Attribution Theory Critical Analysis

Social psychology is the scientific study of how the environment and its surroundings influence people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Using attribution theory, the following essay will provide a critical analysis of various attribution theories and models in order to provide a plausible hypothesis or reasoning for Amanda- a friend failing all her first year courses in the previous semester.

Social attribution helps us to understand, predict and interact with people, whether it is with others or ourselves. Therefore attribution theory is the social-cognitive approach to describing the ways in which the social perceiver uses information to generate casual explanations. Attributions are judgments about causes of outcomes (Gerrig, Richard

Kelley(1967) developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic (internal) of the person or the environment (external) (Mcleod, 2010). It uses the following information as a guideline to conclude as to whether dispositional attributions are present: 1) Consensus- the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation (Kelley, 1967). 2) Distinctiveness- the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations (Kelley, 1967). 3) Consistency- the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs (Kelley, 1967). If there are low factors or results from the study, it means that there are dispositional attributions present. According to Kelley, we are able to fall back on past experiences and look for either multiple necessary causes or multiple necessary effects.
• Three-dimensional model- Bernard Weiner proposed that individuals have initial effective responses to the potential consequences of the intrinsic or extrinsic motives of the actor, which in turn influence future behaviour (Weiner, 1992). Weiner’s achievement attribution has 3 categories: 1) Stable theory, 2) locus of control, and 3)

For Example, had Amanda chosen to study whilst her friends were engaged in social activities like partying, it would have proved that Amanda was motivated. It would have also shown that Amanda had a low social desirability and this was likely to correspond with her personality. However, Amanda could not resist the urge of embracing the lively atmosphere that surrounded her. Amanda’s failure could be explained as the result of her failure was due to peer pressure or the lack of control and the tremendous negative influences that around her, and this would prove the external attribution theory. However, upon the critique of the Covariation model, it surfaces concerns for the lack of distinction between the intentional and unintentional behaviour, and between reason and cause explanations (Malle, 1999). It must be evaluated as to whether Amanda’s actions was intentional or accidental, had she known that her actions would lead to failure and thus still continued on her down stream path, it would safely illustrate that Amanda was unfocused. However, the consensus indicates a large number of students also failing all their first year subjects, and we are unable to confirm that it is a circumstantial result as there is a possibility that many of them did not engaged in social activity. Therefore the consensus