Context
Attributions have different applications in different situations we have already seen one example in relationships.
May others exist such as to our own behaviours and emotions, task performance and between groups.
Attributions about ourself
Attributions are used to explain why others do things. however, there are many situations in which we don’t have a clear idea of why we are doing something.
In these cases we look at ourselves objectively and try to find a reason for our behaviour. This reason will then be linked to ourself and change how we feel or think of something.
This is called self perception theory.
Emotions can have unclear roots too.
Emotional responses are said to have 2 components. Physiological arousal and cognition. these 2 are supposed to be linked and cause one another.
The physiological arousal is when we sweat and feel our heart rate going up. In this case the linked cognition could be a certain object that was seen or heard.
Psychologists thought that they might be able to change the response to a certain object by manipulating this connection.
The upper example could explain a phobia where the object is what the individual is afraid of and the emotion felt is fear.
If the individual could associate the physiological response to something else, which preferably doesn’t involve fear, like exercise, they could remove the fear or even the phobia.
This is called the misattribution paradigm and is thought to have potential effects in treating depression, anxiety and panic attacks, although strong effects haven’t been found yet.
Attributions of task performance
This theory is about how we see success or failure and the relation to the individual.
There are 3 aspects of task performance which we make attributions to.
Locus, stability and controllability.
The locus is whether the performance, outcome was because of external factors, such as chance or other people, or internal, due to ability etc.
Stability and controllability are as they seem. How stable or unstable the performance is and how much control will the individual have on future similar tasks.
The different types of attributions depending on each factor can be put into a table.
Attributions styles
First of all, why do we make attributions ?
One of the main reasons are to reduce uncertainty about the world around us.
The individual differences that exist in our use of attributions are called attributional styles.
These are said to come from childhood and how one is raised.
There are 2 ways to categorise attributional styles.
The first is the ASQ or Attributional style questionnaire which measures attributions used in aversive events.
It focuses on 3 dimensions, internal/ external, stable/ unstable and global/ specific. The global/ specific factor is the attributed range of the effects of the event.
Another test is the ACS or the attribution complexity scale. This one measures the complexity of the attributions an individual makes. Like for cognition, people make attributions to different complexities.
Although the research looking at these has given limited and inconsistent results, it has been found to be able to predict depression at a certain degree.
For example, in the ASQ, there is a depressive attrbutional style which is an internal, stable and global style. This style of attributions has been found to increase depression, helplessness and to have negative effects on mental health.
Part 1 : Types of schemas
Part 2 : Schemas, use and relation with time
Part 3 : Biases, emotions and how we make impressions
Part 4 : Attributions. What and why
Next Part : Attribution biases
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