KELLY’S ATTRIBUTION THEORY OF

PERCEPTIONPresented By:

Ashwani SolankiChirag ThakwaniFaraz RehmanKartikaye KhattarGulshan Chauhan

Presented to:

Dr. Rinku Sanjeev

INTRODUCTIONAttribution is the process by which individuals explain

the causes of behavior and events.

Psychological research into attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in the early part of the 20th century.

Heider subsequently extended his ideas to the question of how people perceive each other

Motives played an important role in Heider's model

Types:

External attribution:

External attribution, also called situational attribution, refers to understanding an event or behavior as being caused by the situation that the individual is in.

Interpersonal attribution:

Interpersonal attributions happen when the causes of the events involve two or more individuals.

ATTRIBUTION PROCESS

The attribution process involves reasoning backward from the observation of an event or behavior to a judgment about its cause.

The best known work on attribution is Kelley’s theoretical approach that is based on two important contributions:

1. First, the principle of covariance states that a behavior will be attributed to a cause with which it covaries over time.

2. Second, he identified three sources of information people can use in analyzing covariance and thus arriving at a causal judgment.

KELLEY’S COVARIATION MODEL

Kelley’s covariation model ( 1973) is an attribution theory in which people make causal inferences to explain why other people and ourselves behave in a certain way.

It is concerned with both social perception and self-perception (Kelley, 1973).

The covariation principle states that, "an effect is attributed to the one of its possible causes with which, over time, it covaries" .

That is, a certain behaviour is attributed to potential causes that appear at the same time.

Contd..Causes of an outcome can be attributed to the person

(internal), the stimulus (external), the circumstance, or some combination of these factors .

Attributions are made based on three criteria: Consensus, Distinctiveness, and Consistency (Kelley, 1973).

Contd

CONSENSUS:• Consensus is the covariation of behavior across different

people. DISTINCTIVENESS:Distinctiveness refers to how unique the behavior is to

the particular situation. CONSISTENCY

Consistency is the covariation of behavior across time

CAUSAL SCHEMA

A causal schema refers to the way a person thinks about plausible causes in relation to a given effect .

The three causal schemata recognized by Kelley are:

1.Multiple Sufficient Causes:He or she may believe that either cause A or cause B suffices to produce a given effect

2.Multiple Necessary Causes: Both A and B are necessary to produce a given effect.

3. Causal Schema for Compensatory Causes:The effect occurs if either A or B is maximally present, or if both A and B are moderately present.

BIAS AND ERRORS1.Fundamental attribution errorDescribes the tendency to overvalue dispositional or

personality-based explanations for behavior while under-valuing situational explanations.

EX:if a person is overweight, a person’s first assumption might be that they have a problem with overeating or are lazy and not that they might have a medical reason for being heavier set.

2. Culture bias:People in individualist cultures, generally Anglo-America and Anglo-Saxon European societies, value individuals, personal goals, and independence

BIAS AND ERRORS1.Fundamental attribution errorDescribes the tendency to overvalue dispositional or

personality-based explanations for behavior while under-valuing situational explanations.

EX:if a person is overweight, a person’s first assumption might be that they have a problem with overeating or are lazy and not that they might have a medical reason for being heavier set.

2. Culture bias:People in individualist cultures, generally Anglo-America and Anglo-Saxon European societies, value individuals, personal goals, and independence

3.Actor/observer difference:People tend to attribute other people’s

behaviors to their dispositional factors while attributing own actions to situational factors.

EX:When a person scores a low grade on a test, they find situational factors to justify the negative event.

4. Self-serving bias

Self-serving bias is attributing dispositional and internal factors for success and external, uncontrollable factors for failure.

EX:If a person gets promoted, it is because of his/her ability and competence whereas if he/she does not get promoted, it is because his/her manager does not like him/her (external, uncontrollable factor)

LIMITATIONSLack of distinction between intentional and

unintentional behavior, and between reason and cause explanations.

differential effect of being an actor versus observer, the effect of the self-serving bias.

This is not accounted for by the covariation model

Thank You