Heider's three principles:
- Our own behaviour is motived rather than random thus we look for the causes and reasons of other people's behaviour and uncover their motives.
- In order to predict and control the environment, we seek stable and enduring properties of the world around us. (Personality traits and enduring abilities in people, or stable properties of situations)
- When attributing causal factors, a difference between personal (internal attribution) and environmental (external attribution) factors are made.
Jones and Davis's theory of correspondent inference
Correspondent inference: the causal attribution of behaviour to an underlying disposition or personality trait
Five sources of information are drawn upon in order to make a correspondent inference:
- Freely chosen behaviour is more indicative of a disposition
- Non-common effects (effects of behaviour that are relatively exclusive to that behaviour rather than other behaviours. Outcome bias (the belief that the individual intended to produce the outcome of a behaviour)
- Socially desirable behaviour are likely controlled by norms so socially undesirable behaviour provides a basis for making a correspondent inference
- Confident correspondent inferences are made when the consequences are personally significant (hedonic relevance)
- Confident correspondent inferences are made when the behaviour is personally beneficial or harmful (personalism)
Kelley's covariation model
Covariation model: people assign cause of behaviour to the factor that covaries most closely with the behaviour.
People decide whether or not to attribute a behaviour to internal dispositions (e.g. personality) or external environmental factors (e.g. time constraint). The three classes of information required to make this decision are:
- Consistency information [Always (high consistency) versus sometimes (low consistency)]
- Distinctiveness information [Always (low distinctiveness) versus specific/situational (high distinctiveness)]
- Consensus information [Everyone behaves likes this (high consensus) versus the individual only (low consensus)]
Discount: when there is not a consistent relationship between variables a third factor is sort to be the cause.
Causal schemata: beliefs or preconceptions (based on previous experience and knowledge) about the way certain types of cause interact in order to produce an effect.