Imagine that it's your junior prom. You've gotten all dressed up, gathered up your friends, and now it's time for pictures. There's only one problem.
Your date is nowhere to be found. No calls. No texts. Nothing.
Ten minutes later, they burst through the door and mumble something about traffic. It would be totally normal in this situation to make a judgement about your date's behavior. You might believe that they were unavoidably stuck in traffic. You might be frustrated because you think they are careless and rude. You might think that both of these things could be true.
It's normal for humans to make judgements of other people's behavior. Psychologists who study attribution study these judgements and how they form.
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Attributions
In psychology, an attribution is an explanation of why a person is thinking or behaving in a specific way. An important thing to remember about attributions is that they are an individual's judgement of a behavior or mental process. Scientists are fundamentally studying thought and the factors that influence those thoughts.
Like all thoughts, attributions are rarely objective truths. Attributions don't have to be accurate. They don't have to take into account all of the factors and possibilities. Attributions can be irrational and biased. It's possible for different people to have different attributions regarding the same behavior. Attributions are influenced by culture and past experiences. People can attribute their own behavior to one factor, and then make an entirely different attribution when it comes to other people's behavior.
In other words, attributions are incredibly subjective and personal.
There are two types of attributions. They are situational attributions and dispositional attributions.
Situational Attribution
A situational attribution blames a behavior or mental process on the environment. In other words, a person attributes the cause of a behavior to an external force. This influences how we judge a person's behavior. People are less likely to blame the person for their actions if they think those actions were the result of something they could not control.
If we return to our prom example, you may judge that your date could not have been on time due to traffic. This is a situational attribution because you are blaming your date's behavior on factors outside of their control.
Dispositional Attribution
A dispositional attribution blames a behavior or mental process on a person's internal characteristics. This could be a person's morals, mood, intelligence, or personality. Unlike situational attributions, many of these factors are things the individual can control. Therefore, these judgments often hold the individual responsible for their actions.
In the prom night example, you may reject your date's explanation. After all, they could have left extra early or checked to see if there was heavy traffic. They could have pulled over and texted you to let you know they would be late. If you judge that your date was late because they didn't manage their time correctly that is a dispositional attribution. Another dispositional attribution is believing your date is rude and does not care if they inconvenience you.
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