Attributions: Interpreting Your Perceptions
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When perceiving others, we often try to explain why they said something or acted in a certain way, especially if their behavior does not fit our schema. Personal characteristics that we use to explain behavior are known as attributions (Jones, 1990). Consider the following exchange:
EMMA I’m heading over to Mark’s place to help him study for our midterm. He has really been struggling this semester.
CALEB Well, he was never exactly a rocket scientist.
Emma might attribute Caleb’s comment to his personality (“Caleb is mean!”) or to the situation (“Wow, something has put Caleb in a bad mood”). When we attribute behavior to someone’s personality (or something within the person’s control), we call that an internal attribution. When we attribute it to the situation (something outside the person’s control), that’s an external attribution. How do we decide? If Emma thinks Caleb is not usually so blunt or harsh about other people, she will likely attribute his behavior to the situation, not to his personality.
The attributions we make can create problems, as the fundamental attribution error illustrates (McLeod, Detenber, & Eveland, 2001; Ross & Nisbett, 1991). The fundamental attribution error causes us to overemphasize internal and underestimate external causes of behaviors we observe in others. (For example, “Carla failed the midterm because she was too lazy to study.”) The error works in the opposite way when we make attributions about ourselves. Owing to the self-serving bias, we usually attribute our own successes to internal factors (“I got an A because I’m smart”) and attribute our failures to external effects (“I failed the midterm because my professor stinks”).
Analyze the text of a presidential speech online at www.whitehouse.gov. After reading the complete speech, consider how the speech is characterized in various sources (blogs, liberal and conservative news sources, late-night comedy and satires). How do perceptions of the speech change from one source to another? Does your perception of the speech change as you consider these various sources’ viewpoints? If so, how?
We make attributions all the time, and they powerfully shape our communication. However, our attributions are not necessarily set in stone. Unexpected events or simply the passage of time can change them. For example, Mel Gibson, once considered a megastar, morphed into box-office poison after tapes of his violent, bigoted, and sexist rants became public.
Interaction appearance theory helps explain how people change their attributions of someone, particularly their physical attractiveness, the more they interact (Albada, Knapp, & Theune, 2002). Audiences’ perceptions of Gibson adjusted as they witnessed more and more of his behavior. We do the same in our relationships: people become more or less attractive to us as we get to know them better. For example, perhaps you find someone more attractive after you discover her quirky sense of humor.