In social psychology, attribution is the process of inferring the causes of events or behaviors. In real life, attribution is something we all do every day, usually without any awareness of the underlying processes and biases that lead to our inferences.
For example, over the course of a typical day, you probably make numerous attributions about your own behavior as well as that of the people around you.
When you get a poor grade on a quiz, you might blame the teacher for not adequately explaining the material, completely dismissing the fact that you didn't study. When a classmate gets a great grade on the same quiz, you might attribute his good performance to luck, neglecting the fact that he has excellent study habits.
In psychology, the attribution theory is concerned with how ordinary people explain the causes of behavior and events. One example maybe that someone is sad because they are depressed or because something tragic happened. The fundamental attribution error refers to an individual's tendency to attribute another's actions to their character or personality while attributing their behavior to external situational factors outside of their control. For instance, if something terrible happened to a person, they would blame the person's personality or behavior for what happened. Another way we explain a person's behavior is through the self-serving bias, which is the common habit of a person taking credit for positive events or outcomes but blaming outside factors for adverse events. For example, if a person got a good grade on a test, they would say that it was because of their hard work, but if they got a bad grade, they would blame the teacher for not teaching them well. These explanations help our understanding of behavior by explaining and defining the behavior. Furthermore, it hurts our understanding by categorizing behaviors into only these categories, excluding other behavior, making unusual behavior seem abnormal.
