Fritz Heider’s theory of causal attribution: origin, development and consequences

We all, at some point, interpret behavior. Both our behavior and that of others. A psychological theory that explains how we interpret behavior is the theory of causal attribution. This theory, which belongs to social psychology, was fundamentally developed by Fritz Heider. This author defined it as a method to evaluate how people perceive their own behavior and that of others.

Heider’s causal attribution theory tries to analyze how we explain people’s behavior and life events. In other words, how we make attributions about behavior. For Heider, we tend to attribute the behavior of others to one of two possible causes: an internal cause (personality traits, intelligence, motivation, etc.) or an external cause (luck, situation, actions of third parties…) .

Causes of causal attributions

Heider’s attribution theory distinguishes only between internal and external attributions. Later, Bertrand Weiner added two more factors to the theory. Heider’s powers were renamed locus of control, to which he added stability and controllability. Each of these factors is explained below:

Control locus: the locus can be internal or external, depending on the person or the context. This is related to self-esteem. An individual who attributes his failures to personal factors will suffer a notable decrease in self-esteem. He will be using an internal locus of control.Stability: stability is the assessment we make regarding the stability over time of the behavior. They refer to the duration of the case. If a subject attributes his failure to factors that he judges to be stable over time (for example, the difficulty of a race), his achievement motivation will decrease. On the contrary, if he attributes it to unstable factors, his achievement motivation will not be reduced.Controllability: This term refers to whether the interpretation is due to external factors, which do not depend on the person, or internal factors, dependent on the person. An external factor is bad luck while an internal one is lack of skills. When the cause is considered to be internal factors, achievement motivation decreases.

Attributions of behaviors

Causal attributions, as we have seen, can be made for behaviors carried out by oneself or for those carried out by other people. In turn, these attributions can have an internal or external locus, they can be stable or unstable, and controllability can be internal or external. The different combinations that arise are those that will indicate motivation and self-esteem.

For example, if a young man wins in a racing competition, it could be said that it was because he trained hard and prepared consistently. This attribution is internal and refers to another person. However, if the fact that the young man won the competition is attributed to the fact that there was no competition, to the fact that the other participants were not prepared, then it would be an external attribution.

Internal attributions of success to which stability and controllability are attributed are the most positive. These types of attributions increase self-esteem and, at the same time, motivation. On the contrary, if these same attributions are attributed to failures, self-esteem is reduced as is motivation.

Differences in causal attributions

The same person can make different causal attributions for similar events. In the same way, Different people can make different causal attributions for the same event.. For example, while for some, failing an exam would be due to lack of ability (internal and stable cause), for others it would be a consequence of the difficulty of the exam (external and unstable cause). These variations, in addition to influencing self-esteem and motivation, also have a key influence on expectations.

Depending on how we interpret other people’s behaviors, we will think one way or another about them. But these attributions are neither perfect nor objective. On many occasions we make mistakes when interpreting behaviors. This is why causal attribution theory has given rise to other related fields of research. Some of them are fundamental attribution error theory, cognitive dissonance, and obedience.

When interpreting behaviors we use heuristics and biases that lead us to make erroneous attributions. On many occasions, these attributions are motivated by our previous beliefs. If the interpretations we made were different, cognitive dissonance would be generated, which we tend to avoid. Besides, Causal attributions will influence our relationship with the people about whose behaviors we make attributions.. Thus, we will tend to pay attention to those people who have better powers and those who leave them in a better place: we will obey them more and take their opinion more into account.

Causal attribution and theory of mind

The theory of causal attribution is not too far from the theory of mind. In fact, they share some commonalities. As the Tirapu-Ustárroz team (2007) states in their article “What is the theory of mind?”: “The concept of ‘theory of mind’ refers to the ability to understand and predict other people’s behavior, knowledge, intentions, and beliefs“. The authors speak of the ‘heterometacognitive’ ability, “since we refer to how a cognitive system manages to know the contents of another different cognitive system of the one with whom said knowledge is carried out”.

In this way, we observe how we are able to interpret another person’s behavior, both their intentions and their motivations. Thus, the theory of mind is not very far from the theory of causal attribution. When we observe another’s behavior, we can observe the three characteristics of causal attribution: locus of control, stability and controllability.

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