Category: Attribution Theory

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) multi-store model illustrates the three components involved in memory; where sensory information enters memory (sensory register), where information is processed (short-term memory), and where rehearsed information is held indefinitely (long-term store). As there is an immense amount of sensory information at a given time, only attended to information goes to the short-term memory. The rest is rapidly forgotten. However, with Jonathan disrupting the class, he is taking majority of the attention away from the teacher. This makes it impossible or difficult for him, and the other students, to pay attention to the lesson. Thus, the information presented isn’t being processed to the short-term memory and is not stored, making it impossible to retrieve later.

Similarly, you need rehearsal for information to be processed from the short-term memory to the long-term store. Information in the short-term memory lasts 15-30 seconds and if it is not rehearsed, the memory quickly fades. The longer the delay, the less information is recalled. Jonathan’s disruptions prevent himself, and other students, from being able to rehearse the information they have just learnt. This delay lasts longer as the teacher deals with the disruption. Thus, these encoding errors prevents Jonathan and his fellow students to learn and recall information.

However, rehearsal may be a too simple explanation on how memory goes from the short-term to the long-term memory. It does not consider motivations, effects and strategies. An interesting topic would influence enthusiastic students to be more motivated to learn it, therefore may carry on throughout the interruptions.

Jonathan is displaying aggression (throwing objects), hyperactivity, inattentiveness (walking around the room), and lacking prosocial behaviour (interrupting the teacher). Continuation of Jonathan’s behaviour patterns could negatively impact him long-term, including aggression and attention problems in adolescences, poor school achievement, dropping out of school. While, additionally encouraging their peers to follow the same behaviour. This leads to more extreme scenarios in adulthood of an unstable working career, substance abuse, and mental health problems.

Bandura’s (1986) Social learning theory implies children may imitate observed behaviour. Children are surrounded by influential people (a model), this could be a teacher, a parent, authority figure, or their peers etc. They provide examples of behaviour that could be observed and imitated. How likely the child imitates these behaviours depends on if they perceive the model to be similar to themselves, if the behaviour is reinforced or punished, and the consequences of the behaviour. This is furthered upon in Social cognition theory, which suggests knowledge is acquired by observing others through social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences.

This provides a mechanism to allow appropriate cultural and social behaviours. One appropriation of culture is the gender norms of masculinity; a social construct in western society. Masculinity traits include strength, courage, independence, leadership, and assertiveness. Although, these are desirable traits, engaging with stereotypically masculine behaviours/beliefs to achieve these traits and hegemonic masculinity – men’s justification to be dominant in society – can lead to mental and physical health problems.

Masculine traits are encouraged in boys from an early age. They are taught to suppress vulnerable emotions, for example saying like “big boys don’t cry”. Socially pressured to attend sport events and have athletes as role models. Athlete role models participate in male high-intensive sports where violence is perceived as natural. Popular culture such as television and computer games both encourage male violence. Which usually demonstrates the leading man (role model) to be empowering over women and weaker men to establish they are the “alpha male”, using violence to “fix things”, whereas feminine characteristics are perceived as a vulnerability. These ideals encourage boys to support aggression, to choose physical tasks over intellectual ones, and to achieve high status. In the classroom, their social groups encourage these gender norms as boys participate in “roughhousing” with their friends and “having a laugh” over academic achievements. With society disregarding this as normal; “boys will be boys”. However, this causes boys to have anxiety about their grades and hinders their ability to function normal emotional health.

Although, just because we observe different behaviours, does not always mean we will imitate it. We have individual thoughts, feelings and control over our own behaviour . For example, aggression is not always imitated from video games. A meta-analysis indicated that the effect size for violence and aggression is small, less than violence and television. The abundant studies on aggression and video games leaning to a positive correlation has suggested to have a publication bias and using less standardising and reliable measures on aggression.

Social learning theory also does not explain how we learn behaviour we have not witnessed. For example, Bishop, Hobson, and Lee (2005) study found that blind children could not observe others, however, were able to perform symbolic and pretend play.

Attribution theory focus on how people explain their own and other behaviours, seeking for the cause/motivations of the behaviour. We may look at internal (dispositional) or external (situational) factors to help explain these theories, although we may bias these assumptions on previously learnt information.

Attribution theory defines three major elements of cause: the location of cause (locus), if the cause is constant or changes over time (stability), and if the cause can be actively controlled (controllability). Academic success may be attributed to four factors: ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. How we perceive these factors in the causal dimensions of locus, stability and controllability in attribution theory can then influence our self-perception, motives for learning, and future learning behaviours.

A child’s reasoning for prior outcomes and performances in achieving a task influences their expectation for future success or failure. How we attribute events to the casual dimensions can produce strong emotional reactions. For instance, a child who attributes their performance to bad luck may see it as external, unstable, and uncontrollable, thus predicts these dimensions are likely to change in the future and be more confident about having better performances in future tasks. Whereas, if attributed failure to low ability which is seen as internal, stable, and uncontrollable may experience shame and feel hopeless. Thus, heavily impacting self-esteem

The social environment also plays an important part of motivations for learning. Situational cues from social context can form attributions. For instance, how easy and simple a task is compare to their peers can influence children’s attributions.

Self-perception could also affect motivations. For instance, if low achievements are attributed to low ability, rather than low effort, it may create “learned helplessness” as attributing failure to internal locus and stable, thus the child may accept it is out of their control and are powerless to change it. Having difficulty with a hard task could make it less likely to engage with an easier one later. Even when giving the answer would be missed as attributed expectations of failures as stable (unable to change), thus, becomes a learned response.

However, you have to consider the cultural aspects to this theory as we attributing to culture norms. For instances, Americans are more likely to perceive ability and effort as a frequent cause for academic outcomes.

This theory is based on that everyone are rational, logical, and systematic thinkers. However, young children may not be at this milestone of thinking. For instance, it is evident that younger children believe ability and effort are positively related concepts; smart students are seen as hard workers, and not-so-smart students do poorly because they do not work hard enough. Nicholls (1978) states that 7-9 years old children attribute outcome purely to effort, and not low ability. Younger children have also shown to have self-serving bias about personal performances.

Erikson’s stages of psychosocial developmen illustrates that development involves passing through a series of eight stages from infancy to late adulthood, enabling a person to become a healthy individual. Each stage has goals, concerns, achievements, and dangers that arises and critical issues to be resolved. How the individual deals with these stages will affect their future selves’ self-image and view of society. Jonathan fits into the ‘Industry vs. Inferiority’ where the child is becoming aware of themselves as individuals. Thus, is a critical period for self-confidence. In school, children have opportunities to create pictures, solve mathematical problems, and writing sentences for the approval of their parents, teachers, and peers. However, if the child is instead incapable of meeting their teachers and parents’ expectations, they may develop feelings of inferiority about their capabilities. Additionally, not meeting social norms for their cultures, for instance being athletic in America. This develops a sense of lack of motivation, low self-esteem, and laziness.

Children start to recognise and choose activities to their interests and abilities. If unable to pursue their own talent, in their own time, could lead to lack of motivation and low self-esteem. However, some failure may be necessary so that the child can develop some modesty.

Erikson’s stages capture many of life’s central issues that are relatable and emphasises many person dilemmas and social conflicts that most of us all experience. Advancing the knowledge of understanding social development. However, you could argue this makes his stages vague and rounds off complexities. Erikson does not dwell in what causes these developments and how the outcome may later influence personality (Schafer, 1999).

However, the theory is more a descriptive overview of human social and emotional development. Erikson (1964) recognised that it did not adequately explain how or why these developments occur. However, emphasized that his work was to be used as a ‘tool’ rather than a factual analysis, as in more of a framework.

Thus, was furthers upon by Marcia (1991) four identity statuses; foreclosure, identity diffusion, moratorium, and identity achievement. Transition to these different stages are often inspired by instability in identity which can come in the adult life stages and various life events. Thus, expanding the opportunity to change pass adolescents. However, this limited identity to a specific age group and does not consider childhood.Therefore, Jonathan needs strategies to help him develop a growth mindset, introduce new strategies to improve learning, and help to understand his emotions.

Our belief in our self and abilities can dictate our skills in learning. Having a positive belief would lead to a ‘growth mindset’ which allows us to believe we can develop our abilities through hard work, good strategies, and instructions. However, having a negative belief would lead to a ‘fixed mindset’ which limits our capabilities and not having the possibility to change. Having a growth mindset predicts better academic achievements and can be taught. To enable this, Jonathan needs to know this his teacher expects things to go wrong, that their teacher believes in him and that they model a growth mindset. However, Devos, Van-den, & Vanderheyden, (2000) argues some participants may show a higher level of natural motivations for learning than other, making it harder to know if the growth mindset teaching itself is effective or not.

Attribution Retaining could also be used to replace students’ unhelpful explanations for their academic performances. Students look upon causation for their successes and failures, thus shaping views on their own academic competence. Jonathan could be attributing poor performance to lack of ability resulting in feelings of hopelessness and shame leading to decreased motivation. Whereas encouraging Jonathan to use ‘controllable’ explanations for poor performance such as lack of effort or poor study can help develop more of a growth mindset.

Self-regulated learning describes a process of controlling and evaluating your own learning and behaviour. Zimmerman (1989) suggests the interaction of self-observation (monitoring your activities), self-judgement (evaluating your performance), and self-reaction (reaction to your performance) can reflect an individual’s progress of obtaining a learning goal and appropriately adjusting their actions for future academic success. Mastering these skills, the individual can become a self-regulated learner.

This is shown in Gourley (2000) study which emphasized on self-monitoring as allowing children to be aware of their own automatic thoughts. By teaching children to set their own targets for change, recording the times they are on target, and rewarding themselves for this allowed them to develop self-control in the classroom. Failure at organizing tasks can lead to their grades to suffer and feelings of disappointment. Jonathan would need help to break down his goals in realistic parts and set manageable dates for it to be completed by. Helping with keeping notebooks, binders and folder would lead to better study skills and organisation. Having these management skills will improve Jonathan’s grades and feeling successful.

The Industry vs. Inferiority stage is key for creating a healthy sense of self. To achieve this obtainable goals and praise are needed. A sense of accomplishment could be achieved by allocating out jobs. This could be stacking the chairs away, feeding the class pet, or handing out papers. Having the involvement in class allows praise from the teacher and Jonathan feeling like a valid member of the class.

Constant praise is needed for students not to be discouraged. All members of the classroom would need to be considered, and not just high achievers. Jonathan’s effort should be noted and praised, even when not achieving the best grades, validating his efforts. This could be from ‘student of the week’ or sticker charts.

Jonathan throwing the objects around the room is a sign of aggression. By looking at the information processing model help illustrates Jonathan could have difficulties in:

encoding social cues by attending to fewer relevant cues as inclined to hostile ones; constructing social events from biased recall cues; Demonstrating a lack of quality and quantity in his produced solutions, thus leads to more physically aggressive solutions; deciding which solution to enact as believing aggressive behaviours would lead to rewards and positive outcomes; enacting the chosen aggressive strategy as deeming they would be more successful than employing one with prosocial behaviours.

Thus, these factors suggest that early prevention would lower the risk of aggressive behaviours. By helping a child rationalise healthier ways of thinking through the five steps of processing information. This is evident in FAST Track intervention model which attempts to support the child to build positive relations among their family, school and peers (system), by building appropriate attitudes, skills, and expectancies in each system. However, majority of these studies are correlational studies, thus, does not show cause and effect.

Jonathan could also blame external factors for his failures. Having an ‘excuse’ for the previous poor academic performances. This blame can manifest hostility towards external entities that they feel is responsible. This could be towards the teacher, or towards his peers who they believe got them in to problem as not seeing themselves (locus) as the problem.

This is shown in the case study of a teacher demonstrated negative reinforcement by sending the boy out of the room for disruptive behaviours. He blamed his peers for getting him into trouble which later lead him to fight them in the playground. Additionally, he was angry at the teacher as felt untrusted and neglected compare to his peers. The teacher may have failed to consider the Jonathan’s emotions which leads to anger and attributing his failures to the teacher and peers.

Jonathans showed behaviours of aggression (throwing objects), inattentiveness (walking around the room), and lacking prosocial behaviour (interrupting the teacher). These behaviours could lead to poor school achievement, and could impact later adult-life negatively.

Psychological theories suggest Jonathan could be modelling masculinity tendencies to prioritize “laddish” behaviours over academic achievements, to accomplish a high status. Although, may cause him to have anxiety about his grades, and create unhealthy emotional health. Jonathan could be attributing his performance to low ability as seen as internal, stable, and uncontrollable, thus has a low expectation for future academic success. Lastly, Jonathan failing to meet his parents and teacher expectations develops low motivation and low self-esteem. Jonathan may be reflecting his frustration from feeling inadequacies by throwing objects and avoiding tasks by walking around the room

Strategies suggested to enable Jonathan to get over this crisis is encouraging him to develop a growth mindset, attribution retention to reattribute his failures to controllable explanations, encouraging self-regulated learning, and helping him deal with his emotions.

Although these strategies have been suggested, there are numerous factors to be causing Jonathans behaviours that have not been focused upon. This could be mental health, teacher’s ability, and social class etc.

In psychology, attribution is a judgment we make about the cause of another person’s behavior. Attribution theory explains these attribution processes, which we use to understand why an event or behavior occurred.

To understand the concept of attribution, imagine that a new friend cancels plans to meet up for coffee. Do you assume that something unavoidable came up, or that the friend is a flaky person? In other words, do you assume that the behavior was situational (related to external circumstances) or dispositional (related to inherent internal characteristics)? How you answer questions like these is the central focus for psychologists who study attribution.

Key Takeaways: Attribution Theory

• Attribution theories attempt to explain how human beings evaluate and determine the cause of other people’s behavior.
• Well-known attribution theories include the correspondent inference theory, Kelley’s covariation model, and Weiner’s three-dimensional model.
• Attribution theories typically focus on the process of determining whether a behavior is situationally-caused (caused by external factors) or dispositionally-caused (caused by internal characteristics).

Fritz Heider put forward his theories of attribution in his 1958 book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. Heider was interested in examining how individuals determine whether another person’s behavior is internally caused or externally caused.

According to Heider, behavior is a product of capacity and motivation. Capacity refers to whether we are able to enact a particular behavior—that is, whether our innate characteristics and our present environment make that behavior possible. Motivation refers to our intentions as well as how much effort we apply.

Heider contended that both capacity and motivation are necessary for a particular behavior to occur. For example, your ability to run a marathon depends on both your physical fitness and the weather that day (your capacity) as well as your desire and drive to push through the race (your motivation).

Edward Jones and Keith Davis developed the correspondent inference theory. This theory suggests that if someone behaves in a socially desirable way, we do not tend to infer much about them as a person. For example, if you ask your friend for a pencil and she gives one to you, you are not likely to infer much about your friend’s character from the behavior, because most people would do the same thing in a given situation—it is the socially desirable response. However, if your friend refuses to allow you to borrow a pencil, you are likely to infer something about her innate characteristics due to this socially undesirable response.

Also according to this theory, we do not tend to conclude much about an individual’s internal motivation if they’re acting in a particular social role. For example, a salesperson might be friendly and outgoing at work, but because such a demeanor is part of the job requirements, we will not attribute the behavior to an innate characteristic.

On the other hand, if an individual displays behavior that is atypical in a given social situation, we tend to be more likely to attribute their behavior to their innate disposition. For example, if we see someone behaving in a quiet, reserved manner at a loud and boisterous party, we’re more likely to conclude that this person is introverted.

According to psychologist Harold Kelley’s covariation model, we tend to use three types of information when we’re deciding whether someone’s behavior was internally or externally motivated.

1. Consensus, or whether others would act similarly in a given situation. If other people would typically display the same behavior, we tend to interpret the behavior as being less indicative of an individual’s innate characteristics.
2. Distinctiveness, or whether the person acts similarly across other situations. If a person only acts a certain way in one situation, the behavior can probably be attributed to the situation rather than the person.
3. Consistency, or whether someone acts the same way in a given situation each time it occurs. If someone’s behavior in a given situation is inconsistent from one time to the next, their behavior becomes more difficult to attribute.

When there are high levels of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency, we tend to attribute the behavior to the situation. For example, let’s imagine that you’ve never eaten cheese pizza before, and are trying to figure out why your friend Sally likes cheese pizza so much:

• All of your other friends also like pizza (high consensus)
• Sally doesn’t like many other foods with cheese (high distinctiveness)
• Sally likes every pizza she’s ever tried (high consistency)

Taken together, this information suggests that Sally’s behavior (liking pizza) is the result of a specific circumstance or situation (pizza tastes good and is a nearly universally enjoyed dish), rather than some inherent characteristic of Sally’s.

When there are low levels of consensus and distinctiveness, but high consistency, we’re more likely to decide the behavior is due to something about the person. For example, let’s imagine that you’re trying to figure out why your friend Carly likes to go sky-diving:

• None of your other friends likes to go sky-diving (low consensus)
• Carly likes many other high-adrenaline activities (low distinctiveness)
• Carly has been sky-diving many times and she’s always had a great time (high consistency)

Taken together, this information suggests that Carly’s behavior (her love of sky-diving) is the result of an inherent characteristic of Carly’s (being a thrill-seeker), rather than a situational aspect of the act of sky-diving.

Bernard Weiner’s model suggests that people examine three dimensions when attempting to understand the causes of a behavior: locus, stability, and controllability.

• Locus refers to whether the behavior was caused by internal or external factors.
• Stability refers to whether the behavior will happen again in the future.
• Controllability refers to whether someone is able to change the outcome of an event by expending more effort.

According to Weiner, the attributions people make affect their emotions. For example, people are more likely to feel pride if they believe that they succeeded due to internal characteristics, such as innate talent, rather than external factors, such as luck. Research on a similar theory, explanatory style, has found that an individual’s explanatory style people is linked to their health and levels of stress.

Background and Purpose

This study tells about Attribution which includes the process that is used by people to link the underlying causes of the events. Social psychologists in analyzing attribution cases, as with many other issues, do not have a full consensus, and they analyze and study it from different perspectives. That is different theories have been imposed in this case

Methods

The oldest attribution is found in the works of Fritz Haider’s theory formulation. In his opinion, most people, who are new to psychologists, trying to understand the behavior of others to make the world more predictable. According to Haider, most people apply on this explain one of the following:

• A – They may have assumed situational factors
• B – They may imagine that the behavior was unintentional and accidental and probably will not happen in the future.
• C – The third explanation is that the person has developed their own personal behavior traits.

Result

Ross and Fletcher conclude that there is no reason to assume that people are always in the mind and even curious what is the cause of their behavior with others. When people try to describe their performance, different types of attribution can have different motivational and emotional consequences for them.

• 2 Mirsadeghi, S. (Mar. – Apr. 2013). A Review on the Attribution Theory in the Social Psychology. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)
• (Richard W. Mizerski, (Sep., 1979),)

The Attribution Process in Consumer Decision Making Journal of Consumer Research Background and Purpose

Attribution theory deals only with the processes by which attributions are derived from information input (Kelley 1973, p. 126). It encompasses the cognitive sequence from stimulus manipulation to the attribution, but strictly speaking, does not treat the consequences of the attribution, This discussion has merely highlighted the work of Heider, Jones and Davis, Bem, and Kelley, who are the pioneers in, but by no means the only contributors to, the development of attribution theory. Many facets of each of these models were not discussed, either a be- cause of space constraints or because they have less direct application in consumer analysis.

Methods

Attribution theory can be divided into three foci: person-perception (Heider, Jones and Davis, Kelley); self-perception (Bam, Kelley), and object-perception (Kelley). Since Heider is generally considered to be the ‘father of attribution theory,’ the discussion of the major theories begins with Heider and person-perception.

Result

The role of attribution theory in understanding the information processing aspects of consumer decision-making, it should not be assumed that attribution theory has no other relevance to consumer research. Perhaps the most integral concept underlying attribution theory is learning. Attribution theory is mute in some areas of consumer analysis where one might expect it to have a great deal to say. Finally, attribution theory is not a single theory, but several related theories that provide a common approach to a large class of questions related to the cognitive processes

• Goosenberg, D. (April 25, 2016). The Effects of Punctuality Discordance and Behavioral Attributions on Relationship Satisfaction. The University of British Columbia.
• (Goosenberg, April 25, 2016)

The Effects of Punctuality Discordance and Behavioral Attributions on Relationship Satisfaction.

The University of British Columbia Background and Purpose

The primary aim of this study is to investigate how partner differences in factors such as the perceived importance of punctuality, and the degree to which one perceives their partner’s tardiness as intentional or unintentional, influence the observed association between time perception discrepancies and relationship satisfaction. Our relationships with others are central aspects of our lives, and essential to our health and well-being. The current study is focused primarily on factors related to relationship well-being, and the component of psychological temporality known as time perception, which refers to the awareness of duration and the perception of the passage of time

Methods

based on research by Carly Result, was designed to measure four primaries related to relationship satisfaction. Participants responded using a 9-item, Likert-type scale. The IMS appears to be a reliable and valid method of assessing relationship satisfaction and further, participant responses to the IMS were highly correlated with their responses to other measures shown to be closely related to relationship satisfaction by asking Counterbalance Self & Partner Punctuality Questions Lateness Attribution Questions.

Result

The author has predicted that larger partner differences in the value placed on punctuality would be associated with lower relationship satisfaction. Additionally, the author expected that individuals who attributed their partner’s lateness more so to internal causes would experience lower relationship satisfaction; and that the causes or attributions used to explain their partner’s actions would remain consistent over time.

• Mackey2, M. J. (15 April 2019). Attribution theory: An introduction to the special issue. School of Business and Industry, Florida A&M.
• (Mackey2, 15 April 2019)

Attribution theory: An introduction to the special issue.

School of Business and Industry, Florida A&M. Background and Purpose

Attribution processes have also emerged as an important moderator between supervisory behavior and subordinates. Attribution processes are also a central theme for an Australian Research Council Grant to study the effects of high‐performance work systems. In summary, the scope of application for attribution theory has expanded considerably in recent years. This special issue is designed to provide a forum for further development of our understanding of how attributional processes contribute to explaining some of the most critical issues in organizational behavior.

Methods

Two methods were used to generate the papers for this special issue. As usual, a call for papers was announced by the Journal of

Organizational Behaviour. In addition, a call for papers was issued for the Third International Symposium on Attribution Theory, which was held in March 2018 at the School of Business and Industry at Florida. There were 40 attendees at the Third International Symposium on Attribution Theory, which included scholars from 10 countries.

All participants, including keynote speaker Bernard Weiner, were able to provide feedback on every presentation. All papers included in this special issue were also subject to the Journal of Organizational Behaviour’s standard review process. Ultimately, the study authors, feedback from the attendees of the Third International Symposium on Attribution Theory,

Result

The numerous study designs, research contexts, and focal topics to which attribution theory was applied in this special issue demonstrate the immense amount of opportunities for attribution theory to enrich our understanding of organizational behavior phenomena. Nevertheless, there are still many fruitful areas of inquiry, particularly with respect to theory development and the relationships between attributions and emotional processes.

• Rebecca Peretz-Lange⁎, P. M. (2019). Verbal framing and statistical patterns influence children’s attributions to situational, but not personal, causes for behavior. Tufts University, United States.
• (Rebecca Peretz-Lange⁎, 2019)

Verbal framing and statistical patterns influence children’s attributions to situational, but not personal causes for behavior.

Tufts University, United States Background, and Purpose

Research has shown that children can use both the statistical patterns present in observed behavior, as well as the verbal framing of the behaviors, to infer personal causes. However, research has not explored whether children also use these factors to infer situational causes. The present study examined the impacts of statistical patterns and verbal framing on four and six-year-old children’s (n=218) attributions to personal and situational causes for behavior, as assessed by their explanations for characters’ interactions with toys.

Methods

Two hundred eighteen 4- and 6-year-old children participated in this between October 2015 and August 2017. Within each age group, participants were randomly assigned to 9 conditions with at least 12 participants in each condition.. They chose to include these additional participants in the full sample prior to conducting analyses. A power analysis shows that this sample size is sufficient to detect a medium effect size for the analysis of a two-way interaction between pattern and verbal framing, which were planned a priori for the primary hypotheses discussed above, at a power level of at least 80%. All participants whose parents provided consent to participate completed this study.

Result

In sum, the current study provides evidence for a personal attribution bias in children’s social causal reasoning and evidence that verbal framing and statistical patterns impact children’s reasoning about both personal and situational causes, specifically with respect to their explanations for social behavior. Children have conceptual biases to represent behavior in terms of personal causes but can identify situational causes if they are suggested through the language they hear or the patterns of evidence they observe. Studying social causal attribution in early childhood may have important implications for understanding the origins of the attribution biases found throughout adulthood..

Introduction

Human beings are encouraged to attribute causes to their behaviors and actions. Attribution is the method in social psychology by which people explain the causes of behavior and occurrences. Models to explain this process are called attribution theory. Psychological research on attribution started in the early 20th century with Fritz Heider’s work and Harold Kell’s theory was further developed. (Jones & Harris, 1967; Kelley, 1967; Ross, 1977). Attribution theory provides the framework necessary to understand how individuals explain why events in their environment happened (i.e., they make causal ascriptions; Heider, 1958). Several factors stimulated the need for this special issue on attribution theory. First, recent journal articles have made it clear that the potential of attribution theory to contribute to the organizational sciences has not been realized. In particular, an article by Martinod, Harvey, and Desborough (2011) pointed out that although a significant proportion of journal space in social psychology is devoted to attributional perspectives of human behavior, a disproportionally small amount of space is devoted to attributional topics in organizational behavior journals. In that article, they note that many researchers have misconstrued discussions of attribution theory by downplaying the utility of the construct. A recent article by Harvey, Madison, Martinod, Crook, and Crook (2014) directly addressed the criticisms regarding the explanatory power of attribution theory (Lord & Smith, 1983; Mitchell, 1982) by demonstrating through a meta‐analysis that the amount of variance in organizational outcomes that is accounted for by attributional construct is similar to other more popular constructs, such as organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors.

Types of attribution

1.Dispositional Attribution

Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal characteristic of a person, rather than to outside forces.

When we explain the behavior of others we look for enduring internal attributions, such as personality traits. This is known as the fundamental attribution error.

2. Situational Attribution

The process of assigning the cause of behavior to some situation or event outside a person’s control rather than to some internal characteristic.

When we try to explain our own behavior we tend to make external attributions, such as situational or environmental features.

Attribution theory

Attribution theory is concerned with how the causes of conduct and occurrences are explained by ordinary people. The theory of attribution deals with how data is used by the social perceiver to obtain causal explanations for occurrences. It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment.

Correspondent Inference Theory

Jones and Davis (1965) believed that deliberate conduct (as opposed to accidental or unthinking conduct) was given specific attention to individuals.

The theory of Jones and Davis enables us to comprehend the inner attribution process. They claim that when we see a correspondence between motivation and conduct, we tend to do this. For example, when we see a correspondence between someone behaving in a friendly way and being a friendly person.

Dispositional attributions give us data from which to predict the future conduct of a person. The inference theory of the correspondent defines the circumstances under which we create dispositional characteristics to the conduct that we perceive as deliberate.

Davis used the word correspondent inference to refer to an opportunity when an observer infers that the conduct of a person matches or corresponds to his character. It is an alternative word to attribution of disposition.

Jones and Davis say we draw on five sources of information:

1. Choice: If behavior is freely chosen it is believed to be due to internal factors.
2. Accidental vs. Intentional Behaviour: Behaviour that is intentional is likely to be attributed to the person’s personality, and behavior which is accidental is likely to be attributed to situation / external causes.
3. Social Desirability: Behaviours low in sociable desirability (non-conforming) lead us to make (internal) dispositional inferences more than socially undesirable behaviours.
4. Hedonistic Relevance: If the other person’s behaviour appears to be directly intended to benefit or harm us.
5. Personalism: If the other person’s behaviour appears to be intended to have an impact on us, we assume that it is “personal”, and not just a by-product of the situation we are both in.

Kelley’s Covariation Model

Kelley’s covariation model is the best-known attribution theory. He developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic of the person or the environment.

The word covariation merely implies that an individual has data from various observations at distinct moments and circumstances and can see the covariation and causes of an observed impact.

Three kinds of evidence.

• Consensus: the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation
• Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations.
• Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs. .

According to Kelley we fall back on past experience and look for either

1. Multiple necessary causes. For example, we see an athlete win a marathon, and we reason that she must be very fit, highly motivated, have trained hard, etc., and that she must have all of these to win
2. Multiple sufficient causes. For example, we see an athlete fail a drug test, and we reason that she may be trying to cheat, or have taken a banned substance by accident, or been tricked into taking it by her coach. Any one reason would be sufficient.

Conclusion

When individuals attempt to define their performance, they may experience distinct kinds of attribution with distinct motivational and emotional implications. An individual can determine how the private attribution or other situational conduct has been effective and under what circumstances.

References

1. Goosenberg, D. (April 25, 2016). The Effects of Punctuality Discordance and Behavioral Attributions on Relationship Satisfaction. The University of British Columbia.
2. Mackey2, M. J. (15 April 2019). Attribution theory: An introduction to the special issue. School of Business and Industry, Florida A&M.
3. Mirsadeghi, S. (Mar. – Apr. 2013). A Review on the Attribution Theory in the Social Psychology. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS).
4. Rebecca Peretz-Lange⁎, P. M. (2019). Verbal framing and statistical patterns influence children’s attributions to situational, but not personal causes for behavior. Tufts University, United States.
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1. Understanding the Attribution Theory

1.1 Introduction

We, as human beings, do a lot of things in our day-to-day lives and those actions are tried to make sense of in this social world. We are curious to understand people, we need to make sense of WHY they do what they do Attribution theory which is developed by Fritz Heider, the famous Austrian psychologist is based on this attribution. He published the book “The Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships” in 1958 which marked the primary discussion of the Attribution theory. The theory was first brought into light by Heider but was later developed by various psychologists and in relation to the theory, various models were attempted to explain the behavioural processes of attribution.

Definition of Attribution: The process by which people use the information to make inferences about the causes of behaviour or events.

1.2 Theory

The Attribution theory is a part of Social Psychology. Fritz reflects upon the causes of individual acts and events with the help of this theory. Attribution theories describe how we explain the causes of other people’s behaviours.

So, how do we go about trying to explain the behaviours of other people around us? We do it in a few different ways. One of the things we do is try and break it down our understandings and explanations of the behaviour into factors about them and the factors related to their environmental surrounding.

Here’s an example to give a good understanding of how simply the attribution theory applies in people’s behaviours and its different perspectives:

Let’s take someone we encounter who is a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. This person might have an incredibly caring and generous personality. And he might be engaging in those volunteering behaviour to help others and that might be the true cause so in that case, we can draw a correspondent inference between his behaviour and his personality but it’s not quite as simple as that because we also realise that people who volunteer for Habitat for Humanity can accumulate some credits essentially so that later on if they need housing they are going to be on top of the list and when people are building houses it’s going to be this person who gets the house, so you see how in that situation we are not necessarily able to say that he engaged in these behaviours because of something about him. He is a warm, caring person who might have engaged in these volunteering behaviours because of what he is essentially going to get out of it.

Fritz Heider grouped people’s explanations into two simple categories:

1. The Attribution Theory
2. Internal Attributions External Attributions
3. (Personal/Dispositional) (Situational/Circumstantial)
4. assigns causality to the factor assigns causality to outside
5. within the person. agent or force.

When the question of ‘why’ arises the answer either relates to Internal Attribution or External Attribution.

Fritz Heider would analyse the way that people would come to these types of explanations and conclusions and then generally found two basic categories and that is people can draw personal attributions and determine that people are engaging behaviours because of something internal about the personal meaning specifically their personality, their disposition, their attitudes.

Let’s take into consideration an example:

When James Comey, the director of the FBI before the 2016 presidential elections in the USA, spread the knowledge that claimed that the FBI is still working on the investigation of Hilary Clinton and her emails, many people believed that he was releasing that information because of his true political beliefs and that he is a conservative Republican and he realised that by releasing that information that it would sabotage Hilary Clinton’s campaign and that is how we can connect it to an internal attribution, that means that engaging in these behaviours tells us something about him, his traits and his attitude.

On the other hand, there is a way people can explain behaviours in another way and that is not by saying that the behaviours betray something about the person but that they tell us something more about the situation that the person was operating under. So, situational attributes are more external in nature, they are more circumstantial.

Let’s take the same example given previously into consideration again,

But, now looking at it from someone who’s making a situational attribution.

They might say James Comey released information about a continued FBI investigation on Hilary Clinton but it wasn’t because he is a Republican, it was because he understood in that situation, he had to provide the American people with all the information that he could because he realised that if he withheld that information, and if after the election, once it became known that he had the information, everybody would think there’s a huge cover-up. So, in this situation, looking at it through a completely different point of view at his behaviour was making public that the FBI was still continuing their investigation, They would look at that behaviour and say that it doesn’t tell us anything about him as a person and his traits and attitude it just tells us about the situation that he was operating under.

1.3. Biases in Attribution

We human beings, we have quite different perceptions, these perceptions can be affected by the things we believe in, the people we spend time with, how we are ourselves as a person. Our attributions are a part of us and hence they differ. Although people are often reasonably accurate in their attributions—we could say, perhaps, that they are “good enough” (Fiske, 2003)—they are far from perfect. Our perception can overlook and not understand all the factors and reasoning that can have us concluding not an accurate attribution.

Also, the way of life that we live in significantly affects the manner in which we consider and see our social settings. Accordingly, it isn’t astounding that individuals in various societies would observe and consider individuals fairly in an unexpected way. One distinction is between individuals from numerous Western societies (e.g., the United States, Canada, Australia) and individuals from numerous Asian societies (e.g., Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, India). In our talk about the self-concept, individuals from Western societies will in general be fundamentally arranged toward independent nature. This prompts them to have a free self-idea where they see themselves, as well as other people, as independent creatures who are to some degree separate from their social gatherings and conditions. Interestingly, individuals in numerous East Asian societies take a progressively reliant perspective of themselves as well as other people, one that stresses not so much on the individual but instead the connection among people and the other individuals and things that encompass them. A result of these distinctions is that, normally, individuals from individualistic societies will in general spotlight their attributions more on the unique individual, though, individuals from collectivistic societies will in general spotlight more on the circumstance. (Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000; Lewis, Goto, & Kong, 2008; Maddux & Yuki, 2006).

And so, we derive the two terminologies that explain the biases in Attribution:

1) The Fundamental Attribution Error

One way that our attributions might be one-sided is that we rush to property the conduct of other individuals to something individual about them as opposed to something about their circumstances. This is an exemplary case of the general human propensity of thinking little of how imperative the social circumstance truly is in deciding conduct. This bias happens in two different ways. To begin with, we are too liable to even think about making solid individual attributions to represent the conduct that we watch others taking part in. We are more likely to say “That Mr XYZ who is a celebrity is doing charity work because he is a kind person” rather than saying “Mr XYZ is doing charity work to look good in the public eye.”

2) The Self-Serving Bias

Our attributions are in some cases one-sided by influence especially the longing to enhance oneself. In spite of the fact that we might want to imagine that we are constantly judicious and precise in our attributions, we regularly will in general misshape them to make us feel better. Self-serving attributions are attributions that help us meet our desire to see ourselves positively (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004). A basic example to this bias, which is simply the propensity to credit our victories to ourselves, and our defeats to other people and the circumstance. We ourselves make self-attributions. Maybe you have reprimanded another driver for a mishap that you were in or faulted your better half as opposed to yourself for a separation. Or on the other hand, maybe you have assumed praise (inside) for your victories yet faulted your disappointments for outside causes. In the event that these decisions were fairly not exactly precise, yet they benefitted you, at that point, they were without a doubt self-serving.

2) The role of Attribution Theory in Persuasive Communication.

Persuasive communication can be written, visual, verbal or any combination of these forms, and it is designed to sway a person’s beliefs or actions. In other words, it is communication that convinces you to do or think something that you might not think otherwise. Whereas, the attribution theory challenges people’s actions and beliefs and breaks down the theory for us to understand WHY they do what they do. So, we can explain their connection or co-relation in a way that without understanding or questioning the causes of people’s behaviours, one wouldn’t be able to apply the approach of persuasive communication that makes one think and believe beyond their usual ways. For example, if a teacher wants to help a student whose performance has been poor, they would have to understand the way that the student approaches the subject and where the student is lacking, in order to correct them and make them believe that they can do better than that. Well, that being said, in other circumstances, the swaying might be for the good, it can have any kind of impact that one would try to have on their subject.

Application of the attribution theory in the advertising world.

3.1. Richard M. Sparkman, Jr. William B. Locander* (1980) “Attribution Theory and Advertising Effectiveness.”

Abstract:

“ A factorial experiment was conducted to determine the effects of advertising context on the perception of an advertisement. Kelley’s attribution variables were used to define four dimensions of context: consensus, consistency over time, consistency over modality, and distinctiveness.” (as mentioned in the research study)

The research mainly depends on Kelly’s covariation/ANOVA model to conclude to the questions raised throughout the research paper.

So, before getting into the depth of this study, here is a brief explanation about the theory:

Attribution theory is a group of theories. Here is the theory which simply describes how we think about the situations so we can draw causal attribution so we can determine how to attribute the cause of someone’s behaviour.

Kelley’s Covariation Model (1967)

Kelley’s (1967) covariation theory is the best-known attribution hypothesis. He built up a sensible model for making a decision about whether a specific activity ought to be attributed to some behaviour (dispositional) of the individual or the circumstance (situational).

The term covariation just implies that an individual has data from numerous perceptions, at various occasions and circumstances, and can see the covariation of an observed impact and its causes.

Kelley mentioned that people consider three types of factors while analysing the causes of other people’s behaviours:

• Consensus: How do others react to the same stimulus
• Distinctiveness: Does the person react the same way?
• Consistency: Is the person’s behaviour consistent over time?

Kelley’s covariation and configuration model

And hereby we end with a brief discussion of these theories and now we can observe how these theories have been studied in order to give advertising a better perception to understanding the consumers and the environment surrounding them.

Kelley’s ideas of single observation case and multiple observations are taken into an advertising situation where ads are considered to be behavioural events. With this methodology, a study that examines the impacts of controls of the substance of single ads obviously falls into what Kelley calls the single observation case. On the other hand, if an ad claims multiple claims, each claim can be taken as a separate event and can be taken under as a single observation case. Whereas the multiple observation case can be applied to the study of attributions of individual claim advertisements. Single observation cases are limited to the manipulations of the content of ads and their claims and the multiple observation cases study the context of the manipulation’s effect of the ads and their claims.

The study really emphasises and is more or less based on the questions that were raised by Smith and Hunt (1978) in the Journal of Consumer Research “Attributional Processes and Effects in Promotional Situations” which are related to advertising content and which are equally important for the application of attribution theory to an advertising context. These questions/issues are:

• Are attributional processes evoked by the context in which an advertisement appears? Do consumers make attributions about advertising events based on other behavioural events that were also observed?
• Assuming their existence, what model best explains these attributions based on advertising context?

The study concludes the first issue by mentioning that the context of advertisement can arouse the attributional processes. “Product attribution for identical ads was found to vary with the number of persons willing to advertise the product. Thus, with content constant, attributions can be changed by the advertisement’s context.”

They came to this conclusion after studying that through Kelley’s covariation theory and model which also included mathematical work that Kelley operated with in his theory and the result in a non-mathematical format was that context can influence attributions in a non- advertising way. Since, the theory wasn’t tested in an advertising situation, a pilot study with the same ad layouts but with different context/scenarios was designed to test the four hypotheses. The content and the idea of the ad which was going to experiment was:

• Ralph Jones, a Houston businessman, has recently agreed to appear in ads for a mid-size car, Car X. Several other men and women will also appear in ads for this car. Ralph has agreed to advertise Car X for the next three years. He will appear in magazine ads, TV commercials, and also make personal appearances in dealer showrooms. Ralph has never done an ad before and will not advertise any other products.
• Out of which, hypotheses 1 (H1) stated that “Attribution to the product will increase with increasing consensus.” In the pilot study, the attribution to the product did not increase with increased consistency over-time, distinctiveness and consistency over modality. Which, hence, brings us to the answer concluded and explains that similar advertisements with different contexts can have attributional effects.
• However, the second question could not be answered, as the Kelley’s covariation theory and model when applied in the pilot study could only one dimension, consensus, was shown to be useful for explaining product attributions in relation to the advertising context. The other dimensions were not related to the concluded result. The result concludes that the model cannot be applied in an advertising environment. Although, it is not completely irrelevant as one of the dimensions did produce a hypothesized effect.

Conclusion/Learning Outcomes

• The study really gives us a clear idea on the perceptions of advertising content and advertising context.
• It is the first study which takes the best approach in the history of the attribution theory i.e. Kelley’s covariation model and experiments it in the advertising world and familiarises the ad industry with the new born relativity between the product attributions and the advertising context.
• The single/multiple observation cases can be really effective to give the consumers as well as the advertisers a real perspective and simplify the attribution process
• This research is the first study to take the techniques of the theories of attributions which one strong branch of the persuasive communication and actually apply in the ad world in order to bring new outcomes which could be further used as techniques in the ad world and hence use it on a large scale as even though the attributions are used to at the research level to understand the customer’s feelings and wants but it still has to work up on its application in the ad campaigns.

4) The Attribution Theory and the politics

The world is changing and so is its politics, political campaigns are built to always the most controversial and known, and what would it out more than involving the term ‘celebrity endorsement to it. Celebrity endorsements have turned out to be progressively well known in the political circle. Specialists worldwide have announced the expanded inclusion of famous people in political battles as endorsers of parties, applicants, and issues.

All things considered, the thought processes behind celebrity support are clear: Politicians co-select popularity to spur individuals to cast votes in favour of them, just as to impact their mentalities and casting voting propensities. This subject will be discussed further in regards to the theory of planned behaviour and the attribution theory.

These celebrity endorsements increase the popularity of the campaigns and contribute in the enhancement of the party’s ideas, and beliefs, about its candidates when compared to no involvement.

Kanye’s Sunday Service

Kanye West’s transformation story has been received differently among Christians and non-believers all over the world. Recently, the American-based hip-hop sensational took to the media to reveal the release of his ‘Jesus is King Album”, a step that shows his dedication to letting people understand more about God. Besides, he has used his weekly program identified as “Sunday Service” to compose, sing and preach the will of God to his followers. According to the 2004 revelation by Christianity Today, in his album “The College Dropout,” Kanye quoted Bible verses in some of the Godly lyrics. Christianity Today indicated that the pop star made a case for Jesus Christ before again dismissing Him through specific rhymes. This showed that despite being on God’s side, Kanye feels that he shouldn’t be there (Kate, 2019).

Many Christians around the world have been interested in understanding the association of the musician with God since he released “The College Dropout” album. People have created discussions online to discuss whether Kanye’s spiritual life is sincere or just an act for popularity gain. Others have sought to understand the reason behind the nickname “Yeezus” in most of his brands. Some of these dilemmas have compounded lately, and the shoe mogul remains adamant on other speculations.

Since the designer started his career, West has used the name of God and Jesus in most of his songs and shows. However, lately, the music sensational has increased his interest in Christianity, and used the “Sunday Service” to explain the work of the Supreme Being in his life and family (Kate, 2019). On a weekly basis, celebrities, friends, and family gather to praise His name through songs. Besides, Kanye has resorted to explaining the role of the Church in contemporary society, the importance of adherence to the Creator, and various passages in the Christian Holy Book.

According to one of the Christian writers, Cary Allred, it is hard to make a conclusion about Kanye’s spiritual position at the moment. However, it has been observed that the artist is currently an insider in religion. Also, although Kanye does not mix with the traditional congregations in churches, he holds outdoor meetings through which he has hosted preachers and other influential persons, including Pastor Carl Lentz and Rich Wilkerson.

In one of the cover stories published by Forbes about the musician’s “creative mind,” Kanye mentioned that the religious influence had impacted his business heavily. In a quote, the pop star stated that his endeavors have thrived due to the grace of God and his obedience to the Creator. Moreover, Kanye maintains that he was healed from a mental breakdown and bipolar disorder through God’s spiritual power.

According to him, he has had a great experience in recent years, starting from the birth of Psalm, Kanye’s fourth child. The naming of the newborn has been associated with the Bible books, and this reveals the spiritual nourishment the musician has received. In his statement, Kirk Franklin, a gospel artist, indicated that the Sunday Service had been a magnificent expression for Kanye’s spiritual journey (Kate, 2019). He also added that the pop star’s willingness to invest more time in Christian matters reveals the determination Kanye has for God’s work. Katherine Ajibade, a British think tank researcher, is one of the influential persons that have defended Kanye’s position in church matters. She notes that people should avoid speculating that the musician is dedicated to his Christian journey for career gain.

In Psalms 62, God promises human beings to perform good deeds so that they can get rewards from Him. Besides, in Mark 16, the Supreme Being commands people to get out there and preach the gospel to every creature. Perhaps, this is the work that Kanye West is accomplishing according to God’s directive in the Holy Book (Kate, 2019).

In the social setting, people use different psychological approaches to learn the environment, to change their behavior, to explain diverse phenomena, process information, and also to get understood by others.

The Attribution Theory

Attribution refers to the judgment people make about the cause of others’ conduct. The attribution theory is a psychological approach that helps people to understand specific events or behaviors of others. It includes Kelley’s covariation, Weiner’s three-dimensional, and correspondent models. In his studies, Fritz Heider, the founder of the attribution theory, focused on understanding whether an individual’s conduct is caused by intrinsically or extrinsically. Heider maintains that behaviors result from motivation and capacity, which refer to the intentions to perform a certain act as well as the innate personal characteristics that cause the conduct (Harris et al., 2015).

Correspondent Inference Theory

According to this model developed by Keith Davis and Edward Jones, people tend to infer more about others when they behave in socially undesirable ways. This implies that humans, in most cases, avoid concluding about others’ internal motivation when they conduct themselves in responsible manners. For instance, if salespersons show friendliness while disseminating their services, their behavior is regarded as a job requirement, and therefore it would not be used to reveal their behavior. On the other hand, if the individual shows his or her irresponsibility in a specific social situation, people will tend to investigate the motivator.

Kelley’s Covariation Model

According to the founder, Harold Kelley, humans use three forms of information to determine others’ causes of motivation. Through consensus, people make decisions on the behavior of others based on the general population’s conduct. For instance, if many individuals display a specific trait, then the behavior cannot be used to determine the individual characteristics. Distinctiveness if another type of information that is used to judge personal behavior. For example, if an individual conducts themselves in a unique manner, then the trait can be used to understand their innate characteristics. Also, if a person’s behavior is inconsistent over time, this makes it is hard to determine their conduct. Kelley maintains that high levels of consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness make people attribute the behavior to the prevailing circumstances.

Weiner’s Three-Dimensional Model

According to the developer, Bernard Weiner, people understand the causes of specific behaviors by examining locus, stability, and controllability. These dimensions determine whether the specific conduct was a product of internal or external factors and also whether it will occur again. Controllability relates to the probability of an individual changing due to the outcome of the previous behavior. In his studies, Weiner maintains that people’s attributions have a great impact on their emotions. For instance, individuals are likely to get proud when they believe that their performance is linked to their talent and not luck. However, according to analysts, the attribution theory involves various errors that limit its reliability. They include the tendency of judging innate characteristics through personal traits and bias (Harris et al., 2015).

Application of the Attribution Theory

The model explains why individuals have provided different judgments on his decisions and what might have motivated his behavior. For a section of Christians, the musician is using the “Sunday Service” to develop his music career. Besides, the star’s transformation has caught the attention of many people around the world because it is not common for hip-hop music performers to turn into pastors. According to the correspondent inference theory, people shift their interest to issues that are considered undesirable by others. For the approval of the concept that is presented by the model, it is true that some of Christians have condemned Kanye’s Sunday services because they just promote feelings through songs, but they lack the sermon. Through Davis and Jones’s approach, it is evident that more people are focusing on analyzing and investigating Kanye’s source of motivation for his actions.

The attribution theory has helped me to understand why people have different perspectives on Kanye West’s “Sunday Service.” According to Kelley’s Covariation Model, when people behave in a manner that is distinct from others’ conduct, their traits are used to attribute their innate characteristics. Kanye’s behavior is unique, and this is the reason why many people have used his action to conclude that the musician has a great attachment to God, who has given him grace. It is prudent to note that the “Sunday Service” initiative is more popular because people hardly expected the musician who glorified the devil to start preaching the word of God.

References

1. Eberly, M. B., Holley, E. C., Johnson, M. D., & Mitchell, T. R. (2017). Beyond internal and external: A dyadic theory of relational attributions. Academy of Management Review, 36(4), 731-753.
2. Harris, L. T., Todorov, A., & Fiske, S. T. (2015). Attributions on the brain: neuro-imaging dispositional inferences, beyond theory of mind. Neuroimage, 28(4), 763-769.
3. Kate, S. (2019). Has Kanye Lost His Jesus Complex And Found Christ?. Christianity Today. Retrieved From Https://Www.Christianitytoday.Com/Ct/2019/July-Web-Only/Kanye-West-Sunday-Services-Jesus-Walks-Christian-Faith.Html

Social Media Influencer (SMI) marketing within the corporate world is a relatively recent phenomenon. This is due to the fact that the corporate landscape has seen a seismic shift from disseminating information to their consumers predominantly through television, radio and print to the social media age characterized by various mediums such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter dominated by influencers along with personalized ads. Social media influencers have played a key role in the social media age by generating conversation, driving engagement, and setting cultural trends furthering the interests of the brands they represent. Audiences are more receptive of social media influencers than celebrities especially since influencers are relatable and authentic as well as the fact that these influencers tap into the cognitive biases that affect the corporates target audience’s consumer behaviours. Most influencers fall in the younger age group of so called millennials which a demographic that’s especially difficult for marketers.

This research was guided by the social network theory, the attribution theory and the concept of electronic word of mouth.

To help understand why SMI are so persuasive, one needs to rely on the work of Bandura, a social science theorist who stated, “In the social learning system, new patterns of behavior can be acquired through direct experience or by observing the behaviors of others.”

In addition to this, there is the concept of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) which refers to the comments of past, present or potential clients of a certain brand be it either positive or negative but relayed on the internet. eWOM inspires clients to share their experiences with others online and one of the best ways to market products is through word of mouth. This is why eWOM is effective.

It is in both the interests of the corporate as well as the influencer to keep the comments positive as well as persuading the customers to feel that the decision to purchase was their own and not out of coercion.

In any network study, participants of an organization are presented with a list of other members of the same organization after which respondents are asked to put a mark next to every individual they have contact with, how often they have contact and the substance of the interactions.

First coined by Barnes (1954), the social network concept was developed in a community study he was conducting on a Norwegian island parish. In this article “Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish,” Barnes concentrates on face to face relationships through which class systems operate and how collective action is organized in a class system by studying an island parish dependent on industry. Barnes discovered that in as much as the individuals he worked with had collective cultural values, their social world was filled with formal establishments and in fact, individuals made decisions based on personal contacts cutting across their organizational boundaries. Personal contact refers to the direct or indirect relations between individuals or organizations. For this reason, these personal contacts cutting across organizational boundaries were configured as a network and further applied to the class system.

both the social network theory and the network study bring out the aspects of a network which are relations, personal contact and interactions. The main feature of the social network theory therefore is that it requires concepts, definitions and processes in which social units are linked to one another by various relations.

This study was also guided by the attribution theory to explain how influential attributes of SMIs affect the decision of a consumer to interact or engage with a brand and how they’ll perceive a brand product as worth trusting based on an influencers’ review about the brand product.

The attribution theory is all about how meaning is attached in relation to another person’s behavior or an individual’s behavior. In simpler terms, it’s basically why and how ordinary people explain events as they do. It is built on explanations that are made by individuals as a way of justifying their actions. The attribution theory, first proposed by Heider (1958) is built on the assumption that an individual will try to determine why people do what they do, that is, interpret causes to an event or behavior.

Social Media Influencers (SMIs) play a key role in affecting the way users interact on social media, and organizations have learnt to leverage on this group when they prepare their communication and public relations plans. SMIs represent “a new type of independent third party endorser who shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media”.

Corporates have levereaged on SMIs to be able to reach a bigger audience and this has been massively effective. The SMIs come with their groups of followers who act as potential clients for the brands. An example being how EABL has used twitter influencers such as @magunga, @imwirigi and others to promote their whitecap brand. This means that the collective audiences of these influencers becomes aware of the product and is swayed to consume it.

Many companies believe a presence on social media platforms is the key component to a successful marketing strategy. However, these new tendencies entail a myopia in strategy for companies who do not integrate these tools. Nevertheless, implicating social media elements locally is quite complex. An important and significant problem is that those in business can barely differentiate the different types of these tools. In the extensive construct of social media, there are multitudinous main categories, for example social networks, microblogs, virtual worlds, sharing surfaces etc. Social media has a growing effect in many perspectives: from one standpoint, it reverses the way how and why users communicate with each other. From another standpoint, it permits of the extension of marketing communication opportunities from a business to consumer aspect.

Consequently, business actors have to incorporate a new, interactive communication flow into their marketing strategy. In such an environment, users are able to create, modify, share and discuss a significant part of contents on the web. there coexist seven functional blocks in social media, which are the principles of understanding how it works. These elements are the following: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation and groups. Identity delineates the way how consumers reveal themselves on a social media platform.

Corporates are also able to lean into the credibility of these influencers that they have built over time to further their marketing strategy.

SM has a spreading influence on firms in many viewpoints. On the one hand, it reflects to the evolution of the way how and why users communicate with each other (Parsons, 2011). SM is very interactive in nature, and users can easily share information with others on it. On the other hand, as a new media platform, SM enables the development of marketing communications opportunities. The transformation from a one-way communication model to a more complex, two-way model is a direct effect of the democratization of information, where not only companies talk to their customers, but customers talk directly to one another.

However the effectiveness of SMI in corporate communications can be challenged by evidence of the fake interactions some influencers have been generating. According to an article by Muyela Roberto, companies such as Unilever have been spending up to 2 billion shillings on influencer marketing. But they have been shocked by the purge of fake users online that has seen some twitter influencers lose up to 500,000 followers on platforms such as twitter.

Furthermore, cases like comedian Eric Omondi being a brand ambassador for an airline like Kenya Airways (KQ) begs the question on whether his target audience which comprises mostly of common citizens is the same demographic of KQ customers. In this case, one can question the effectiveness of the use of this SMI. We also see him being used to promote the Fresh Fry brand of cooking oil with skits of him dancing in comedic fashion which also asks how this affects how he is viewed in light of the other brands he represents. Brands like KQ would want to be seen in a more serious and professional light.

Introduction

Personal traits and values are significant psychological characteristics, serving as crucial predictors of many aftermaths. However, they are often studied separately, which gives little understanding of their relationships. In spite of the fact that personality traits have been frequently seen as important in understanding a person, the opinion of personal values has mostly been more tangential. Some scholars have proposed the incorporation of values in an integrative framework of the characteristics of a person and furthermore, theoretical and empirical work from theories such as Attribution Theory and Implicit Leadership Theory has been brought into existence by various scholars to accomplish this goal.

Attribution Theory

Attribution theory seeks to give an explanation of the world and find out the cause of a behavior or an event, such as why people behave the way they do. In addition, it is interested in the way people explicate and comprehend events and how this impacts their behavior and thoughts. If you have ever done something only to question why you did it, then the way you answered that question is reliant upon your belief about what brings about a certain event or behavior. Attribution is the process of explicating the cause of an event or behavior. It is part of attempting to understand and comprehend our behaviors, other people’s behaviors, and our experiences. Any time we question our actions, we are attributing them to our own behavior. In1974, an American social psychologist by the name of Bernard Weiner developed this theory and his theoretical framework has become predominant in social psychology today.

Attribution theory presumes that people try to determine why other people act the way they do, that is, understand the causes to certain behaviors or events. According to Bernard Weiner, the processes that highlight an attribution entail that behavior should be observed and recognized, it must be established to be purposeful and it must be assigned to internal or external causes. Attribution theory is to a large extent concerning accomplishment. As stated by Weiner, the most crucial aspects affecting attributions are determination, chance, capability, and assignment difficulty. Attributions are classified along causal dimensions. The first dimension is a locus of control, which has two poles and can either be internal or external. The second is stability, which looks at whether or not causes change, and the final one is controllability, which entails causes one can handle such as skills versus causes one cannot handle such as luck.

When a person thrives, they attribute the successes internally. However, when a rival prospers, people are inclined to credit external attributes such as luck. When a person fails, they are likely to use external ascription, attributing causes to circumstantial reasons instead of criticizing themselves. Furthermore, when other people are unsuccessful, internal attribution is frequently used, saying it is because of their internal personality factors.

Implicit leadership theories (ILTs)

Implicit leadership theories (ILTs) describe cognitive structures constituted by people’s conceptions of the behaviors and traits that characterize a leader. As stated by ILT scholars, the actual behavior of a leader is less significant in finding out what leadership is than our notion about what leaders are and what behaviors they are supposed to portray. It is obvious that people have the ability to come up with general ideas about leaders without referring to a leader they are familiar with. As an inherent part of followers’ sense-making, they illustrate a process that starts with social awareness, advances through causal judgments and social assumptions, and ends with behavioral outcomes. ILTs significance to leadership depends on the assumption that followers use these structures as a benchmark to categorize others as leaders. This process of categorization influences followers’ attitudes and behavior toward leaders.

Research has shown that the general compatibility between followers’ implicit leadership theories and the recognized attributes in leaders is ultimately related to organizational outcomes, such as well-being, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. When a prospective leader fails to match followers’ expectations, that leader might be reluctantly accepted, regardless of leadership capabilities. A study was conducted that asked four hundred employees to compare their ILTs to their managers and found that a person whose ILT matches their actual leader is most likely to experience more satisfaction with their position and be more committed to their group. ILTs are resistant to change and stable over time with no connection derived from organizational tenure. While culture influences leader prototypes, research indicates that there are some original behaviors that are comprehensive across all cultures. An individual’s well-being is positively imposed when there is a match between an individual’s ILT and the actual leader.

Conclusion

If we take into consideration that individuals have several social identities, which are characterized by different behaviors, then we should also consider the fact that people may change their behavior.

We can see that individuals can come up with new behaviors or beliefs based on their own explanations through the Attribution Theory. However, they are less likely to change their attitudes if they make external attributions. But if an internal one is made, then they will most likely view themselves differently.

On the other hand, Implicit Leadership Theories are in existence, meaning that people have certain beliefs about leaders and apply these beliefs to a person who is a leader. Furthermore, this theory develops fast and varies with individuals from different cultural backgrounds.

Achieving high organizational performance is an important goal for a manager, as stated by Andersson and Bateman (1997), the reputation of an organization is intimately linked with its leaders. Employees’ perceptions of fellow employees and supervisors’ behaviors as well as their environment may contribute to job neglect. Attribution theory may help in establishing the reason behind employee behavior as well as whether external or internal factors are causing such behavior (Oghojafor, 2011). Initially, Heider (1958) identified three attribution errors, fundamental attribution error, actor-observer effect, and self-serving bias, all of which provide potential causes for job neglect. Additionally, the covariation model be applied when an individual observes various occurrences of the same behavior or situation. The covariation model attributes three forms of information, distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus in determining whether an individual is influenced by external or internal attributes. Furthermore, in understanding employees’ perceptions, managers gain an insight into the motivation behind employee job neglect, and in turn, provide solutions.

Factors that may impact organizational performance derive from external influences such as customer satisfaction, and internal influences such as the workforce (Waggoner 1999). Chandrasekar (2011) asserts that for a manager, internal influences of a business are highly significant, as they contribute majorly to the level of performance of an organization Environment of the workplace is a significant factor impacting employees’ motivation to work and overall productivity (Chandrasekar (2011). The growth in the attention of employees has formed an environment “where the business needs its employees more than the employees need the business” (Ajala 2012, 141). Furthermore, how an employee perceives their environment can determine their level of tenacity in performing assigned tasks. Some perceptual biases may cause exit or neglect in the workplace, which can be detrimental to increasing organizational performance.

According to Bell (2008), perception is empirical and based on an individual’s previous experience. Perceptions are formed based on information collected from “sensory stimuli, and from insight, intuition, and knowledge regarding those stimuli” (Bell 2008, p. 36). After this information is collected, the individual processes the information and forms their own interpretation of their environment (Bell, 2008). As a result, individuals will perceive their environment in various ways that are different from other individuals due to their contrasting backgrounds, cultures, and personal experiences (Bell, 2008).

Attribution theory assists in determining reasons behind why employees may display exit or neglect. First conceptualized by Heider in 1958, attribution theory studies why incidents occur, more specifically, how an individual’s perceived judgments for their previous achievements and failures have impacted their current and future success and motivation (Oghojafor, et al, 2011). Heider (1958) explains that behavior can be assigned predominantly to the person or to the environment, meaning behavior can be rationalized through reasonably stable traits of the personality, motivation, and ability, or by environmental factors, such as the difficulty of job tasks. These internal and external attributions people make are described as the ‘locus of causality’ (Hewett, Shantz, Mundy, & Alfes, 2017). The information provided by the locus of causality helps managers determine the cause of events and the motivation behind employees’ actions. Therefore, an employee may exhibit neglect, or even exit, if they lack motivation or the ability to complete a task or if the task assigned to them was too difficult for them to complete.

Another factor of Heider’s attribution theory is the identification of specific errors of attribution, fundamental attribution error, actor-observer effect, and self-serving bias (Hewett, et al, 2017). The fundamental attribution error occurs when an individual overestimate the role of internal factors in influencing the behavior of others and underestimates external or environmental factors (Forgas, 1998). If an employee is frequently punished for failing a task solely due to their personal attributes when the primary problem is due to a tragedy that occurred in the employee’s life, the employee may become reluctant to work, thus causing neglect. The actor-observer effect occurs when individuals attribute internal causes to situational causes, for example, ‘I did not get the job because the manager is unfair’, whereas observers attribute the behavior of others to internal causes, for example ‘she did not receive the job because her skills are inadequate’ (Robins, Mendelsohn & Spranca, 1996). This may be a result of a lack of communication between managers and subordinates, thus causing employees to obtain a distorted perception of their workplace. Moreover, self-serving bias occurs when an individual acknowledges their positive achievements as an internal attribution and holds external and uncontrollable attributes responsible for their failures (Bradley, 1978). By doing so, an employee may become falsely complacent and lack accountability, generating a dishonest work environment and a poor employee/employer relationship.

Furthermore, Kelley (1973) develops Heider’s attribution theory by claiming that an individual should apply a covariation principle when they are exposed to various occurrences of the same behavior or situation (Hewett, et al, 2017). The covariation principle is when “an effect is attributed to one of its possible causes with which, over time, it covaries” (Kelley 1973, p. 10). For instance, if an employee is unable to complete a task, a manager may try to recognize possible causes for their behavior, then using information available to them, they attribute the effect to the most probable cause (Hewett, et al, 2017). Kelley (1973) provides three forms of information within the covariation principle that determines whether an individual is influenced by external or internal attributes.

The first form used in determining the attributions of behavior is distinctiveness. Distinctiveness compares how an individual behaves in a certain situation to how he behaves across other situations (Hesketh,1984). If the employee who cannot complete a task also failed to complete tasks in his previous job, then there is a low distinctiveness (Hesketh, 1984). Subsequently, a manager may observe the behavior as an internal attribution that the employee is generally lazy or incapable of doing the job (Hewett, et al, 2017). If the employee is usually a hard-working individual who previously completed set tasks on time, then there is a high distinctiveness and the manager recognizes that there is an external attribution to explain their behavior (Hesketh, 1984). Distinctiveness can be used to identify whether there are situational factors prompting neglect or job dissatisfaction among employees. Once the factors are identified, the manager can pursue strategies on how to manage employee neglect. For example, if the employee is struggling to complete the task due to a lack of skills and difficulty of the task the manager may assign the task to another employee or assist them with what they are struggling with (Hesketh, 1984).

The second form is consistency, which concerns the regularity of an individual’s behavior across time and situations (Hesketh, 1984). If the employee is persistently lazy and careless in all situations, they would represent a high consistency for not completing job tasks. On the contrary, if an employee was generally diligent in their work but becomes neglectful only when working on the assigned task, they exhibit a low consistency for not completing job tasks (Hewett, et al, 2017). When an employee displays low consistency, a manager may associate their behavior with environmental factors, such as the difficulty of tasks or inabilities (Hesketh, 1984). Once again, a manager can use this information to determine if there are any external factors contributing to an employee becoming neglectful in completing tasks.

The third form is consensus, which arises when an individual’s behavior corresponds with other individuals’ behavior in response to the same stimuli (Kelley, 1973). This means that if other employees with a more suited skill set or higher expertise also failed to complete the task, then there is a high consensus of failing the task, which means there are potential situational factors (Hewett, et al, 2017). However, if the other employees completed the task with ease, there is low consensus and the employee’s failure to complete the task derives from internal factors or personal/intellectual inabilities (Hesketh, 1984). Managers may attribute consensus to possible causes of neglect or exit if more than one employee is struggling on a specific task or if there are numerous employees quitting. Thereafter the manager can reassess the difficulty of the task or provide improved instructions on how to complete it.

A consequence of attributions or the negative impact of observing and explaining the behavior of an employee is that managers begin to trust them less (Alony, 2014). According to Alony (2014), an employee who is monitored regularly is trusted less than another employee who performs at the same level, since the manager monitoring them is more aware of their behavior. This line of reasoning implies that a manager assigning internal attributions to an employee’s behavior will tend to perceive their errors as their own fault and trust them even less (Alony, 2014). However, by being aware of certain high or low attributions, managers can assess performance levels and respond accordingly. Managing and understanding perceptions of employees and why they behaved in the way they did allows managers to predict certain behavioral outcomes. This also helps managers generate positive behavior, which according to Karimi, Gilbreath, Kim, and Grawith (2012) corresponds with low levels of job neglect in employees.

In conclusion, attribution theory is a useful tool in explaining employee behavior. Managers may also apply the covariation principle to employee behavior to respond to certain behaviors accordingly. However, by closely monitoring employee behavior, managers may lose trust in them and cause the opposite effect, therefore it is important for managers to be aware of potential causes for job neglect as well as be aware of their own perceptual biases. Nevertheless, by understanding whether employees’ perceptions are influenced by internal or external factors, managers can prevent or reduce neglectful behavior.