SOCIAL COGNITION

Dr. Rebeka Debbarma

Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
School of Social Science
Central University of Punjab
Cognition is defined as 'the mental action or process
of acquiring knowledge and understanding through
thought, experience, and the senses. 
Social cognition is a sub-topic of social psychology that
focuses on how people process, store, and apply
information about other people and social situations.
 It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our
social interactions.
The way we think about others plays a major role in how
we think, feel, and interact with the world around us.
Social Cognition
1. In social cognition, people interpret, analyse and
remember the information they get from the people.
2. In social cognition, information is not only
remembered and analyzed, rather it is also used by the
persons in different social contexts or social settings.
This help in understanding the social world.
3. In social cognition, people arrive at certain
conclusion after using the information in their social
world.
If we go deeper into the process of social cognition we
get some more hints about the aspects of social
cognition.
1. social thought is not always rational.
2. the processing of social information appears to be
completed in automatic manner due to some kind of
stereotype prevalent in the society.
3. If the viewpoint of other person are challenged, he
becomes emotional, which in turn make him behave
more unreasonable way than ever.
Development of social cognition
Social cognition develops in childhood and
adolescence. As children grow, they become more
aware not only of their own feelings, thoughts, and
motives but also of the emotions and mental states of
others. Children become more adept at understanding
how others feel, learning how to respond in social
situations, engaging in prosocial behaviors, and taking
the perspective of others.
Cultural differences in social cognition
Social psychologists have also found that there are often
important cultural differences in social cognition. When
looking at a social situation, any two people may have
wildly different interpretations. Each person brings a
unique background of experiences, knowledge, social
influences, feelings, and cultural variations.
Some researchers have found that there are also
collective, cultural influences that can affect how people
interpret social situations. The same social behavior in
one cultural setting may have a very different meaning
and interpretation if it was to take place or be observed
in another culture.
 Components of Socialization: Schema and
Prototype
Human mind is capable of processing information in a very
sophisticated manner. One of our most basic mental process is
categorisation, which is defined as our tendency to perceive
stimuli as the members of groups or classes, rather than perceiving
them as something isolated, differentiated and unique entities.
Rosch and Mervis (1975) pointed out that some members of
category are somehow more representative than other members.
They are called as prototype. Thus prototype is an abstraction that
represents typical or quintessential of a class or group. For example
sparrows and robins are more representative of the birds than the
penguin because one important prototypicality is defined in terms
of the number of attributes that a category member shares with
the other members of the same category and the fewer attributes,
that he shares with the members of another category.
 SCHEMA
A schema (plural schemata or schemas) describes a pattern of
thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and
the relationships among them.
A schema is a cognitive framework or concept that helps organize and
interpret information. We use schemas because they allow us to take
shortcuts in interpreting the vast amount of information that is
available in our environment.
For example, a young child may first develop a schema for a horse. She
knows that a horse is large, has hair, four legs, and a tail. When the little
girl encounters a cow for the first time, she might initially call it a horse.
After all, it fits in with her schema for the characteristics of a horse; it is
a large animal that has hair, four legs, and a tail. Once she is told that
this is a different animal called a cow, she will modify her existing
schema for a horse and create a new schema for a cow.
Classified schema into 4 types- self schema, person
schema, role schema and event schema.
Self-schemas are focused on your knowledge about
yourself. This can include both what you know about
your current self as well as ideas about your idealized
or future self.
Person schemas are focused on specific individuals.
For example, your schema for your friend might
include information about her appearance, her
behaviors, her personality, and her preferences.
Role schema is norms and expected behavior from people
with a specific role in society. It includes both achieved roles
and ascribed roles. Achieved roles encompass both occupation
and professions, such as a doctor or teacher. Ascribed roles include
social categories, such as age, gender, and race
Event schemas are focused on patterns of behavior that should
be followed for certain events. This acts much like a script
informing you of what you should do, how you should act, and
what you should say in a particular situation.
Besides these 4 types of schema enunciated by Fiske and Taylor
(1991), some other social psychologists also added one more
schema called group schema.
Group schema are also known as stereotypes, are defined as the
schemas regarding the members of a particular group or category.
Stereotype, in fact, tend to indicate such attributes or behaviours,
which are typical member of the category.
Impact of schema on Social cognitions
How do schemas influence social thought?
Research findings suggest that they influence three basic processes:
attention, encoding, and retrieval.
 Attention refers to what information we notice.
Encoding refers to the processes through which information we notice
gets stored in memory.
 Retrieval refers to the processes through which we recover information
from memory in order to use it in some manner—for example, in
making judgments about other people.
Schemas have been found to influence all of these aspects of social
cognition (Wyer & Srull, 1994).
We are cognitive misers, thus we do not want to use our mental
processes much. Therefore, we use schema.
With respect to attention, schemas often act as a kind of
filter: information consistent with them is more likely to
be noticed and to enter our consciousness. Schemas are
particularly likely to be relied on when we are
experiencing cognitive load—when we are trying to
handle a lot of information at one time (Kunda, 1999).
Encoding—the information that becomes the focus
of our attention is much more likely to be stored in
long-term memory. It is information that is consistent
with our schemas that is encoded. Information that is
sharply inconsistent with our schemas—information that
does not agree with our expectations in a given situation
—may be encoded into a separate memory location and
marked with a unique “tag.”
Schema-inconsistent information is sometimes so unexpected
that it literally seizes our attention and almost forces us to
make a mental note of it (Stangor & McMillan, 1992).
Here’s an example: You have a well-developed schema for the
role of “professor.” You expect professors to come to class, to
lecture, to answer questions, to give and grade exams, and so
on. Suppose that one of your professors comes to class and
instead of lecturing does magic tricks. You will certainly
remember this experience because it is so inconsistent with
your schema for professors—your mental framework for how
professors behave in the classroom. That leads us to the third
process: retrieval from memory.
What information is most readily remembered—information that is
consistent with our schemas or information that is inconsistent with
these mental frameworks?
This is a complex question that has been investigated in many
different studies (e.g., Stangor & McMillan, 1992; Tice, Bratslavky, &
Baumeister, 2000).
 Research suggests that people tend to report remembering
information that is consistent with schemas more than information
that is inconsistent.
 In other words, information inconsistent with schemas might be
present in memory as strongly as information consistent with
schemas, but people simply report the information that is consistent
with their schemas.
When measures of memory are corrected for this response
tendency, or when individuals are asked to actually recall
information rather than indicate whether they recognize it,
a strong tendency to remember information that is
incongruent (i.e., does not fit) with schemas appears. So, the
answer to the question, Which do we remember better—
information consistent or inconsistent with our schemas?
Depends on the memory measure employed. In general,
people report information consistent with their schemas,
but information inconsistent with schemas may be strongly
present in memory, too.
Process of Creating a new Schema
Factors Affecting Schema
4. Natural contours
Environment provides us the hint regarding the type
of schema to be used.
5. Goals
our schema’s are shaped by the goals we have
accomplished
Task 1

Yellow Tropical beach palm tree

 PRIMING: which schema guide our
thought
We all develop a large array of schemas—cognitive
frameworks that help us interpret and use social
information.
That raises an interesting question: Which of these
frameworks influence our thought at any given point in
time?
One answer involves the strength of various schemas: the
stronger and better-developed schemas are, the more
likely they are to influence our thinking, and especially
our memory for social information (e.g., Stangor &
McMillan, 1992; Tice et al., 2000).
Second, schemas can be temporarily activated by what is
known as priming— transitory increases in the ease with
which specific schemas can be activated (Sparrow & Wegner,
2006).
For instance, suppose you have just seen a violent movie.
Now, you are looking for a parking spot and you notice one,
but another driver turns in front of you and takes it first. Do
you perceive her behavior as aggressive?
Because the violent movie has activated your schema for
“aggression,” you may, in fact, be more likely to perceive her
taking the parking spot as aggressive. This illustrates the
effects of priming—recent experiences make some
schemas active, and as a result, they exert effects on our
current thinking.
Can priming be deactivated, or are we doomed to see
the world in terms of the schema activated by our
most recent experience?
Social psychologists describe unpriming as a process
by which thoughts or actions that have been primed by
a recent experience dissipates once it finds expression.
Unpriming effects are clearly demonstrated in a study
by Sparrow and Wegner (2006).
Participants were given a series of very easy “yes– no”
questions (e.g., “Does a triangle have three sides?”).
One group of participants was told to try to answer the
questions randomly—not correctly
Another group responded to the questions twice; the
first time, they were told to try to answer them correctly,
while the second time, they were to try to answer them
randomly. It was predicted that participants in the first
group would not be able to answer the questions
randomly; their schema for “answering correctly” would
be activated, and lead them to provide the correct
answers.
In contrast, participants who answered the questions
twice—first correctly and then randomly—would do
better at responding randomly. Their first set of answers
would provide expression for the schema “answer
questions correctly,” and so permit them to answer
randomly the second time around.
Unpriming the schema: Bringing the effect till the
end

When schemas are primed—activated by experiences, events,

or stimuli, their effects tend to persist. In fact, they have been
observed over years even. If the schema is somehow expressed
in thought or behavior, however, unpriming may occur, and
the impact of the schema may decrease or even disappear.
That’s precisely what happened; those who only answered
the question once and were told to do so randomly were
actually correct 58 percent of the time—their activated
schema prevented them from replying in a truly random
manner.
The participants who first answered the questions correctly
and then randomly did much better: their answers the
second time were correct only 49 percent of the time—they
did show random performance. These findings indicate that
once primed schemas are somehow expressed, unpriming
occurs, and the influence of the primed schemas disappears.
 Schema Persistence: why even discredited
schemas can sometimes Influence our thoughts
and behaviour
Schemas are based on our past experience and are often
helpful— they permit us to make sense out of a vast array
of social information— they have an important
“downside” too. By influencing what we notice, enter into
memory, and later remember, schemas can produce
distortions in our understanding of the social world.
Unfortunately, schemas are often resistant to change—
they show a strong perseverance effect, remaining
unchanged even in the face of contradictory information
(Kunda & Oleson, 1995).
Perhaps even worse, schemas can sometimes be self
fulfilling: They influence our responses to the social world
in ways that make it consistent with the schema!
Do our cognitive frameworks—our schemas—actually
shape the social world as well as reflect it?
A large body of evidence suggests that this is definitely so
(e.g., Madon, Jussim, & Eccles, 1997; Smith, Jussim, &
Eccles, 1999).
Perhaps the most dramatic evidence that schemas can be
self-fulfilling was provided by Rosenthal and Jacobson
(1968), in a famous study of teachers and the unintended
effects of their expectations on students. These researchers
went to an elementary school and administered an IQ test
to all students.
Then they told the teachers that some of the students had scored very
high and were about to “bloom” academically. The teachers were not
given such information about other students, who constituted a
control group. Although the researchers had chosen the names of the
students for each group randomly, they predicted that this
information would alter teachers’ expectations about the children
and their behavior toward them.
To find out if this was true, 8 months later the researchers tested
both groups of children once again. Results were clear: those who had
been described as “bloomers” to their teachers showed significantly
larger gains on the IQ test than those in the control group.
In short, teachers’ beliefs about the students had operated in a self-
fulfilling manner: The students whose teachers believed they would
“bloom,” actually did. So schemas can be a two-edged sword: They
can help us make sense of the social world and process information
efficiently, but they can also lock us into acting in ways that create the
world that we expect.
Cognitive Heuristic: Mental shortcuts for reducing our efforts in social
cognition

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that can facilitate problem-solving

and probability judgments. These strategies are generalizations, or
rules-of-thumb, reduce cognitive load, and can be effective for
making immediate judgments, however, they often result in
irrational or inaccurate conclusions.
Why do we use heuristics

Information overload

Condition of uncertainty
The study of heuristics was developed by renowned
psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.
Starting in the 1970s, Kahneman and Tversky
identified several different kinds of heuristics, most
notably the availability heuristic and the anchoring
heuristic.
 Representative heuristics
In representative heuristics, a judgement is made about a person, event and
object based on how similar or representative it is thought to be category or
prototype. In other words, in this heuristics, we take a few characteristics or
attributes that we know about a person, event or object and select a schema
that matches those characteristics (Dawes, 1998).
We tend to classify events into categories, which, as illustrated by
Kahneman and Tversky, can result in our use of this heuristic. When we use
the representativeness heuristic, we make probability judgments about the
likelihood that an object or event arises from some category based on the
extent to which the object or event in question is similar to the prototypical
example of that category.
For example, if someone we meet in one of our university lectures looks and
acts like a stereotypical medical student, we may judge the probability that
they are studying medicine as highly likely, even without any hard evidence
to support that assumption.
Available heuristics
The availability heuristic occurs because we can call certain
memories to mind more easily than others. It refers to the strategy
in which a person makes judgement about the social world on the
basis of how easily specific kinds of information are available or can
be brought to mind.
The example that Kahneman and Tversky give is that participants
asked if more words in the English language start with the letter K
or have the third letter K, most participants responded with the
former. In actuality, it is the latter that is true, but it is much harder
to think of words that have K as the third letter than it is to think of
words that start with K. In this case, our memories of words that
begin with K come to mind more readily than do memories of
words with the third letter K.
 Anchoring and adjustment heuristics
This heuristic describes how, when estimating a certain value, we
tend to give an initial value, then adjust it by increasing or
decreasing our estimation. However, we often get stuck on that
initial value – which is referred to as anchoring – which results in
us making insufficient adjustments. Thus, our adjusted value is
biased in favor of the initial value, which we have anchored on.
When people try to form judgement from ambiguous
information, they often reduce their ambiguity by starting with
the reference point called anchor and than making adjustment
with it.
For example suppose a person is asked to make an estimate of how
many people attended the National Book Fair held at Delhi last
month. The person has no idea about this, but he has heard about
that very large number of people used to visit the book fair. He has
come to know that about 3 lakh people visited book fair in
Assuming that large number of people has visited
the National Book Fair, he guess that about 5 lakh
people might have attended the book fair. In this
example, the person has no information about the
specific event in question, but he is using the
information about similar event as a reference
point or anchor to which he adjusts reference
information to arrive at certain conclusion.
 Simulation heuristics
The simulation heuristic focuses on what occurs after a person has
experienced an event in his or her life. According to the simulation
heuristic, a person imagines possible simulations or alternative outcomes to
events that he or she encounters. The imagined alternatives, in turn, affect
how a person feels about the event in question.
For example, imagine a situation in which two people had missed the school
shuttle that only runs on the hour. And because they missed the shuttle,
they did not make it to a test in a class in which the professor does not allow
makeup exams. One person learns that the shuttle had run on time. The
other person learns that the shuttle was running late and left just before
they got there. Who would be more upset? Most people would agree that
the person who missed the shuttle by only moments would be more upset.
The reason for this, according to the simulation heuristic, is that it is easier
to generate simulations to the event when the shuttle was missed by only
moments. And this construction of mental simulations of the event or
counterfactual production is what leads people to feel more regret about
events that they encounter.
Status Quo Heuristic
The status quo heuristic is a mental shortcut where people
opt to stick with their current situation. The current
baseline is taken as a reference point and any change from
the base is perceived loss. This biased thinking can
prevent necessary action.
The status quo bias is one type of cognitive bias that
involves people preferring that things stay as they are or
that the current state of affairs remains the same. This
bias can have an effect on human behavior, an be harmful.
Sticking with established brands is an example of
status quo bias.
Potential sources of errors in social cognition

1. Negativity bias: The tendency of Human beings to

pay more attention to negative information than positive
information is called as negativity bias. example:
Niranjan is bright, helpful, social, jealous, and friendly
person. Here even though Niranjan has so many positive
qualities we focus on jealous that is the negative quality.
Such a tendency has a strong evolutionary relevance.
Negative information reflects potentially dangerous
aspects of the situation which may cause threat to the
survival of the individual.
2) Optimistic bias: it refers to the tendency to expect the overall
outcomes as positive. Generally, most people believe that they
are more likely to experience positive events than others.
Two examples of this are overconfidence barrier and planning
fallacy.
a) Overconfidence barrier refers to tendency to be more
confident about the accuracy of our judgments than sensible.
We believe that we are more likely to be successful in studies,
relations, marriage, jobs, and live longer life than what seems
reasonable.
b) Planning fallacy is a tendency to make optimistic bias
regarding the time estimations for a given task. We tend to
believe that we will finish a task much earlier than what it
would actually take.
3) Counterfactual thinking: Counterfactual thinking is defined as
imagining an alternate outcome or scenario. Counterfactual can be
translated to mean "contrary to the facts" where individuals imagine how
the past could have been different if alternative behaviors had taken place.
This process of imagining what could have happened gives multiple
possibilities and outcomes to the question "what if". The imagined scenario
can be triggered by negative events and feelings of regret, especially
centered around a failed goal.
Individuals attempt to regulate future behaviors, to control outcomes, by
thinking about multiple scenarios. An example of this is when an
individual doesn't perform well on a test and begins to think, "what if I had
studied more?". Or when a car accident occurs and the driver thinks "if
only I had pressed the brake faster". The act of thinking about different
outcomes can help trigger memories of past events that were successful so
the individual can adjust behaviors in the future. These thoughts help
understand the past and predict future outcomes. Counterfactual thinking
begins with a trigger that starts the thought and requires high effort as the
thinker imagines alternate scenarios. This tends to have a strong effect on
emotions. 
Counterfactual thinking is usually triggered after a perceived
failure to help explore options on what behavioral changes may
affect a different experience in the future. There are two types:
upward and downward.
Upward counterfactual thinking is usually triggered by regret or
disappointment. An example of this would be getting into a car
accident and thinking, "if only I had swerved sooner". Upward
counterfactuals imagine how scenarios could be better and are
the more common type of counterfactual thought.
Downward counterfactual thinking is usually triggered by relief
or thoughts along the line of, "if I hadn't studied I would have
done even worse".
4) Thought suppression: Human beings can manage to keep some
thought out of their consciousness. This is called as thought suppression.
If certain thoughts are disturbing, we can stay mentally healthy by
keeping them out of mind. Thought suppression can be achieved in two
stages:
a) Monitoring Process (early warning system): This is an automatic
monitoring process, which identifies an unwanted interrupting thought.
b) Operating Process (prevention system): This is an effortful,
controlled process to find other important thoughts to distract from the
disturbing thought. According to Wegner (1994) people who engage in
thought suppression experience higher levels of target thought
occurrence and accessibility compared to those who are not engaged in
suppressing it.
But there occur a deviation from the normal condition such as when the
person faces information overload (fatigue), the second process, that is,
operation process does not work well, in such situation individual
experiences what is called as rebound effect.
5) Limits of persons ability to think about social world
a) Magical thinking: Magical thinking involves assumptions that
do not hold under rational scrutiny, but still individuals believe
in them. One of the examples of it is, if two things resemble in
external appearance, then they share similar fundamental
properties. The plastic or rubber model of snakes or lizard can
create panic among the people. Or, suppose your friend offers
you chocolates that have shape of insect, or cockroach. Will you
eat that chocolate? Most probably no. if you think rationally, the
shape of the chocolate does not decide the contents. But still
you will not, this is because of magical thinking.
b) Person’s inability to take account the moderating variables
in many situations. We have to take many decision in the
social situations in which the effect that’s seems to stem from
one factor can, infect, stem from another. In such situation, our
limited processing capacity work against the rationality.
 Social Perception
Social perception simply means the perception of social
processes. The objects of social perception are the person’s
relations with others including his perception of groups
and social institutions. The study of social perception
centers around the actual process of perception.
A social perception takes place in a social situation where
two or more people interact with each other and perceive
each other’s behaviour, activities and responses in relation
to the social situation. Here the way in which two people
perceive or judge the situation determines how they will
behave and interact in that very situation.
Suppose two persons meet in a club and, the way ‘x’ behaved with ‘y’
made ‘y’ very angry and emotional. So he judged ‘x’ as very ruthless,
adamant and arrogant. Had this incident not occurred, he would not
have perceived him so or had he not behaved with him the way he
behaved, probably the perception about the person would have
completely changed.
Thus Tagiuri and Petrullo (1958) hold “Through his own presence
and behaviour in the perceptual situation of the other, the
perceiver may alter the perceptual characteristics of the person
whose state he is trying to judge.” In a social perception aspects of
the “perceiver” and the “perceived” are important.
Since both of them are expected to change in course of interaction
social perception is not rigid and perception of a person changes from
time to time due to several interval and external factors. Accurate
social perception is essential because working and living together
would be difficult if perception of other people are inaccurate.
Researchers have further shown that there are different modes
of perceiving others. Important modes of person perception
are as under
1. A person is generally described in terms of outward
appearance such as his body build-up, mannerisms, facial
features, etc.
2. A person is described mostly in terms of central trait
and its immediate implications.
3. A person is generally perceived and described in terms
of cluster of congruous traits, that is, trait which seems to
belong together.
4. A person is also described in terms of varieties of traits,
including some congruous traits only. Incongruous traits
which seem not to belong together.
Role of non-verbal cues in social
perceptions
Facial Expressions: Facial expressions are responsible for
a huge proportion of nonverbal communication (Frith,
2009). Consider how much information can be conveyed
with a smile or a frown. The look on a person's face is often
the first thing we see, even before we hear what they have
to say. While nonverbal communication and behavior can
vary dramatically between cultures, the facial expressions
for happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are similar
throughout the world.
Gestures

Nonverbal communication via gestures is so powerful

and influential that some judges place limits on which
ones are allowed in the courtroom, where they can
sway juror opinions. An attorney might glance at their
watch to suggest that the opposing lawyer's argument
is tedious, for instance. Or they may roll their eyes
during a witness's testimony in an attempt to
undermine that person's credibility.
Gestures, Body Language and Posture
Deliberate movements and signals are an important way to
communicate meaning without words. Common gestures
include waving, pointing, and giving a "thumbs up" sign.
Other gestures are arbitrary and related to culture.
Posture and movement can also provide a great deal of
information. Research on body language has grown
significantly since the 1970s, with popular media focusing on
the over-interpretation of defensive postures such as arm-
crossing and leg-crossing, especially after the publication of
Julius Fast's book Body Language.
While these nonverbal communications can indicate feelings
and attitudes, research suggests that body language is far
more subtle and less definitive than previously believed.
Eye Gaze

The eyes play a role in nonverbal communication, with such

things as looking, staring, and blinking being important cues.
For example, when you encounter people or things that you like,
your rate of blinking increases and your pupils dilate.
People's eyes can indicate a range of emotions, including
hostility, interest, and attraction. People also utilize eye gaze as
a means to determine if someone is being honest.
Normal, steady eye contact is often taken as a sign that a person
is telling the truth and is trustworthy. Shifty eyes and an
inability to maintain eye contact, on the other hand, is
frequently seen as an indicator that someone is lying or being
deceptive.
Body-built and physical appearance
Impression about the personality of others is also formed on the basis
of body-build and physical appearance, although the validity of such
inferences is questionable. Kretschmer (1925) had suggested that tall,
lean and thin persons are usually sensitive, withdrawn and reserved,
whereas short, and fat persons are sociable and forceful. He had based
this suggestion on the observation that schizophrenics tend to be tall
and thin, whereas manic-depressives tended to be short and fat.
Sheldon and Stevens (1942):
Ectomorphic (tall and thin persons): imaginative, self-directed,
introvert and disliking social activities.
Mesomorphic (strong muscle and athletic build): energetic, enjoying,
loving physical adventures, assertive of some postures and movement.
Endomorphic (heavy and fat person): relaxed, loving physical comfort.
Voice quality
Variation in speech other than actual content, that is
words are called paralanguage and tend to carry a great
emotional meaning. Vocal behaviour includes pitch,
loudness, speed, emphasis, inflection, breathiness,
stretching, or clipping of words, pauses, etc. voice
 Dress Appearance
Our choice of clothing, hairstyle, and other appearance factors are also
considered a means of nonverbal communication.
 Research on color psychology has demonstrated that different colors
can evoke different moods. Appearance can also alter physiological
reactions, judgments, and interpretations.
Just think of all the subtle judgments you quickly make about someone
based on their appearance. These first impressions are important, which
is why experts suggest that job seekers dress appropriately for interviews
with potential employers.
Researchers have found that appearance can even play a role in how
much people earn. One 1996 study found that attorneys who were rated
as more attractive than their peers earned nearly 15% more than those
ranked as less attractive.
Culture is an important influence on how appearances are judged. While
thinness tends to be valued in Western cultures, some African cultures
relate full-figured bodies to better health, wealth, and social status.
Theories of attribution
Attribution theories focus on the processes we use to
infer causes of another person’s behaviour and its sources.
Attribution theory is concerned with how ordinary
people explain the causes of behavior and events.
A formal definition is provided by Fiske and Taylor (1991,
p. 23). “Attribution theory deals with how the social
perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations
for events.  It examines what information is gathered and
how it is combined to form a causal judgment”.
Attribution
The term attribution refers to the process through
which the observer infers the causes of another
person’s behaviour.
More formally attribution is our effort to understand
the causes of others behaviour and on some occasion
the causes of the behaviour of our own.
Generally in attribution, a person observes the another
person’s behaviour and goes backward to locate its
causes in terms of intention, abilities, traits, motives
and situational pressures.
Fundamental concept of attribution
theories
The conceptual foundation on which theories of
attribution was developed by Heider (1994). He had
offered three basic principles , which underlies all
theories of attributions. These are as follows
1. behaviour is perceived as being caused
2. perception regarding causation are important
3. locus of cause(s) of behaviour is perceived to be
with the person, the situation or the combination of
both.
Weiner (1985) examined this problem in detail and came
to the conclusion that there are two major conditions
under which people are most likely to make attributions.
1. when something unexpected or surprising happens
2. when the person get fails to get the desired outcome
Besides this person is likely to make attribution when a
person is in bad mood or experiencing negative emotions.
Another fundamental concepts in attribution theories
relates to spontaneous attribution and deliberate
attributions
Heider’s naive psychology attribution theory
Heider (1958) believed that people are naive
psychologists trying to make sense of the social world. 
People tend to see cause and effect relationships, even
where there is none!
Heider didn’t so much develop a theory himself as
emphasize certain themes that others took up.  There
were two main ideas that he put forward that became
influential: dispositional (internal cause) vs situational
(external cause) attributions.
Dispositional vs Situational Attribution
1. 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.
For example, we attribute the behavior of a person to
their personality, motives or beliefs.
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
environment features.
Distributional attribution are preferred because of FAE-
Fundamental Attribution Error
Jones and Davis Correspondent Inference
Theory (1965)
Gave this theory in 1965 to explain “Internal
Attribution”.
We make correspondent inference (internal
attribution) when we conclude that a person’s overt
behaviour is caused by or “corresponds” to person’s
internal characteristics or beliefs.
5 sources of Information
Involved in deciding whether there is a
correspondence between behaviour and personality
(internal attribution).
1. Choice: free choice=internal disposition
2. Personalism: behaviour personally
relevant=internal disposition
3. Social Desirability: low=internal predisposition
4. Non-common effect: unique effect=internal
disposition
 Common and Non-Common Effects Arising from Choosing which
of the three University to attend
Factors University X University Y University Z
Academic Status High High High

Location of In small town In isolated village In large city

Campus
Distance from Distant Distant Distant
home
Security for women Sufficient Sufficient Sufficient
Students
Sports Facilities Good Good Good

5. Hedonistic Relevance: High=internal disposition

Kelley’s co-variation Theory:
Attribution cube
1973
It states that for something to be cause of a particular
behaviour it must be present when the behaviour is
present and absent when the behaviour is absent.
In ascribing the causality people take into 3 kinds of
evidence in making attributions (Consensus,
Consistency, and Distinctiveness)
1. Consensus: how others react to the same stimulus.
E.g. Are other people are also laughing in this situation
When others react in the same way= High Consensus=
Situational
When other react in different way= Low consensus=
Dispositional
2. Consistency: reaction to the same stimulus over time
E.g.. Does Ravi always laugh at this conclusion?
Always behave in the same way= Consistency= Dispositional
Not same (only sometime)= Consistency= Situational
Distinctiveness information: reaction towards
different stimuli or situations.
E.g. Does Ravi laugh other comedians as well?
Reaction to other stimulus is same= Distinctiveness=
Dispositional
Reaction to other stimulus is same= Distinctiveness=
situational
Additional principles…..
When people lack information about Consensus,
Consistency, then they may use:
1. Argumentation: facilitative cause (helps outcome) is
judged in contributing to personal dispositions, than
inhibitory cause (gets in the way of outcome).
2. Discounting: Opposite of Augmentation. It’s the
tendency to attach less important to one potential
cause of behaviour when other potential causes of
behaviour are also present.
 Shaver’s attribution model
Shaver (1975) developed a general theory of attribution by
combining major elements of the theories of Heider, Jone and
Davis as well as that of Kelley. His theory has formulated 3 clear
assumptions about human nature upon which attribution theory
is based. These are as follows:
1. behaviour does not occur by chance, rather it is determined
and thus can be predicted
2. people has desire to understand, explain and predict the
behaviour of others.
3. observable behaviour does not always permit valid inferences
about its underlying causes, that is personality attribution. It
means that inferences of personality characteristics on the basis
of observations of limited number of behaviour are somewhat
questionable.
Taking these 3 assumption into consideration,
Shaver (1975) developed a model of attribution
1st step: is to determined whether the person really
committed the behaviour.
2nd step: is to determine whether the behaviour done was
intentional
3rd step: is to determine whether the behaviour was
coerced
If the observer finds answer at step 1 and 2 as yes and step
3 as no that mean distributional attribution is made.
If the observer finds answer at step 1, 2 and 3 as yes,
attribution to environment or situation is made.
 Weiner’s attribution model
Weiner (1970, 1986) developed model for success and failure.
For explaining success and failure, Weiner opined that we attribute it
to one (or more) of four basic causes-ability, effort, task difficulty and
luck.
Attribution depends on the categorization on each 3 causal dimension
1. The locus of control dimension has two poles: internal versus
external locus of control.
2. The stable-unstable dimension captures whether causes change
over time or not. For instance, ability can be classified as a stable,
internal cause, and effort classified as unstable and internal.
3. Controllability-uncontrollability dimension indicates whether
internal causes can be controlled or will remain uncontrollable.
Ghraham (2004), found that students who attributed
their success to internal, unstable, and controllable
factor- high ability, high effort and effective learning
strategies had higher levels of achievement.
Thank you