SOC 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Santa Barbara City College
Document Summary
Attribution theory way in which people explain the causes of their own and other peoples behavior heider (1958) Internal attribution (disposition) a person"s behavior was caused by something internal, such as his/her attitudes, character, or personality. How do people decide if another person"s behavior (b) was primarily caused by the situation (s) or his/her disposition (d, personality): lewinian equation, b = s + d, d = b s. A person"s behavior is a joint function of the situation the person is in and the person"s unique predispositions to act. In this case the situation is opposite the behavior, thus the behavior tells you a lot about the disposition. We should not assume that d has an effect when b = s. When we try to estimate a person"s disposition, the behavior should be discounted or ignored when it is precisely the type of behavior that the situation demands.
