.

The process of attribution, determined by the characteristics of the subject of perception, is also manifested in the fact that some people tend, to a greater extent, to fix physical features in the process of interpersonal perception, and then the “sphere” of attribution is significantly reduced. Others perceive predominantly the psychological characteristics of others, and in this case a special “space” opens up for attribution.

The dependence of the attributed characteristics on the previous assessment of the objects of perception was also revealed. In one of the experiments, assessments of two groups of children given by the subject of perception were recorded. One group was made up of “favorite” children, and the other group was made up of “unloved” children. Although the “favorite” (in this case, more attractive) children deliberately made mistakes in performing the task, and the “unfavorite” children performed it correctly, the perceiver, nevertheless, attributed positive ratings to the “favorite” ones, and negative ones to the “unloved” ones. .

This corresponds to the idea of F. Heider, who said that people generally tend to reason in this way: “a bad person has bad traits,” “a good person has good traits,” etc. Therefore, the attribution of causes of behavior and characteristics is carried out according to the same model: “bad” people are always assigned bad actions, and “good” people are always assigned good actions. Along with this, theories of causal attribution pay attention to the idea of contrasting ideas, when negative traits are attributed to a “bad” person, and the perceiver evaluates himself by contrast as the bearer of the most positive traits.

Causal attribution Etymology.

Comes from Lat. causa - reason and attribuo - bestow.

Author. Specificity.

An individual's interpretation of the reasons for other people's behavior. Under the influence of motivational factors, it significantly deviates from logically justified forms. Studies have identified certain patterns of causal attribution, in particular the following: if failures are attributed to external events, and successes are attributed to internal ones, then this has a motivating effect on activity.

Psychological Dictionary. THEM. Kondakov. 2000.

Causal attribution

CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION (With. 297) (from Latin causa - reason + attribuo - I give, I endow) - a phenomenon of social perception, a person’s interpretation of the reasons for the behavior of another person, as well as his own. Translating the difficult-to-pronounce term into the native language, the essence of causal attribution can be defined as the attribution, attribution of the causes of a particular act to certain sources - external or internal. So, if one person hit another, the reason for this may seem to us to be that he himself is by nature an angry and aggressive person (that is, the action is dictated by his internal qualities), or that he is forced to defend himself or defend his interests in this way ( that is, circumstances forced him to take this step). These kinds of judgments are not always based on logic or objectively observable reality, but rather are dictated by our tendency to interpret the sources of behavior. Such interpretations are largely individual, but also have common features.

Researchers of causal attribution proceeded from the following provisions: 1) people in the process of interpersonal perception and cognition are not limited to receiving externally observable information, but strive to clarify the causes of behavior and draw conclusions regarding the corresponding personal qualities of the observed person; 2) since information about a person obtained as a result of observation is most often insufficient for reliable conclusions, the observer finds probable causes of behavior, corresponding personality traits and attributes them to the observed person; 3.) such a causal interpretation significantly influences the behavior of the observer.

Attribution theories were developed based on a generalization of the facts of social perception (interpersonal perception), but their authors later began to extend their explanatory principles and terminology to other areas, for example, motivation.

What is the essence of attribution theories? “Attributional theories in the broad sense of the term,” writes L.D. Ross, “consider the attempts of the average person to understand the causes and consequences of the events he witnesses; in other words, they study the naive psychology of the “man on the street” - how he interprets his behavior and the behavior of others.” Such broad goals of study resulted from a different view of man than was the case in behaviorism or Freudianism. Causal attribution researchers view each person as an intuitive psychologist, equal in status to a research psychologist. The goal of a professional psychologist is to learn the ways of perceiving and understanding events and people that an intuitive psychologist uses. These methods, as it turned out, suffer from a number of disadvantages associated with: 1) errors in coding, reproduction, and analysis of interpreted data; 2) chronic lack of time required for assessment; 3) the action of distracting motivation.

F. Heider is considered the founder of the study of attributive processes. The essence of the concept he proposed is as follows. A person strives to form a consistent and coherent picture of the world. In this process, he develops, as Heider puts it, “everyday psychology” as a result of attempts to explain to himself the reasons for the behavior of another person and, above all, the motives that caused it. Heider emphasizes the importance of whether we attribute a phenomenon to factors located within the person or outside the person, for example, we can attribute a person's error to his low ability (internal cause) or the difficulty of the task (external cause). The nature of the explanation in each individual case is determined not only by the level of development of the subject, his own motives, but also by the need to maintain cognitive balance. For example, if a person believes that another person treats him well, then any negative act of his will “fall out” of the overall picture, and psychological forces will come into play, striving to restore balance.

Many of Heider's concepts have been tested and confirmed experimentally. Haider himself refers to an experiment by M. Zillig, conducted back in 1928. In this experiment, two groups of children - popular and unpopular - performed gymnastic exercises in front of their classmates. Although the “popular” ones deliberately made mistakes, and the “unpopular” ones performed flawlessly, the audience subsequently said the opposite. Heider points to this fact as an example of attributing “bad” qualities to “bad” people.

In their research into how we interpret the world around us, social psychologists have discovered a general tendency they call the fundamental attribution error. It consists of exaggerating the importance of personal (dispositional) factors to the detriment of situational or “environmental” influences. As observers, we often lose sight of the fact that each person plays many social roles, and we often witness only one of them. Therefore, the influence of social roles in explaining human behavior is easily overlooked. This, in particular, is well illustrated by the ingenious experiment of L. Ross, T. Ambile and D. Steinmetz. The experiment was conducted in the form of a quiz - similar to popular television polymath competitions. Subjects were assigned to play one of two roles - a host, whose task was to ask difficult questions, and a quiz taker, who had to answer them; The distribution of roles was carried out in random order. An observer, informed of the quiz show's procedures, watched the show as it was played out, and then assessed the general erudition of the host and the participant answering the questions. It is easy for any of us to imagine ourselves in the role of such an observer, remembering what feelings we experience when we see how presenters on a television screen experience the erudition of a “man on the street” thirsting for a cash prize. The impression in most cases is this: on the one hand, we see a person who is smart, sophisticated, and knowledgeable, and on the other hand, an awkward and narrow-minded person. Just by asking tricky questions, the presenter gives the impression of being smart, and the quiz participant is faced with the need to answer them (and probably gives in to many), so he comes across as stupid. This is exactly what Ross and his colleagues found: to observers, the presenters appear to be much more knowledgeable than the participants. Although in reality it is highly unlikely that the presenters were more erudite than the participants, since everyone received their role through random assignment. And what’s most interesting: the observers knew this too! And yet, when making their judgments about the performers of the quiz, observers were unable to take into account the influence of social roles and fell into the trap of attributing what they saw to personal qualities.

If the fundamental attribution error were limited to judgments in such game situations, it would hardly deserve attention. However, its consequences extend extremely widely. E. Aronson in his famous book “The Social Animal” gives an example that is typical for America, and has recently become well understood by us. Observing a person who, say, picks up empty bottles on the street, we will most likely wince in disgust: “Nothing! Slacker! If he really wanted to find a decent job, he would have found it long ago!” Such an assessment may, in some cases, exactly correspond to reality, but it is also possible that it represents a manifestation of a fundamental attribution error. Do we know what circumstances forced a person to fall like that? Hardly! And his characterization is already ready.

One of the significant results of experimental research on causal attribution is that establishing systematic differences in a person's explanation of his behavior and the behavior of other people. We tend to interpret our own mistakes and even unworthy actions as forced, dictated by unfavorable circumstances, while we are more likely to interpret successes and achievements as a natural consequence of our high merits. In relation to other people, the opposite pattern often applies - their successes are more likely to be regarded as a consequence of “luck”, a favorable combination of circumstances, someone’s patronage, etc., but mistakes and awkwardness are more likely to be regarded as a consequence of negative personal characteristics. Self-justification like “What else can I do - life is like this these days!”, envious “Some people are lucky!” (in the sense - clearly undeserved), disgusted “What else can you expect from such a worthless person?!” - these are all everyday examples of this pattern. It is worth considering whether we resort to these formulas too often and always justifiably...

An important pattern discovered in many experiments is that a person exaggerates his own role in the situation in which he finds himself involved - even if in a passive role. The very fact of participating in an event makes us feel (often unreasonably) our ability to influence its course and results. E. Langer demonstrated such an “illusion of control” in a simple experiment. The study consisted of subjects buying lottery tickets. The important point was that some of them got the right to choose which ticket to buy, while others had to take the ticket that the experimenter offered them. Subjects were then offered the opportunity to sell their ticket back to the experimenter. Langer discovered the following pattern: those subjects who chose tickets themselves charged a price for them, sometimes four times higher than the price assigned to subjects who received tickets according to the order. Apparently, the subjects had the illusion that their actions in choosing a ticket could influence the result; they considered the ticket that they themselves chose to be “happier,” although it is quite obvious that winning was determined by chance and none of the tickets had a higher probability turn out to be winning. However, the illusion of control created by egocentric thinking is very strong. Therefore, it is not surprising that in many situations, predetermined either by simple chance or by someone’s choice beyond our control, we are kindly given the illusory opportunity to “pull out the lucky ticket” ourselves.

It is very important that knowledge of the patterns and errors of causal attribution helps to make it a more effective tool for establishing interaction. Thus, knowledge of the existence of the “fundamental attribution error” can direct our perceptions to better account for the various situational influences on a person. It is also very important to become aware of your own attribution style, which is present in any communication. It is very useful to answer the question: who am I - a “situationist” who always tries to deduce everything from circumstances, or a subjectivist who explains everything by the efforts and desires of a person? The experience of psychologists involved in “attributional psychotherapy” shows that in many situations, awareness and a change in the style of attributing reasons lead to an increase in the success of communication.

Popular psychological encyclopedia. - M.: Eksmo. S.S. Stepanov. 2005.

Causal attribution

Our conclusion about the causes of a particular situation. If, for example, you believe that the reason you scored well in an exam is because of the quality of your studying. you make a causal attribution, attributing your success to quality teaching (situational attribution).

Psychology. AND I. Dictionary reference / Transl. from English K. S. Tkachenko. - M.: FAIR PRESS. Mike Cordwell. 2000.

See what “causal attribution” is in other dictionaries:

Causal attribution- (from lat. causa cause lat. attributio attribution) phenomenon of interpersonal perception. It consists of interpreting, attributing reasons for another person’s actions in conditions of a lack of information about actual... ... Wikipedia

Causal Attribution- (from the Latin causa reason and attribuo I endow) the phenomenon of social interaction, author F. Heider. An individual's interpretation of the reasons for other people's behavior. Under the influence of motivational factors, it significantly deviates from logically justified forms. IN… … Psychological Dictionary

CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION- (from Lat. causa - reason, attribuo - endow) - a psychological mechanism of social interaction that determines the individual’s interpretation of the reasons for the behavior of other people. The concept was introduced by F. Haider. Study of K. a. comes from the following: 1) people,... ...

Attribution is causal- (attribution from Latin causa reason) attributing to other people certain reasons for behavior, although in fact these people may be guided by completely different motives and motivations. So, the behavior of other people is explained by the fact that they are aggressive,... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

- (from the English attribute to attribute, to endow) the attribution to social objects (a person, a group, a social community) of characteristics that are not represented in the field of perception. The need for A. is due to the fact that the information that can be given to a person... ... Great psychological encyclopedia

- (from Latin causa cause) a concept used in social psychology to designate: a) the principles of causality analysis in the field of social perception (see social perception); b) stable ideas about specific causal relationships. This… … Great psychological encyclopedia

Attribution- [English] attribute attribution] attribution to social objects (person, group, social community) of characteristics not represented in the field of perception. The need for A. is due to the fact that the information that observation can give a person... ... Psychological Lexicon

Casual attribution is a phenomenon of perception of a person by a person, which consists in explaining, attributing the reasons for the actions of this very perceived person in the condition of a lack of information about the real reasons for such an action.

So, you come to work, and your colleague compliments you right from the door. You don't know the real reasons why he did this. And a variety of “explanations” may pop up in your head:

“I had a fight with my girlfriend and now I’m ready to hit on me”;
“I really put on my makeup today”;
“He wants to suck up and go on vacation, dumping extra work on me.”

So, in everyday life, we come across examples of casual attribution. Surprisingly, in fact, a colleague may simply be in a good mood and ready to shower the whole world with compliments.

This concept was formed in Western social psychology, and is most fully revealed in the theory of attribution. The main questions that were revealed during the creation of this theory concerned the mechanisms and factors with the help of which an ordinary person explains, first of all, to himself the cause-and-effect relationships of the events in which he participates or witnesses, as well as how he explains his personal behavior .

Now the concept has expanded significantly. Casual attribution in psychology is the attribution of different motives and qualities to the person we encounter in life. Sometimes these “conclusions” of ours may be unconscious.

However, how do we explain to ourselves the behavior of a stranger if, as was said earlier, we do not know his real motives? Naturally, we ourselves have personal experience, on the basis of which we derive variants of existing motives. In addition, the society in which we live offers or even imposes familiar schemes for explanation.

So, while waiting for a late friend, we will catch ourselves wondering if something happened to her child, because for us at this stage of life, the most important thing is our baby. And we can only be late without calling if something bad happens to the baby.

But the blaring radio receiver, of course, will convince us that our friend is stuck in those very terrible traffic jams in the city center.

Attribution Types

personal (the reason is attributed to the person who performs the action);
object or stimulus (the reason is attributed to the object to which the activity is directed);
circumstantial or situational (the cause is attributed to independent circumstances).

People who have the most developed personal attribution always attribute events that happened to the “culprit.” “He got a promotion. Of course, he’s a suck-up.” “Is your son’s family having financial problems again? Naturally, the daughter-in-law doesn’t know how to plan a budget at all.” “I wasn’t hired? Yes, these leaders are all so stupid - they only pay attention to appearance.”

One cannot help but recall examples of self-flagellation. Let's say the guy promised to call back this morning, but you never received a call. And here there may be options when you may seem to be this “culprit” to yourself: “I am guilty. As always, I stuffed myself too much.” Or: “It’s always like this! I'm not lucky." Such cases of “slipping” into personal attribution and blaming oneself can significantly affect not only self-esteem, but even a person’s mental state and cause depression, neuroses and suicidal thoughts. Remember that attribution is associated precisely with “thinking out” the reasons for what is happening. And they do not always (and more often - never) coincide with actual motives. Because the effect in question, as mentioned earlier, always occurs in situations of lack of real information. Therefore, if you find yourself thinking that you too often blame yourself for all the deadly sins, perhaps you should talk about it with a psychologist.

Object or stimulus causal attribution, on the contrary, blames the object itself for what happened. "I am not guilty. The glass fell and broke on its own,” the little child cries. However, stimulus attribution is not always so touchingly innocent. Let's look at situations of family or child violence when the true causes are repressed or not realized. “He started it himself,” say several ten-year-old children who beat a seven-year-old child to the point of concussion. “He began to insult me,” says the tyrant father who crippled his son. “Yes, she dressed like a prostitute herself,” says the grandmother of the teenage rapist.

In a word, the object itself provoked the action on itself. Often, this happens in situations of uncontrolled aggression. And even if your situation does not involve such critical cases, the preference to explain an action in terms of object attribution may be caused by an internal need to justify oneself. Think about whether you had to make excuses all the time in early childhood and whether this hurt you? If you remember such cases, do not forget to work through such childhood situations with your psychologist.

If a person’s detailed causal attribution prevails, then the cause of everything is called circumstances, external factors, which, by and large, are not directly related to the subject or object of the activity. “Just look at the movies and games these days – it’s all violence,” says the mother of a man convicted of hooliganism. And a patient with alcoholism swears for the hundredth time that he had no intention of drinking yesterday, it’s just that “the stars aligned” and the low atmospheric pressure resulted in the need for migraine therapy.

Errors of perception

Although some people tend to make one type of attribution, most people attribute motive and cause using different types of phenomena. So, if we are faced with our own failures and the successes of other people, then we tend to explain this by circumstances. But if it’s the other way around, then we consider our achievements and other people’s failures from the position of personal attribution.

In addition, participants in events more often use detailed attribution, and observers use personal attribution.

Interesting examples of social casual attribution that have been transferred to various business trainings. Thus, if you ask managers to name the reasons for the crisis situation in which the company finds itself, then they almost always name issues associated with poor skills or insufficient diligence of the employees of this company. In case of successful functioning, the credit is attributed to oneself. In both cases, there is a bias towards personal attribution. At the same time, external factors are almost never mentioned, although they are often real components of the demand for this type of activity as a whole.

But if the task was set to describe why they were insolvent leaders, then the reasons suggested by a detailed attribution came first.

All of the above and many other studies have led to the establishment
mechanisms of casual attribution. The conclusions were:

there are systemic differences in explaining one’s behavior and the actions of other people;
own subjective factors deviate the substitution process from logical rules;
the activity of a person who received an unsatisfactory result is explained through the influence of the external environment, and a satisfactory result is explained by the influence of internal factors.

Research objectives and possibilities of using the phenomenon of casual attribution

As mentioned earlier, the first studies concerned social causal attribution. The study of this phenomenon made it possible to establish the degree of responsibility that each member of the team assumed for their joint activities. And also evaluate and correlate this with the real contribution to the work for possible forecasts of the prospects and success of employees.

However, now the theory of attribution is used within the framework of pedagogical, developmental, and sports psychology. And attribution errors help practicing psychologists pay attention to some life attitudes and possible problems.

In addition, obvious biases towards one or another type of attribution may indicate unprocessed childhood fears, which, in turn, can lead to various psychological characteristics of behavior or, even worse, personal problems. So, if you are interested in something or some point in the article is not completely clear to you, do not hesitate to talk about it with a psychologist.

Lapshun Galina Nikolaevna, Master of Psychology, psychologist I category

Surely everyone has encountered a situation where, due to a lack of information, misinterpretation of other people’s emotions and feelings, a person misevaluates one or another action of another. Most often, these conclusions are based on one’s own conjectures or existing opinions about a person.

History and research of the phenomenon in psychology

The founder of the term “causal attribution” in psychology was researcher F. Heider in the mid-twentieth century. He was the first to voice diagrams showing the reasons why a person creates an opinion about some event or person. Heider's idea was immediately taken up by other psychologists, notably Lee Ross and George Kelly.

Kelly did a great deal of work in understanding the causes of behavior, expanding the range of research to the basis of attribution. The more one person gets to know another, the more he is seized by the desire to find out the motive of his actions. In the process of cognition, a person relies on data already known to him, but sometimes there is too little of it to create a holistic picture of behavior and explain actions. The question cannot remain unresolved; due to a lack of information, a person begins to think about what he could not explain. That is, ignorance of the reasons for other people’s actions gives a person a reason to invent them himself, based on his own observations of the behavior of another person. described in psychology as “causal attribution.”

Criteria for attributing causes of behavior to Kelly.

Causal attribution as a phenomenon helped make a significant step. In his theory, Kelly tried to establish what criteria a person uses when trying to explain the reasons for someone else's behavior. During the research, 3 criteria were established:

this behavior is constant for a person (constancy criterion);

such behavior distinguishes a person from others (criterion of exclusivity);

normality of behavior (consensus criterion).

If a person solves a problem in the same way as the previous ones, then his behavior is permanent. When, when answering an obvious question, a person answers in a completely different way, the conclusion about the principle of exclusivity suggests itself. “In the current situation, many people behave this way” is direct evidence of commonality. In searching for reasons to explain other people's behavior, a person more or less fits into this scheme. It gives only general characteristics, and the set of reasons is individual for everyone. The question remains, which causal attribution has not yet been able to answer: in what situation will a person resort to using each of the criteria?

Manifestation of causal attributions in relation to oneself and others

The peculiarity of this phenomenon is that a person applies completely different motives of behavior towards himself. Errors of causal attribution consist in the fact that a person justifies other people's actions with personal qualities. And he explains his actions by external circumstances - of course, because we are more lenient towards ourselves. In a situation where another person has not completed the task assigned to him, we give him the title of a lazy and irresponsible person. If I did not complete the task, it means that the weather, loud music outside the wall, etc. interfered with me. The reason for this idea is that we consider our behavior to be normal, and we interpret behavior that differs from ours as abnormal.