It often happens that people try to explain the strange or provocative behavior of another person, based on their own perception of the situation.When this happens, a person simply interprets the act and its motives in such a way as if he had it and did.
Psychological substitution
This psychological substitution of actors has a complicated name in psychology - casual attribution.This means that someone has insufficient amount of information about the situation or of the person who appears in this situation, and therefore tries to explain everything from his own point of view.Casual attribution implies that a person "puts himself in the place of another," for lack of other ways to explain the situation.Of course, this interpretation of motives is often incorrect, because everyone thinks differently, and "try on" their way of thinking to another person is practically impossible.
emergence of attribution theory in psychology
term "casual attribution" in psychology appeared not so long ago - just in the middle of the 20th century.Introduced his American psychologists, sociologists, Harold Kelley, Fritz Heider and Lee Ross.This concept not only became widely used, but also got his own theory.Researchers believe that the casual attribution help them explain the mechanisms of treatment average person some cause and effect relationships, or even their own behavior.When a person commits a certain moral choices, which leads to certain actions, it is always engaged in dialogue with them.Attribution theory tries to explain how this dialogue takes place, what are the stages and the result, according to the psychological characteristics of a person.This man, by analyzing their behavior, it does not identify the behavior of strangers.To explain it simply: someone else's soul - darkness, and the man knows himself much better.
Classification attribution
As a rule, every theory assumes the existence of certain parameters, required for its operation.Casual attribution, thus suggesting the presence of two indicators.The first indicator - a factor of compliance of the actions of the so-called social-role expectations.For example, if a person has little or no information about a specific person, the more he will come up and to attribute, and the stronger will be convinced in their own right.
second indicator - a line of conduct of the person considered common cultural and ethical standards.The more the other person breaks the rules, the more will be the attribution.The very same phenomenon of "attribution" is in the attribution theory of three types:
- personal (causal relationship is projected onto the subject itself, which performs an action);
- object (the link object is projected, on which this action is directed);
- adverbial (link is attributed to circumstances).
mechanisms casual attribution
It is not surprising that a man who talks about the situation "from the outside", not participating in it directly, explains the actions of other participants in the situation with the personal point of view.If he directly takes part in the situation, it takes into account the adverbial attribution, that is, first, considering the circumstances, and only then attributed to someone certain personal motivations.
Being active participants in society, people tend not to draw conclusions about each other only on the basis of external observation.As you know, looks can be deceiving sometimes.That is why the casual attribution helps people to formulate some conclusions, based on the analysis of the actions of others, "passed" through the filter of their own perception.Of course, these findings do not always come true, because it is impossible to judge a man on one particular given situation.Man - is too complex a creature that is so easy to talk about it.
Why casual attribution - it's not always good
There are many examples in the literature and cinema, when casual attribution error leads to the destruction of human lives.A very good example - a film "Atonement", where small heroine finds another character only by relying on children's perception of their own particular situation.As a consequence, many people's lives are crumbling because it is something misunderstood.Possible reasons that we assume are very often wrong, so to talk about them as ultimate truth can never be, even if it seems that no doubt can not be.If we can not understand even in his own inner world, to say nothing about the inner world of another person?It should seek to analyze the indisputable facts, not their own speculation and doubt.
