Attribution Theory Essay

Attribution Theory Definition The execute by which someones interpret and nail causes for their consume soulal and differents demeanour is the theory of attribution. 1 In this pauperismal theory, a person al expressive styles keys a vogue to explain things, he make inferences on why things or events occur. subsequently explaining the events a person then predicts future events through his inferences. He wants to take the reasons or causes behind behaviour of people and why events happen. It was first proposed by Fritz Heider in 1958 and further developed by Harold Kelly and Bernard Weiner.Theories Internal vs. External Attributions both person observe and analyze things differently thus having different slipway of explaining things. The attribution theory proposes that when people observe and analyze things they try to find out whether it is caused internally or externally. 2 Attribution is a three-stage process (1) Observation of an individual behaviour, (2) Determinat ion whether the behaviour is intentional and (3) Attribution of the notice behaviour to internal or external divisors.Those that are believed that can be in the flesh(predicate)ly controlled are called internal attributions while those believed to be caused by external forces are external attributions. 2Example of internal attributions are ability, personality, mood, rides, attitudes or disposition while external attributions are task, other people and luck. 4 Following is an example of an application of this theory is when an employee failed to perform in a given task, a carriage tries to explain why this thing happened.He may attribute this failure to poor efforts made by his crucify (internal attribute) or he may consider that the given task perchance be too difficult for his employee (external attribute). Consistency, Distinctiveness and Consensus On the other hand, when devising a determination between internal and external causes of behaviour, three factors must(pren ominal) be considered (1) consistence, (2) long suit and (3) consensus. 1 Consistency is how frequent a person behaves comparablely when approach with the cor moveing situations.Distinctiveness is how different a person behaves when faced with different types of situations. Consensus is when a group of people behaves similarly when faced with the same situation. 2 When a person behaves similarly when faced with same situations, we can say that the consistency is high if he acts differently every time exposed with the same situation, consistency is low. 3 An example of consistency is the following is when an employee consistently has a low performance when he eternally assigned in a individual task earlier when he is assigned in a group task.The observe behaviour of the employee wherein there is a high consistency can be attributed to an internal factor which is attitude. When a person behaves differently during different types of situations distinctiveness is high if he beha ves similarly during different situations, distinctiveness is low. 3 An example of distinctiveness is when an sinlessness school-age child gets high grades (same behaviour) in all of his subjects during three consecutive scaling periods (different situations).The observed behaviour of the student wherein there is a low distinctiveness can be attributed to an internal factor which is ability or effort. When the observed behaviour of a group of people is the same in a given situation, consensus is high if this group behaves differently given a similar situation, consensus is low. 3 An example of distinctiveness is when all students are late in a first period class (consensus is high), the attribution to this behaviour perchance due to an external factor which is traffic caused by a vehicular accident.Figure 1. compact of the key elements in attribution theory. 2 Errors and Biases in Attribution The difference on how every person thinks, perceive and adjudicate things may lead to some biases. One may consider the great attributes of certain occurrences to external factors rather than internal factors or the other way around, well on the actual these considerations may not be train all the time. primal Attribution Error and Self-serving BiasFundamental attribution error is when people have the tendency to consider the bend of external factors more than considering the influence of internal or personal factors. 2 An example of this is when we attribute the promotion of an officemate to perfect timingor luck rather than to his own efforts and perseverance. Self-serving bias is overestimating the influence of internal factors or personal traits rather than assigning external or situational factors to certain occurrences.When a person attributes his personal success to his own traits or internal and his misfortunes to bad luck or external factors, he is thus committing a self-serving bias. 1Self-fulfilling Prophecy perceivers expectations for a person will c ause the perceiver to interact the person perceived differently and the person perceived will respond in a way that confirms the initial expectations. 1 Example of this is when a teacher thinks that his student will do well during his exam so he spends more time with this student and coaches him well, in return the student will get a high score in the exam.Summary Attribution theory is important to management because passenger vehicles and employees actions and opinion can be influenced by how they perceive or see the reasons that cause human behaviour given a certain situation. 3 Different attributions of a manager to an employees attitude and performance can affect the standing of the employee in the organization. If a manager attributes the employees poor performance to lack of effort in performing the assigned task, he may fail the employee or give the employee a low rating during performance appraisals.On the other hand, if the manager attributes the poor performance to the h igh aim of difficulty of the job, the manager may review and revise the job specifications to lessen the difficulty level of the job. Attribution also affects employee motivation. If an employee attributes the success to external factors, then they may draw back motivation since anything that may occur is beyond their control. If an employee attributes success to internal factors handle perseverance, then they are expected to have a high motivation for their job.