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Attribution Attribution concerns ways people explain the causes of their own and
others' behavior. Attribution Theory seeks to explain how people "assign
causality" (blame or credit) to people. Attribution involves understanding why people do what they do. Attribution is the process by which people use information to
make inferences about the causes of behavior or events. Attributions strongly influence the way
people interact with others, including in organisations. We attribute a person's behavior to various factors, including:
internal, external, stable, unstable, and other causes. *** 4 types of Attribution are:
1) Dispositional (Internal traits): People infer that an
event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits,
abilities, or feelings. 2) Situational (External influences): People infer that a
person’s behavior is due to situational factors. 3) Stable: People infer that an event or behavior is due
to stable, unchanging factors. 4) Unstable: People infer that an event or behavior is
due to unstable, temporary factors. *** The Fundamental Attribution Error attributes others'
failures to their traits, not to external factors. One underestimates the influence of
external factors. We attribute an
employee's lateness to his/her character, when he/she might have been late
because of unusual traffic. *** Self-serving Bias attributes one's successes to one's traits,
and attribute one's failures to external factors. There is a tendency for individuals to attribute one's successes
to internal factors such as ability or effort while putting the blame for
one's failure on external factors such as luck. This is called Self-serving Bias and
suggests that feedback provided to employees in performance reviews will be
predictably distorted by recipients depending on whether it is positive or
negative. *** Defensive Attribution -- People generally take credit for success (Internal
Attribution), but blame failure on outside causes (External Attribution). |