Question

Chapter 13 Questions:

1. “I failed that test because the teacher doesn’t like me.” If another student made that statement to you, what have you learned about attributions that could explain his or her thinking?

Answer 1

People could make external or internal attributions to events. In this case, the student has made an external attribution because he is attributing his failure on the test to his/her teacher not liking him/her, which is an external attribution.

The self serving bias also explains this, as it says that people tend to attribute negative events to external circumstances, whereas positive events to internal dispositional or personality factors.

According to the locus of control theory of Rotters, people who have internal locus of control believe that they are in control of the events in their lives and take responsibility for it, whereas people with external locus of control blame outside influences and circumstances. In this case, the student is demonstrating an external locus of control.