Nursing administration attribution theory

1. Attribution Theory
By : Nikki Marie Apilando

2. Attribution Theory
Attributions - “the process of explaining one's own
behavior and the behavior of others”.
Discusses how people describe events and
experiences in their lives and how they adapt to the
results of those actions.
Introduced by Fritz Heider in 1958.
Bernard Weiner 1974.
Was developed further by Harold Kelly

3. Continuation..
• The rationale behind the theory is to recognize why a situation
happened so that future events can be anticipated and controlled.
• The theory proposes that people’s actions are attributable to
internal and external factors.
• Most people state that they are able to explain or “attribute” the
causes of someone’s or their own behavior or actions.

4. Why is this baby smiling?

5. TYPES OF ATTRIBUTION
•Personal attributions- internal
•Situational attributions- external

6. Personal attributions
• Explanations in terms of personal characteristics. For
example:
• “The baby must be a happy baby.”
• Other examples:
• “He scored well on the exam because he is smart.”
• “She tripped because she is clumsy.”

7. Situational attributions
• Explanations in terms of situational factors. For
example:
• “Someone must have just played with the baby .”
• Other examples:
• “He scored well because it was an easy test.”
• “She tripped because a squirrel ran in front of her.”

8. •Behavior is observed
•Behavior is determined to be deliberate behavior
• Is attributed to internal or external causes.
Attribution
is a three
stage
process:
• Effort
• Ability
• level of task difficulty
• luck.
Achievement
can be
attributed to
• Locus of control- cause of any event as internal or
external.
• Stability- whether the cause of the event is stable or
unstable across time and situations.
• Controllability.- whether or not the cause of any event
is under the control of the learner.
Causal
dimensions
of
behaviour
are
WEINER’SATTRIBUTION
MODEL

9. Weiner’s Attribution Model
• Locus of control
(two poles: internal vs. external)
• Stability
(do causes change over time or not?)
• Controllability (causes one can control such as skills vs. causes
one cannot control such as luck, others’ actions, etc.)

10. Factors That Influence Attributions
(Kelly’s model)
Distinctiveness :
Distinctiveness – the
consideration given to how
consistent a person’s
behavior is across different
situations
Consistency :
Consistency – refers to the
measure of whether an
individual responds the
same way across time.
Consensus : Consensus - refers to the likelihood
that all those facing the same situation will have
similar responses.

11. How do people make attributions?
• Consistency: Is the baby always smiling?
• Distinctiveness: Are there occasions on which the baby
doesn’t smile?
• Consensus: Do all babies smile?
Kelley argued that people take three factors into account when making
a personal vs. situational attribution:

12. STRENGTHS OF THE THEORY
Explains the difference in motivation between high and low doers.
• High achievers will attempt, rather than evade, responsibilities
related to prospering.
• High achievers believe that failure is considered to be caused by
bad luck and is not their fault.

13. WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY
• Fundamental Error or correspondence bias- The tendency to
underestimate the influence of external factors and over estimate the
influence of internal factors.
-Blaming the people first, not the situation.
• Self-serving bias- is the tendency for the individuals to attribute their
own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on
external factors.
-It is “our” success but “their” failure.

14. Shortcuts Used in Forming Impressions of
Others
Selective
perception
Halo effect
Contrast
effects
Stereotyping

15. • Selective Perception
– People selectively interpret what they see on the
basis of their interests, background, experience,
and attitudes.
• Halo Effect
– Drawing a general impression about an individual
On the basis of a single characteristic.

16. • Contrast Effects
– Evaluation of a person’s characteristics
that are affected by comparisons with other
people recently encountered who rank higher
or lower on the same characteristics.
• Profiling
–A form of stereotyping in which members
of a group are singled out for intense scrutiny based
on a single, often racial, trait.

17. PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE
THEORY
• Leaders should have an understanding of their staff’s reaction to certain
situations.
• Leaders should identify characteristics that guide attributions for
achievement.
• The theory provides an outlet for management to allow their staff to
have feelings of self-efficacy.
• Management should also be able to gauge cause and effect of specific
situations.

18. Specific Applications in Organizations
Performance
Expectation
Employee
interview
Employee effort
Ethnic profiling
Performance
Evaluator

19. Cont…
Employment Interview - during an interview the interviewers make an
perceptual judgement and draw early impressions. As a result information
elicited early in the interview carries greater weight than does information
elicited later.
Performance Expectations - Self-fulfilling prophecy (pygmalion effect): The
lower or higher performance of employees reflects preconceived leader
expectations about employee capabilities.

20. Cont..
Performance Evaluations - Appraisals are often the subjective
(judgmental) perceptions of appraisers of another employee’s job
performance.
Employee Effort - Assessment of individual effort is a subjective
judgment subject to perceptual distortion and bias.
Ethnic Profiling - A form of stereotyping in which a group of individuals
is singled out—typically on the basis of race or ethnicity—for intensive
inquiry, scrutinizing, or investigation.

21. SOURCES
 Organizational Behavior - V S P Rao.
 Organization Behavior -Johhn M Ivancevich ,Robert Konopaske
and Michael T Matteson
 Organization Behavior - Stephen P. Robbins , Timothy A. Judge
and Neharika Vohra
 http://www.simplypsychology.org/attribution-theory.html
 Google Images
 https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Motivation_and_emotion/Book/2014/Attributions_an
d_motivation
 https://www.psychestudy.com/social/weiner-attribution-theory