23/10/21 Week 6: Response to "Attributional Tendencies"

 

Attributional Tendencies

By Angélica Conde

The theory argues for a general tendency to attribute success to internal causes, people’s own actions or abilities, causes controlled by the individual, and, correspondingly, a tendency to explain failure by reference to external causes, causes over which the individual has little control.

(Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1971)

There are two explanations for such attribution biases. First, the psychological explanation states that organizational actors make causal attributions in order to protect their self-esteem, to maintain their sense of mastery over their environment, and to reduce cognitive dissonance (Bettman and Weitz, 1983; Staw, McKechnie, and Puffer, 1983). Second, the political explanation suggests that causal attributions are also utilized to enhance the esteem of actors by projecting a favorable self-image to others.

Researchers also distinguish between stable and unstable attributions. When people make a Stable Attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to stable, unchanging factors. When making an Unstable Attribution, they infer that an event or behavior is due to unstable, temporary factors.

The typical American will attribute his or her personal successes internally. Your typical American will attribute his or her personal successes internally. If he or she ever does something and achieves something very impressive, he or she will think, "I did it. I'm good, I did it. I worked real hard, I deserve this. I'm smart, I'm talented." However, when something negative happens to the typical  American will attribute it externally and will give blame to parents, to teachers, to other people in their lives who were mean to them, and that sort of thing. They'll attribute it externally: "People are bad to me, they took this away. I would've been able to do it if it weren’t for other people."

On the other hand, in Japan, they're the exact opposite of what we are in the United States, for personal failures and personal successes. In Japan, the typical Japanese person will attribute personal successes externally. "The reason I am successful is because of my parents, my great teachers," this and that. But he or she will attribute personal failures internally. Every time they fail, it's their fault, it's always their fault. And Japan has a high suicide rate. 

Personal speaking, I think that every different situation has a different reason. I don't consider that success should be considered caused by internal causes and failure by external causes.

Every situation is different and we need to learn to recognize our triumphs and failures with courage. Applaud our victories and learn from mistakes in order to improve.

In my country, I have heard very often when a baby is learning to walk and falls and cries that his or her parents or relatives say: "bad floor" "bad table" and hit the floor or table blaming him that it caused the fall.

I completely differ with this behavior, I believe that in this way indirectly children are taught to always blame their environment for their failure, that the people or environment around them are to blame and we do not teach them to face their guilt and learn from their mistakes.

As a teacher, I try to help my students understand that they should value their successes highly and that they should not sink into their failures, but rather see failures as impulses to try harder.

💬What do you usually do when you succeed or when you fail?

References:

Attributional Tendencies - Dr. John J. Ivers

Wiley Online Library 

JSTOR  Collection Content

APA PsycNet Direct - Attributional analysis as self-affirmation.