The human psyche is one of the most complex creations of nature. Of course, it cannot always work perfectly, and some of its functions often do not work quite as they should, contributing to cognitive distortions and other perceptual phenomena. One of these phenomena is causal attribution - a property of the psyche that makes us draw incorrect conclusions about others and their motives. Today we will talk about what it is, how it manifests itself, how it is explained, and how it often affects our lives.
What is causal attribution
Causal attribution in psychology is the phenomenon of interpersonal perception in which a person comes up with motives and reasons for the actions of those around him. Translated from Latin, causa means “cause” and attributio means “attribution.”
An individual explains other people's actions using his own logical conclusions. He doesn't have enough facts. Guided solely by observations, which cannot give a complete picture. As a result, a person simply completes it in his head.
The term was coined back in the 1920s by Gestalt psychologist Fritz Heider. In his writings, he tried to find out how people perceive and interpret the information received. The phenomenon was studied and supplemented by other scientists.
Is there a joint variation, a joint change in parameters?
Evidence of the presence of joint changes can be both qualitative and quantitative.
An example of qualitative evidence: it can be assumed that the better the service in a store, the higher the sales. This means that stores with good service should have high sales, and stores with poor service should have low sales. If this is not the case, then the hypothesis is questionable.
An example of quantitative evidence of covariation. One study used a random sample of 1,000 respondents to examine the relationship between education and fashion purchases. Let's divide the respondents into two groups: 500 people with higher and 500 people with relatively lower education. The following was found out (Table 2).
We see that among highly educated respondents the proportion of fashion clothing buyers is higher. It seems like education really helps her purchases. But can we conclude that higher education leads to increased fashion purchases? Of course not! We can only say for now that our observation does not contradict this hypothesis.
Varieties of causal attribution
Fritz Haider said: “Our perception of causality is often distorted by our needs and certain cognitive distortions.” Depending on these distortions, psychology distinguishes 6 types of causal attribution.
Fundamental error
A person explains the actions of other people by internal reasons, and his own by external reasons. For example, he accuses someone of being boring. He explains his similar actions by incorrect circumstances. This is how the fundamental error of such judgments manifests itself.
There are several reasons for this phenomenon:
- Unequal opportunities. The person ignores the features that are determined by the role-playing game.
- False consent. The individual considers his own behavior to be correct and that of others to be wrong.
- Trust not in judgments, but in facts.
- Rejection of the value of what did not happen. A person analyzes behavior based on what people didn't do.
For clarity, imagine that you and a friend are taking the same test. My friend couldn't pass. First you point out that he has always had poor knowledge of the subject. Then you conclude that he is lazy, irresponsible, and pays attention to everything except his studies. It is a mistake to think so. You did not take into account that he may have learning problems, for example, it is difficult for him to remember information. Or there are family circumstances that prevent you from studying.
You can give another example from life. Let's say you meet a person whose car has broken down in the middle of the road. Of course, your first instinct will be to help him. You gave some advice, but the stranger rejected it or simply ignored you. What will be your reaction? You will be angry and consider him a rude person who is unable to accept sincere help. But in reality, the driver may know that these tips will not help him. Or maybe he's just in a bad mood.
These examples show how internal disposition manifests itself. The outside looks different. You will attribute a failed exam not to poor knowledge, but to a difficult ticket. And you will place the blame for the car that won’t start on the person who comes to you with inappropriate advice. This style of behavior is not necessarily bad. You don't feel guilty and don't ruin your mood. But a constant external disposition is a direct path to personality degradation.
Cultural prejudices
A person looks for reasons for the behavior of others in their culture, origin, beliefs. Thus, many believe that individualism dominates in the West. Whereas in Asia, almost everyone considers themselves collectivists. And how can we not mention well-known jokes about Jews?
Difference between participant and observer
According to the theory of causal attribution, a person plays 2 roles: observer and participant. And in each of them he sees the current situation differently. When viewed from the outside, everything looks completely different.
Dispositional attribution
The reasons for the behavior of a person are attributed to the properties of his personality, character, and abilities. Let's say a waiter is rude to you in a cafe. Surely you will think that he has a bad character and decide that he is ill-mannered.
In this situation, you succumb to dispositional attribution, that is, you do not take into account the influence of external factors that can provoke rudeness.
Self-serving attribution
If an individual receives a new position, he attributes the achievement solely to his abilities. If the job was given to someone else, he believes that the boss underestimates him.
Scientists thought it was a way to protect one's self-esteem. However, they later found out that people tend to attribute all successes and achievements to the influence of internal factors.
Defensive attribution hypothesis
In social psychology, the phenomenon of defensive causal attributions are beliefs that a person needs to protect himself from anxiety. With their help, he justifies himself in cases where he encounters failures.
Defensive attributions do not only apply to oneself. In relation to the people around her, it looks something like this: “Good things happen only to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.” This belief helps us become less vulnerable in cases where we cannot control what is happening around us.
Often with this type of causal attribution, a person goes to extremes. For example, if there was a car accident, he decides that the driver was drunk or bought a license. At the same time, the individual thinks that this will definitely never happen to him.
The listed types of causal attribution can be compared with cognitive dissonance, the theory of which was proposed by Leon Festinger. This is psychological discomfort caused by a clash in the human subconscious of conflicting ideas, values, and reactions.
According to the scientist, this condition develops for 2 reasons:
- When discomfort appears, a person tries to reduce its manifestation, to reduce the conflict between two inconsistencies.
- The individual tries to avoid situations in which he may experience discomfort.
Remember that exam situation. Let's say you didn't pass it. And you feel discomfort from this. Why get it also because you haven't prepared?
Misjudgment
When making judgments, a person very often makes mistakes. This is due to the fact that he usually underestimates external factors and the influence of the situation, but overestimates the personal capabilities of another individual.
This case is called the fundamental attribution error. This happens when the reasons are the same for both internal and external factors. The individual cannot make up his mind and a fundamental error occurs.
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By indicating consequences and causes, we draw different conclusions. Also, our conclusions and explanations of reasons will be different depending on whether we like the other person or not.
- If an individual achieves success, then he will indicate his own qualities as the reason.
- The situation will be to blame for an individual's failure.
The phenomenon of causal attribution can be traced in the analysis of the behavior of a nice person and a not so nice one. A person makes a significant mistake when he finds reasons where he was looking for them. This means that if a person has already tuned in to a certain result, he will find it everywhere. If we intend to justify a person's actions, we will always find reasons to justify him.
And vice versa, if we decide to condemn someone, we will definitely condemn them by finding an appropriate reason. At the same time, only people with a developed sense of empathy will attribute responsibility. They tend to imagine themselves in the shoes of others, understand the feelings of strangers and try on other people's behavior patterns.
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Attribution is conjecture when analyzing someone's actions when there is a lack of information. In other words, we want to obtain data about our colleagues, interlocutors, or simply about a group of people based on some data that we have. If this data is not enough, then a psychological phenomenon called attribution arises. It can both reflect reality and distort it
This is very important to consider
How are causal attribution and locus of control related?
Locus of control is the ability of the human personality to attribute successes and failures to the influence of external and internal factors. And it has some connection with causal attribution. In both cases, the individual does not want to see the true reasons for what is happening.
But there are a number of differences between the concepts. There are double standards at work in causal attribution. Locus of control encourages you to independently determine your reaction to what is happening around you.
And again the exam example. Here the locus can manifest itself in 2 ways:
- You blame yourself for a bad grade. You understand that you were poorly prepared, were inattentive, and irresponsible. Plus, you're ready for correction.
- You blame everything: the teacher, the subject, the wrong ticket.
Another difference between locus of control and causal attribution is the presence of willpower in the second phenomenon. Plus, it can be changed. You just need to get rid of the victim complex and learn to take responsibility.
Interpersonal attraction
Methods for determining the accuracy of perception (
from the lecture
):
- Expert review
- GOL (group personality assessment)
- Attraction (attractiveness, attraction) is an emotional component of interpersonal perception.
Interpersonal perceptual accuracy.
Personality tests, but, firstly, there are no tests to identify and measure all the characteristics of a person (hence, if a comparison is possible, then only for those characteristics for which there are tests); secondly, as already noted, tests cannot be considered as the only tool for studying personality, since they have certain limitations.
A similar problem arises when the method of expert assessments is used. People who know well the person whose cat is the object of perception are selected as experts. Their judgments about it (“expert assessments”) are compared with the data of the subject of perception. But even in this case, we essentially again have two rows of subjective judgments: the subject of perception and the expert (who also acts as a subject of perception, and, therefore, his judgments do not at all exclude the element of evaluation).
In experiments on interpersonal perception, four groups of factors are established: a) variables, with the help of a cat the subject of perception describes himself; b) previously familiar personalities; c) the relationship between oneself and the object of perception, and finally d) the situational context in which the process of interpersonal perception takes place. By correlating these four groups of factors, we can at least determine in which direction perception tends to shift in each specific case.
Arbitrary ideas about the connection between different characteristics of a person are called “illusory correlations.” These peculiar “stereotypes” are based not only on “life” experience,” but often on scraps of knowledge, information about various psychological concepts that were widespread in the past (for example, Kretschmer’s ideas about the connection between a person’s constitutional types and his character traits, ideas of physiognomy about the correspondence of facial features to certain psychological characteristics, etc.). A.A. Bodalev received very interesting data in this regard: out of 72 people he surveyed regarding how they perceive the external features of other people, 9 answered that a square chin is a sign of a strong will, 17 - that a large forehead is a sign of intelligence, 3 identify coarse hair with rebellious character, 16 - plumpness with good nature, for two, thick lips are a symbol of sexuality, for five, short stature is evidence of power, for one person, eyes set close to each other mean hot temper, and for five others, beauty is a sign of stupidity (Bodalev, 1982. P. 118).
No training can fully remove these everyday generalizations, but it can at least puzzle a person on the issue of the “unconditionality” of his judgment about other people.
Interpersonal attraction.
The area of research related to the identification of mechanisms for the formation of various emotional relationships to a perceived person is called attraction research. Attraction is both the process of forming the attractiveness of a person for the perceiver, and the product of this process, i.e. some quality of relationship.
Attraction can be considered as a special type of social attitude towards another person, in which the emotional component predominates (Gozman, 1987), when this “other” is assessed primarily in categories characteristic of affective assessments. In particular, the question of the role of similarity in the characteristics of the subject and object of perception in the process of formation of attraction, and the role of “ecological” characteristics of the communication process (proximity of communication partners, frequency of meetings, etc.) are being studied. Various levels of attraction are identified: sympathy, friendship, love. There are even two mutually exclusive theories of love: a pessimistic one, which asserts the negative impact of love on personality development (the emergence of dependence on a loved one), and an optimistic one, which asserts that love helps to relieve anxiety and more complete self-actualization of the individual. Love styles: passion, play, friendship, contemplation, obsession, selfless dedication.
The connection between causal attribution and learned helplessness
Causal attribution helps explain the mechanism of development of learned helplessness. In psychology, this expression is understood as a state in which a person does not want to solve his problems, even if he has such an opportunity. This happens when previous attempts to cope with them ended in failure.
Psychologist Martin Seligman proved this statement. In his opinion, failures make a person think that the same thing will happen in subsequent attempts to change something. According to the theory of causal attribution, people do nothing in order to maintain their self-esteem. Otherwise, they will attribute all mistakes to themselves.
The concept of causality in marketing and the conditions of causality
Causal studies are conducted to conclude that a causal relationship exists. It must be said that in marketing, cause is understood somewhat differently than in ordinary speech (Table 1).
Thus, marketing effects usually appear in probabilistic form.
In order to conclude that there is a causal relationship in marketing, it is necessary to check the fulfillment of three conditions.
- Is there a joint variation, a joint change in parameters?
- Are the events sequenced correctly in time?
- Is the possible influence of other factors excluded?
Let us explain the essence of each of these conditions.
Causal attribution theories
There are only two of them.
Jones and Davis Correspondence Theory
In 1965, scientists Jones and Davis proposed that intentional behavior plays an important role in people. At the same time, thoughtless or spontaneous behavior is of practically no value. This theory helps to understand how the internal type of causal attribution arises.
Internal attributes provide information that allows one to make predictions about how a person will behave. Scientists call this phenomenon “correspondent inference.” This is a state in which an individual thinks that the behavior of others is determined by the properties of their personality.
Why do people make “correspondent conclusions”? Jones and Davis identified several reasons:
- Choice. It is traditionally believed that actions depend on internal factors.
- Spontaneous or intentional behavior. The first is related to external factors and circumstances. And the second is with personality.
- Social desirability. Example: you saw a man sitting on the floor. There are many free chairs in the room. Inconsistency, isn't it? But such behavior is a manifestation of individuality.
- Hedonic relevance. A condition in which a person purposefully either harms you or benefits you.
Another reason is personalism. The individual believes that the behavior of another person should somehow affect him. At the same time, he believes that it is dictated by the personal characteristics of the opponent, and not by external factors.
Kelly covariance model
People started talking about Kelly covariance in the 60s of the last century. It is considered to be the most popular theory of causal attribution. The scientist tried to figure out whether actions should be determined by internal motives or external factors.
The word “covariation” itself means that a person has information from several sources at once. He obtained observations at different time periods and in different situations. This helps to see both the effect itself and its causes.
According to Kelly, in the process of searching for the reasons for the behavior of people around him, a person uses 3 types of evidence:
- Consensus. It is a measure of the extent to which people act similarly in similar circumstances. Imagine two friends. The first, going to lunch with the second, always smokes. If the second one also does this, there is a high consensus in his behavior. Otherwise, consensus is low.
- Distinctiveness. It is also a measure of the extent to which a person's behavior does not change in similar situations. Let's go back to the friends example. If the first man smokes only in the company of friends, he has high distinctiveness. If always, then low.
- Consistency. A degree that shows that a person behaves the same way every time he finds himself in a certain situation. If the man in the example smokes only in the presence of friends, consistency is high. Under special circumstances - low.
Let's give an example. Imagine a group of young people who have gathered to watch a comedy show. The hero's name is Andrey. He laughs at the participants' jokes. Consensus will be high if the rest of the company laughs too. Highly distinctive - Andrey likes the jokes of an individual speaker. High consistency - the hero constantly laughs at the stories of his favorite comedian.
If everyone in the company laughs at the same participant in the show as Andrey, this is external attribution. People are having fun because the comedian is performing really well. Internal attribution occurs when:
- the hero is the only one who likes the comedian;
- laughs at the jokes of all the speakers;
- constantly laughs at a certain comedian's jokes.
It turns out that Andrey just likes to have fun.
There is one caveat. It is not always possible to draw such conclusions. You may not have all the information you need to understand the root cause of a person's behavior.
Let’s say that you practically don’t know Andrey described above, but you find yourself in the same company with him. You cannot be sure of the consistency of his behavior. And in this situation, a person behaves in 2 ways. The first is that the number of reasons needed to explain someone's behavior increases. Second, the number of sufficient reasons increases.
Imagine that an athlete fails a drug test. There may be 2 reasons for this: either he accidentally took a prohibited drug, or he wanted to deceive. But we can add one more reason for what happened: the athlete himself was deceived.
Meaning
Let's figure it out: what is attribution? Attribution is a process where people, given a small amount of information, draw conclusions about the reasons for a person’s behavior or events that occurred. But this doesn't always apply to other people. Most often, attribution is directed at oneself, when a person tries to justify or explain his actions by referring to various factors.
The concept and essence of attribution is to take personal action. Those qualities of an individual that are characterized are excluded from the limits of perception - in fact, they even seem to not exist. That is, we can give another definition of attribution - this is the characteristic that they try to create through intuition and some inferences. And, as a rule, attributing certain qualities to one or another individual does not always turn out to be correct.
Causal attribution is aimed at explaining the motives of behavior - both one's own and others'. It happens that you need to analyze and predict the behavior of a person, but there is not enough data for this. Therefore, the reasons and motives that could guide the object of attention are often guessed at.
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This approach is also applicable to social groups when they are characterized, but there are no obvious motives for their behavior in the field of perception. Psychologists call this case group attribution. Group attribution also occurs when a group of individuals tries to explain their positive aspects by internal factors, while for an out-group they point to external factors as the reason. And vice versa, they attribute their negative moments to external factors, while in the outgroup they point to internal factors as the cause of the negative moments.
Attribution theory states that a person analyzes the behavior of other people depending on the reasons that he himself has intuitively identified. According to the theory, causal attribution is divided into two types:
- External.
- Internal.
The external type of attribution is the search for the causes of behavior among factors that do not depend on a person, that is, external factors. And internal (internal) is an explanation of the reasons for behavior based on one’s own psychological state.
Attribution theory implies a certain order of human actions:
- Observation of an object and its behavior in a certain situation.
- Based on assessments and personal perception, draw a conclusion from observing the object.
- Using this conclusion and the behavior of the object, attribute psychological patterns of behavior to it.
The concept and essence of attribution implies speculating about the reasons for people’s behavior, but this does not always correspond to reality. To be more precise, more often than not, the theory of causal attribution is not true.
Advantages
What are the main advantages:
- In longitudinal observation, an object is studied over time .
This is the only way to find out the specifics and patterns of changes in human psychology under the influence of external objects. Using the example of one referent or reference group, one can trace changes in values, motives, views, and habits. - Cause-and-effect relationships are investigated “hot on the heels”, based on timely collected information. A prospective study makes it possible to compare the states of an object before and after the experiment.
- Data processing can be carried out on the basis of a large statistical sample , for example, in relation to a large reference group.
- A “cross-sectional” study on individual age periods is possible. The researcher deals with different age groups. There is a lot of scope for child psychologists.
- It is possible to study individual components of a developing personality , analyze their interaction and specificity.
Test Marketing (Test-Marketing or Market Testing)
Speaking about causal research, we must say at least a few words about their most important type - test marketing, that is, real market experiments conducted under control in a specially selected fairly large part of the market. During test marketing, it is not just the product as such that is tested, but the entire marketing complex: the product (including the way it is positioned in the eyes of buyers), the price of the product, its distribution system and measures to promote it.
Without test marketing, large-scale market moves are usually not undertaken because the cost of failure is too high. Thus, an example of the M&M and Mars brands produced in Russia was included in American textbooks. Since test marketing was not conducted, it was unclear whether their television advertising was too short, too long, or too long.
Let us list a number of rules for organizing test marketing that are recommended to be followed in order to obtain reliable conclusions based on it.
Firstly, we must strive to ensure that the selected part of the market is representative in terms of:
- demographics,
- consumer behavior,
- media consumption,
- competitive environment,
- distribution conditions.
Secondly, according to experience, this part should cover at least 2% of the entire market.
Thirdly, it is advisable to conduct experiments not in one, but in two or even three different parts of the market.
Fourthly, you cannot choose places for test marketing where such experiments are often carried out.
Fifthly, the duration of testing of new brands should be chosen extremely carefully. On the one hand, it should be such that the first buyers have time to make a repeat purchase, which often takes ten months or even more. On the other hand, if you test for too long, the likelihood increases that your experiments will be accidentally, or more often intentionally, disrupted by a competitor who will enter your chosen part of the market with their new product without any test marketing. Thus, test marketing should be considered as one of the important competitive tools.
