Answer:
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.
Interpersonal Attribution: When telling a story to a group of friends or acquaintances, you are likely to tell the story in a way that places you in the best possible light.
Predictive Attribution: We also tend to attribute things in ways that allow us to make future predictions. If your car was vandalized, you might attribute the crime to the fact that you parked in a particular parking garage. As a result, you will avoid that parking garage in the future in order to avoid further vandalism.
Explanatory Attribution: We use explanatory attributions to help us make sense of the world around us. Some people have an optimistic explanatory style, while others tend to be more pessimistic. People with an optimistic style attribute positive events to stable, internal and global causes and negative events to unstable, external and specific causes. Those with a pessimistic style attribute negative events to internal, stable and global causes and positive events to external, stable and specific causes.
Explanation:
In an internal, or dispositional, attribution, people infer that an event or a person's behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings. In an external, or situational, attribution, people infer that a person's behavior is due to situational factors.
