Causal Attribution Theory

[razorfever]

i'm a new member and i'm interested in causal attribution theory and was wondering if anyone has some interesting ideas about how and why it links to the "art" of excuse making ... hahaha ... and i'm speaking from a social psychological standpoint

[bob000555]

I have never heard of “casual attribution theory" and googeling it yields nothing. It sounds to me like a combination of the concepts of the fundamental attribution error and self serving bias. The fundamental attribution error is when we overestimate the degree to which people’s action are effected by their personalities and understate the degree to which they are effected by the situation. For example we would judge someone speeding through traffic as rude and careless instead of considering the possibility that their wife is in labor or some such thing. Self serving bias is the tendency to attribute our successes to our internal traits and to attribute our failure to external circumstances.

 

Welcome to the forums.

Edited January 22, 2009 by bob000555