WEINER’S

ATTRIBUTION
THEORY
SGDY 5033
HUMAN MOTIVATION
TOH YONG BING (823114)
UMAMAGESWARI MUNIANDY (823254)
SINDHUMATHI SEIVAN (823141)

PREPARED FOR;
DR. AMRITA KAUR
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION & MODERN LANGUAGES 2017/2018 1
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Situational Questions
1. Have you ever drive on highway, suddenly you saw
from your rear mirror a car drove very fast towards
you and flashing the light at you, asking you to
move away from the fast (right) lane? When that
happened, what was running in your mind? Did
you attribute any reason to the person rude
driving?

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Situational Questions
2. While you were talking to your friend, he/she
received a text message. From there on, his focus
was on the phone and not on the conversation.
What thought were you having during such
situation? What did you think of him?

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 Video clip
(non-trimmed version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doMOHcTlK7o

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ATTRIBUTION
THEORY

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Introduction
• Attribution - the understanding on perceived causes of
outcomes which shape the development of individuals’
expectancy beliefs and their affective reactions to different
experiences.

Remarks:
• Attributions are perceived causes of outcome, they may
not be actual causes.

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History
• First developed by Fritz Heider in 1958, but wasn’t able to
cover every aspects.
• Bernard Weiner of the Uni. of California (LA) developed
and popularized it with more writings and researches.
• Popular to education during 80s-90s but importance
declined, as attributions are retrospective judgements of
causes. They don’t influence motivation directly but rather
indirectly through effects on other processes.

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Which researchers are associated with the Attribution Theory?
Fritz Heider (1896 - 1988)
• Popularized the assumption that humans strive to understand
their environment
• Explained we search for internal and external causes for events
we encounter
• Connected behaviour to internal perception of environmental
stimuli

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Which researchers are associated with the Attribution Theory?
Harold Kelley (1921 - 2003)
• Developed 3 dimensions that influence perception in the
attribution process: distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency.
• Offered explanation for perception when sufficient information is
not available based on the 3 dimensions (multiple sufficient/
necessary); useful for educators cos it helps to understand why
some students see themselves/others a successful/ unsuccessful.

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Which researchers are associated with the Attribution Theory?
Bernard Weiner (1935 - )
• Defined 3 causal dimensions (stability, locus and control) &
placed them in a model to illustrate the attributional model.
These 3 dimensions follow perceived causes and help educators
to understand psychological consequences, such as low self-
efficacy or strong expectancy of success.
• Provided research on stability vs. locus. This research showed
that ability and effort are not both internal factors. This is
important because it is better to attribute failure to lack of effort
than lack of ability
• Linked emotions to attributions. Emotions are the result of how
individuals perceive events. This is helpful for educators to
understand low self-esteem, depression, shame, or other
emotions they may notice from students who are performing
poorly. 11
Overviews
• Cognitive theory of motivation, based on idea that
individual are conscious & rational decision makers.
• 2 assumptions:
1. People are motivated by a goal, i.e. to understand &
mastering the environment & themselves.
2. People are naïve scientists, trying to understand our
environment.

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Overview
• It gives precedence to the individual’s construction of
beliefs.
• In term of motivation, it seeks to understand:
1. How individuals construct their (expectancy) beliefs?
2. What influences these (expectancy) beliefs
constructions?

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Overview of Attribution Theory & Model

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The Antecedents of Attributions
• Attribution Theory assumes individuals use various
information sources as data to make inferences
(attributions) about the causal determinants of behaviour.
• Attribution Theory defines the central tasks of perceivers
as detecting covariation*1 between causes & effects.
• Environment & Personal factors

*1 Covariation of the cause and effect is the process of establishing that there is a
cause and effect to relationship between the variables

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The Antecedents of Attributions
1. Environmental Factors
a) Specific Information
b) Social Norms
c) Situational features

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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
• Distinctiveness of the entities
(Does X behave the same way in different situation? Is
there a difference in the way X is acting in Situation A vs.
Situation B?)
• Consensus across persons
(How do other people behave. Does anyone else behave
that way?)
• Consistency over time and situations
(How often does X behave like this? Often or not often?)

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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)

Kelley’s Covariation and Configuration Model

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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
• Ms Early (7 th
grade Science Teacher) & Carla (Student misbehaves in Ms Early 1 st
period class)
• Effect (Misbehaviour) = f {interaction bet class (entity) +
student (Person)}
 If Carla ONLY misbehave in Ms Early’s class & not other class (High
Distinctiveness) & misbehaves frequently in her class (High
Consistency), then Ms Early’s class may responsible.
 If many students in her 1st period class misbehave (High Consensus),
then it is likely that something about her class is the causal factor.
 If Carla misbehaves often in other classes (Low distinctiveness) & no
other students misbehave in Ms Early’s class (Low Consensus), then
an attribution might made to Carla.
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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
Hewstone and Jaspars (1987):
• Low Consensus, Low Distinctiveness, High Consistency =
Personal Attribution
• High Consensus, High Distinctiveness, High Consistency =
Stimulus Attribution
• High Consensus, Low Distinctiveness, Low Consistency =
Circumstance Attribution

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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
MacArthur (1972): "John laughs at the comedian" This
outcome could be caused by something in the person (John),
the stimulus (the comedian) the circumstances (the comedy
club on that night), or some combination of these factors.
1. If John is the only person laughing at the comedian (low consensus), he laughs at
the comedian at other comedy clubs (high consistency), and he laughs at other
comedians (low distinctiveness), then…
2. If everyone is laughing at the comedian (high consensus), John laughs at the
comedian at other comedy clubs (high consistency), and he does not laugh at other
comedians (high distinctiveness), then…
3. If everyone is laughing at the comedian (high consensus), John doesn't laugh at the
comedian at other comedy clubs (low consistency), and he laughs at other
comedians at the club (low distinctiveness), then … 21
The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
Q1

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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
Q2

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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
Q3

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The Dimensions of Attributions (Kelley 1967)
Pablo is a cook at a famous Mexican restaurant. He is said to
always be slow when cooking. You decide to observe Pablo in
two different shifts – once during peak hours and another
during non-peak hours. You observe that he is, in fact, always
slow. You also notice that there is no difference between his
speed during peak hours and during non-peak hours. You also
notice that no other chef is as slow as he is.
• Consensus: …………
• Consistency: …………
• Distinctiveness: …………
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The Antecedents of Attributions
2. Personal Factors
a) Causal Schemas – 6 general principles
1. Causes must precede effects
2. Events that share temporal contiguity with the target event are
more likely to be seen as caused factors.
3. Events that are spatially contiguous are more likely to be linked in
cause-and-effect relations.
4. Perceptually salient stimuli are more likely to be seen as causal
than stimuli that are in the visual background.
5. Causes resemble effects. Individuals tend to attribute big effects
to big causes and little effects to little causes
6. Representative causes are attributed to effects.
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The Antecedents of Attributions
2. Personal Factors
a) Causal Schemas
Multiple Sufficient & Multiple Necessary Schemas
If a student who do poorly in a certain subject & is put into a new
class where other students are doing well, he/she may believe that
the other students are smarter, have more prior knowledge, or the
teacher is more experienced (multiple sufficient). However, if a
student is doing poorly in a subject they are unfamiliar with and see
other students doing well, he/she may believe that others in the
class are smarter and that their prior knowledge gives them an
advantage (multiple necessary).

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The Antecedents of Attributions
2. Personal Factors
b) Attributional Biases:
1. Fundamental Attribution Error
2. Actor-observer Perspective
3. Self-serving Bias (Hedonic Bias)
4. Self-centred Bias
5. False Consensus Effect
c) Prior Knowledge
d) Individual Differences: Locus of Control, Learned
helplessness

* explanatory/attributional style 28
The Antecedents of Attributions (Summary)
• Environmental & Personal factors influence the attribution
process.
• Attribution Theory stresses the situational nature of
attributions & considers features of the situation & general
cognitive rules & schemas that individual use as possible
influences on the attributions that will be made in specific
situations.
• Research suggests that there maybe stable, individual
differences in self-beliefs & explanatory styles that can
influence the attribution process.
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The Consequences Of Attributions

-The Locus of Dimension

-The Stability Dimension
The Controllability Dimension
 INTERNAL
LOCUS
EXTERNAL

STABLE
STABILITY
UNSTABLE

CONTROLLABLE
CONTROLLABILITY
UNCONTROLLABLE
Attribution Theory

• First is locus of control, where there are two poles: an

internal locus versus an external locus.

• Next is stability-do causes change over time or not?

• Finally, there’s controllability-causes one can control,

such as skills, versus causes one cannot control, such as
luck and others’ actions.
Dr. Zanariah Ismail 32
 The Locus Dimension & Stability

INTERNAL EXTERNAL

Believed that outcomes Believed that outcomes were

resulted from outside of their control and
their own behaviors due to this factors

STABLE TASK
Fixed factors which ABILITY
Don’t change with DIFFICULTY
time

UNSTABLE
Factors which can vary EFFORT LUCK
with time
 Eg :There are two dancers .
Dancer A is good at ballet and Dancer B is good at break dance.
So the competition based on ballet dance competition. Below this shows, if both win:

INTERNAL EXTERNAL

STABLE TASK
ABILITY
DIFFICULTY
Dancer A
I have always been a good dancer Dancer A
Those dance moves were really easy

EFFORT LUCK
UNSTABLE Dancer B Dancer B
I worked hard and studied those dance I was lucky that I was already familiar
moves for hours with those dance moves
Dimension of controllability
• Whether we attribute our successes and failures to a cause
that is :
• Controllable
• That can modify to influence results
• ‘I failed the test because I didn’t study enough. I could have
studied last night, but I didn’t

• Uncontrollable
• Cannot easily modify it to influence results
• I Failed the test because the math concepts were just too
difficult
• High Achievers
• Attribute success to internal factors
• Attribute failure to external factors

• Low Achievers
• Attribute success to external factors
• Attribute failure to internal factor
 DIMENSIONS OF MAJOR ATTRIBUTES
Stability Locus Controllability
Attributions stable unstable internal external controllable uncontrollable
Ability x x x
Effort x x x
Task x x x
Difficulty
luck x x x
Mood x x x
illness
Help from x x x
others
Why are attributions important?
Explanatory beliefs influence
Learning outcomes
Expectations
Performance
Choices
Well-being outcomes
Emotions
Social outcomes
Help seeking behaviors

Dr. Zanariah Ismail 38

Attributional Bias
• A bias that affects the way we determine who or
what was responsible for an action or event
• Fundamental attribution error
• Actor-observer perspective
• Self serving bias
• Self centered bias
• False consensus effect
• Fundamental attribution error
• his type of bias is where we attribute others’ behavior to a
disposition or trait
• Mr. Smith doesn’t think girls are smart
• Mr. Smith always mean to me.

• Actor – observer perspective

• When we attribute others’ behavior to disposition but own
behavior to situation
• I hit Johnny because he was annoying me but now you are
punishing me because you don’t like them and always pick on me
• Self- serving bias
• When we accept personal responsibility for success but deny
responsibility to failure
• I made an A in chemistry because I’m good at that.
• But I failed mathematics because the teacher is terrible and can’t explain
anything.

• Self-centered bias
• This bias occurred regardless of success or failure, but when people
accept more personal responsibility for a jointly determined outcome
• Our group made an A on the project because I did more work than all other
members combined
• False consensus effect
• This is the assumption that your beliefs and behaviors are
typical of most people
• I hate driving, but all girls hate driving, right?
Developmental and Group Differences
in Attributions

-Developmental differences between adult and children

-Gender (Male and Female)
-Ethnic (Individualistic & Collectivistic Cultures)
Developmental differences in children
• Differentiating Ability and Effort
• Effort or outcome is ability (3-5 years)
• People who try harder are smarter.

• Effort is the cause of outcomes (6-8 years)

• People who try equally hard should have same outcome regardless of ability

• Effort and ability are partially differentiated (9-10 years)

• People who try equally hard may not have the same outcome because of
ability, but do not follow this principal systematically

• Ability is capacity (12-13 years)

• Both are separate and can covary. Ability level acts as a capacity limitation
and can constrain effort.
• Ability low, there is some limit to outcome, regardless of effort level. Also, if
outcome is equal, then lower effort implies higher ability.
• Differentiating Ability and difficulty
• Egocentric(3-5 years)
• Task difficulty is relative to individual’s ability to succeed.
• ‘hard’ means hard for me, which also means ‘I’m not good
about it)
• Objective(5-6 years)
• Level of difficulty of task are recognized as independent of
individual’ ability to succeed. Low ability ,high task
• Normative(by age 7)
• Ability and task difficulty are differentiated in terms of success
rate of others.
• Task that fewer people succeed on are harder and require more
ability so ‘it hard’ is different from ‘It’s hard for me”.
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• Differentiating Ability and luck
• Luck and skills are undifferentiated (3-5 years)
• Luck are seen easier or requiring less effort than skill task

• Skill and Luck are partially differentiated, but basis unclear.(6-8

years)
• Effort is still expected to improve performance on both task,but a skill task
is seen as more amenable to effort.

• Skill and luck are partially differiated but basis is not explicit(9-
10years)
• Effort is still expected to improve performance on both tasks, but a skill
task is seen as more amenable to efforrt because individuals can compare
stimuli on skill task.

• Skill and luck are fully differentiated (12-13 years)

• Effort can’t affect outcome on luck tasks, whereas effort can influence 46
performance on skill tasks.
Gender Differences in Attributions?
• Males (internal)
• Attribute successes to ability and
failures to lack of effort
Eg : there are more
• Females (external) males in contributing to
• Attribute successes to luck and sports achievement than
ease of task and effort (trying females
hard)
• Attribute failure to internal & stable Eg : there are more males
(lack of ability) in science and math
related careers

Dr. Zanariah Ismail 47

Ethnic Differences in Attributions?
• Individualistic cultures( internal)
• value independence and define individuals in terms of
their unique attributes. These cultures are typically
found in North America (yes, the United States is
definitely one) and Western Europe.
• Picture Little Red Riding Hood again. Her flower-stomping
behavior probably seemed pretty bizarre. You might think
that she's crazy or angry or that she detests flowers
Individualistic
Ethnic Differences in Attributions?
• Collectivistic cultures (external)
• which value interdependence and conformity and define
individuals in terms of their group memberships. These
cultures are typically found in Japan, Asia and Africa .
• Picture Little Red Riding Hood again. Her flower-stomping
behavior . This ethnic people might think that she stomping
because the flower might be dangerous (poisonous).She
stomping on the flower in order to protect other people.
Culturalistic
How to measure Attribution?
• Qualitative and exploratory method
• Likert scale
• Category scale
• Dichotomous scale
• Numeric scale