4.2 Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behaviour.

4.2 Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behaviour.

Attribution theory

Attribution theory (Heider 1958) is based on the assumption that people are naive scientists who try to explain observable behaviour. An essential feature of the original attribution theory is the fundamental distinction about internal and external causes of behaviour. Attribution theory is based on the assumption that people:

• tend to look for causes and reasons for other people’s behaviour because they feel that there are motives behind most of their own behaviour
• are “intuitive psychologists” who construct their own causal theories of human behaviour
• construct causal theories because they want to be able to understand, predict, and control the environment around them

People seem to have a pervasive need for causal explanations because this makes the world more predictable. Most cultures have constructed causal explanations for their origin and meaning of life, (e.g. in myths and religions). The tendency to see motives and dispositions behind human actions may be so automatic that people sometimes find it difficult to override it even where motives and dispositions don’t really apply (e.g. when people attribute motives to objects in computer games or believe in fate or witchcraft).

What is the cause of the observed behaviour?

↓	↓
It is caused by something within the person (personality) → internal factors	It is caused by something outside the person (situation) →external factors
↓	↓
Dispositional attribution (intelligence, personality, attitude)	Situational attribution (group pressure, social norms, weather, luck)

Empirical research

Simmel (1944) performed an experiment where he showed moving geometric figures to participants and asked them to describe the movements of the figure. The participants all described them as if the geometric figures had intentions to act in the way they did.

Evans-Pritchard (1976) described how the Azande people of central Africa believed that it was witchcraft that killed people when a granary doorway collapsed. The door had been eaten through by termites but the Azande believed that it was fate that made those people sit in the doorway just when it collapsed.