Attribution

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The Latin term attribution (often also attribution ) describes in social psychology and social psychiatry both the subjective and social ascription of properties ( attributes ), such as abilities or experiences, as well as those of assumed or assumed causes of actions of one's own Person or other people as well as the cause of real external processes and situations ( causal attribution ). The consequences and effects for experience and behavior resulting from these assumptions are also addressed using the term attribution. Different attributions of real situations can be viewed as constructs of reality and make different motivations for future behavior appear plausible.

The term used in social psychology borrows from the sociological term of social ascription by assuming that similar mechanisms in interpersonal contact i. e. S. as in the social environment i. w. S. are observed.

see also: Attributed position for attribution of social status or social role

Origins of the term

The term attribution was coined by Fritz Heider (1896–1988), who mainly based his attribution theories on philosophical and gestalt psychological thought processes. He generated the human image of the "naive scientist" who wants to understand and control his environment. For this reason, every person creates subjective or "naive" explanations for observed effects in his environment, which can be mapped on two dimensions, the location dimension and the stability dimension. Internal (person-specific) and external (environment-specific) effects can be found on the location dimension. On the other hand, the stability dimension describes whether the effects are stable or variable. For example, effort or motivation is explained as internal and variable, while skills or power are explained as internal and stable. The limits of this image of man are clearly shown in phenomena such as the attribution error ( actor-observer bias ) or the self- worthiness of attributions.

Julian B. Rotter (1916-2014) introduced the concept of control orientation, with which he described the factors referred to above as the local dimension. A discrepancy between personal expectations (internal effect) and reality (external effect) can motivate a person to change their behavior.

Practical applications

The concept of attribution can be applied critically to the understanding of motivational psychological factors and interpersonal relationships, to self-psychology and specifically to the practice of diagnosing as a special case of interpersonal behavior.

literature

  • U. Rudolph: motivational psychology. Beltz-Verlag, Weinheim 2003, Chapters 7 and 8.
  • Ralph Linton : The Study of Man . New York 1936; dt. people, culture, society . 1979

Web links

Wiktionary: Attribution  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Philip G. Zimbardo , Richard J. Gerrig: Psychology . Pearson, Hallbergmoos near Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8273-7275-8 , pp. 420, 444 f., 569 f., 637 f. to tax "Attribution".
  2. ↑ a b Otto Bach : About the subject dependence of the image of reality in psychiatric diagnosis and therapy . In: Psychiatry Today, Aspects and Perspectives. Festschrift for Rainer Tölle . 1st edition. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-541-17181-2 , pp. 1-6
  3. ↑ a b Ronald D. Laing : The Self and the Others . 3. Edition. Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-499-17105-8 , pp. 18-20, 29, 68, 79, 82, 99, 101, 103, 110, 115, 120, 141, 144 on Stw. " Attribution ".
  4. ^ A b Georges Devereux : Normal and abnormal. Essays on general ethnopsychiatry. First edition, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1974, ISBN 3-518-06390-1 , p. 9, 269 on stw. "Attribution".
  5. ^ Fritz Heider : The psychology of interpersonal relations. (1958) German: Psychology of interpersonal relationships . Klett, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-12-923410-1
  6. ↑ Julian B. Rotter : Social learning and clinical psychology . Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ 1954.
  7. ^ Leon Festinger : A theory of cognitive dissonance . Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1959.
  8. ^ Kurt Lewin , Ralph White, Ronald K. Lippitt: Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created 'social climates' . In: Journal of Social Psychology , 10, 1939, pp. 271-299.