WHO DO WE PUT THE BLAME ON? WHO GETS THE CREDIT?....THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ATTRIBUTION.

Adesuwa had just been awarded for her excellence in the regional high school examinations as the best graduating student. With a beaming smile she mounted the podium and leaned towards the microphone to give her speech to the anticipating crowd of family, friends, well wishers and colleagues. having already rehearsed her speech about a hundred times, she delivered it finally "i want to thank God first and foremost for his mercies" she started " i also want to thank my parents, whose support and love made it possible for me to be here, i am one truly blessed individual. finally i would like to acknowledge the presence of my wonderful teachers whose time and effort spent on me paid off because i am hardworking and dedicated...." she finished her speech and was drowned in the resounding applause as she trudged proudly back to her to her sit. somewhere at the back of the crowd sat Bosco with a forlorn and resigned look on his face "i should be the one collecting that award" he thought to himself "if i hadn't partied so much, now i am wishing i had gotten a lamp for the load shedding...." he continued as he sat downcast absorbed in his thoughts.

Attribution can simply be understood as the process of attributing 'something' to a reason. this reason could either be individual or situational. in our everyday living, we constantly have to make decisions among alternatives in order to get through the day. sometimes we set goals and meet them or maybe fail to meet them. we then attribute our success or failure to a cause or a reason. in psychology, attribution theorist argue that the underlying process of attempting to understand the word around us is universal, pervasive and predictable. so attribution theory is concerned with how individuals interpret events and how it relates to their thinking and behaviour. these theories however lean more towards a logical empirical approach(research is carried out in labs by experiments). some 'dude' named Fritz Heider(1958) was the first to propose a pyschological theory of attribution. in a basic synopsis, attribution theorist propose that any behaviour can be viewed as an effect that has some cause we attribute, this can be internal or external attributes. this attribute however influence the meaning of the behaviour and how we might respond to it.
       Theorist have identified two types of attributions which include external(situational) attribution and internal(dispositional) attribution. There are stages in the attribution process, first the person must perceive or observe the behaviour(....so funke cant understand why Justin has been lying so quitely beside her "what is he thinking" she thought to herself..), then the person must believe that the behaviour was intentionally performed( "he is probably so tired from work, or maybe he is hungry and doesn't want to disturb me" she continued thinking as she watched Justin just lie still there), finally the person must determine if they believe the other individual was forced to perform the behaviour(this is where it is attributed to situation, like Funke attributing Justin's fatigue to his work) or not(in which case the cause is attributed to the other person).

Now lets look at some attribution principles. firstly the Locus of Control means the extent to which we believe we have control over events, it can either be internal(i control) or external (society controls). secondly there is stability which is best understood by looking at Weiner's original attribution model. 

Weiner focused his attribution theory on achievement(Weiner, 1974). he identified ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck as the most important factors affecting attributions for achievement. there is a strong relationship between self concept and achievement. Weiner (1980) states "causal attributions determine affective reactions to success and failure; high achievers tend to attribute success to internal factors and attribute failure to external factors while low achievers tend to attribute success to external factors and attribute failure to internal factors(refer back to the story at the beginning of this post for better understanding).   

    This is just the surface of attribution theory, but i am sure you have learnt a thing or two about what it is all about. the pyschological theories employed are ofcourse positivist in their approach to addressing the issue of attribution, but theories and research done in this field has helped researchers in other social science field aside psychology have an understanding of attribution.